inheritance

It’s not that the Seattle rain falls. It just hangs there, stubborn and wet, drenching everything sourly. A kind of soaking that sneaks up on you. It’s not his favorite city, Louis admits, but he’s got a decent job and lives in a nice area. There’s a dog park nearby, though he’s more of a cat person nowadays. He makes good money. His fridge holds more than just bottled water and TV dinners. It’s not New Orleans. But nothing is like New Orleans. And he’s made peace with that.

He props himself against the bar’s side wall, brick slick and cold at his back. A cigarette burns low between two fingers. His hoodie is half-soaked. His curls have started to frizz with the damp. He doesn’t mind. Out here, it’s quieter. Out here, he can breathe. The October wind is sharp and perfect against his skin.

Then a voice slips in, cooler than the air, colder than the rain:

“Got a light?”

Louis glances over. For a second, his brain forgets what words are.

The guy standing there is the kind of beautiful that makes you think you dreamed him up. Like he belongs on the cover of some shitty, cheesy romance novel. Blonde hair, long enough to brush his shoulders, rain-dark at the tips. Eyes so blue they’re nearly silver, catching the yellow spill of the bar’s back door. He smiles slowly like he’s been testing out his facial expressions in the mirror. His teeth are too white, too straight. Louis doesn’t like them.

The only blemish is a scar near the corner of his mouth. Louis decides the scar is the best thing about him. A reminder that even someone like that bleeds.

Louis doesn’t say anything. Just flicks his lighter up. Their hands brush. It’s cold, startling. Not the usual Seattle chill but something deeper. Freezer-burn cold.

The guy doesn’t move. So neither does Louis.

He’s wearing only a black collared shirt and dark pants. When the wind picks up, Louis shivers. The guy doesn’t.

“Appreciate it,” the stranger says after a long drag. His lips are red in a way that doesn’t match the rest of him. “You local?”

It’s not the first time Louis has been asked. Usually people hear his accent, ask where he’s from, he says New Orleans, and they give him that look. The ‘where are you really from’ one. 

But what strikes him now is the stranger’s accent. The way he talks. Like someone trying out words for the first time. Like a tourist using American slang off a phrasebook they found decades ago. A teacher trying to sound hip to the new generation students. 

Louis shakes his head. “Nah. Just moved. New job. Graduated last year.”

The guy hums, like that means something. “You’ve got that look. Like you’re still searching for something.”

Louis snorts, caught off guard. Jesus, what the fuck is this guy’s problem? “I’m twenty-two. I don’t even know what ‘something’ is.”

“That’s a story,” the man says. Gentle. Almost fond. “A good one.”

Something about him is off; not in the usual creepy way. A new type of weirdness. Louis doesn’t like feeling like the only one who doesn’t get the joke. He crushes his cigarette out against the wall. “Alright, man. Enjoy your night.”

He slips inside, letting the heat and noise close around him. When he glances back, the stranger is still there. Smoke forming around an uncanny smile. Those pale eyes fixed on him.

But he doesn’t follow. 

Inside, the bar is a furnace. Heat and noise and bodies pressed too close. Louis buys the cheapest thing on the menu and lets it sweat rings onto the table while he half-heartedly drinks, thumb grazing his phone screen. He’s not here for conversation, and no one’s here for him.

Outside, the rain keeps up its performance, blurring the streetlights until the world looks painted with water. He doesn’t bother finishing his drink.

He leaves maybe an hour later, once the rain has softened. Slips out the back with his hoodie up, fists buried deep in his pockets. The alley is just as he left it—slick, empty, shining with rain. His footsteps land soft against the concrete.

That’s when he hears it.

A hiss. Raw and angry. Definitely a cat.

Louis glances around and spots it, hunched beneath a dumpster. Its fur is bristling, eyes wide and locked on something he can’t see.

“Hey,” he murmurs, crouching low, trying to sound harmless. “What’s out here got you so riled up?”

The cat doesn’t move. Just hisses again, sharper this time. Meaner.

Louis shifts, follows its stare—

And that’s when he feels it.

A hand. Ice-cold. No mistaking it. Covers his mouth and yanks him backward.

“Shhh,” someone breathes. Right against his ear. Soft and terrible.

Teeth sink into his neck. Sudden. Vicious.

Pain explodes, hot and blinding, and his knees give out. 

The alley spins.

He sees one last flash of the cat, a gray blur darting away. 

Then nothing.

Just blue eyes.

And cold. Cold. Cold.

-

Waking up feels like surfacing from somewhere deep, like he’s been held under too long and now everything is too bright, too soft. The bed beneath him is almost sinful, the kind of mattress you’d joke about selling your soul for. He’s wrapped in blankets that smell like strawberries and something darker—older, expensive.

His head aches. His neck throbs. He blinks against a soft gold light spilling from a lamp onto pale, perfect walls. The ceiling has molding. Rain murmurs beyond the window glass.

None of this is his. This isn’t his apartment. And then it comes back to him.

He moves too fast, tries to sit up, and the world tilts. Everything in his body protests. His muscles are heavy with exhaustion. His mouth is dry. Pain pulses in his neck. His clothes are still on, a small miracle but his hoodie is gone. He shifts his legs and something feels wrong, like the ache is lodged deeper, threaded through the joints.

His heart kicks up. He looks around.

A basement. He’s in a basement.

Not the horror movie kind. This one is beautiful. Disturbingly so.

The walls are old brick, painted ivory, catching the amber glow of recessed lights tucked into the ceiling beams. The floor is smooth concrete, warm underfoot, with thick Persian rugs spread across it in deep crimsons and blues.

A leather armchair sits in one corner beside a table with a lit candle. The scent in the air is faint—clove, maybe, or smoke.

Along one wall, a bookshelf stretches wide, filled with worn hardcovers stripped of their jackets. A record player rests beneath it on a sleek sideboard, the vinyl still spinning slowly though no music plays.

Across the room, there’s a vintage fainting couch in dark green velvet, something out of an opera house or a collector’s catalog. A tall wardrobe stands opposite, its doors shut tight.

Even the windows, high and narrow near the ceiling, have dark curtains drawn loosely back. No light comes through them now.

Then he hears it.

Footsteps, shifting across floorboards above.

A pause.

Then the quiet creak of a door opening at the top of the stairs.

It doesn’t slam. It doesn’t hurry. It just opens.

And someone begins to descend.

Louis waits, breath caught, heart racing.

It’s the man from the outside the bar. Not a drop of rain on him. He looks like he stepped out of a magazine—hair dry and shining, brushed back clean. He carries a silver tray with the kind of calm that doesn’t need explanation. A glass of water so clear it looks sculpted. Sliced apples arranged in a neat, crescent fan.

His smile is different now. Not the one from earlier. This one is settled. Assured.

“You’re awake,” he says pleasantly. “Good.”

Louis just stares, pulse skittering. The man sets the tray on the nightstand and sinks into the armchair by the bed like he owns the room, the world, the very air Louis is breathing. Those eyes—still that impossible, inhuman blue—never leave him.

“I didn’t want to frighten you,” the man says. “Well. Not too much. I wasn’t planning on doing this tonight, but our first meeting didn’t go as I hoped. I’m not great at small talk. Not the way people do it now.”

Louis’s mouth works, but nothing comes out.

“My name is Lestat,” he says, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “You’re Louis. A beautiful name that means famous warrior. Nineteen kings of France carried it. All remarkable in their own ways. I suspect, I know, you’re remarkable in your own way too.”

Louis flinches. “What did you do to me? You bit me.” He reaches for his neck, the memory catching up to him, but there’s nothing there. Just smooth, untouched skin.

Lestat tilts his head. His expression goes soft, almost fond. “I borrowed a little. Just a taste. I made sure you’d be comfortable afterward.”

He gestures to the room, the blankets, the quiet. Like it’s some kind of gift.

“Eat,” he continues. “You’ll feel better.”

Louis doesn’t move. Just watches, counting the spaces between Lestat’s blinks. Trying to place his accent. French, definitely, but not one he recognizes. It sounds like it’s from somewhere else, some time else.

And somehow, he already knows the name Lestat. Like it’s been waiting for him. Whispered in dreams. It’s a terrifying thought to feel like you know someone who you’ve never seen before. 

His tongue feels thick. “What did you do to me?” It slips out again before he can stop it. He wants to ask more, but his brain is stuck in a loop, circling the same moment, trying to hear a different answer.

Lestat exhales slowly, almost disappointed, and crosses one elegant leg over the other. “Nothing permanent. If you’re worried—no. I didn’t violate you.”

Louis’s jaw tightens.

“I fed,” Lestat says, calm and unflinching. “Just enough to carry you here. I was gentle. You were safe.”

Fed. Like it’s normal to bite people and drink their blood. But there’s still no wound. No mark at all. “Oh, great,” Louis snaps. “Should I be grateful? What is this, your boutique cannibal Airbnb?”

The corner of Lestat’s mouth twitches, but the smile never quite lands. “I’m not a cannibal. Not exactly. I’ve been watching you since May.”

Louis goes still. Ice floods his chest. “What?”

“You interest me,” Lestat says, as if it’s obvious. “The way you vanish at parties. The way you always watch the exits. You look like you’re ready to run. I find that compelling.”

Louis drags himself upright, every muscle threatening to revolt. “Let me go.”

Lestat doesn’t move. “I will.”

A moment passes. Too long. 

“But I need something first.”

Louis glares, shaking with rage and whatever fear hasn’t burned off yet. “Like hell.”

Lestat studies him, head tilted slightly. “I’ll tell you a story. It’ll help. You’ll understand and once you do, you’ll know I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I don’t care,” Louis snaps. “No story will change my mind about you.”

Lestat’s eyes crease, barely. “It might.”

He doesn’t wait for permission, he speaks in such a way, like he’s used to people listening. 

“Once upon a time,” Lestat begins and Louis nearly laughs because what the fuck? “I didn’t want children. Not when I was alive. Not when I was young. The thought of them bothered me. Sticky hands, loud voices, no boundaries. But after a while—years, decades, centuries—something shifted. I started watching. Not just children. People. The way they grow up and fall apart. Fragile things. There’s a kind of beauty in that. How temporary they are. But one thing remained constant, no matter how old your child is. Six, fifteen, thirty, fifty-two, they will always be your child.”

He glances at Louis, checking for a reaction. Louis is still, but alert. Listening, if only because he’s too scared not to.

Lestat goes on, softer now. “I realized I wanted something of my own blood. Someone. A family. But I couldn’t have children the way humans do. Not unless I found someone who could survive it. A soulmate, you might say.”

Louis frowns. “What do you mean, survive it?”

Lestat leans back, one arm draped over the chair. “That’s the trick of being undead. Nothing comes free.”

Louis stares. “Wait. What?”

Lestat doesn’t blink. “I’m a vampire, Louis.”

For a moment, the only sound is rain tapping against glass. Louis blinks, then lets out a short, stunned laugh. “Right. Sure. And I’m Batman.”

Lestat watches him, unbothered. “I know how it sounds.”

“No, you don’t. If you did, you wouldn’t say it like that.” Louis pushes himself up straighter, breathless. “You drugged me, dragged me here, and now you’re what—playing house? You want me to believe you’re—”

He doesn’t finish.

Lestat moves. Not quickly. Not even fast. Something else. Something that doesn’t belong to this world. One blink and he’s by the wall. Another and he’s at the window. Then back in the chair.

Louis freezes. His heart crashes against his ribs.

Lestat opens his mouth.

Fangs retract. Clean, white, sharp. Real.

The same ones he felt against his skin.

Louis doesn’t laugh this time. Silence stretches between them, tense and waiting.

Lestat closes his mouth again. His voice is quiet. “Proof enough?”

Louis can’t answer. Just stares, like the world’s gone sideways. Maybe it has. He’d heard the stories back home in New Orleans. But somehow, it’s here, in Seattle, that he finds one.

It took leaving everything to meet the thing hiding in plain sight.

He swallows hard. His voice scrapes out. “Let’s say I believe you.”

Lestat remains silent.

“You mentioned children.” Louis’s voice turns cautious. He needs to consider how he says this. Children clearly is a sensitive topic. “What’s that got to do with me? I’m not special. I write code. I work from home most days. I keep to myself. I’m nobody. What could I possibly offer a vampire?”

Lestat doesn’t speak. He just watches. And something in that silence starts to press into Louis’s chest, hard and slow.

Then Louis sees it. The meaning. The answer Lestat isn’t saying.

His heart stumbles. “No.”

Lestat lifts a brow. The faintest shrug. Not denial. Just patience.

“No,” Louis says again, louder now. “That’s not—I can’t. I don’t want kids. Especially not with you.” Panic swells. He kicks off the blankets and swings his legs over the edge of the bed, even as the room tilts. “That is insane.”

Lestat doesn’t argue.

“It is,” he says, and somehow, it almost sounds like agreement.

The calm in his voice makes Louis snap. “I’m not your soulmate. I don’t want to be anything to you. If you want a kid so badly, go turn a child into a vampire or whatever and leave me out of it.”

Lestat sighs, almost weary. “It’s forbidden. By law, by tradition. I would never do that to a child—condemn them to this life. It has to be done the old way, as you humans say. Pregnancy. A life born from human and vampire. But it takes the right person.”

“I’m not that person,” Louis spits. “And if you want a baby so badly, shouldn’t your soulmate be a woman?” He hesitates. “You’re... attractive, I guess. I’m sure there are women who’d line up for your little demon baby. Plenty of them dream about meeting that Edward guy from Twilight. Find them. Hell, I’ll send you names if you give me a few days. There are websites for this kind of thing now. Just let me go. I swear I won’t tell anyone. Not about you. Not about vampires. Nothing. Just let me leave.”

Lestat doesn’t move, but something in his face changes. A flicker of hurt. Hunger. Then gone.

Louis watches him, searching for the cracks in this nightmare. “You think you can just take me. Rewrite my life. Turn me into something I never asked to be.”

Lestat stands. “I haven’t done anything to you. Not yet.”

Yet. Louis steps back, chest rising and falling too fast. “Don’t.”

Lestat’s face catches the lamplight. Pale, gold, unreadable. “I said I’d let you go. And I will.”

He pauses. Outside, the rain grows harder. A steady wall of sound.

Then, softly: “I’ve tried. More than once.”

Louis flinches like he’s been slapped.

“The women were strong. Beautiful. But the bond wasn’t right. They died in childbirth. The children didn’t survive. Some miscarried, again and again. I ended it when I had to. Mercy, I suppose.”

No drama in his voice. Just something ancient. A weight carved out by time. Like he put down an old dog and not people. 

“Jesus, what is wrong with you?” Louis breathes. His eyes sting. “You killed all those women and you don’t sound like you even care.”

Lestat steps closer to the bed. “I did care, but I haven’t tried for quite some time, Louis. Centuries even. You don’t understand how rare this is. This isn’t about lust. It’s about legacy. Possibility. The others weren’t soulmates. I knew that going in. Yes, I used them. Yes, they died. But I’ve lived long enough to know you’re different. I wasn’t even looking for you. Then I saw you, walking down the street. Like fate.”

Fate. “You said you’d let me go,” Louis whispers. “Let’s skip to that part.”

“And I will,” Lestat says. “But not until you give me a child. Gender doesn’t matter.” He kneels beside the bed, as if that softens it. “Once it’s done, you’re free. That’s all I ask.”

Louis scrambles back, panic crashing through him. “That’s insane. Biologically, it’s not even possible.”

Lestat’s eyes gleam. “Louis. Don’t insult us both by pretending you believe that.”

“Think whatever you want. I’m not carrying your child.”

“You will.”

“I won’t.”

They stare at each other. The space between them horrifying, stretched tight.

Lestat smiles. Cold. Patient. Not human. “We have time.”

Louis is shaking. His hands grip the mattress so hard his knuckles burn. He’s breathing like the air is thinner now, like the world is closing in.

“I can’t give you a child,” he whispers. “That’s not how this works.”

Lestat doesn’t blink. He doesn’t move. Just watches.

“But you can,” he says. Quiet. Certain.

Louis’s stomach drops.

“I know what you are,” Lestat says. Not cruel. Just sure. “You think it makes you invisible. Or weak. But to me, it makes you special. Your parents chose your gender, but you always wanted something else. I know that feeling.”

Louis shakes his head, panic scraping up his throat. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I’ve watched you,” Lestat says, soft and reverent. Impossibly patient. “The way you move through the world. The ache you carry. You’re exactly what I’ve been waiting for. You were born for me.”

“You’re insane,” Louis says. He pushes himself upright, nearly falls. “I’m not giving you anything. I don’t belong to you. I met you like an hour ago!”

Lestat stays still. “You already belong to something bigger. You feel it—the hunger, the restlessness. You want something more. This is your purpose.”

Louis lets out a hoarse, desperate laugh. “You’re after my womb for your failed baby experiment. Everyone else died. I’m not signing up for that.”

“I’m setting you up towards forever.”

“No,” Louis says. His voice is hard now. “You’re setting me in a cage. With a theoretical baby that’s suppose to be born because you saw me walking down a random street and decided I’m your soulmate. Yes, that makes perfect sense.”

Something flickers across Lestat’s face. Bare. Wounded. Then gone.

“Take comfort in this,” he says. “I will let you go. But not until you give me what only you can. If you do exactly as I say, you’ll leave in ten months. Minimum.”

He walks to the stairs. One foot on the first step. Somehow him moving at a human pace is more terrifying than his vampire speed. He pauses, one hand on the rail.

“You were born for this, Louis. I’ll give you time. Eat. Drink. Rest. When I return, I expect a more cooperative attitude.”

He disappears up the stairs. The door clicks shut behind him.

Louis collapses. And cries.

-

Louis cries until his body gives out. Not loud, not messy—just silent, constant tears that soak into the sheets while he curls in on himself, shaking, trying to disappear. Every time he thinks he’s done, another wave rolls through.

He loses track of how long he lies there. Time feels broken in this place. There's no sunlight to mark the hours, no noise except the distant whisper of rain and the low hum of something electrical hidden in the walls.

Eventually, his tears dry. His throat hurts. His body aches from lying still too long.

He forces himself to sit up. His limbs tremble, heavy and sore. The water on the tray is still cool somehow, the apples fresh, the slices browning only faintly at the edges. He eats one. Then another. His stomach turns at first, but it’s better than the emptiness gnawing at him. He drains the glass in slow sips, like he’s rationing it, even though he knows more will appear when it’s gone.

The next time he wakes, the tray has been replaced. A sandwich this time. More water. A cup of tea. He doesn’t hear anyone come or go. The door remains locked, the silence undisturbed.

He searches.

First the obvious: the stairs, the windows, the door. None give. The windows are too small, too high up. Reinforced glass. The lock on the door is from the outside.

He checks the wardrobe. Clothes. Some his. Some not. All in his size. He tears one shirt to pieces, tries to jam the fabric into the lock, but it does nothing.

He tries the vents, the corners of the ceiling, behind the bookcase. The walls are solid. The air is clean, dry, comfortable. There’s no sound of life above, no footsteps, no voices. It’s like he’s buried alive in a luxury coffin.

More food. More water. Always fresh. Always waiting.

The third or fourth time the tray changes, he breaks the plate. Spends hours using the ceramic edge to saw at the doorframe. It dulls before he makes a dent. His hands blister. His shoulders scream.

Eventually, he sleeps again.

More food. A bowl of soup. A folded note beneath it.

You’re not a prisoner. You’re a guest. Rest. You’re attempts to leave are fruitless. 

Louis rips the note in half. Then again. Then again.

But he eats. And drinks.

Not because he trusts. Not because he wants to. But because his body keeps going.

And part of him—deep down, hidden even from himself—is waiting. For the door to open. For Lestat to come back. So he can scream. So he can beg. So he can fight.

Or maybe, so he can finally hear what happens next.

-

The opportunity comes the next day.

The door creaks open, and Louis goes still, heart pounding so loud he nearly misses the soft sound of Lestat slipping inside. He moves like someone approaching a wild animal—slow, cautious, every motion intention. The door clicks shut behind him.

Lestat starts rolling up his sleeves. Careful. Unhurried.

“Relax,” he says, voice low and even, but edged with something sharp. “Let’s not make this harder than it has to be. I gave you room to process. Now, it’s time to start trying for a child.”

Louis presses back against the headboard, every muscle locked. The idea of lunging at Lestat, of fighting, vanishes. Numb nerves. No courage left.

“Please don’t,” he whispers. “Please—don’t do this.”

Lestat stops. He sighs, more tired than threatening. His gaze moves over Louis, registering every inch of fear. Then he steps forward, into the light, and Louis sees it clearly—there’s no bulge. No arousal. Nothing hungry in his posture.

Louis exhales, shaking. “You’re not—” his eyes glued to Lestat’s groin. 

Lestat lifts an eyebrow, faintly amused. “I told you. That’s not what I’m after. If there were other ways for you to bear my child, I’d take them. If you prefer, I can sedate you. Make it clinical and uncomplicated. I won’t make it perverse. This isn’t about pleasure, unless you choose for it to be.”

“I don’t,” Louis says quickly. “I don’t want that. Not conscious. Not unconscious.”

“I know.” Lestat’s voice is maddeningly calm. “I’m not a monster.”

Louis lets out a short, bitter laugh. “Could’ve fooled me.”

Lestat tilts his head. Says nothing. Just takes the blow.

Louis swallows. Finds the edge of a thought. A sliver of hope. “You’re wrong. About needing sex. And... you’re old. Obviously. There are other ways now. To have a kid.”

Lestat narrows his eyes, curious. “Explain.”

Louis nods, clinging to the idea like a lifeline. “It’s called insemination. Artificial. You don’t need sex. Just the right conditions. A clinic. Doctors. It’s safer. Controlled. Happens all the time—queer couples, surrogates, single parents.”

Lestat steps closer, gaze sharpening. “That doesn’t sound correct. A child without proper reproduction? Is that truly what people do now? That sounds uncouth.”

You’re one to talk. “Yes,” Louis says, fast. Desperate. “All the time. It’s common. Normal.”

Lestat hums, considering. “I’m not easily deceived, Louis.”

“I’m not lying.”

“I’ll look into it.”

“Fine,” Louis snaps. “That means you don’t have to—” He cuts himself off. “You don’t have to touch me.”

Lestat’s expression doesn’t shift. His eyes flick once, unreadable. “We’ll see.”

He turns to the steps.

“But if you’re lying,” he says, still not looking back, “we won’t be having another conversation like this.”

The door closes behind him with a soft click.

Louis is left shaking, curled beneath blankets that feel heavier than ever.

His breath stutters, harsh and uneven, the sound of it too loud in the quiet. His whole body is trembling, the adrenaline still crashing through him like a second heartbeat. He kicks the blankets off and presses the heels of his hands to his eyes until stars bloom behind his eyelids.

He doesn’t know if he just bought himself time or made things worse. Doesn’t know what Lestat meant by we’ll see. Doesn’t know what happens if he’s lying.

He curls inward, forehead against his knees, trying to breathe.

Insemination. The word circles in his brain like a lifeboat. He clings to it.

A stall tactic. A maybe. A loophole.

If Lestat actually looks into it—if he believes it—it could buy Louis more time. Weeks. Months. Time to plan. Time to think. Time to survive.

He lifts his head eventually, wiping at his face, though there are no tears this time. Just sweat. Cold and sticking to his skin.

He forces himself up, legs shaky, and moves to the window again. Nothing has changed. Same dark curtains. Same reinforced glass. Same nothing beyond it.

But still, he looks.

He spends the rest of the day pacing. Back and forth across the room, counting the steps from one wall to the other. Twenty-three. Twenty-three and back again. Over and over until his legs ache.

At some point, another tray appears on top of the steps. A new glass of water. Something that smells like stew. He doesn’t touch it.

He’s too wired to eat. Too scared to sleep.

But the idea keeps looping in his head. Artificial insemination. It is real.

If he can keep Lestat convinced long enough, maybe he can escape. Maybe Lestat will try to involve someone else—doctors, scientists, outsiders—and Louis can scream, fight, run.

He doesn’t even understand it himself fully. But it’s the only branch within reach.

He wraps his arms around himself, sinks to the floor beside the bed.

The silence hums. Not peaceful. Not forgiving. Just waiting.

And for the first time, Louis begins to talk to himself in whispers, going over everything he knows. What he’s said. What Lestat’s reacted to. What leverage he might have, if any.

He doesn’t pray. He doesn’t believe in much anymore.

But he believes in time. In breath. In days. If he can survive this one, maybe he can survive the next.

The vampire returns later. 

It’s hard to say how long it’s been. Louis feels like he’s aged fifty years inside this basement. His body aches with fatigue, his head clouded from cycling through the same thoughts until they blurred into nothing. Fear had given way to something duller. A shallow sort of waiting. He thinks about his family, his brother, his sister, his mother. His job. Were they looking for him? Is it even possible to find him? 

Lestat steps into the room.

He’s changed clothes. His shirt is buttoned all the way up, sleeves cuffed neatly, not a strand of hair out of place. There’s something exact in the way he moves now, like the decision has already been made.

“I researched what you said,” he starts.

Louis’s stomach twists in on itself. It sounds like bad news disguised as good news. 

“Artificial insemination. Clinics. Syringes. Washed samples. I read a lot.”

Louis waits without hardly breathing, even blinking feels risky.

Lestat’s eyes don’t leave him. “It’s crude,” he says. “But acceptable. If it works, it works. And if it doesn’t,” his tone shifts dangerously low, “then we do it the natural way.”

Louis swallows hard. “Please. Just give this a chance. You said you’d try.”

“I am trying,” Lestat replies. “But I’m not going to chase hope forever. If your way doesn’t work, we use mine. No more delays.”

Then he lifts his hand. There’s no violence in it, but it still makes Louis flinch. It’s not a gesture of kindness. It’s an order.

“Come upstairs. We need to get started.”

Upstairs? Louis didn’t think he would ever leave the basement. He doesn’t move at first. His feet feel rooted to the concrete. His breath catches, shallow in his chest. Part of him still wants to refuse. To scream. But he’s already lost that argument. The conditions are clear now. Try it his way, or Lestat’s way. 

He stands slowly. His legs ache from sitting so long. His joints feel locked, like something inside him doesn’t want to function anymore.

He doesn’t take Lestat’s hand. He follows him to the stairs and starts climbing, each step a quiet betrayal. The door at the top is open, waiting for him.

For the first time, he walks through it.

The air upstairs is cooler. Crisp. It smells faintly of lavender and something chemical. The lighting is soft, indirect, nothing like what he imagined. There’s no velvet or cobwebs, or gothic fantasy.

The house is modern. 

The floors are dark polished wood. The walls, pale stone. Minimalist art hangs in precise alignment. Furniture is sleek, impossibly clean. Glass panels glint along one side of the hall. An illuminated control screen flickers silently, full of unreadable data. The lights adjust as they walk. Doors close behind them without sound.

Louis’s chest tightens. It’s like the house is watching.

He follows without asking questions, his eyes catching pieces of rooms as they pass—an open library lit by warm golden lamps, books stacked in perfect rows. A music room with a single piano sitting beneath recessed lights. A kitchen without a single smudge, as if it’s never been used.

It feels unreal. Like walking through a showroom where nothing belongs to him.

Lestat continues walking, unperturbed.

They reach a steel-framed door at the end of the corridor. Lestat taps a code into a panel beside it. The lock clicks, and the door hisses open.

Inside, the temperature drops. Bright white light spills across the floor.

The room is cold. Bare. Sterile.

It looks like a clinic.

Louis takes it all in. His stomach turns again, tighter this time. He doesn’t know what he expected but it wasn’t this.

White counters line the walls, spotless and cold. Stainless steel trays glint beneath the overhead light. A reclined medical chair sits in the center of the room, its arms extended like it’s waiting. Next to it, a rolling cart holds syringes in sealed wrappers and labeled vials Louis doesn’t dare read too closely. It smells like disinfectant and filtered air. No sound but the hum of something unseen. No windows or artwork. Just a room built for function.

Louis lingers in the doorway. His legs don’t want to move.

Lestat looks back at him, calm and confident. “As you can see, I’ve been preparing this room for you for months now. It’s not finished technically, but you’ll give birth here eventually.”

Eventually, Louis thinks, but doesn’t respond. His mouth is dry. The words don’t come.

Lestat gestures to the chair. “Sit. We’ll begin with a baseline. I’ll collect what I need.”

Louis’s pulse hammers in his throat. “You mean today?”

“Yes. This is your method, Louis. You wanted the clinical path. So here it is. If it works, good. If it doesn’t…”

He leaves the rest hanging in the air, and Louis feels it settle like weight on his chest.

He moves slowly. Each step feels like he’s stepping deeper into something he won’t be able to walk back from. His hands tremble as he lowers himself into the chair. The material is too clean, too cold. He grips the armrests like they might keep him grounded.

Behind him, the door hisses shut. 

Lestat walks to the far wall and opens a low drawer. The interior is organized. Sterile cups. Packaged instruments. Labeled swabs. He grabs a small plastic specimen container and holds it up for inspection.

“This is how it works,” he says, as if reading from a manual. “I’ll ejaculate into the cup. You’ll use one of the syringes—prepped and sealed—to inseminate yourself. Timing matters, so we’ll begin now.”

Louis stares at him, too stunned to react right away.

“Now?” he says. “We can’t. Lestat, we need a doctor for this. A real clinic. You can’t just—”

“A human doctor would ask questions,” Lestat interrupts. “They’d want records. Explanations. I don’t like being documented, Louis. You know that.”

“This isn’t safe.”

“It’s not unsafe,” Lestat replies with finality. Horrifyingly, Louis believes him because he knows Lestat needs him alive. “You’ll lie back, insert the syringe, and rest. That’s all. There’s no risk to you, not if you follow instructions. You said this was the better way.”

“It is,” Louis says, voice rising. He hears the panic in it and doesn’t try to hide it. “But not like this. You can’t just replicate a fertility clinic in your house. That’s not how it works.”

Lestat tilts his head slightly, watching him with that quiet, unreadable expression. “I assure you, I’ve studied enough biology to understand the basics. And you’re forgetting this isn’t an ordinary conception. The rules have never quite applied to me.”

Louis grips the chair harder. His fingers ache. He wants to bolt but doesn’t know where he’d go. This isn’t just improvisation—it’s a controlled performance, and he’s been cast without permission.

“This isn’t a game,” he says tightly. “You can’t just make it real by pretending hard enough.”

Lestat’s smile comes slowly. Not cruel, not mocking. But not gentle either.

“You’re so dramatic,” he says. “Save it for your pregnancy.”

He grabs the cup from the counter, and for one terrible second Louis thinks he’s going to do it right here. Just drop his pants and jerk off in front of him like it’s nothing. Louis freezes, his stomach turning, eyes locked on Lestat’s hands.

But then Lestat glances at him. His expression shifts—just slightly—and he stops.

He moves toward a door Louis hadn’t even noticed until now, barely visible in the white wall. Without a word, he opens it and pauses in the frame.

“Wait here,” he says. “It won’t take long.”

Then he steps inside, and the door closes behind him with a soft, automatic click.

Louis is alone.

He sits there, wrapped in the cold and the quiet, the tray beside him holding lined-up syringes like they’re waiting for their turn. He shivers, but not from temperature. His thoughts start to spiral, reaching for anything that might distract him, but everything in this room pulls him back. If he thinks about his family, he might start hyperventilating and pass out. 

But it’s so silent he starts imagining sounds. Breathing. Movement. The scrape of skin. He tries not to think about what Lestat is doing on the other side of that door. What that looks like. What it sounds like. Do vampires even get aroused the way humans do? Do they need to? Do they watch porn?

He swallows hard.

Then the door opens again.

Lestat walks out, perfectly composed. He holds the cup in his hand with the same nonchalance someone might carry a glass of water. He crosses the room, places it gently on the tray beside the syringes, and looks at Louis.

Louis stares at it.

It looks normal. That’s the worst part. White, opaque, nothing strange or monstrous about it. Somehow, that shakes him more. It strips away every illusion he might’ve leaned on to make this feel less real.

Lestat opens a drawer and pulls out a thick, folded blanket. He sets it down on the chair beside Louis, then meets his gaze.

“Clothes off,” he says. “Quickly. We need to maintain temperature and timing.”

Louis’s breath catches. His hands don’t move. This is actually happening. He thought he had brought himself a few months at least. But he understated how badly the devil wants his gift. 

Lestat watches him for a second, eyes unreadable. Then he raises a brow. “You said you wanted this method. So act like it.”

“Turn around,” Louis says. His voice is hoarse. “Please. Just turn around.”

Lestat’s jaw tightens. He hesitates, then nods once and turns, his back straight, hands clasped behind him. He faces the door like he’s standing at attention.

“I won’t watch,” he says. “But know that I will see your body eventually.”

Louis says nothing. His hands shake as they reach for the hem of his shirt. Everything feels too close. Too exposed. He pulls it off slowly, then his pants, every movement stiff and mechanical. The air bites at his skin.

He hesitates before taking off his underwear. That part feels the most final.

But he does it.

He grabs the blanket and wraps it around himself in one swift movement.

“Done,” he says. The word sticks in his throat.

Lestat doesn’t turn. “Good. Now lie down. I’ll pass you the syringe.”

Obeying, Louis lies back and the surface of the chair cools beneath his bare skin. He adjusts the blanket, keeping it over his chest, arms tucked beneath it like a shield. The lights feel too bright now, and the silence too sharp.

“I’ll do it,” he says. “Just hand it to me and leave the room.”

Lestat pauses. “No,” he says. “I need to see the injection. I need to be sure you aren’t faking it. No tricks.”

Louis shuts his eyes. His face burns.

“You said you wouldn’t watch.”

“I said I wouldn’t watch you undress. This is different.”

Louis lies still for a long moment. But the silence holds. Unmoving. Unyielding.

Finally, he shifts. He draws his knees up. Spreads his legs. The blanket falls back slightly. Utterly exposed. 

He doesn’t look at Lestat. He stares straight up at the ceiling.

Lestat steps closer and places the syringe in his hand. It's still warm.

“Angle your hips,” Lestat breathes. He sounds far away until he clears his throat. “Higher. There. Wider. That’s—perfect.”

Louis adjusts, barely breathing. His hand trembles as he positions the syringe.

Then Lestat’s voice cuts through again, softer now.

“Are you a virgin?”

Louis blinks rapidly. His fingers tighten. “Why does that matter?”

“I’m curious,” Lestat says. “It’s an intimate thing. I want to know if this is the first time something’s entered you like this.” There’s something in his tone. Not taunting. Not quite. It sounds… personal. Possessive. Envious. 

Louis doesn’t answer.

“Shut up,” he whispers.

He brushes the syringe against himself. He can feel the cold plastic. His hand shakes as he tries to adjust it properly.

Then Lestat speaks again, calmly.

“I spoke of your virginity only because I can see it. Your hymen, still unbroken. It explains a lot—your fear, your stiffness. I understand now. And as for the hair between your thighs, don’t worry. I prefer it. I always have. I was born in a time when people didn’t shave.”

Louis wants to disappear.

His grip on the syringe tightens. His eyes burn. His chest heaves, rising too fast.

“Please,” he says. “Just try to be fucking normal for once.”

But Lestat’s voice doesn’t stop. It softens instead.

“You have a beautiful vulva, Louis. That matters. You shouldn’t carry this shame. There’s nothing wrong with your body. What troubles me is your choice. That this is the way you want to create life. It feels beneath you. Beneath us.”

There is no us, you buffoon! Louis shuts his eyes, breath shaky, fury and shame rising like heat from his skin. He doesn’t know if he’s going to cry or scream.

“Stop talking,” he mutters. “Please.”

“I’m trying to make this easier.”

“You’re making it worse.”

Lestat falls silent.

But the silence isn't a relief. It feels dense. Intentional.

Louis exhales, shakily. His legs stay open. He presses the syringe in with slow, uncertain pressure, trying not to focus on the sensation.

The warmth spreads inside him. Thick. Foreign. He can’t define the feeling. Not pain or discomfort. Just something unfamiliar and sticky.

Lestat says nothing. Just watches.

Louis waits, his muscles straining.

Then Lestat’s voice, stern and calm: “That’s enough.”

Louis pulls the syringe out with shaking fingers. His legs ache. His face is flushed. He fumbles the blanket back over himself and shivers.

“You should stay lying down,” Lestat says. “It helps.”

Louis remains silent and turns his head away as Lestat picks up the syringe and walks to the far side of the room. He dresses slowly. Every piece of clothing feels heavier than the last. His underwear sticks uncomfortably. His hoodie clings to him. He pulls the hood over his head, needing to disappear into something.

Then he sits in the chair, silent. His body doesn’t feel like his own anymore.

None of this does.

Lestat speaks from near the door. “Come. Let’s eat.”

Louis doesn’t answer. He doesn’t want to move. He doesn’t want to be anywhere but far from here. But staying feels worse. The smell of antiseptic clings to everything. The syringes are gone, but their shape still lives in his mind. The chair might as well be a part of him now.

He gets up.

The hallway beyond is still warm, still lovely in its quiet wealth. The floors glow faintly with indirect light. The silence is careful, curated. It makes the air feel heavy. Louis’s feet feel too loud as they follow Lestat down the hall.

They enter a wide living room. Tall shelves rise along the walls, filled with thick-bound books. The lighting is low, golden, the kind found in places meant to feel like home even if they aren’t. There’s a fire burning in the hearth, and Louis has no idea when it was lit. The table is already set.

The food is simple. Bread. Roasted vegetables. Grilled meat, still steaming. A jug of water. Two glasses. Nothing extravagant. But it’s all too composed, too intentional. Every detail planned.

Lestat pulls out a chair and waits.

Louis sits.

It feels rehearsed. Like this scene has already happened somewhere in Lestat’s head. The domestic moment. The quiet dinner. It’s wrong, but Louis’s body goes along with it. He reaches for the bread. Tears it with stiff fingers. Chews slowly.

They eat in silence.

Lestat drinks from a glass goblet. The liquid inside is thick and red. He doesn’t try to hide what it is. He takes small sips, calm and at ease, as if this is all perfectly normal. His gaze rests on Louis now and then, intense but unreadable.

“You did well,” he says finally. “Better than I expected. You have a very nice…” he trails off and then stops.

Louis just keeps chewing. The food has no taste. He swallows out of habit.

He can feel the soreness in his thighs. The heat still lingering between his legs. The ache at the base of his spine from lying too stiffly in that chair. His body remembers everything, even if his mind is trying not to.

After a while, Lestat rises and moves things without ceremony. The fire burns lower. The room grows quieter.

Louis stands. He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t look at Lestat. He turns and walks away, finding the staircase by memory. The basement door is still ajar. He opens it fully and steps down into the dark, one hand trailing the wall.

He doesn’t turn on the lights. He doesn’t bother changing. The clothes feel too heavy now, but taking them off would mean facing himself. He falls into the bed like the strings holding him up have been cut. Pulls the blankets over his head, even though the room is already warm enough.

The fire upstairs didn’t reach him. The food didn’t help. The blanket doesn’t comfort.

He stares at the window, though it’s too dark to see it. His hands curl against his chest. His breath slows, but it doesn’t feel calm.

Then the tears start.

First quiet. A few slipping out, soaking into the pillow. He tries to blink them back, but it’s too late. His chest tightens. His throat clenches.

The sobs come harder.

He presses his face into the sheets to muffle the sound, ashamed even here, even now. He doesn’t want Lestat to hear him. Doesn’t want to give him that. But he can’t stop.

It crashes through him all at once—what he’s done, what he’s allowed, what it might mean. The room doesn’t help. The silence makes it worse. There's no one to anchor him. No one to lie to about how he feels.

He cries until there’s nothing left in him but rawness.

His throat burns. His eyes sting.

Eventually, exhaustion claims him.

He falls asleep curled up, the blankets pulled tight around his body, as if they could hold him together.

He sleeps like that.

Alone.

Torn open.

And unsure if tomorrow will be any different.

-

They do the procedure every day.

It becomes routine in the worst way. Practical, empty, inevitable. Lestat disappears into the adjoining room, always silent, always fast. He returns with the cup. Hands it off. Watches.

Louis goes through the same motions. Pulls the blanket across his lap. Lays back on the medical chair that never stops feeling cold. He positions his legs. Angles his hips. Uses the syringe. Waits. There’s no privacy in it. Or dignity. Just a process they follow because it’s what they agreed to.

Each time, it feels worse.

At first, Lestat maintained a calm tone. He talked about the science behind it—ovulation timing, basal temperature, cervical position. He brought up hormone spikes like he was reading from a textbook. He reminded Louis to trust the method. To trust him.

But it changes.

The gentleness fades. The room starts to feel tighter.

The sound of the cup on the tray becomes sharp. Louder. Lestat doesn’t hide the tension in his jaw anymore. His eyes linger too long. They no longer observe—they measure. Judge.

He starts correcting Louis with a clipped voice. Tells him to spread his legs wider. Adjust the angle. Insert deeper. He doesn’t offer reassurance. No encouragement. Just commands.

Louis feels the weight of it, every day. The shift. The pressure. The disappointment that thickens in the air every time he’s not pregnant. He wants to feel smug about it but he realizes that if this method doesn’t work, Lestat will fuck him until it does. 

He stops asking if it’s working.

He already knows the answer.

Two weeks have passed. If he had to guess, it was before Thanksgiving. Almost six weeks since he was kidnapped.

The morning is colder. The chair feels harder beneath his back. Even the blanket feels thinner somehow. Louis waits in silence as always, arms wrapped tight around himself. His legs dangle slightly off the edge of the chair. He doesn’t look toward the door.

But he hears it open.

Lestat walks in, perfect as ever. Impeccably dressed. Crisp shirt. Silver cufflinks. He smells faintly of something expensive and bitter. His face is unreadable. Too composed. Too practiced.

He places the porcelain cup on the tray.

Hard.

“No more,” he says, not even looking at him. “It doesn’t work.”

The syringe is already half-filled in Louis’s hand, but his grip slackens. His breath catches.

Lestat doesn’t pause. “We’ve tried,” he says. “We followed the instructions. We did everything right. Your body hasn’t responded. Maybe it’s the environment. Maybe it’s something in you. It’s ironic, really. The one method you insisted on—the one thing you clung to—rejected you.”

He finally turns, his gaze falling on Louis like the weight of a verdict.

“So now,” Lestat says, stepping forward, “we do it the natural way. Will you take off your clothes, or shall I?”

Louis’s heart pounds. His blood feels thin. Cold.

His fingers grip the blanket tighter.

“No,” he says quietly. “We had a deal.”

Lestat doesn’t blink. “I kept it. I gave it time. I tried it your way. Now you’ll try mine.”

Louis doesn’t speak. He can’t. The silence is deafening. Heavy like concrete. He feels trapped under it.

Then, finally, his voice breaks through—thin, strained. “Please. Please don’t do this.”

Lestat’s expression doesn’t soften. He studies him as if searching for something. The moment stretches, and Louis braces for the inevitable. The demand. The command. The end of the conversation.

But it doesn’t come.

Instead, Lestat steps back. Just one step, but it shifts everything.

“Okay,” he says.

His tone is calm again. Almost mild.

“Convince me.”

Louis blinks, stunned. “What?”

“You want out. You want me to stop. Fine. Convince me.” Lestat gestures lazily toward the tray, the folded towel, the gloves. “Convince me that all of this was a mistake. That I should let you go. If you succeed, I won’t stop you.”

Louis stares at him, disbelief hardening into something sharper. His jaw clenches.

“You want me to convince you not to rape me?”

Lestat chuckles under his breath, unbothered. “Such a crude word, for what’s supposed to be procreation.”

“I’m not playing this game,” Louis snaps. “How many people have actually convinced you to let them go?”

“That’s simple,” Lestat says. “None. No one ever wanted to leave. They were volunteers.”

Volunteers? It wasn’t fair that he’s the only one being forced to do this. Louis’s hands curl into fists. “All of them?”

A soft smile touches Lestat’s lips. “Yes, Louis. They knew what I was after. They offered themselves freely. They begged for the chance. They tried to prove they were worthy of what I could give them. You’re the only one who resists.”

“They volunteered because they believed you’d make them immortal. To some, giving birth in exchange for eternity is a small price. But not to me. You lied to them. You made them think you loved them. I’m not foolish enough to think you love me.”

“I never lied,” Lestat says, his voice no longer calm. “Did I tell them what they wanted to hear? Yes, because it comforted them when they needed it most. I loved their usefulness. I loved being adored. They gave me their devotion, and I repaid it by keeping them close… until they disappointed me. And begged to die.”

Louis recoils, horror mixing with something bitter and rising. “And this? You think this is different?”

“It is,” Lestat says. “You’re different. This could be a real partnership. If you could stop thinking like you have already lost something.”

Louis grips the blanket tighter. “This isn’t a partnership. It’s coercion. I never asked for any of this.”

“You didn’t say no,” Lestat says smoothly. “Not at first. You wanted to try a different method. You want a child just as much as me.”

“God, you’re insane!” Louis snaps. “I told you again and again that I don’t want a child. But you refuse to believe me because you’re a narcissist who’s never been told no in your life. I agreed to try artificial insemination so you wouldn’t rape me, not because I wanted a child. You told me you were a vampire, and I was terrified. You can kill me with one flick of a hand. You used that against me. So don’t stand there and pretend you care.”

Lestat’s voice lifts sharply. “You think I don’t care? I’ve drained mortals and forgotten their names by morning. But you. I remember every detail. Your voice when you sleep. Your heartbeat. The way you tremble when you think I’m near. I’ve watched you. For months.”

Louis flinches. “Studying me doesn’t mean you understand me.”

“I hear you cry,” Lestat says, softer. “Every night. You think that doesn’t affect me?”

“I don’t care,” Louis says, staring at the floor. “I hope it does. I hope it hurts. But if you care at all, let me go. Right now. That’s how you prove it.”

Lestat’s eyes flash. “And go where? Back to that fragile, empty life? Pretending none of this happened? Do you really think the world will take you back as you are now?”

“And you think you will?” Louis looks up, eyes bloodshot, voice sharp with rage. “You think this is love? Locking me in a house, using me? Forcing me to carry your child?”

Lestat’s silence says everything.

Louis breathes hard. “You don’t want me. Not really. You’re obsessed. That’s not the same. You’re attracted to the idea of me. And now, you’ve decided I’m the perfect match. Biologically ideal. But this has nothing to do with me as a person. You just want a child—your child. You want to see what we’d make. You’ll force it to happen no matter what. Even though you know what it will be born into. A damned life. And you’ll ruin that child.”

“You’re wrong,” Lestat says quietly. “I do want you. All of you. I want to make you mine. And I will.” He takes a step closer, voice lowering. “Shall we talk about our compatible genetics now?”

They argue for what feels like hours. Louis pleads. He reasons. He accuses. He curses and begs and throws everything he has at the wall of Lestat’s certainty. His throat wears out. His hands tremble. He sinks back into the chair, body trembling, head in his hands. Worn down. Empty.

Lestat hasn’t moved. He watches, silent and unmoved, breathing slow and calm.

Then, at last, he speaks.

“You’ve only convinced me of one thing,” he says. “That we’re meant to be. You, with all that fire. All that defiance. You were made for this. You were made for me. Do you know how rare that is?”

Louis doesn’t respond. He doesn’t have to. His tear-streaked face says everything.

“You’re the only one who could carry this,” Lestat murmurs. “Me. This future. And you will, Louis. Not because I force you. But because deep down, you already know it. It was always going to be you.”

He reaches up, brushes a tear from Louis’s cheek with slow, careful fingers. Trails his touch along his jaw. Louis doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t move.

“You think I could let that go?” Lestat whispers. “No. I never will.”

Louis exhales shakily. The sound catches in his throat. Something inside him falters, and he feels it—quiet and terrible—the realization that he’s run out of ways to fight.

Lestat rises, back in control. Composed again.

“Eat,” he says calmly. “Then go to the room across the hall. Wait for me there. Perhaps doing this in bed will make you feel better.”

He walks away without waiting for a response. The door closes with a soft click behind him.

And Louis stays frozen where he is.

He lost.

And deep down, he knew he would.

-

The evening comes and settles like a weight across the room. Louis stopped crying hours ago.

He lies curled beneath the blankets, eyes open, body still. The light in the room fades slowly, bleeding from pale to gray to black. He doesn’t turn on the lamp. He doesn’t eat. His stomach aches with hunger, but the thought of food turns his mouth dry.

He waits for the inevitable. 

When the door opens, it’s quiet. Almost gentle. Lestat steps inside.

He’s dressed in black. Shirt, slacks, sleeves cuffed. The same polished elegance he always wears. His expression gives away nothing. He closes the door behind him and doesn’t pause. Doesn’t give Louis time to speak.

He starts toward the bed, fingers already undoing the buttons of his shirt.

“Don’t make this difficult,” he says. His voice isn’t cold, but it’s distant. Detached. Like he’s trying to be kind in the way one might be kind to a patient before a procedure.

Louis doesn’t look at him. He stares at the ceiling.

“I want it to hurt,” he says quietly. “So it’s over faster.”

Lestat pauses. Just for a moment. His hands stop. He watches Louis, searching for something in his face. He finds nothing.

“Fine,” he says, softer now. “If that’s what you want.”

He finishes undressing. Shirt. Belt. Pants. Socks. Calm, peaceful, like he’s preparing for bed. He stands at the foot of the bed, fully naked, at ease in his own skin. 

Louis doesn’t react. He turns away, slowly, pulling off his underwear beneath the blanket, never lifting his head. He leaves the rest on. Shirt. Socks. He pulls the blanket over his chest, clinging to it. It’s the only barrier he has left.

Lestat doesn’t seem to care.

He gets into bed beside him like this is routine. Like this isn’t about to split Louis down the middle.

The mattress dips beneath his weight.

Louis closes his eyes.

He doesn’t speak again. He doesn’t plead or resist. He’s already said everything he could say.

The silence stretches, broken only by the subtle movements of Lestat’s body. The sound of skin, of breath. The slow rhythm of him touching himself. Louis lies stiff. His arms tense beneath the blanket, fists clenched.

Then it happens.

Lestat moves over him. Covers him. No warning. No build. Just the sudden, sharp pressure of being entered by a blunt, thick head.

Louis’s eyes open wide. He stares at the ceiling, his breath catching in his throat. The pain is immediate. The stretch is horrible, invasive and present. A dull pressure that shifts to a sharp, burning ache. His muscles contract, uselessly. There’s no resistance left in his body.

He finds a crack in the ceiling and stares at it. Locks his mind onto it like a thread.

The rest of him goes numb.

It’s over fast, he thinks. Hopes.

There’s no rhythm or tenderness to anything. Just relentless, deep thrusts—the movements of someone desperate to finish, not to connect. The weight of another body presses down, inescapable and final. Louis barely breathes beneath it, his fingers curled tight in the sheets like they might anchor him to something real. Something before this.

The sound of skin slapping is a reminder. Of what he said no to. Of what he never really had a choice in. His mind floats somewhere far off, like it’s trying to escape through the cracks in the ceiling.

Then Lestat stops. Just for a second.

Louis feels it. The sudden flood of warmth inside him, cruelly intimate. He gasps, not from pain—though there’s plenty of that—but from the violation of it. The knowledge of what’s just been left inside him, what it means. What it’s meant to mean all along.

The room is silent except for the sound of breath: Lestat’s, sharp and uneven; Louis’s, shallow, barely there.

When it’s over, Lestat pulls out without a word. The sensation leaves Louis emptier than before, slick and sore and raw in places he can’t name.

Nothing follows. No apology. No touch. Not even a glance.

Louis stays still, eyes drifting to the window, as something slips down his thigh.

He doesn’t wipe it away.

Louis hears him rise. The sound of clothes being picked up. The soft steps back to the door.

Then it closes.

He doesn’t cry. Not immediately.

His body feels strange: distant and uninhabited. Like he’s watching himself from elsewhere. His stomach aches, and his legs sting from being held still so long. His chest feels too tight to draw a full breath.

He turns onto his side slowly. Draws his knees in.

The pain doesn’t fade.

It settles deep, somewhere hard to reach.

He stays like that for hours, eyes open in the dark.

Sleep doesn’t come.

-

He lies there for hours.

The ceiling remains unchanged, but something in him doesn’t. His body hurts in places he doesn’t name. He doesn’t move. The blankets stay pulled up to his chin, not for warmth, but to feel like there’s still something between him and the rest of the world. The sheets beneath him are damp. The air is thick with it—sweat, fear, the faint, sour trace of sex that clings no matter how long he holds his breath.

He stares into the dark until it stops meaning anything.

Then, past midnight, the door opens again.

He hears the creak, the quiet click of the handle, and the sound of steps across the floor. Soft. Familiar. Unsure.

He doesn’t turn.

He doesn’t need to.

The mattress dips behind him.

A cool, bare leg brushes against his calf, and he flinches, but only inside.

“Couldn’t stay away,” Lestat says quietly, like he’s confessing to a lover who’s been gone a long time. His voice is low. Closer to want than warmth. “I tried.”

Louis closes his eyes. “Don’t.”

But it doesn’t matter.

Lestat’s hands slide beneath the covers. Like he’s not doing anything wrong. Like this is theirs, now. An understanding. A rhythm. Like consent is something they’ve already passed through and discarded.

“I need to taste you,” Lestat breathes.

Louis doesn’t respond.

He doesn’t stop him.

He doesn’t move as Lestat pulls the blanket away, as his body is shifted gently, like he’s a lover being eased into comfort, not a man already trying to disappear inside his own skin.

There’s no buildup or pretense.

Lestat spreads his legs. Lowers his head. And takes.

It’s slow. Purposeful. Drawn out in a way that pretends to mean something. Lestat’s breath is hot. His tongue is thorough. Louis can feel the weight of every movement, not just on his skin but in his chest—something heavy and bitter blooming deep behind his ribs.

He stares at the wall. Eyes wide. Unblinking.

Trying to detach him for this living nightmare.

The act stretches in silence. Only Lestat’s breath and soft, obscene sounds fill the space. Louis doesn’t react. He wills himself not to.

He stays quiet.

A living statue.

Because if he moves, he might scream.

The worst part isn’t the act. It isn’t even the mouth, or the hands.

It’s the sigh Lestat gives.

Soft. Content. Reverent.

A quiet hum of pleasure like he’s found something exquisite. 

Louis is frozen, his body frantic, every muscle tight with restraint. The blankets are twisted beneath him, bunched awkwardly around his waist, but he doesn’t dare move. Lestat is between his thighs, head bowed like in prayer, and it’s that posture—more than the tongue, more than the heat—that unsettles him most. The intimacy of it. The devotion in it.

Louis doesn’t understand why this is happening. Oral sex has nothing to do with childbearing. This was never part of the plan. This doesn’t further anything but Lestat’s hunger.

And then, the ache that had settled deep inside him earlier—sharp and humiliating—is fading. Disappearing, bit by bit, replaced with something else. A dull warmth. A strange, sinking relief. Louis gasps as the pain eases, leaving behind something soothing almost. 

Lestat moans softly as he licks, as if he's drinking something rare and priceless.

Louis realizes, with sick clarity, that’s exactly what he’s doing.

He’s tasting it. Tasting the last of his virginity. The remnants of it, soaked into his skin, into the hurt. Lestat is consuming all of it—savoring it like it’s a delicacy, licking him clean until there’s nothing left to mark what he once was.

Louis’s chest tightens. His hands curl against the sheets. He wants to scream, but there’s no sound in his throat. Just the wet, obscene noises filling the room and the quiet, content breath of the man between his legs.

When it’s over, Lestat lifts his head slowly. His lips are swollen, glistening. Tinted pink. His expression is calm. Almost tender.

He shifts back without a word. Pulls the blanket up over Louis’s body like he’s tucking someone in after a long day. Like nothing cruel has happened here at all.

Then presses a soft kiss to the back of Louis’s shoulder.

He leaves without a word.

Louis stays on his side, breath shallow. His eyes sting.

The tears come slowly this time.

Not because of what was done. Not out of shame.

But because something inside him is fading.

And he doesn’t know what will be left when it’s gone.

-

The next day, Louis doesn’t get up.

He stays in bed with his back to the room, eyes fixed on the seam where the wall meets the ceiling. He doesn’t blink often. Doesn’t move unless he has to. When the tray arrives—warm bread, tea, a bowl of fruit he used to like—he doesn’t touch it.

By late afternoon, the door opens.

Lestat enters the room with an extra flare. Like nothing is broken.

“I should’ve known,” he says, as if continuing a conversation he imagines they were having. “Virgin blood is always more potent. But yours—” He lets the thought hang there, savoring it. “It was extraordinary.”

Louis doesn’t speak and tries to control his breathing.

Lestat takes a few steps closer. Entirely without shame.

“It’s not just the purity,” he continues, voice soft, almost admiring. “It’s the fear. The first time. The way your body shudders before it even understands what’s happening. I could taste all of that.”

Louis finally turns his head, just enough to see him. His voice is rough, hoarse from disuse. “Was that the plan all along? Be kind. Pretend. Just so you could assault me the way you wanted?”

Lestat’s expression shifts, barely. There’s a flicker of something that might’ve been guilt if he were capable of holding it. But it passes. The cool, practiced expression returns.

“No,” he says. “But it made the moment better. Thank you for sharing that with me. I’ll forever cherish how sweet you taste.”

Louis turns his face away, jaw clenched, throat thick.

“You’re disgusting.”

“I don’t feel shame for enjoying you,” Lestat replies. “I want to. I will again. I told you I’d take what I needed. What’s mine.”

He stands at the foot of the bed, still for a moment.

Then, quieter: “But it’s not just need anymore. It’s want. That’s what scares you, isn’t it? That part of you that still listens. Still reacts.”

Louis doesn’t respond. His fingers curl into the blanket, knuckles white. There’s no pointing trying to reason with a psychopathic vampire. 

There will be no kindness. No change of heart. No mercy.

Just obsession, refined into a routine now. Just survival, redefined by proximity.

Lestat’s presence is different now. Not cold. Not clinical. But full. Confident. The performance is gone. His hunger isn’t behind glass anymore—it’s in the way he walks, the way his voice hums with restrained pleasure.

“This isn’t about reproduction anymore,” Lestat says. “You’re past that now. We’re past that.”

Louis bites his lip to hold back more tears.

“I want you,” Lestat says. “Not just for children. Just you. The way you look when you’re afraid to move.”

Louis’s stomach tightens. He forces himself to speak.

“That’s not love.”

Lestat’s mouth tilts, not quite a smile. “No,” he agrees. “It’s better.”

He reaches out to him slowly. Like he’s giving Louis time to run. But Louis doesn’t give him the satisfaction of a chase. Lestat’s hand drops on his ankle and pats in affectionately.

“I could make you feel things no one ever has,” Lestat says. “You don’t have to fight it. I’d make you come. Again. And again. Until you forget why you ever said no. Let me make love to you.”

Louis moves his leg, forcing Lestat’s hand to drop as he laughs. A dry, cracked sound. It barely makes it past his throat.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asks. “Do you hear yourself? You’re out of your mind.”

Lestat only watches him. As if the words don’t land. As if he expected them. “I hear myself perfectly,” he says. “You think I don’t know what I’m doing? I do. But you’ve already let me in, Louis. You’ve already felt me. Now I want you to want it.”

Louis’s breath catches. His voice drops to a whisper.

“I’d rather die.”

There’s silence.

And then something flickers across Lestat’s face. Not anger or pain.

Hope. And that’s the most dangerous feeling anyone can have.

“We’ll see,” he says, almost kindly. “I’m very patient. In theory.”

He stands, adjusts his sleeves, and walks out without another word.

The door shuts behind him.

Louis stays where he is.

And when he finally breathes, it’s just to bury his face in his hands.

The morning comes dull and gray, light creeping in through the high windows with no warmth behind it. The food tray from the night before sits untouched. It smells rotten. Louis hasn’t moved. His body aches, skin sticky from sweat and dried fluids, muscles stiff from hours of curling into himself. It stinks of fear and Lestat clings to him like a second skin.

He keeps his face buried in the pillow. The blanket pulled over his head is a barrier, protecting him. As if silence and utter stillness could render him invisible. The pain between his thighs is muted. Every time he closes his eyes, he can feel Lestat’s tongue—

He hears the door open. Pretends he doesn’t. 

It’s not hope he feels. Not dread either. Just the quiet resignation of someone who’s already braced for the worst.

The footsteps are slow, patient. Lestat never hurries. Not when he knows there’s no rush. Time means nothing to someone that’s centuries old. 

“You reek,” he says lightly. “And not in a way I find charming.”

Louis stays silent. The words pass over him, cold and harsh.

What is there to say? That he knows? That he can smell it too—that sick blend of dried sweat, come, blood, and the faint rot of fear that’s steeped into the mattress?

Lestat sighs, the kind of sound a man makes when a stubborn dog refuses to come inside. “Get up. You’re going to bathe.”

Louis curls farther beneath the blanket. His eyes are wide open now, fixed on the dim weave of the pillowcase. He blinks slowly. 

“No.”

It’s the only word he can form. Barely more than breath, but it’s something. A scrap of resistance in a sea of nothing.

Lestat’s tone sharpens. “Louis.”

He doesn’t respond. What would be the point? Louis used to believe defiance had some power. That saying no meant something. But here—here it’s just sound. A word. Here: no means yes. And yes means good.

Then, silence. Not empty, but pregnant. Loaded.

Louis feels it before he understands it: the shift in pressure. The temperature in the room suffocates him. 

His heart jolts. Before the touch even comes, he knows.

It wraps around him.

Not hands. Not flesh. It’s the sense of being moved as if the air has turned against him. Something yanks him upward by strings he can’t see, can’t fight. The blanket falls away. His limbs lift with a jerk, stiff and unwilling.

His mouth opens in a gasp. His breath catches. Cold air hits his bare skin.

“No,” he chokes, twisting on instinct, but it’s useless. His feet touch the ground, knees folding. He tries to fall.

Something won’t let him.

He hangs there a moment, strung up by something that manifests into willpower. 

Not gravity. Not force. Just Lestat.

Lestat, who hasn’t taken a single step.

He watches from across the room, hands deep in his pockets, eyes narrowed—not with anger, but dissatisfaction. Total control. The kind that doesn’t need rage to be terrifying.

Louis stares back, trembling, jaw clenched. Tries to convey the hatred in his eyes but it’s frayed now. Dimmed out by too many yesterdays like this one.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Lestat says calmly. “But you won’t rot in bed like a wounded animal.”

Wounded. The word sinks in, cuts deeper than it should.

He’s not a person to Lestat. He’s a possession that’s been scratched. Something that needs polishing.

Louis breathes hard, chest rising and falling in uneven bursts. He thinks about the food he didn’t touch, the warmth he never felt. The tears he wiped away.

So this is it. Survival, not living. Maintenance, not care.

“I can do this every morning, if I have to,” Lestat continues. “But you’ll be clean. You’ll be fed. You’ll be taken care of.”

Louis swallows back bile. Why? Why feed a prisoner? Why groom the lamb if it’s already bled? Why milk a dead cow?

“Why?” he hisses, voice cracking at the end. “So I don’t die before you get bored?”

There’s a flicker in Lestat’s expression. Amusement, maybe. With a mix of affection, warped beyond recognition.

“So you stay beautiful,” he says simply.

The invisible grip slackens, not enough to free him, but enough to let him feel his own weight again. He stumbles but catches himself. Shakes in his feet.

Louis stares at him. That word—beautiful—hits him harder than it should. An insult wrapped in flattery. An insult made of compliments.

Is that what he is to Lestat? A painting to dust off, a doll to dress?

He wants to scream. To punch. To disappear.

But instead, he stands. Held upright by something he doesn’t control.

“Now,” Lestat says, stepping forward. “The bath is being drawn.”

Louis doesn’t move.

But he knows the truth now, more than ever.

He doesn’t have a choice.

Lestat steps closer, stopping just a few feet in front of him. The air between them feels charged, thick with a kind of pressure that doesn’t belong in this lifetime. It's power, undisguised now—weighty, brazen, like a hand pressed to the back of Louis’s neck.

“Will you walk on your own,” he asks quietly, “or must I carry you like a doll?”

Louis stares past him, eyes dull. He can feel the shape of Lestat’s presence without looking. The way it crowds the space. Must I carry you like a doll. As if that’s the only alternative. As if either option spares him dignity.

He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t shift. His body is a wall, but not a strong one. Just inert.

“I’m not giving you anything,” he says at last, voice a rough, low rasp. The words hurt coming out, his throat too dry, too tight. But it’s true. It’s the only thing left that’s his. That refusal.

Lestat’s mouth tightens. Not a frown, just a small betrayal of control. Then he nods once, as if he'd been expecting this.

“Very well.”

And the pull returns.

It’s subtle, at first—a tug beneath the skin, nerves twitching under command. Then stronger. Unmistakable. His legs lift and move forward, joints bending without his consent. His body marches itself across the room, past the bed where he lay for hours, through the open doorway. Seconds pass with eeriness, his own muscles reduced to marionette strings.

He hates this most of all. That his own body listens to someone else now.

The hallway stretches out before them—gleaming floors, walls lined in strange stone. The lighting shifts as they pass, glowing warmer, then cooler, reacting to Lestat. The silence isn’t quiet. It buzzes. Like the house is watching, vibrating for their energy. 

They enter the bathing room.

Louis’s breath catches.

The space is beautifully cold. High ceilings, pale marble everywhere. A sunken bath, gently steaming. Gold fixtures. A faint scent of lavender hangs in the air, perfumed and artificial. Too sweet.

This is what Lestat thinks comfort looks like. Clean room. Warm water. A perfect lie.

The moment they cross the threshold, the heat wraps around him, cloying. His damp skin begins to prickle.

Then it begins.

His shirt, still clinging to him from the night before, tugs itself open. One button, then the next. Not rushed. Not rough. Just detached. Impersonal. Hands from nowhere, stripping him with careless movements.

Louis stiffens, panic flaring through his chest.

“No,” he breathes. But his hands don’t move. They won’t move.

The shirt slides off. He shivers. Then his pants unfasten themselves, drifting down his hips. His underwear follows, peeled down with sickening gentleness. His socks, one by one. All done without touch, unapologetically invasive.

He stands there—bare, vulnerable, humiliated. His skin crawls.

Lestat hasn’t taken a single step. He watches with the same calm detachment he might use to watch a flower bloom. Or a candle burn down.

“Your body is nothing to be ashamed of,” Lestat says. “You’ve already shared it with me. Let me keep looking after it.”

The words land like ice water. Louis didn’t share it with him, not willing. 

And let me. Like he’s offering mercy.

Louis doesn’t look at him. Bites his tongue to not scream. He stares at the floor, at the veins in the marble, his nails digging crescent moons into his palms. His breath comes fast. Too fast. He tries to slow it. To keep control of at least that much.

But his lungs aren’t his either.

“Step into the water,” Lestat instructs.

Louis doesn’t move.

And the force acts again.

His foot lifts. His other mirrors. He’s guided forward, inch by inch, toward the bath. The steam rises up, soft and ghostly, brushing against his bare skin.

The water waits—still and clear. It looks harmless.

It’s not.

None of this is harmless.

He doesn’t want to be clean. Not like this. Not by him.

He doesn’t want to be cared for like property. Maintained like a pet.

But his legs lower anyway. He’s eased down into the water with disquieting power.

The heat envelops him, sinking into his skin. His muscles tense. For a second, the warmth almost tricks him—it almost feels like relief.

Then it seeps deeper.

And he realizes there’s no comfort here. No reprieve.

Just another kind of control.

The invisible force fades, slackening. His limbs are his again. But there’s no victory in that. He doesn’t float.

He sinks.

The water cradles him like a grave.

Lestat kneels at the edge of the tub, rolling his sleeves up. There’s no mockery in the motion. Preparation as if this is their routine. As if Louis is his routine now.

His eyes move across Louis’s body with no hesitation. No shame. There’s nothing hidden in that gaze—only animalistic claims. And worse than the hunger is the familiarity. Lestat looks like a man examining something he already owns.

He reaches for the basin. Picks up the cloth. Dips it in, wrings it out with an easy twist.

“I used to do this for my fledglings,” he says, voice low and smooth. “Before they could clean themselves without getting overwhelmed. Blood, sweat, the shock of waking in a new body—it could be disorienting.”

Louis doesn’t answer. Doesn’t look at him. If he does, he’ll splinter.

He stares ahead, into the water, into the nothing. He imagines what it would feel like to melt into it. To let his skin dissolve. To leave this body behind, and Lestat with it.

The cloth touches his shoulder.

He tenses—muscles clenching in rebellion—but Lestat continues anyway. Slow, practiced strokes. The circles move down his arm, over his collarbone. Gentle. Methodical. Consistent.

Like he’s cleaning an artifact and not a person. Not someone who begged him to stop.

Lestat’s gaze lingers too long. Every patch of skin he wipes is studied. Memorized.

Louis wants to scream, but he doesn’t.

He stays still. Jaw locked. Breath thin. Fighting every second not to pull away and kill him. 

Because if he does, he knows what comes next. Obedience is the only thing that keeps him from floating again like a rag doll. From being bent in half.

The cloth drifts lower. Across his chest. Down his ribs. Lestat’s hand trails behind, fingers grazing like the touch of a tailor—or a lover who believes he’s still wanted.

“I’m being gentle,” Lestat murmurs.

Louis flinches hard when the cloth dips between his thighs.

He can’t stop it. The way his spine stiffens, the way his body coils up to protect itself. 

He knows now—no one will ever touch him without echoing this. Without his body remembering. Lestat is everywhere now. Etched in. Beneath the skin, behind the eyes, beneath the lungs.

Lestat doesn’t stop. Doesn’t even slow. His hand keeps moving, with calculated care, the cloth sweeping downward.

“You’re doing well,” he says. “I know you hate this. But you’re still whole. You’re still mine.”

Louis closes his eyes.

He wants to die. He wants the water to become a mouth. To swallow him whole and never let him up.

But nothing saves him. Nothing moves.

The cloth glides down his calves, over his ankles. Then his arms are lifted gently—positioned on the edge of the tub. He’s turned just slightly, like a mannequin. The same false tenderness. The same illusion of tenderness.

“Maybe one day,” Lestat says, voice quieter now, “you’ll let me do this for pleasure. Not just necessity.”

Louis’s eyes stay shut.

He can’t even summon disgust anymore. Just a sick, empty ache.

He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t cry.

He lets himself be bathed because the alternative is worse. Because there’s nothing left to fight with but silence.

Then—

“You think you’re doing me a favor,” he whispers, voice raw. “You’re not. I hate you.”

Lestat is quiet for a beat.

“Hate doesn’t last forever,” he says, not cruelly. 

“Mine will.”

Another pause.

Then, calmly: “It won’t. I’ve been nice to you, considering the alternatives. I haven’t beaten you. I haven’t starved you. You are quite defiant, and yet I haven’t removed your tongue like older vampires would’ve, ages ago.”

Louis’s stomach knots instantly. “And you think that makes you better?”

“Yes,” Lestat says simply. “I could’ve used my gifts to spread your legs and reduce you to a hole to fuck. I could put you on your back for days without tiring.”

Louis doesn’t breathe.

He’s afraid if he moves, the next words will come true.

“I could…” Lestat’s voice falters just slightly. “Make you feel good without even touching you.”

And then it happens.

A sudden heat. Pressure tingles between his thighs—inside him. A phantom ache blooming against his most vulnerable point, slick and low and wrong. His body pulses with it, confused, betrayed.

“No,” Louis gasps, the panic breaking through.

Something presses against his G-spot, the shape of a finger made from a simple thought.

“Stop.”

And it’s gone.

His breath comes ragged now. His chest rising in uneven, hollow bursts.

Lestat speaks as if nothing happened. “As you can see, I’m quite considerate in my treatment of you. Mostly because I used to think like you. I thought hatred was my shield. I wore it until it rusted off.”

Frowning, Louis says nothing.

“I know it feels eternal,” Lestat goes on. “But it dulls. It always does. Not to indifference—no. But to something else. Something quieter. It reshapes itself. Becomes a kind of love you don’t want to name.”

“I’ll never love you,” Louis snaps.

This is one thing he’s sure of. 

Lestat hums. “Maybe not.”

He rinses the soap from Louis’s skin as the cloth moves with nonchalant swipes. By the time he’s done, his sleeves are soaked to the elbow. He places the cloth neatly beside the basin. He doesn’t ask for thanks. Just looks at Louis and asks, “Are you ready to stop being stubborn? Will you move on your own now?”

Louis doesn’t answer right away.

He breathes in, slow and deep. The warmth of the bath feels heavier than before. Not soothing—oppressive. Something is pressing into his ribs, making it hard to draw a full breath.

But he nods.

“Yes,” he says. “I’ll move.”

Lestat rises, saying nothing. He steps back.

Louis lifts himself from the tub. His limbs tremble, more from fatigue than fear now, but they obey him.

He dries off in silence. His hands move like they’re underwater, sluggish and slow, dulled by exhaustion.

On a nearby bench waits a new set of clothes. Soft. Neutral. Loose. Thoughtfully chosen.

Of course Lestat thought of everything.

He dresses quickly. He refuses to look at him. Not once.

When he’s done, Lestat gestures toward the door.

Louis walks.

Not because he’s free. But because there’s nothing left to do but follow.

“Come. You need to eat.”

Louis listens. He doesn’t ask where they’re going. Doesn’t need to. His legs move because they’ve learned to. Not from agreement, not from peace but survival. Resistance is dragging his body through glass. Obedience is another dull ache of keeping it together.

The sitting room is warm. Too warm. Everything about it is arranged, intentional. The table is already set—bread, eggs, roasted potatoes, a bowl of berries. A cup of tea that is still hot faintly in the air.

Everything looks fresh. Louis stands beside the chair, frozen. The food is obscene somehow. Too domestic. Too normal. 

Lestat nods toward the seat. “Sit.”

Louis does. His hands rest in his lap, his posture slack, but he doesn’t eat.

Lestat settles across from him, one leg crossed over the other, his gaze never strays. Always watching. Calculating.

“Eat,” he says, not brutally. Not even impatiently. Just…expectant. 

Louis looks down at the plate. The eggs are soft. The potatoes crisp. The fruit bright. His stomach twists at the sight.

The smell hits next. Butter. Tea. Something vaguely spiced. All of it should be comforting. Familiar.

It isn’t. It feels like a trick. A trap disguised as kindness. It feels like he’s being told he should be grateful.

“It’s unappetizing,” Louis says quietly.

Lestat tilts his head. “You need strength.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You don’t have to be,” Lestat replies. “But you are required to eat. Unless you need assistance, I will gladly force your mouth open and feed you. With food or something else is a different topic.”

Louis’s fingers immediately grab the fork. It’s cold. Foreign. He’s holding a weapon he no longer knows how to use. He stares at the table.

His body doesn’t move. But inside, everything’s screaming. He thinks of the bath. The cloth. The way Lestat stripped him. The slick between his thighs. The phantom touch that still hasn’t left him.

He thinks of the moment he stopped flinching—not because it stopped hurting, but because it stopped mattering.

He stares a second longer.

Then his hand shifts.

Not toward the food. He reaches for the knife.

It’s a quiet movement as he sets the fork down.

Then presses the tip of the blade against the soft skin below his navel—right where it would hurt. Where it would count.

Lestat stares at him, noticing.

“I’ll do it,” Louis says. His voice is flat. Without desperation or a plea. “Right here. Right now.”

Lestat’s expression doesn’t change. He remains perfectly calm. “Go on, then.”

Louis’s gaze snaps up. Sharp. Bitter. “Don’t patronize me.”

“I’m not,” Lestat says, almost pleasantly. “If that’s what you want, I won’t stop you.”

Louis presses the knife harder. Not enough to pierce, but enough to feel it.

To imagine the blood. The ending. The quiet. He would be free from this responsibility. Maybe the next life will be kinder to him. 

Lestat chuckles, soft and maddening. “You really don’t know, do you?”

Louis’ grip tightens.

“You can’t kill yourself that way,” he continues. “Not like that. Not anymore.”

The knife wavers in his hand slightly. 

“There’s something you should understand,” Lestat says, leaning forward, forearms resting on the table. His tone is conversational. Intimate. “The night I bit you the first time… it wasn’t just for taste.”

Louis’s whole body goes rigid, remembering those horrible teeth digging into his neck. 

“I gave you something,” he says. “My blood. Just a little. Enough to heal you. Strengthen you. And I’ve kept doing it. In small ways. Your food. The water. Even the fruit.”

Louis feels a chill flood his chest, cold and immediate.

“Not enough to turn you into a vampire,” Lestat says. “Just enough to prepare you.”

Prepare.

“To make your body strong enough to carry,” he continues. “To survive what’s coming. I don’t breed easily. But when it happens… the vessel must be fortified. Yours wasn’t. So I changed that. Haven’t you noticed that you no longer crave nicotine or alcohol?”

Louis’s vision swims.

His stomach turns in on itself. The knife lowers a fraction in his hand.

“You poisoned me,” he says through clenched teeth.

“I preserved you,” Lestat explains. “You’d be dead already. Or shattered. But you’re not. You’re here. Whole.”

Whole. He wants to laugh. Or scream.

He lowers the knife further, fingers trembling.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because it’s already done,” Lestat says. “You can scream, refuse, threaten. But your body already belongs to me. It’s adapting. Preparing. It wants to survive the birth.”

Louis’s nausea spikes. The warmth in the room becomes unbearable. Thick. Suffocating.

“And soon,” Lestat says, smiling faintly, “it will want more.”

Louis stares at the knife in his hands. It’s useless now.

“As I said before, you’ll hate me for a while,” Lestat adds gently. “But what’s a while for someone like me? A hundred years? Five hundred? Regardless, I will outlast your hate.”

Louis sets the knife down. And something inside him buckles. It isn’t surrender. It’s something quieter. 

Something worse.

His hands shake in his lap. His shoulders feel too heavy to hold upright. He stares at the polished blade on the table. The reflection warped by the curve. His own face is barely recognizable.

Each breath drags through his chest like it’s caught on wire.

There’s no taste in his mouth. No feeling in his hands.

A spread of misery in his core.

Lestat says nothing more.

He just watches.

And Louis sits in silence, afraid of what it means that he didn’t fight harder.

“I’ll find another way,” he says shakily. “If I can’t use the knife, I’ll find something else. I’ll jump. Starve. Burn. If I get…I’ll tear it out with my hands if I have to.”

The words come as a fever dream, half-formed and desperate. He doesn’t know if he believes them. But he has to say something. He has to have something. Even if all he has is the threat of destroying himself.

Lestat doesn’t react right away. There’s no alarm, nor anger. Only that maddening, familiar expression— something close to amusement. 

“Mm,” he hums.

Then he leans back in his chair, steepling his fingers lightly in thought.

“But if you die…” he muses. “Well. I suppose I’ll need another candidate, then. Someone with similar genetics. Someone you care about.”

His voice softens.

“What’s your sister’s name again? Grace?”

The air is sucked from Louis’s lungs.

He doesn’t think. There’s no time for it.

His chair scrapes violently across the floor as he lunges, his fist swinging in a wide, furious arc—rage unfiltered, full-bodied, explosive.

There’s a sharp, sickening crack.

But not from Lestat.

Louis’s fist meets something too hard, too unyielding. Not skin. Not bone. Something else.

The pain detonates instantly, blooming white-hot up his arm. His knees buckle. His hand curls in on itself, useless now, already swelling.

He screams. From the agony of being reminded—again—how powerless he is.

He falls back, cradling his hand to his chest, eyes squeezed shut. He can’t breathe. He can’t think. His whole world has reduced to the shattering throb of that one instant. That one choice. That one failure.

Lestat doesn’t move a muscle.

Surprisingly, he doesn’t even laugh.

“Well,” he says plainly. “That was very stupid.”

Louis slumps to the floor. His forehead brushes the cool marble. He clutches his injured hand against his ribs like it might fall off if he lets go.

Lestat’s voice is calm. “You should be more careful with your hands. According to you, you’ll need them for your future plans.”

Louis doesn’t answer.

Can’t.

The pain has him by the throat.

Lestat stands. “At least you know not to do that again. I’ll leave you to think about what I said.” His footsteps click softly across the polished floor, fading. He doesn’t look back.

Then Louis is alone.

He folds into himself, body shaking, cheek pressed to the cold floor. The smooth surface offers no comfort, but he clings to it anyway. Like it might tether him. Or might stop the world from tipping again.

His breathing comes in ragged bursts. His lips sting—bitten through. Sweat slides down his temples, collects at the nape of his neck. His heart feels like it’s pounding through a bruise.

He doesn’t cry. Not this time.

Tears are wasted on what keeps happening.

He stares at nothing. Focuses on taking deep breaths. Counts to hundred and fights through the existing pain.

-

Time blurs.

At some point, he must’ve pass out, because when he comes to, the light has shifted. Shadows stretch differently across the walls. The room feels heavier, darker. His throat is dry, and his body aches from the twisted position he collapsed into.

But the pain…

It’s different now.

Not gone. Not by any means. But dulled. Faint, somehow. Like something inside him’s been working while he slept.

He blinks, then lifts his head slowly. His cheek leaves a damp mark on the floor. He breathes through clenched teeth as he draws his injured hand up and finally looks.

It’s still swollen. Still bruised.

But it’s wrong.

It’s not bad enough.

The knuckles should be shattered. The skin should still be split wide. But the bleeding’s stopped. The skin is already pulling tight. His fingers twitch—painfully—but they move.

His stomach flips.

It should be getting worse.

Not better.

It doesn’t make sense.

He stares at it. At the subtle, wrong healing. At the pulse beneath his skin that feels just a little too strong.

Then it hits him.

Lestat did this on purpose.

The knife. The bath. The food. The bite.

Not just to hurt.

To prove something.

To show him.

His body is healing too quickly. His pain has a ceiling now.

The blood—the slow, creeping poisoning—wasn’t just preservation. It was preparation. Transformation. Bit by bit. Drop by drop. In his food. In his water. In his mouth.

In him.

Louis lowers his hand, but it trembles violently now—not from injury.

From realization.

He isn’t just owned anymore.

He’s being prepared, as Lestat said, for pregnancy.

And he can’t escape it. 

-

Evening falls when Lestat returns. 

His face is unreadable, but his posture gives him away. The smugness is subtle, faint, as though he thinks it’s concern.

He glances once at Louis’s crumpled figure on the couch, then at his hand—bandaged, bleeding slightly in his lap.

“Well,” Lestat says, voice lilting with false sympathy, “how’s the hand?”

Louis doesn’t look up.

Doesn’t dignify it.

He stares at the grain of the couch cushion. At nothing.

What answer would satisfy him? That it hurts? That it’s healing too fast? That it’s no longer fully his?

Lestat sniffs theatrically, as if picking up some invisible thread in the air, then lifts the bag in his hand. Thin steam forms from the opening, and a second later the scent hits Louis square in the chest—rich, warm, complex.

Spiced lentils. Stewed okra. Fresh jasmine rice.

His breath hitches and he licks his lips. His stomach clenches instinctively, traitorously.

It’s from his favorite place. That place. The one he used to walk ten blocks to reach when money was tight and time was thinner. 

He hates that he recognizes it.

He hates even more that Lestat knows he does.

But that means, they’re still in Seattle somewhere. They’re close. He’s not far from reality. 

Lestat’s smile widens, pleased. “I had them make it fresh,” he says. “Still warm. Wouldn’t want it to sit in the kitchen too long. That would be tragic.”

Louis swallows against the sudden ache in his throat. His mouth waters, shaming him. His body, ever loyal to survival, pulls toward the scent. 

He wants to ask for it. But before the thought can become a word—

“We’ll eat outside,” Lestat says flippantly. “In the garden. You need fresh air. Something to cheer you up.”

Then, the catch.

“But only if you ask nicely.”

Louis stills.

Of course.

Of course there’s always a string.

The food isn’t a gift. The garden isn’t freedom. It’s a leash made to look like an open door.

His good hand curls into a fist against the couch. He stares at the floor, jaw tight, heart pounding.

But he wants to see. Needs to see.

Where he is. What this place looks like beyond the walls. What lies past the bedroom, past the bath, past the table where his world was reduced to obedience.

It’s not about air.

It’s about information.

His eyes rise, slow and sharp. He meets Lestat’s gaze, bitter as acid.

“Fine,” he says, voice tight. “Please.”

Lestat’s grin is small but victorious. “There now. Wasn’t so hard, was it?”

He gestures toward the door with a practiced flick. “Come along. Let’s enjoy the evening before it cools.”

Louis stands slowly, shoulders tense as his hand throbs against his side. But he walks.

Because even a caged animal wants to map the perimeter.

The hallway beyond is long and hushed, lit with soft sconces embedded in pale stone walls. The silence is almost too perfect. No hum of a refrigerator. No creak of settling wood. No life beyond the one dictated by Lestat’s presence.

Louis walks behind him. His steps are near soundless on the cool floors.

Every door they pass is shut. Smooth. Seamless. Not even a keyhole to betray its use.

There are no windows, not really—just polished panes that reflect light rather than let it in. They’re mirrors masquerading as openings. Nothing shows beyond them. No city skyline. No cars. No birdsong.

Just more of the house.

Where the hell are we?

Every wall whispers the same truth: You’re nowhere. You’re nothing.

Finally, they reach a tall pair of glass doors at the end of the hall. Lestat unlatches them with a soft click and steps aside, gesturing with mock chivalry.

“After you.”

Louis glares but moves forward.

The night air that hits him is cool and strangely soft. He draws in a breath—automatically—and scent floods him.

Night-blooming flowers. Earth damp from careful watering. Something faint and citrus, sharpened by the evening chill.

Then he sees it.

And stops.

It doesn’t make sense.

A garden unfolds before him—lush, expansive, surreal.

Stone paths wind through immaculate hedges and cypress trees tall enough to conceal whatever lies beyond. Lavender spills over marble planters. Roses—white and blushed—climb arched trellises. At the center sits a wrought-iron table with two chairs, lit by golden threads of light woven through the overhead branches. A small fountain trickles nearby, its surface catching and scattering light like molten glass.

It’s beautiful.

Stunning.

Unnatural.

Because it doesn’t belong here. Not after everything. Not after him.

The beauty of it makes Louis’s stomach twist.

Because it means Lestat planned this.

Cared enough to build a world. To dress the cage. He’s been planning to take Louis a long time. 

Louis walks slowly toward the table, each step heavier than the last. The scent of flowers thickens. His pulse pounds at the base of his throat. How far does this place stretch? How deep underground are we? Or are we above everything, hidden behind walls no one can hear through?

He doesn’t know.

But he’s seeing.

And that’s something.

Even if the garden was grown just for him.

Even if it’s meant to make him forget he’s still a prisoner.

It doesn’t look like Seattle.

It doesn’t even feel like America.

The air is too still. Too untouched. There’s no pollution, no distant rumble of traffic, no flicker of headlights against glass. A weird silence wrapped in birdsong, in the low hum of insects and the perfume of blooming herbs. It feels like somewhere else, far removed from anything Louis has ever known.

He pauses on the garden path, stunned. “Where are we?”

Lestat doesn’t answer.

Instead, he steps lightly to the wrought-iron table and sets the takeout bag down, removing each container like a man unveiling gifts. 

Louis doesn’t sit right away.

He stares past the trellises and rose bushes, squinting into the darkness as if the skyline might materialize out of nowhere. As if concrete and steel could rise up like a mirage and rescue him from this place. But there’s nothing beyond the garden’s edge. Simply trees. Shadow. Containment.

Eventually, he lowers himself into the chair, slow and guarded.

Lestat uncorks a bottle and pours something thick and dark into a glass. It glows red in the low light, catching against the metalwork of the table. He never eats. Not traditionally anyway. He drinks with the calm of someone who’s fed on far more than food.

Louis looks at his own plate.

Still hot. Still perfect.

Exactly how he used to order it.

“I hope the fresh air helps,” Lestat says thoughtfully. “It’s beautiful out here.”

Louis picks up his fork with his good hand, jaw rigid.

The food tastes exactly right.

And somehow, that’s the most awful part.

Because it proves that Lestat studied him. Still tries to study him. Down to the spice level. Down to the restaurant he thought he’d never taste again. It’s not a gift but it’s a reminder. A flex of knowledge. I see you. I remember you. You are mine.

He chews and tries not to remember a happier time. Forces each bite down. The food settles heavy in his gut, not nourishing, just present.

Everything here feels staged. Too perfect. The garden might as well be a movie set, with its curated blooms and conveniently gurgling fountain. Nothing wild. Nothing real.

Across from him, Lestat sips, eyes half-lidded, face tipped toward the sky.

He looks like he belongs here.

Like a man who built a kingdom and has no intention of letting anyone leave it.

Minutes pass and finally Louis sets his spoon down.

“You said this isn’t about reproduction anymore,” he says quietly. “That means others have tried.”

Lestat lifts his glass again, a faint smile at the corner of his mouth.

“Are there others?” Louis presses. “Like you?”

“Vampires?” Lestat leans back, swirling the blood lazily. “Of course. Not many. Most of them keep to Europe these days. The old cities. The ruins. They like history. They’re more sentimental. Unlike myself.”

“You don’t see them?”

“Not often. Occasionally. When I’m bored. I mostly receive gifts each century I age.”

Louis watches him. Measures every answer.

“How old are you?”

Lestat chuckles. “You’re really asking that now?”

“You said others are older. So how old are you?”

Lestat tilts his head, expression feline. Amused.

“I’m close to being forty-two hundred. Not quite. My birthday just passed. I have the actual number documented somewhere.”

Louis freezes.

The silverware. The garden. Everything blurs for a second.

“Four thousand—?”

“And two hundred shy,” Lestat replies, smiling faintly. “I was born when humans still feared the dark for the right reasons. When cities hadn’t been named yet. When language still changed shape every decade.”

Louis swallows, throat dry. The weight of the information settles and turns in his head.

He knew Lestat was old. But not like this. Not before history.

Now every word from Lestat’s mouth is shaded by centuries. Every smile, every gesture—it isn’t instinct. It’s rehearsed.

“And now you want a child,” Louis says quietly. “You want a child with me.”

Lestat only watches him, unbothered.

“You’re older than France,” Louis says, almost to himself. “That’s…” He shakes his head. “You’re older than almost every country that exists.”

Lestat’s eyes gleam, clearly entertained. “Yes,” he says, almost sing-song. “Isn’t it marvelous?”

Louis leans back, arms folded. He tries to look bored. Detached. Unimpressed.

“Congratulations, I guess. You’ve outlived empires. And learned how to manipulate thermostat settings.”

Lestat laughs. A real, sudden laugh. It startles something in Louis, not fear. Something else. A long lost memory unlocked.

“I was born near what you would now call Auvergne,” Lestat says, clearly not done. “Before France or Rome. Before the idea of kings or borders. The world was small then. Dangerous. But I consider myself French because I spent most of my time in France during King Louis IX’s reign. I left after Napoleon’s second exile and eventual death.”

Louis stares out at a rose bush beyond the table, pretending not to listen.

But he is. He takes it all in. 

“I remember when fire was sacred,” Lestat says, sounding wishful. “Carried from one village to another. Guarded. I remember watching the stars before anyone gave them names. It was a simpler time then.”

Louis exhales, slow and tired. “And now you wear Gucci.”

Lestat beams. “The stitching is exquisite.”

Louis tries not to smile. He fails—barely. He hides it behind his water glass. Then he remembers. This is the creature that raped him. Kidnapped him to produce something evil and his smile faints.

He doesn’t want this. Doesn’t want Lestat’s stories. Doesn’t want to be charmed.

But something inside him listens anyway.

Something inside him, beaten but not broken, still wants to know.

Lestat sees it. Of course he does.

He leans in slightly, voice dropping to a coaxing hush.

“You want to ask more. Go ahead.”

Louis scowls. Picks up his spoon again.

“You talk enough for the both of us.”

But he doesn’t change the subject.

And Lestat, for once, spares him.

He tells a story, rich with detail about the first time he felt the sun in centuries. About how the light looked on snow-covered fields. About the first winter he spent buried beneath stone.

Louis doesn’t interrupt.

Doesn’t add his own stories or theories.

But he listens.

Because something deep and hidden in him needs to.

-

The next morning is strange from the start.

Louis wakes with a pressure behind his eyes, like something pushing outward from the inside. His temples pulse in rhythm with something he can’t hear but feels—a vibration under his skin, low and constant, like a wire humming just beneath the flesh.

His ears itch. Not externally. Not the surface. Inside.

Wrong.

He rubs at them with the heel of his palms, then harder—fingertips digging in, desperate for relief. The sensation doesn’t stop. If anything, it grows worse. A frequency he can’t locate or name, but it’s there, alive and pulsing, buried somewhere in the bone.

Then his stomach twists.

Not nausea. Recoil. Like his body is rejecting itself.

He stumbles out of bed, the floor tilting beneath him. The walls narrow. He makes it to the bathroom and drops to his knees just as the convulsions hit.

The first heave is dry. The second burns.

Then it comes.

A thick, black stream hits the porcelain with a sickening splash. Not bile. Not food. Nothing human.

It clings to the bowl, sticky and tar-like. A dark sludge that smells faintly of metal and rot.

Louis stares at it, panting. Shaking.

What the fuck is happening to me.

His hands tremble on the toilet rim. He swallows against the bile rising again, his throat raw from the effort. His vision blurs as sweat prickles down his spine.

Then—

Footsteps.

He doesn’t need to look.

He feels Lestat before he sees him.

Lestat appears in the doorway, casual as ever. Dressed in a dark turtleneck, sleeves rolled to the elbows, as if this were a normal morning. As if any of this is normal.

His eyes move to the toilet. To the black mess. Then slowly back to Louis.

A faint smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. Not evil.

Worse. Understanding.

“There it is,” he says softly. “I was wondering when it would start.”

Louis turns his head, breath catching in his throat. “What… what is this?”

Lestat steps forward, hands loose at his sides. His voice drops, quiet. Almost fond.

“You’re pregnant.”

The world halts.

Louis grips the toilet tighter. His whole body locks, blood rushing in his ears.

“No,” he whispers. “That’s not…that’s not possible.”

“It is,” Lestat replies. Deadly calm. “You already knew it was coming. You just didn’t want to believe it.”

Louis shakes his head. Hard. As if he can jolt the words away. As if denial still has any power left.

“It’s too soon,” he croaks. “You said—”

“I said your body would need time to adapt,” Lestat says. “And it has. You’ve been healing faster. Sleeping deeper. Your scent has changed. Your temperature, too. Pregnancy will be inevitable going forward.”

He crouches beside him, a quick, graceful motion.

“This is just the beginning,” he says. “The purge. Everything that doesn’t belong is being cleared out and making room for the baby.”

Louis looks back to the bowl.

That black mass.

That thing that came from inside him.

It smells like death.

It looks like something crawled out of him and tried to leave a message on the way out. 

“You knew,” Louis says. His voice is nearly gone. “That night—when you said it wasn’t about reproduction anymore—you knew.”

Lestat doesn’t deny it.

Instead, he places a hand on Louis’s back.

Not hard.

Not mocking.

Just present. Steady. Claiming.

“You’re carrying our child now,” he says gently. “And there’s no turning back. I told you the natural way works.”

Louis’s throat tightens. His skin crawls beneath the weight of that word: our.

He squeezes his eyes shut. But it doesn’t help. The sound in his ears intensifies—buzzing now, shrill and high-pitched, like something trying to scream from inside him.

His thoughts spiral.

This isn’t real. This isn’t happening. I’m still asleep. I’m still dreaming. I’m still back in that bar. I haven’t left. I never saw that cat. I never felt him inside me. I never—

But he did.

And this is real.

And it’s already too late.

He stays hunched over the toilet, body shaking, the air thick and unbreathable.

Lestat stays beside him. Silent. Watching.

Waiting for him to accept what his body already has.

-

A week passes in strange, drifting silence.

Louis sleeps more than he’s awake. When he is awake, he’s not really present. The walls cave in. His thoughts drift like dust motes—ungraspable. His body feels sluggish, unwieldy, like it’s not entirely his. There are aches in places he’s never noticed before: deep in his hips, under his ribs, the soft ridges of his back.

The sound in his ears remains, a low electric murmur. Like something inside him is charging. Or warning him. Or waiting.

His hunger fades.

The light becomes unbearable.

And then—one morning—he wakes in blood.

Warm. Wet.

Everywhere.

He doesn’t understand what he’s seeing at first. The red stains the sheets in thick patches. It coats his thighs, clings to his skin. It soaks into the mattress beneath him, turning everything warm and viscous and wrong. It’s not a small amount.

It’s a flood.

Louis jolts upright, slipping in it. His hands come away slick and shaking. The smell is thick—copper, salt, something darker.

He can’t breathe.

He’s not empty.

He’s wrecked.

Something has torn its way through him.

He screams.

“Lestat!”

His voice cracks.

The door crashes open.

Lestat appears almost instantly, for once stripped of all his usual poise. His face goes pale. His eyes lock on the scene—on the soaked sheets, the blood on the floor, Louis convulsing, shaking in the ruin.

He freezes for half a second.

Then moves.

“Don’t stand,” Lestat says sharply, rushing to the bath. It’s the first time Louis has seen him move at vampire speed. “You’ll fall. Stay there. Just—just wait.”

But Louis is already moving.

Crawling off the bed with one hand bracing against the wall, the other pressed hard between his legs, trying to hold himself together. His vision is swimming. The pain—deep, raw, visceral—makes every step blinding.

Lestat is back before he collapses, catching him mid-fall. Louis doesn’t resist. There’s no strength left in him. His body is just a vessel now, one that’s been used and emptied and left in disarray.

The water is already running.

Lestat lowers him into the tub.

It burns.

Louis gasps, the heat lancing through his raw skin, but he doesn’t cry out. He just shudders, curling into himself as the water turns pink, then red, staining in slow spirals.

Then the pain sharpens. Stabs.

It centers low in his gut, pulsing outward like something alive. Something twisting.

Louis’s eyes go wide. His fingers claw at the sides of the tub. “It hurts—God, it hurts—”

Lestat kneels beside the bath, speaking low in a language Louis doesn’t recognize. A prayer or a spell or a curse—something old, something meant to comfort.

His hands find Louis’s shoulders, trying to relax him.

But it’s too late.

Louis feels it shift inside him.

Then move.

He screams—sharp, ragged—as his spine arches. His body contracts violently. And then—

Release.

A slick, wet sound.

Something slips from him. Drops into the bath between his legs with a quiet, obscene splash.

Louis gasps.

The pain lingers, but the pressure is gone.

He stares.

And he sees it.

Floating in the red-tinged water is a small, coiled shape. Pale. Unfinished. Veined and veiny and fragile. It has the ghost of limbs. A skull too large. Closed, lidless eyes.

Not human.

Not quite anything.

A parasite.

Louis jerks back, recoiling to the far edge of the tub. His arms cross over his chest. His breath comes in sobbing bursts, wet and uneven.

“I didn’t—” he chokes. “I didn’t want this, but I didn’t—”

His voice breaks entirely.

“I didn’t want it to die.”

He collapses forward, straight into Lestat’s arms. He doesn’t think. Doesn’t care. Blood and water soak between them, soaking Lestat’s clothes. But Louis clings.

And cries.

He cries the way a man cries when he realizes there’s still something inside him that can be broken.

Not because something was taken from him.

But because something was almost his.

And now it’s gone.

The water cools.

Time is pointless.

By the time Lestat moves again, Louis is slumped against the side of the tub, limp. His skin is ashy, wrinkled from the water. His hair clings to his forehead. His arms hang at his sides. His eyes stay open, but he’s not seeing.

Lestat lifts him gently.

He doesn’t resist.

He’s wrapped in a thick towel and carried down the hall—this time, to a different room.

Smaller. Quieter.

The walls are gray-blue, the air lavender-laced. It doesn’t smell like bleach or antiseptic. It smells like sleep. Like quiet.

The bed is turned down.

The light is low.

Lestat lays him down slowly, as if afraid to wake something fragile.

He tucks the blanket around him. His hands, for once, don’t claim—they comfort.

“I’ll clean up,” he says softly. “And then I’ll be back.”

Louis doesn’t answer.

He stares ahead, lifeless.

Not asleep.

Not awake.

Just after.

He lies still in the bed, the wet towel clinging coldly to his chest, a mockery of warmth. His eyes are fixed on nothing. The walls spin again. The weight of the room presses down—dense, sweltering—but not enough to quiet the ache blooming in his chest.

It’s not sadness.

It’s something worse: the shape of sadness, waiting to become real.

Time passes in silences too long to measure.

Eventually, the door creaks open again.

Lestat returns.

He’s barefoot now, shirt damp with water and bleach, the scent faint in the air. There’s a new stillness to him, a a different type of silence. He crosses to the bed and climbs in beside Louis without a word, slipping under the blanket, curling against his back. A shadow reclaiming its shape.

His head rests lightly against Louis’s spine.

Then his hand—unmistakable, familiar—slides over Louis’s stomach. Flat. Possessive. Heavy with lost.

“It needed to happen,” Lestat whispers, lips brushing his shoulder. “This wasn’t the right time. The body knew. It protected itself.”

Louis stares at the wall, unmoving.

He doesn’t think about anything. He barely breathes.

“I don’t care,” he says.

His voice is dull at first. Empty. But then it hardens.

“I’m glad it’s dead,” he says, sharper now. The words cut as they leave. “Whatever it was. I’m glad it’s gone.”

Lestat exhales softly. Not hurt. Not offended. A listener for once.

“It’s okay to be disappointed.”

Louis jerks under the covers, his voice spiking.

“I’m not. I never wanted it. Not for a second.”

His chest rises fast, shaky. His throat tightens. And suddenly the words aren’t clean. They’re violent and hateful.

“I didn’t want it.”

It’s the truth.

And yet it isn’t.

Because he didn’t ask for it. Didn’t consent to it. But still, some part of him had felt it growing. Felt something strange and alive. Felt its presence in the quiet moments when he wasn’t being watched. He was miserable the past week, in so much pain. He didn’t want it, but—

He didn’t want to lose it, either. He tells himself it’s because that child was his only chance of escape. 

Lestat doesn’t argue.

He just pulls him closer, pressing his face into the curve of Louis’s neck like it’s his right. Like Louis’s grief belongs to him too.

And that’s when Louis breaks.

The sobs hit like waves, sudden and cruel.

They wrench out of him, gasping and painful, and he curls in on himself as much as he can, but Lestat is already there. Anchored around him, arms tightening, breath soft.

He weeps like something in him has been split open. Like something final has happened, something irreversible, and the only thing left to do is survive it.

For once, Lestat doesn’t deny him peace.

He just holds him.

While the grief runs its course.

Louis’s sobs are ragged, too rough to be quiet, too sharp to hide. Each breath catches like it hurts to let go. His hands are fists tucked tight against his chest, his face buried in the pillow, the fabric wet beneath him.

Lestat stays against him.

Still.

Warm.

Waiting.

Then, gently, he shifts.

Fingers move through Louis’s hair, smoothing it back with slow, rhythmic strokes. Not comforting—claiming. Wiping off a possession that’s been dirtied.

He presses a kiss to Louis’s temple.

Then another.

Lower.

The curve of his cheek. The dimple in his jaw.

Louis flinches.

But he doesn’t pull away.

His body is too numb. Too heavy. He has no strength left to resist. 

Lestat leans in further. His tongue flicks out, catching a tear before it can fall past Louis’s cheek. He licks it away, then chases the next, every kiss too gentle, too gross to be anything but wrong.

“Don’t,” Louis whispers, broken.

His voice is hoarse. Childlike.

“Don’t do that.”

But Lestat only hums quietly. Almost lovingly. He cradles Louis’s face in one hand, his thumb brushing beneath one eye as he kisses the salt away.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he murmurs. “I didn’t want it to happen like this.”

Louis shudders, body tensing beneath the blankets.

“I would’ve spared you the pain if I could,” Lestat continues. “That image. That loss.”

Louis breathes out hard through his nose.

He wants to believe there’s remorse in that voice.

But there’s not.

It’s almost indifference. An ancient being used to death.

“Next time,” Lestat whispers, “will be better. Your body will be stronger. Ready. You won’t feel this much pain again.”

Louis’s stomach turns.

His throat constricts.

“Don’t say next time,” he chokes out.

Lestat kisses his cheek again. Soft. Devoted. Like nothing monstrous has happened between them. 

“I promise,” he whispers. “Next time… it will be different.”

Louis can’t muster anything else to say.

There’s nothing left.

He lies still, face pressed to the pillow, eyes swollen shut, mouth open just enough to breathe. He lets Lestat hold him.

Because he’s too tired to fight.

Too exhausted to hope.

And the worst part?

He knows this was the end of something.

But also the beginning.

And next time is already on its way.

The days crawl by, thick and lifeless. Time doesn’t pass so quickly anymore. The quiet has changed. It hums, sits heavy on his chest. Louis can’t tell if it’s the house or something inside him that’s gone dormant.

He doesn’t bleed anymore. Not in the way he did when it first happened, when the bathroom tiles were streaked red and his thighs shook and the pain bent him double. But his body remembers. The tearing. The pressure. The sensation of something being taken. When he closes his eyes, he sees it. Half-formed limbs, black veins. It’s an image that will haunt him forever. It’s days later and the cramps come without warning. His back throbs. His legs go weak on the stairs. His stomach aches in a way that isn’t quite physical.

It’s relief and grief rolled into one powerful sensation. 

Lestat said he would recover. That his hormone levels would return to normal. That the faint spotting was expected. But he didn’t look Louis in the eye when he said it.

He doesn’t say the word. Miscarriage. It sticks in his throat. He hears it in Lestat’s mouth and it sounds clinical, flat, wrong. Like something you lose track of, not something ripped from you.

The house has turned against him. Lights dim early, even with the switches on. Cold clings to the corners, climbs the walls. The mirrors fog when he walks past, like even his reflection can’t bear to look. Frost touches the garden, even though it’s not winter.

As always, Lestat watches.

Something in him has changed too. He’s attentive. Predictable. Too consistent to be sincere. He’s memorized the role of the caretaker and now he’s playing it by heart. Tea in the mornings. Herbal blends with names like Gut Health and Fertility. Always with honey. Clothes folded into clean stacks. Rooms lit with candles. His comfort blanket placed gently on the bed.

He massages Louis’s back every night, slow strokes from his shoulder to lower back. Louis lays there, rigid. Letting him. He shouldn’t. He knows that.

But he’s too tired to stop it.

His body is no longer a safe place. It’s still swollen in places it shouldn’t be. Too thin in others. Skin gone sallow. His voice barely carries anymore. He’s lost weight he didn’t have to spare. Some nights he looks down at his hands and doesn’t recognize them.

Sees how Lestat studies him in the mornings, lips pressed tight, eyes moving too carefully over his face, his chest, his belly.

Lestat won’t fuck him now. Won’t even bring it up. Like Louis is unclean. Like grief might pass into him, bitter and burned, and spoil the blood. Lestat has been through this part dozens of times and Louis hates him for it. 

They don’t touch, not really. Not anymore. Louis can’t remember the last time Lestat reached for him without thinking he’s fragile. The space between them is full of things neither of them says. Louis can’t bear it. Can’t bear the way Lestat walks past him like he’s porcelain, already cracked. Can’t bear how he sometimes stares at Louis’s stomach for a moment too long, and then looks away. The disappointment of losing their parasite (not a child, Louis reminds himself) weighs heavily. 

At night, Louis lays still in bed and listens to the floorboards creak under Lestat’s feet. Hears him pacing. Hears him stop outside the door. Never knocks. Never enters.

Sometimes Louis wishes he would.

Sometimes he thinks he wouldn’t survive it.

Because the truth is, even after all of it, even with the hollowness in his body and the blood still drying in places he can’t see, he misses being touched. He misses being wanted. He misses the heat of someone on his skin, the weight of a hand on his belly before it all went wrong. He misses his life. He only has Lestat now and he’s very lonely. He can’t complain about it because how does he explain to a four thousand year old vampire that he’s lonely?

He doesn’t know what it means. To miss the man (a creature) who did this, however indirectly. To miss the version of himself who thought there would be a future. A child. A different ending.

He doesn’t know how to mourn what he never got to hold.

He doesn’t know how to come back to a body that hurts him.

So he doesn’t. He just lies and endures. Breathes through the ache. Pretends it will stop.

And lets Lestat kiss his shoulder like nothing’s broken.

-

It’s evening, maybe. Or something close to it. The light says nothing. It’s been saying nothing for days now. Time lost meaning somewhere between the basement and the upstairs hall. Somewhere in the stretch of silence between when he last asked for help and when he stopped expecting to be heard.

They’re on the couch again.

Lying there is becoming a habit. This is what they do now. Like there’s any world where this counts as normal.

The fire’s dying low. Music spills softly from the other room. That same playlist. The one Lestat always plays when he’s pretending nothing’s wrong.

Louis doesn’t mean to speak. 

But the words come anyway. Flat and slurred, like he’s been drinking, because his throat still hasn’t recovered from his screams of agony.

“How long have I been here?”

It doesn’t sound like his voice. Feels like someone else is using his mouth. He’s not sure if he said it aloud until Lestat blinks. Slow. Familiar, intense blue eyes. His hand keeps moving. Thumb brushing over Louis’s thigh, slow and gentle, trying to signal calm. 

“A week before Christmas,” Lestat says.

Louis waits. That’s it.

He sits up straighter, barely.

“It’s December?”

A nod. Barely that.

“You’ve been here over ten weeks.”

Louis’s chest locks. His jaw twitches.

Ten.

Weeks.

He tries to count: texts unanswered, emails missed, messages unreturned. All of it slips. He can’t track it. The weeks fold in on each other, unable to separate. He speaks again, but the words scrape as they leave his mouth.

“Is anyone… looking for me?”

That’s what stops Lestat’s hand.

He pulls in a breath, holds it. When he speaks, his voice is smooth. Too smooth.

“Yes,” he says. “But they won’t find you.”

Louis goes numb.

His spine tightens. That cold, crawling sensation just beneath the skin. Not panic, not exactly. Something slower. Dread that’s gotten tired of trying to wake him up.

“You’re not that powerful,” he says. The words come without conviction. A habit. A final defense, half-rotted before it hits the air.

Lestat exhales through his nose. Almost a sigh. “I don’t have to be,” he says. “The world’s noisy. People disappear every day. You just have to know how to make it look like a choice.” His tone doesn’t change.“You don’t have roommates or close neighbors. I covered your accounts. Sent a few messages. Deleted a few more. They think you’re off the grid. That you needed time. That you’re somewhere better.”

Louis turns his face toward the fire. It gives off more light than heat. He watches the orange glow flicker against the inside of the hearth and feels none of it.

His voice hardens.

“And you’re okay with that?”

“No.” Lestat looks at him now. Really looks. His face close, too close. “But I’m okay with you being here.”

He leans in. Rests his head against Louis’s shoulder. He squeezes it in a mock form of comfort. Like it’s earned. Like they’re something that belongs to each other.

“And one day,” Lestat whispers, “you will be too.”

Louis closes his eyes.

And for one terrible second, he notices how warm Lestat’s arm is. How solid it feels. How his body, empty as it is, leans into it.

And he hates it.

Hates that it feels good.

Hates what that says about him.

-

The Christmas tree’s fake.

Or maybe it’s real. He hasn’t touched it. Doesn’t care enough to check. It’s covered in gold lights and white bulbs, curated like something out of a catalog. Holiday is a performance here. Warm lighting, neutral tones. None of it means anything.

No presents underneath.

Which is fitting. Louis is the present. That’s the whole arrangement. The fucked-up gift Lestat gave himself.

Louis used to love Christmas, now he wants nothing more than to burn down everything.

The fire is low again. One log still catching. The music’s soft, some instrumental version of a song that used to be pop, now washed down to suggestion. It plays like someone else chose it. Someone who wants a mood.

Between them: a chessboard.

Mahogany. Carved pieces. Antique, probably. Lestat never brings anything ordinary. He’s talking about bishops. Movement patterns. Strategies. His tone is even. Patient. Like he’s explaining something to a child. A child he is desperate to have. 

Louis moves a pawn without thinking.

He’s not playing. He’s barely here. He shifts to keep the rhythm of the room. It’s the first time Lestat hasn’t touched him in days. Which should be a relief. Instead, it coils hard. Cold. There’s absence where pain should be.

He speaks before he can stop it.

“When are you going to rape me again?”

Silence.

Real silence. Hard-edged. No air in it.

Lestat freezes. Not a full stop. A slight pause, the kind most people wouldn’t notice. But Louis isn’t most people. He watches the subtle twitch in Lestat’s throat. The stillness of his hands on the chair. He’s learning to read Lestat for better or worse. 

“You’re waiting, right?” Louis presses. “Waiting for the moment. For when I stop flinching. When I sleep through the night. When I say your name without choking on it. Time is nothing for someone like you.”

He folds his hands in his lap.

“So do it. Get it over with.”

Lestat stays frozen.

He doesn’t defend himself right away. When he speaks, it’s in alarm.

“Louis—”

“Don’t.”

Louis looks up, once. Enough to make sure it sticks.

“This whole setup? The tea. The playlist. The candles? You’re prepping me. Breaking me in slow. Don’t delude yourself into thinking we’re on a date.”

Lestat’s mouth shifts. He doesn’t look angry or full of regret. But he’s wounded. Like the truth bruised his ego.

“I’m not waiting to rape you,” he says.

Louis laughs humorlessly. “You already did.”

They sit there.

The tree blinks in the corner. The garland shifts from the heat vent. Somewhere, snow is probably falling. Louis wouldn’t know. He hasn’t seen the outside in weeks. He wonders if the garden outside is real. 

Lestat exhales.

“I’m waiting for you to want me.”

Louis nearly scoffs. “Then you’re going to be waiting a long time.” He moves his knight. It doesn’t matter if the move is legal. No one’s keeping score. “You’d never touch me again if I had a choice.”

Lestat doesn’t correct him. He stares at the board like it might rewrite what’s already happened.

Louis doesn’t move.

His body’s tense again. Legs stretched under the table but not relaxed. He’s like a wire pulled too tight.

Lestat speaks without looking up.

“I don’t want to hurt you again.”

Louis doesn’t hesitate.

“You say that like it matters.”

Lestat finally looks at him. Direct. Lustful.

“I want to make love to you.”

Louis tilts his head. His laugh this time is nearly soundless. Not even bitter. Empty.

“You want me to fake it.”

“No.”

“You want me quiet. Soft. Easy to touch. You want to erase what you did. What does making love to me have anything to do with a baby?”

Lestat doesn’t blink. His voice stays level.

“I want something permanent. We could be a real family. You could be my companion.”

Louis studies him. Expression flat.

“You want a different version of the past.” He moves another piece. Too fast. Too hard. “Let me talk to my family.”

That’s what cracks Lestat’s face. Slightly, but it’s there.

“No.”

“One call.”

“No.”

Louis doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t have to.

“You said they think I needed space. So what’s the risk?”

Lestat stands. Smooth. The table nearly topples.

“I’m afraid their voices will undo you. That they’ll make you believe you were whole before.”

Louis stands too.

“There’s nothing left to undo. You already did that.”

Lestat steps closer.

“You don’t belong to that life anymore.”

“I will never belong here.”

“You survived this. That makes you different.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

Louis is tired. Down to the bones. He says it without shame.

“I’m tired.”

They’re close now. Breathing the same air.

Lestat’s eyes burn. His voice lowers.

“If you speak to them, I lose you.”

Louis doesn’t back down.

“You never had me.”

That ends it.

Lestat leaves without a word. He’s gone in the blink of an eye, but Louis can feel the simmering rage. 

So he stays.

Staring at the empty chair. Wishing it would do something.

Tear. Shatter. Bite. Anything.

-

The next time they see each other, it’s in the music room.

Lestat’s at the piano. Fingers moving slow across the keys. Something minor. No shape to it. Just sound for the sake of sound. He doesn’t look up. But he knows Louis is there. The notes shift—softer now, like the room’s been reset for conversation.

Louis stands in the doorway, arms crossed.

“How many were there?” he asks. “The women. The ones who volunteered. How many vampires have you made?”

The melody falters. Abruptly. One wrong note.

Lestat doesn’t answer right away. Normally he’d smile. Start talking. Names, years, cities. His voice full of nostalgia, pride tucked into the corners of it like an inside joke.

But not this time.

He stops playing.

Hands stay on the keys. Not moving.

For a while the vampire doesn’t speak until: “For every question you want answered, I get to kiss you.”

Louis blinks. The silence holds.

Then he laughs. Dry. No humor in it. “You really think I care that much about your stories?”

Now Lestat turns. His face is unreadable.

“I don’t need your affection,” he says. “I want something. A trade.”

Louis sighs. He’s almost disappointed by how predictable Lestat has become. 

“A kiss for a fact,” he says. “That’s where we’re at now?”

Lestat stands away from the piano. “You wouldn’t ask if you didn’t care.”

“And you wouldn’t be bargaining if you weren’t desperate.”

The silence stretches. Piano behind them, quiet now. One last note still ringing under the surface.

Louis steps forward.

“Fine,” he says. “Tell me how many women you locked away. How many said yes before they understood what it meant. How many made it out.”

Lestat doesn’t smile.

He steps forward too. Stops close.

“One kiss first.”

Louis’s mouth tightens, but he doesn’t argue. “I said fine.”

He doesn’t move.

Doesn’t meet his eyes. Doesn’t flinch either.

Lestat steps forward slowly, watching for any sign that he’s misjudged the distance. His hand lifts and his fingertips graze Louis’s cheek. The touch is featherlight, more a suggestion than a claim. His nails are long and sharpened, and he’s careful not to let them scratch. He cups the side of Louis’s face with something bordering on obsessive.

Then he leans in.

Their mouths touch.

Louis stays still. No answering pressure. No softening. His lips remain pressed together, closed off and impassive. His breath halts, chest barely rising. His body is a statue of compliance, not consent - stiff shoulders, jaw locked, a single muscle twitching near his temple.

Lestat doesn’t pull away.

His mouth moves, slow and coaxing. The kiss isn’t rough or urgent. It’s deliberate, coaxing, almost tender. He tilts his head, deepening it by degrees, lips working gently as if trying to breathe life into stone. His thumb brushes along Louis’s jaw.

Still, Louis doesn’t respond. He lets it happen. Endures it. But he won’t give it back.

When Lestat finally draws away, he stays close. His face hovers inches from Louis’s. Breath stirring the air between them.

Louis turns his head.

The movement is small. Final.

His voice is low and flat. “Answer the question.”

Lestat exhales slowly. The warmth of it brushes Louis’s skin.

A beat of silence.

“Thirty-two women.”

Louis isn’t surprised by the low number. He suspects this child bearing fixation happened in the last five hundred years or so. 

“Fifteen made it past the first couple of years. Six had potential. Two survived more than ten years.” His voice tightens around the last part. “None are alive now. My last attempt at a child was two centuries ago.”

Louis frowns. His jaw shifts, but he says nothing.

Lestat watches him. Waiting. Not for forgiveness. For judgment. But he doesn’t sound proud or sorry either.

Louis swallows. Doesn’t show it. The words sink into him because he’s unlucky number thirty-three.

“And the vampires?”

Lestat looks up. “That’s another question.”

Frowning, Louis says, “Then take another kiss.”

Lestat steps closer again. Slower. Watching his face. He doesn’t ask permission. He already has it. He cups Louis’s jaw. “You are very precious to me,” he murmurs.

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Louis says nothing.

Lestat kisses him again. Longer this time. Slower. There’s pressure now. Heat. He takes his time with it—lower lip, then upper. His tongue presses gently forward, testing. Giving his mouth wet, grazing his teeth hoping that his tongue can enter. 

Louis doesn’t open.

Doesn’t meet him.

But he lets him. Again.

Lets Lestat press forward, take what he wants, move like it’s mutual.

Louis’s hands stay at his sides. His breath holds steady. His eyes almost flutter closed.

Because he feels everything.

But he gives nothing.

When Lestat pulls back, it’s gradual. His mouth hovers. He waits for something that doesn’t come.

Louis turns his face again. Refuses to admit that if he wanted to, he could’ve been the kiss good.

“How many vampires?”

Lestat straightens. Licks his own mouth. There’s specks of red in his blue infinite eyes now. 

“Nine, directly. More by extension. I stopped counting. I only remember the ones who disappointed me.”

Louis’s voice is sharp now. “And how many didn’t?”

Lestat’s smile is thin. Almost gentle. “One.”

Louis doesn’t ask who. He already knows. Instead he wipes his mouth like there’s something left there he can’t see.

“You’re a weird kisser,” he says. He didn’t mean to say it aloud. 

Lestat raises an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“You kiss with your eyes open.”

Lestat looks offended. “That’s what you noticed?”

Louis shrugs. “I didn’t kiss back so it was more unsettling.”

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to see you.”

“During?”

“Yes. During.”

Louis stares. “You’re a creeper. More so than usual.”

Lestat crosses his arms. His pride is wounded now. “Do you want me to close them next time?”

“There won’t be a next time.”

Lestat smiles. Not wide. Not certain. Just enough to say he doesn’t believe him. He doesn’t argue. Doesn’t push. But he says, almost soft, “You did kiss back a little.”

Louis doesn’t answer and he turns away quickly. Lestat could be lying to unnerve him. 

But his heart skips for some reason.

-

Later that night, the door clicks open.

Louis doesn’t look up at first. He’s in bed, back against the headboard, blanket pulled around his shoulders. A book lies open in his lap, but he hasn’t turned the page in twenty minutes. His eyes skim the same line again and again. It won’t stick.

The fire’s gone low. Shadows crawl across the walls. The corners of the room feel farther away than they did an hour ago.

Lestat enters. Calm. Smug. Like he always is when he’s about to get something he wants. But there’s a glint in his eye he hasn’t managed to hide. Not quite a smile, something sharper. Something close to giddiness.

In his hand is a phone.

Louis’s phone.

His breath catches. Not a full gasp. But enough to shake the peace of the night.

Lestat holds it up. The screen flashes dark in the firelight.

“I’ve decided to allow one call,” he announces. “Three minutes. To whoever you choose.”

Louis is halfway off the bed before he even finishes speaking. His knees hit the mattress hard. “Give it to me.”

But Lestat lifts the phone slightly. Out of reach. Controlled.

“Ah, ah,” His voice is quiet, almost teasing. His happiness is radiating off of him in waves. “You’re forgetting something.”

“What?”

Lestat’s eyes narrow as he speaks.
“A trade,” he says. “A kiss for a question. A call for something else.”

Louis goes rigid. His heartbeat is too loud in his ears.

“You said you wanted to make love to me,” he says. The words don’t sound like his own. “Now it’s a deal?”

“I offered closeness,” Lestat says, his earlier amusement fractured. “You turned it into a bargain. That was your decision, not mine.”

Louis doesn’t answer, too shocked to speak. 

“Since the beginning,” Lestat continues, louder now, “you’ve responded with conditions. No, Lestat, I don’t want sex, I want artificial insemination. No, Lestat, I won’t eat what you made. No, Lestat, I don’t want your child. Again and again, you say no.”

His voice sharpens.

“And now you act like I’m the one withholding? I’ve asked for you over and over. I’ve tried to be close. I’ve tried to share my stories so you can learn. And every time, you pushed me away.”

Louis’s fingers tighten slightly. He’s not afraid of Lestat but he can feel the mounting, unfiltered rage. It almost suffocates him. 

Lestat takes another step.

“You said no so often that I stopped expecting anything else. You set the rules. You created the distance. And now you want to say it’s me?”

His hands are at his sides, shaking. He has a lisp now, like his fangs are forcing their way out.

“If I want you too much, that’s because you made me wait. You gave nothing and expected me to stay calm. But I’m not calm anymore.”

He breathes out. His voice is quieter again, but oddly tense.

“You think I’m asking too much. But I’ve been asking the same thing since the start. I want you. And I want you to stop pretending that you don’t know that.”

Louis’s hands curl into fists under the blanket. His jaw shifts, clenched too tight to answer right away.

“You’re blaming your perversions on me?” he says. “You’re disgusting. And shameless.”

“Call me what you want,” Lestat says. His voice is flat. “But I’m being direct. You want three minutes on your phone?” He lifts it again. “Then say yes. Mean it. Once. That’s all.”

Louis doesn’t move. He stares at the phone in Lestat’s hand. The light from the screen glows softly in the room. It looks normal. Reachable. He could take it. Break it. Yell. Walk out.

But he doesn’t.

Because the chance to make that call, he can feel it in his chest, hope and home. It’s all he’s wanted for days.

Three minutes.

He already knows what he’s going to say. That’s the part he hates.

His chest rises. His breath is uneven. He looks at Lestat and gives a small nod.

“The time starts when they pick up,” he says quickly.

Lestat’s expression changes. Not a smile. Not victory. Just something quieter. Settled. Someone who knew they were going to win. 

He holds out the phone.

Louis takes it fast. His grip is tight. His fingers tremble as he unlocks the screen. It hasn’t been cleared. The call log and names are all there.

Grace. Paul. Mom.

His breath catches again.

Grace would know what to do. Would yell, demand, drive to wherever she thought he was. She’d break the silence wide open.

Paul... he’d cry. He’d pray. But it would feel hollow. Like words in the wrong language.

Louis hesitates. His thumb hovers.

Then he taps.

Mom.

He brings the phone to his ear.

It rings once.

Don’t pick up.

Twice.

Pick up.

Three times.

Don’t pick up. Please pick up. Don’t. 

And then -

Click.

“Hello?”

The voice is maternal. Awake. Already on edge.

“Who is this? Why do you have my son’s phone?”

Louis’s mouth opens. Nothing comes out. He’s waited weeks for this but now there’s a chance, he doesn’t know what to say. What can he say? How can he sum up what he feels in three minutes? 

The silence stretches. Then again:

“Hello?”

He swallows. Hard. Tries to speak. Tries to find his voice.

“Is someone there?”

His hand is slick where it grips the phone. He wipes it against his thigh. His chest tightens.

“Who is this?” she says louder, the fear bleeding in now. “If this is some kind of joke, I swear to God—”

“It’s me,” he whispers. The words cut at the edges as they leave him.

Everything goes still.

Then her voice cracks.

“Louis?”

He closes his eyes. One tear slips free and trails down the side of his face. He lets it.

“Oh my God. Louis. Where are you? Where have you been? Are you hurt? Tell me where you are. We’ll come get you, baby. Please. Just say something. Please.”

He opens his mouth. He wants to say everything—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to leave. I didn’t have a choice. I love you. He wants to say it all at once. But nothing forms.

His jaw trembles. His throat locks.

“I—” he starts.

But he doesn’t finish.

“Louis.” She’s crying now. “Just tell me you're okay. Please. Please. Say anything. Just let me hear your voice.”

His hand moves to his face. Wipes the tear away. He’s never heard her cry before. I love you, he mouths into the phone and ends the call until the phone powers off. He couldn’t bear it if she called back. 

The screen goes black.

His own reflection stares back at him. Hollow-eyed. He lowers the phone to the bedside table, like it might break the world if he drops it.

He doesn’t think about anything for a long minute.

Lestat stays where he is.

Watching.

He hasn’t moved. But there’s something different in his face now. Not gloating. Not gentle. A horrible awareness of witnessing the moment something came apart.

Like he’s keeping track.

Louis keeps his eyes on the fire.

The cypress trees rustle outside. Wind taps against the glass. The warmth in the room feels distant.

“I hope that was worth it,” Lestat says finally. His voice is soft. But not kind. 

Louis turns his head away. “You’re despicable,” he says, wiping his face free of tears. “The way you twist things. I hope you die.”

“You’re too late,” Lestat says quickly, uncaring because his mind is already on one thing. “Take off the blanket and spread your legs. We had a deal.”

“You knew I wouldn’t be able to say anything,” Louis says. His voice cracks halfway through. “Why give me hope?”

“I warned you,” Lestat says. “You didn’t listen. He pauses. “And I would do anything to get inside you again. Truthfully, your hope is meaningless to me.”

Louis swallows. It burns going down.

“I didn’t agree to anything.”

“You nodded,” Lestat says hotly.

“That wasn’t—”

“You knew what it meant,” Lestat says, eyes hard. “You won’t pretend now. You owe me. Pay your debt.”

Louis looks up at him.

There’s no fire in it. No resistance. Just the dull weight of understanding.

“You’re a monster,” he says. Again. Softer.

Lestat doesn’t blink.

“Yes,” he says. “And this monster will live in you.”

He lifts a hand. Places it on the edge of the blanket over Louis’s shoulder. Doesn’t pull.

“Take it off,” he says. “Let me see you.”

Louis’s breath catches. But he doesn’t listen.

“You can’t stand being told no,” he croaks, voice strained. “That’s what this is.”

Lestat smiles faintly. Not with joy. With victory.

“You hung up,” he says. “And you know they’d never look at you the same again. Not after this. Even if you make it home.” His eyes narrow. “Every time you close your eyes, you’ll see me. Including tonight.”

Louis exhales. It’s almost a laugh. But it falls apart halfway through. “And what now?” he says. “You want me to tell you you’re right?”

Lestat leans in. Close. His breath brushes Louis’s face.

“I want to touch you,” he says. “That, Louis, is now my right.”

Louis closes his eyes. His chest rises. Falls.

Then he moves.

The blanket slides from his shoulders. It gathers around his waist in a soft heap. His skin is bare beneath it, fresh from his earlier bath. Marked only by breath and the dim flicker of the firelight.

The glow brushes over his collarbones, over the hollow of his throat, the fragile curve of his chest. His arms stay at his sides, tense. Every inch of him braced for something unnamed.

Lestat watches.

His eyes move—slow, savoring—from Louis’s face down the line of his body, then back up again. Not hungry. Not proud. Something worse. Something that sees too much and says nothing.

“I missed you today,” he says.

Louis narrows his eyes, trying not to punch him. 

“You had me locked in this room.”

Lestat nods, like that doesn’t change anything. “And I still missed you.”

He kneels. One on the carpet. The other bent.

His hand lifts. Brushes lightly against Louis’s knee. Not forceful. Not yet. Just contact. The kind meant to root someone in place.

Louis stares at him.

The quiet fills everything. It presses into the walls, the corners of the room, the space between his bones. He doesn’t say it out loud, but it’s there. The hate. The need. The fact that he doesn’t know how to feel safe without pain anymore.

“You always get what you want,” Louis realizes, bitter.

Lestat’s smile fades.

“No,” he says. “Not always.”

He leans in.

Presses his lips to the center of Louis’s chest.

A kiss. Nothing more.

But Louis feels it like heat through gauze. Blunt. Unavoidable. His breath catches. The room tightens.

Lestat stays there, mouth resting just below his collarbone. Breathing softly. Not speaking, miraculously.

Then, barely above a whisper:

“You taste like the sun,” he says. “Something warm I shouldn't have. I would kill anyone, even God himself, if it meant I got to keep you.”

Louis shivers. Not from the cold or fear. Something else - worse. The way his body responds to being seen. To being touched like this, slow and unearned.

Lestat lifts his head.

His eyes are bright now. Focused. A kind of hunger that isn’t about feeding. Not tonight.

“I’m aching to make you come,” he whispers. “No negotiations. No terms. I never needed patience until I met you.”

Louis’s breath stutters.

“I could,” Lestat goes on. His fingers drag lightly along Louis’s thigh. Barely touching. “Right here. Right now. You wouldn’t need to do anything.” His hand moves to Louis’s stomach. Spreads flat across the skin. “You’d be beautiful like that,” he says. “Ruined. Quiet. Mine. Say yes.”

Louis bites the inside of his cheek. Feels the sting. The taste.

But he doesn’t push Lestat away.

Doesn’t move forward either.

The war’s in his chest now. Want curling tight around the part of him that still remembers refusal. Still remembers control. Still thinks he could mean something beyond this.

Lestat leans close. His mouth near Louis’s ear.

“You don’t have to lie. You’re starving.”

Louis swallows. It sounds too loud in the quiet.

“And if I am?” he asks. A whisper. Nothing more.

Lestat’s smile is slow. Expectant.

“Then let me feed you.”

He rises.

The fire flickers behind him—molten orange against bare walls. His silhouette glows at the edges. But he doesn't move forward.

He watches Louis.

Long. Careful. Like he’s testing for weakness. Measuring out how far he can go.

Then he reaches for his shirt.

One button at a time. Unfastened. Slow. No performance in it. No show. Just stripping himself down because it's the only honest thing he has left to offer.

The shirt slips off his shoulders. Drops to the floor.

Then the belt.

Metal clicks. Soft. Final.

Zipper next. That quiet slide of undone fabric. The room is deadly quiet. There’s no noise from outside. 

Lestat lowers his pants. Steps out of them. His cock springs free. 

He stands naked before the firelight. 

Louis looks. Not because he wants to. Not because he doesn’t. Because he has to.

Lestat’s skin is pale. No pulse or breath. His chest doesn’t rise. Doesn’t fall. He looks carved.

But that’s not what Louis sees first.

He sees the scars.

Small. Nearly invisible unless you know to look. One under the ribs. Another higher on the hip. Faint, but deep. The kind that weren’t supposed to heal. The kind that meant something had to be endured.

Lestat doesn’t explain them. Doesn’t name them.

He just lets them show.

And Louis watches.

Because for once, Lestat isn’t performing.

He’s standing there, bare, letting himself be seen. Not worshiped. Not obeyed.

Chosen.

Maybe.

He tilts his head.

“Well?” His voice is low. Roughened by quiet. “Do you want me to stop?”

Louis doesn’t answer. Not with words. Not with touch.

He breathes.

He looks.

And he stays calm.

He just breathes—shallow, shaking—and reaches for him. Louis’s hand hovers between them, but his voice is steel when he finally speaks.

“I’m not going to orgasm.”

Lestat pauses, one knee already braced on the mattress. His eyes lift, sharp and curious.

Louis’s jaw tightens. “It’s not desire. It’s not pleasure. It’s painful.” His voice is low, ragged. “That’s what you don’t understand. I will never want to have sex with you.”

Lestat says nothing at first. He simply watches him; head tilted, studying every line of Louis’s face, every taut muscle. He doesn’t look offended. He looks… moved. Inconveniently.

“I understand more than you think,” he says at last. “You ache so much you can’t tell the difference anymore.”

Louis’s mouth opens, but nothing comes out. Lestat’s hand is already on him - soft, ghosting along the inside of his thigh, stroking through the tremble.

“I know it hurts,” Lestat whispers, dragging the blanket slowly down, exposing him inch by inch. “But let me reframe it for you.”

A gentle force pushes Louis back on the bed and Louis’s breath catches as his legs spread open against his will. He’s dragged to the edge in front of Lestat’s face. 

“I’m not trying to take your pain,” Lestat says, mouth so close now it brushes the skin of his upper thigh. “I want to make it sing.”

He lowers his head.

Louis tenses, but he doesn’t stop him. Doesn’t dare breathe.

Lestat’s mouth settles between his legs, determined and purposeful. He doesn’t rush. Each movement is slow, focused. His lips press to skin with care, and his tongue follows, gentle and warm against his cunt. It makes Louis’s breath hitch. He tries to hold himself together, but his body responds before he can stop it.

Lestat licks again, slower this time, his hands gripping Louis’s thighs to keep him open. His touch is exact, not hesitant. His mouth moves like he knows what he’s doing, and he wants to do it right. Thousands of years of practice. He lingers over each pass of his tongue, flattening it, pressing deeper, adjusting when Louis flinches or gasps.

Louis’s eyes squeeze shut. His legs tremble. His stomach tightens. He grips the sheets without realizing it.

“It’s not—” he says, voice raw, “Lestat, don’t—”

Lestat hums against him, mouth never lifting. The sound is quiet, low in his throat. His hands hold firm, pulling Louis closer. His tongue moves again, circling and pressing until Louis’s hips shift without permission. Every stroke pulls him deeper into sensation, erasing whatever argument he meant to make.

He desperately tries to think of anything else. To focus on how horrible this truly is but for the first time he’s been here, he can’t focus on anything but the sensation. 

Lestat works slowly, lips dragging over wet heat, tongue pressing in exact rhythm. He flicks against the clit, then drags down again, back and forth, consistent. A creature who can never tire. Each time Louis tries to hold back, it breaks through him again. His body is shaking, not from cold or fear, but from the intensity of being touched with that much attention.

“You will come,” Lestat promises, voice low. “And when you do—” he presses his mouth in again, “you’ll understand what you’ve been saying no to. No one outruns their fate.”

Louis tries to breathe through it. He turns his face to the side. The shame coils in his gut, but the pleasure keeps rising. His thighs are shaking. His breath stutters. He wants to stop, to pull away, to regain control, but his body is already past that point.

It comes fast. His hips jerk, and the release tears through him in full-body pulses. A sound escapes him, too loud in the room. His hands twist in the sheets. His back arches. His mouth opens around Lestat’s name. It all rushes out of him in one huge wave. 

When it ends, he stays still. His legs are weak. His chest is rising too fast. His skin is hot.

Lestat pulls back slowly. He licks his lips once, gaze focused on Louis’s face. He doesn’t say anything at first. His face is wet from - 

Louis turns his head away. He doesn’t want to see the expression on Lestat’s face. He tries to speak, but his voice cracks. “I didn’t mean…”

The words fall apart before they finish.

Lestat moves up beside him, not touching him yet. His voice is quiet.

“Don’t apologize. That was beautiful.”

Louis shakes his head once, eyes squeezed shut. “Don’t say things like that.”

Because he’s mortified.

His body still trembles with the aftershocks, the sharp, uninvited pleasure of it, and it disgusts him. Or it should. But it doesn’t. Not completely.

Lestat just watches him for a moment, gaze soft, almost unbearably so. His hair has fallen into his face. His mouth is parted, still damp. He doesn’t speak again. He moves.

He climbs onto the bed, careful not to jostle Louis’s body. His skin is warm where it presses against him, bare chest to chest, thigh slipping between Louis’s legs. The drag of his body is slow. Intentional. Certain.

He’s hard.

The weight of it rests against Louis’s thigh, thick and hot, the length of him slick from how long he’s been holding back. There’s a wetness at the tip, leaking onto skin already sticky with sweat and slick and the remnants of Louis’s release.

Lestat doesn’t rush.

He bends his head and kisses Louis’s throat. Then his shoulder. His mouth lingers at the edge of his collarbone, lips soft, breath steady. His hand traces Louis’s side, sliding from rib to hip. He doesn’t squeeze. He holds.

“I’m going to fuck you now,” he whispers against his skin. His mouth is so close, the words seem to sink straight into him. “Slowly. The way I should have, the first time.”

Louis tenses. Not visibly, but enough for Lestat to feel it. His body stiffens just beneath the surface, the way someone flinches in sleep. It doesn’t last.

Lestat’s hands are already there, coaxing him open. One at his thigh. One cradling the base of his spine. His voice doesn’t waver. He speaks into the shell of his ear.

“You’re ready,” he says. “I can feel how wet you are.”

He strokes him there, fingers moving through the slick with quiet reverence, spreading it back over Louis’s cunt, watching him shiver. The touch isn’t rough. It’s not teasing, not cruel. It’s enough to remind him how open he already is.

Then he pulls his hand away, shifting forward.

When he presses in—slow, careful—it burns. Not because he’s forcing it, but because Lestat is thick, and Louis is still stretched from before, wet but sensitive, nerves raw and humming.

The head of Lestat’s cock pushes inside, and Louis gasps, his hand gripping the blanket beneath him.

Lestat groans softly, hips angled low, the length of him sinking in inch by inch. He doesn’t thrust. He invades.

The stretch toes that fine line between too much and just enough. Louis squeezes his eyes shut. His legs twitch around Lestat’s waist. But it’s not pain that makes his body tighten, it’s the sweetness of being filled like this. Fully. Slowly. Thoroughly.

Lestat’s hands never leave him.

One stays firm at his hip. The other settles against his belly, pressing there lightly, grounding him. He leans in close, breath warm against Louis’s jaw.

“God,” he breathes. “You’re so tight like this. You take me so well.”

Louis doesn’t answer. His throat is tight. His body is trembling again, but this time from something quieter, deeper. The feeling of being opened without being taken apart. Of being known.

Lestat begins to move. He rocks into him in slow, deep strokes, hips pulling back far enough before pushing forward again. The rhythm is patient. Unnerving. Each thrust sinks into the same place, dragging over nerves already lit up from before.

Louis’s mouth falls open. His breath stutters. He clings to the bed, not because he’s being held down, but because there’s nothing else to hold on to. Each time Lestat pushes in, it fills something that’s never felt full in the right way. Not like this.

“I told you,” Lestat murmurs, voice low, smug. “You’d learn the difference.”

Louis turns his face into the pillow. He doesn’t speak. He can’t.

His body is too full of it—of him—of the pressure that builds without violence, of the rhythm that doesn’t seek to hurt or punish or consume. It’s slower than anything he’s been given before. And somehow, that’s what makes it so hard to take.

Because it means something.

Because it doesn’t pretend not to.

Lestat keeps moving inside him, breath catching every time Louis clenches. His hand strokes down Louis’s thigh, then back to his hip. He stays close, hips pressing forward with the same aching control, never faltering.

Louis’s body begins to shake again. Not from fear. From the slow, unbearable build. His cunt clenches around Lestat with every deep roll of his hips, overstimulated and soaked. He can feel every inch of him.

And for once, it doesn’t feel like breaking.

It feels like being undone. On purpose. Piece by piece, until there’s nothing left to hide.

Lestat thrusts into him slow and steady, each movement dragging through slick heat. The rhythm doesn’t falter. It builds with precision, controlled and focused, and the pressure in Louis’s body coils tighter with every stroke. It digs deep into his gut, sharp and intolerable, until there’s no clarity left, only sensation. His toes curl. His legs tremor. The pleasure isn’t soft anymore. It’s dense. Blinding.

“I—I can’t,” Louis gasps, voice hoarse and broken. “Lestat—stop, I—I have to pee—”

He’s shaking. His hands push at the sheets. He tries to squirm away, hips lifting off the bed in panic. His legs won’t cooperate. His body is soaked and overstimulated and overwhelmed.

But Lestat doesn’t relent. He presses in deeper, more grounding than forceful. One hand smooths up Louis’s chest, anchoring him. His mouth finds Louis’s ear, breath warm and devastating.

“You don’t,” he murmurs. “Not really. That’s not what that is.”

Louis lets out a fractured sound. It’s not quite a protest. Not quite a sob. “Please—I need—this feels—wrong—”

Lestat kisses his temple, kindly and maddening in its softness. His hips keep moving, full and thick. The rhythm is perfected. It drags across every raw nerve until Louis doesn’t know where pain ends and pleasure begins.

“It’s not wrong,” Lestat whispers. “It’s just you. You’re overwhelmed.”

Louis reaches for his wrist, fingers clutching but without strength. The plea is real, but unraveling. “Please, I—God, I can’t—just pull out—”

Lestat shushes, almost amused. His grip tightens to keep Louis grounded. He shifts his angle and pushes deeper, hitting something inside that pulls a noise from Louis’s throat he didn’t mean to make. A moan, choked and high, full of betrayal.

“I’m not embarrassed of anything that comes from you,” Lestat says, voice quiet, horrible. “If you have to let go, let go. If you come, you come. Don’t fight it.”

Louis chokes on a cry. It slips out before he can hold it in. His body convulses, hips bucking, breath catching in his throat. He comes again. Uncontrolled. Sudden. It rips out of him too fast, too much, and he doesn’t know what part of him broke open to let it happen.

It’s wet. Messy. His thighs jerk. His back arches. He gasps like he’s drowning. His voice cracks on something close to a sob.

Lestat doesn’t stop. He moves through it, holding Louis as the aftershocks tear through him. His body keeps going, slow and sure, even as Louis gasps and clutches the sheets, every inch of him shaking. Another orgasm pulls itself out of him. Then another. His cries turn to breathless whimpers. He can’t stop shaking. His legs won’t stay still. Tears burn hot down his cheeks. He’s unraveling with every thrust, and Lestat stays close, murmuring into the skin of his shoulder.

“Yes, just like that,” he says, voice tender. “You’re perfect like this… I’ve got you.”

Louis doesn’t know when it ends. Only that his body has nothing left to give. His chest heaves. His cunt throbs with every twitch of his muscles. He’s uncomfortable and exhausted. Sore. Empty and full all at once.

Lestat is still inside him. Still hard. Still holding him gently, like Louis might slip through the mattress if he lets go.

Louis lies there, boneless, heart racing. The sweat clings to his skin. Every inch of him aches. His thighs are slick. His body feels strange, too sensitive, too loose, too raw.

And worst of all, he’s still reacting.

Lestat shifts, just slightly, and Louis’s breath catches again. His body clenches involuntarily around him. Every drag of Lestat’s cock now feels unbearable. He can’t take more. But he still wants. Or his body does.

“I didn’t want this,” Louis rasps. His voice is cracked, almost inaudible. “Lestat—this isn’t what I wanted—”

The words are small. The shame in them is huge.

Lestat brushes the sweat-damp curls from Louis’s forehead. His lips press to his temple, not demanding. Not triumphant. Just there.

“Shhh,” he says. “You’re perfect. So perfect. You have a good pussy…”

Louis shakes his head, barely able to move. “Please… don’t talk…”

But Lestat does. He keeps speaking, voice low and soothing. Loving. Possessive.

And Louis lies still, trembling, every part of him flooded and used and impossibly, heartbreakingly alive.

“The only time I’ll ever pull out of you again…”
His mouth brushes Louis’s ear, breath hot and steady. “…is when our child slips from between your legs.”

What the fuck? Louis stiffens like he’s been struck. His entire body goes taut. His breath catches in his throat and doesn’t come back. Time stops, or feels like it does. Something sharp cuts through his gut, sharp enough to make him forget how to move. Not arousal. Not quite revulsion. Not anything he can name. Just shock. Raw and physical. Primal.

His stomach knots. His thighs twitch. He turns his face to look at Lestat, eyes wide, mouth parted in protest, but the words don’t make it out. His lips move. Nothing follows.

Lestat watches him, gaze fevered and shining, dark with want. Possession. His hand moves slowly along the inside of Louis’s cunt, up and down, spreading slickness. His touch is unhurried, coaxing the idea deeper into skin.

“You’d look beautiful pregnant,” he breathes. His voice drops lower, more serene. “Heavy with what I put in you. Full. Soft. Mine.”

Louis’s breath stutters.

He should push him away. Should say no. Should bare his teeth and spit the words back at him. But he doesn’t. He can’t. His body doesn’t listen.

It responds.

The words. The weight of them. The image. The claim. It scrapes something inside him raw, drags out another unbearable wave. His back arches without warning. A cry tears from his throat—shocked, guttural. His whole body seizes as another orgasm slams through him, harder and messier than the last. It rips through him in waves, each one more humiliating than the last. He’s crying out, shaking, coming too hard, too much.

Lestat groans at the way Louis clenches around him. His voice is rough with awe.

Louis is trembling, legs shaking. Sobs break in his throat, but he can’t stop. He’s not in control. And Lestat—still inside him—doesn’t pull away. Doesn’t offer relief or space or peace.

Instead, he moves slower. Less urgency now. No rush. Just the deep, sensual drag of his cock stroking in and out, thick and hot and huge. His hips roll with a impossible patience, each thrust precise. Pressing deeper. Sinking in fully, again and again. Not to chase a high, but to stay inside the moment.

The air is weighed with sweat, the musky heat of them clinging to every surface. Louis’s skin is flushed and damp. His chest heaves with every shallow breath, lips parted, eyes wet and distant. He’s motionless beneath Lestat, boneless and pliant, legs still open and shaking.

Lestat doesn’t look away. He studies him—his ruined face, the redness in his cheeks, the wetness on his lashes. He moves one hand to Louis’s face and traces his cheek with the backs of his knuckles.

“You’re perfect like this,” he whispers. “Perhaps when our first child is born, they will need a sibling.”

Louis swallows hard. His throat burns. There’s no fight left in him. But inside all the exhaustion and heat, something deeper flickers. A sick, secret note of acceptance. Not consent. Not forgiveness. Something older. Something that doesn’t need words.

Lestat leans down, kissing his neck, his shoulder, then his mouth. Slow, unearned kisses. Not demanding. Not cruel. But claiming, down to the root.

He rocks his hips again, and Louis moans. The sound is soft. Unwilling. Real. His hands curl into the sheets, fingers flexing.

“You feel like you were made for this,” Lestat murmurs, dragging his lips over Louis’s jaw. “Made for me.”

Louis turns his face away, but Lestat follows. He presses their foreheads together, breath mingling, and whispers the next part directly into the air between them.

“I’ll never get tired of you. Of this. I could live inside you.”

When he starts to move again—slow, rhythmic, anchored—it’s almost unbearable. Louis flinches. His body tries to resist, but it’s too late. Every inch of him is raw and open. The pleasure has gone molten, endless.

It builds again, quiet and slow and devastating.

And when Lestat finally comes, it’s with a groan that sounds animalistic. His arms lock around Louis’s hips. He thrusts deep, stays buried, his cock twitching inside him with long, thick pulses. Louis feels it all. The heat, the fullness, the undeniable weight of it.

Lestat stays there, chest pressed against Louis’s, breathing hard. He doesn’t pull out. His arms circle Louis’s waist, hands moving in slow, absentminded circles along his sides. He holds him there like something rare. Something his.

“You were meant to be mine,” he whispers into his skin, voice worn. “And now you are.”

Louis doesn’t respond as his body is shaking, wet and stretched and filled. The mess between his thighs makes it impossible to ignore. The ache in his hips. The shame curling hot in his chest.

His eyes flutter closed. He doesn’t speak as the fire has burned low.

Only embers now—dim and red, casting their light in slow, rhythmic pulses across the room. They touch the edge of the dresser. The heel of a discarded shoe. The tangled sheets. The sweat-slicked skin of the man lying motionless in the center of the bed.

Louis breathes quietly. Each inhale shallow, faint. His chest rises and falls with effort he’s not aware of. His limbs lie heavy and loose, boneless beneath the weight above him.

Lestat hasn’t moved.

He’s still inside him. Still deep. Still impossibly close.

One of his hands strokes Louis’s side with the barest pressure, the drag of his fingers tender and slow. The other rests at Louis’s waist, palm wide and massive. His touch isn’t demanding anymore. It’s quieter. Hungrier in a way that has nothing to do with lust. A hunger made of memory. Of need.

Possession without violence. Hunger without cruelty.

“You feel it, don’t you,” Lestat murmurs into the hush.

Louis doesn’t answer. Doesn’t open his eyes.

“You’re mine,” Lestat whispers. “Not just in this bed. Not just in your body.”

He leans forward. His lips brush Louis’s cheek, hot with sweat. Gentle.

“But in every breath. Every choice. Every silence. You’re already gone from the life you think you’re trying to return to.”

A beat of silence passes. Then Louis’s fingers curl slightly in the sheet. A small gesture. Automatic.

“I’m not,” he says, voice wrecked, barely above a breath. Sleep looms over. “I haven’t given you everything.”

Lestat hums low in his throat. It isn’t mocking.

“No. Not yet.”

He rolls his hips once. Slow. Deep. The motion is subtle but jolts him awake - pure intimacy, without rush or friction. Louis’s breath stutters. His toes twitch.

“But you will.”

Louis flinches—not from pain, not from fear. It’s smaller than that. A twitch of muscle, a quiet betrayal of truth. The inevitability has taken root somewhere deeper than his will.

Lestat kisses the corner of his mouth, lips barely brushing flushed skin. “There’s no shame here, mon amour. Not with me. I want every part of you, even the ones you hate. Especially those.”

“You don’t understand,” Louis says. His eyes open at last. They’re dark, glassy, wet at the edges. He looks up at the ceiling like it might offer an answer.

“You can’t.”

“I understand more than you want me to,” Lestat replies. “And I’ll keep showing you. Every night if I have to.”

He shifts slightly. The slickness between them pulls, obscene and wet, every nerve in Louis’s body still raw from overstimulation.

Louis gasps, sharp and quiet. His body jerks under the sensitivity, then stills again.

Lestat doesn’t pull out.

“I’ll remind you who you are. What you need. Where you belong.” His voice is reassuring. Certain.

He lowers himself further, chest to chest now, breath shared.

“I’m going to stay inside you,” he says. “Until morning, if I can. Until your body forgets what it feels like to be empty.”

Louis turns his face to the side, toward the shadowed wall. He can’t look at him. He can barely think.

Humiliation burns beneath his skin, but so does something else. And he doesn’t push Lestat away.

He doesn’t move at all.

Lestat’s arms tighten around him—not to trap him, not to force. But to hold. His hands draw lazy shapes against Louis’s ribs, easing the aftershocks. His nose presses gently into Louis’s damp hair.

“You don’t have to love me,” he whispers. “But you will need me.”

Louis doesn’t argue.

He feels too full and aching, heart loud in his ears, throat too tight to speak. His body is flushed and marked, claimed in ways that go deeper than skin.

And in the soft heat of the dying fire, as Lestat holds him close and breathes him in like prayer -

He’s haunted by the terrifying possibility that Lestat might be right.

The fire is nothing but a faint ghost of itself by the time morning arrives. The last embers have cooled into silence. No scent of smoke lingers in the air, only the chill of a room returned to stillness. A pale, honest light filters through the curtains, the kind of light that does not flatter, does not soften. It comes in quiet, unyielding, and sees everything.

Louis wakes in stages, as though surfacing from a depth he never meant to reach. His limbs are heavy, weighed down by the aftermath. Every joint, every tendon has its own ache. There’s a soreness tucked into the very hinge of him, a tenderness deep in the hips, in the base of his spine, places that remind him - wordlessly - of how the night ended.

He shifts slightly, and the presence behind him anchors him in place. Lestat’s body is pressed close, chest to back, arms gathered around his middle in a grip that feels less like comfort and more like possession.

Louis freezes.

Lestat is still inside him.

Memory catches up, not in a rush but in fragments. The echo of a ringtone. His mom’s voice on the other end. The agreement made with no real choices left to make. The moment he gave up—no, gave in. The press of hands, of mouth, of breath. The unbearable precision with which Lestat had stripped him down—not just body, but will, too—until he had no language left for what he was feeling.

He cannot speak at first. His throat feels scraped raw. When he does manage to get the words out, they are barely more than breath.

“Don’t,” he says. “Don’t pretend this means anything.”

There is no shift behind him. Lestat doesn’t loosen his hold, doesn’t retreat. His voice comes from somewhere steady and slow, still wrapped in sleep.

“It means everything.”

Louis swallows hard. The taste in his mouth is bitter, dry. “It was a transaction,” he says. “You gave me a phone call. I gave you what you wanted.”

Lestat’s breath touches the skin behind his ear. “That’s not what you gave me.”

Louis tenses.

“You gave me you,” Lestat murmurs. “And now your body remembers it. Even if your pride won’t let you.”

Louis tries to move, to pull away, but the arm around him tightens. Not harshly. Deliberately.

“Let go,” Louis says.

“No.”

“Lestat—”

“You’ll be sore,” Lestat says, his tone calm, factual. “I don’t want you to hurt more than you have to.”

“I am hurting,” Louis snaps, a flare of heat breaking through the numbness. “You made sure of that.”

Lestat lifts his head and rests his chin lightly on Louis’s shoulder. His voice softens as though he’s speaking to something bruised.

“Then let me make it better.”

Louis shivers. Not from cold. Not really. “You can’t.”

A silence stretches between them, long enough that the sounds of the house return, the faint creak of settling wood.

Then Lestat speaks again, quieter now. “Would it be easier if I’d been cruel?”

Louis doesn’t answer.

“You keep trying to hate me,” Lestat says. “But your body doesn’t lie. It listens. Even now, you haven’t pushed me out.”

Louis bites the inside of his cheek, hard. He wants to deny it. He wants to fling Lestat off, crawl to the edge of the bed, reclaim some kind of space. He wants to wrap himself in blankets and silence, find his way back to control.

But he doesn’t move.

Because the truth is: he’s tired. His bones feel hollow. His thoughts won’t gather. And against everything he swore to himself in the night, there’s a part of him that finds relief in being held, in not having to speak, not yet.

Lestat kisses the side of his neck, slow and unhurried, the way someone might touch something they already believe belongs to them.

“I’ll bathe you,” he whispers. “Clean you up. Make breakfast.”

Louis closes his eyes.

“Then what?” he asks. The question barely rises above a murmur.

Lestat smiles, and Louis can feel it where their skin meets. The way his cock twitches inside him.

“Then I’ll do it all again.”

-

He notices it in the bath. Not right away, but once the water settles.

At first, Louis eases himself in with a sharp breath, skin hissing from the heat, muscles aching from use. He lets the warmth close around him. The soreness is everywhere, tucked into the bend of his knees, the base of his spine, the stretch across his ribs. He lets himself be calm. For a long moment, he only breathes.

The water turns cloudy where it touches him. He watches the faint shift of color where it pools between his thighs, then leans forward, reaching under the surface with slow, delicate hands. The soap slips between his fingers. His breath is steady.

Until it isn’t.

He frowns.

There is a tightness where there should be none. A faint pressure that meets his fingers. His hand stills. He tries again, slower this time, more cautious. The resistance is clear now. Not painful, but real. Present. A thin membrane. Delicate. Unbroken.

He stops breathing.

His stomach turns. He pulls his hand away and looks down, heart pounding, even though the water hides everything from view.

“No,” he whispers. “That’s not—”

But it is. He knows his own body. And he knows what should not be possible.

His hymen has returned.

He swallows once. Then again. It sits in his throat like a stone.

The door opens behind him, quiet. He doesn’t have to ask. He knows.

“You healed me,” he says.

Lestat steps into the room without a word. The floor creaks faintly beneath his feet. He comes closer, stops beside the tub. A towel is folded over one arm. His expression is unreadable.

“Not intentionally,” Lestat answers. “I warned you that my blood in your system slowly heals everything. It’s an added benefit.”

Louis doesn’t look at him. He stares at the ripples in the bathwater.

“Why.”

Lestat kneels. He sets the towel aside and rests his arms on the edge of the tub. His eyes meet Louis’s.

“Because I wanted you to be mine,” he says. “Every time.”

Louis turns his head, slow and heavy. He studies Lestat’s face. His voice is thin.

“You mean every time will feel like the first.”

“If I choose it,” Lestat says.

Louis turns away again. The warmth of the water has faded. His body is no longer relaxed. The muscles in his shoulders hold tight.

“I didn’t choose anything,” he says. “You’re selfish. You want control over everything.”

Lestat brushes a damp curl from Louis’s forehead, careful with his touch.

“You’re not a toy,” he says. “You’re something rarer than that. You’re renewable.”

Louis closes his eyes. The words are quiet, but they settle deep.

This isn’t love. It isn’t even cruelty. Its permanence, claimed under the name of care. He doesn’t think Lestat knows how to be normal.

The water shifts behind him. Louis hears the faint sound of clothes falling. Feet stepping closer. Then the slow, steady weight of Lestat’s body entering the tub. The surface dips. The water rises.

Louis stays still.

Their knees brush beneath the surface.

“Don’t,” he says.

Lestat’s voice is calm. “Don’t what.”

“Don’t make yourself comfortable in this. Don’t act like this is normal.”

Lestat reaches for the soap, lathers it between his hands. “I’m here. I’m bathing beside you. You’re not chained.”

The word hits harder than it should. Louis flinches and pulls back. His mouth tightens.

“You’ve done enough.”

Lestat doesn’t argue. He hums once, a soft acknowledgment.

“You’re still sore,” he says. “I can feel it.”

Louis draws his arm away when Lestat reaches for him again.

“Don’t touch me.”

This time, Lestat listens. He pulls his hands back. Not in fear. Not in guilt. But with a calmness that feels worse. Like he has time. Like he doesn’t need to rush what he already believes is his.

Louis stares into the water. His thighs are marked, the skin tender. He feels the truth of what’s changed inside him. The quiet, unnatural fix.

“You made me new,” he says. “So you could keep me unmarked. So you could pretend nothing happened.”

Lestat is silent.

“You want to reset me every time,” Louis says. “Like a wound that doesn’t get to scar.”

“I don’t want you to forget,” Lestat says.

Louis turns toward him. His face is pale. His eyes are clear.

“Then what do you want.”

Lestat studies him. His hands stop moving. The lather fades into the water.

“I want you to need me,” he says. “The way you did last night.”

Louis lets out a short laugh. It carries no warmth.

“That wasn’t need,” he says. “I didn’t want that.”

“You came,” Lestat says quietly.

Louis’s voice rises. A hot wave of anger. “And you stayed inside me after. Like I didn’t matter. Like my body was yours to linger in.”

“You are a vessel,” Lestat murmurs. “You just haven’t learned what you’re meant to hold.”

Louis’s mouth goes dry. His stomach twists.

“Get out,” he says.

Lestat stays where he is.

“I said get out.”

When he still doesn’t move, Louis rises. The bathwater spills over the side. His body is shaking. He grabs the towel, wraps it around himself. His arms are crossed. His back is straight.

He doesn’t look at Lestat. Not until he reaches the doorway.

Then, without heat: “Whatever this is - it’s not love.”

Lestat looks up at him. His expression doesn’t shift.

“No,” he says. “It’s more permanent than that.”

-

The light outside fades. The fire is cold. The windows are shut tight. The room is quiet.

Louis sits in the corner of the bedroom, dressed now. His arms are folded. His body held rigid.

He has not spoken in hours.

Lestat lounges nearby, a book in hand. His eyes flick over the page, but they don’t move with focus. He isn’t reading. He’s waiting.

After some time, Lestat speaks.

“You’re quiet today,” he says.

Louis doesn’t respond. He blinks once. His jaw moves slightly.

Then he says, “I didn’t come.”

Lestat lowers the book. He watches him.

“You’re rewriting it already,” he says. “You’re embarrassed for your own pleasure.”

“I’m stating what happened,” Louis says. “That wasn’t pleasure. It was a reaction from trauma.”

Lestat stands. He takes a step, then stops.

“I watched you come apart.”

“It wasn’t desire,” Louis snaps. “It was fatigue. You kept going until I couldn’t think.”

“You asked for more.”

“I asked for you to stop.”

“You begged.”

Louis stands. The chair legs scrape against the floor.

“That wasn’t love making or whatever you fooled yourself into thinking. That was panic.”

Lestat doesn’t answer. The space between them hums with things unsaid.

“You don’t have to be ashamed,” he says again.

“I’m not,” Louis replies. “You’re sick.”

Lestat nods once. He doesn’t smile. His face is quiet.

“You can hate me,” he says. “You can hate yourself.”

He steps closer. He doesn’t reach out.

“But I know what your body told me.”

Louis looks away. His jaw is clenched. His hands are trembling.

And he says nothing else.

Because somewhere in him - buried but alive - there’s a part that remembers the way it ended.

And it hates that it wants to feel again.

-

Later that night, Louis slides into bed as if he’s entering a place he no longer recognizes. The sheets feel colder than they should. He turns away from Lestat without thinking, as though distance might be protection. His arms fold close to his chest. His knees draw up. Small gestures. Nothing loud. He doesn’t want to be touched. He doesn’t want to be seen.

But Lestat doesn’t move toward him. He stays where he is. Present. His breathing quiet and careful. As if even that might be too much.

Louis wants to talk about it, wants to forget it, but sometimes when it’s too quiet, all he can remember is the blood and pain. The way it looked once it left his body. He speaks first. The words are soft, shaped around the air between them.

“I didn’t even know if it was real.”

There’s a pause. Then Lestat answers. Thankfully, he seems to know what Louis is referring to. His voice is level, stripped of heat.

“It was.”

Louis nods, barely. His fingers press to his chest as if to check for something gone. “I didn’t feel different,” he says. “Not at first. I didn’t even notice. I thought maybe I was sick. Tired. And then I woke up bleeding.”

His voice falters. He swallows hard.

“I thought maybe my body was rejecting you.”

Lestat shifts slightly behind him. Close, but not touching. His voice is not above a whisper. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Louis lets out a sound that might be laughter. Might be pain. “You say that like I wanted it.”

“You did,” Lestat says, too quickly. Too certain.

Louis turns, his face drawn, his eyes sharp in the dark. “No. You wanted that. You wanted something inside me that you could claim. You wanted me to carry proof.”

“I wanted to create something with you,” Lestat says. “Not to own you. To share something that wasn’t destruction. A baby is the most innocent thing in the world.”

“You’re trying to make something unnatural,” Louis snaps. “You tampered with what I am. You turned my body into something it was never meant to be.”

“So did the world,” Lestat says quietly. “So did the people who told you what you were allowed to be.”

Louis’s face crumples. “Don’t make this about freedom.”

“I’m not,” Lestat says. “I’m saying you are strong enough to carry something sacred.”

“It was a mistake,” Louis says, voice fraying. “It shouldn’t have happened. I didn’t want it, and I didn’t stop it, and now it’s gone and I don’t even know what to call it.”

He looks away.

“Whatever it was, it suffered, Lestat. I could feel that.”

Lestat’s face tightens. He nods once, slow and heavy. “I felt it leave you.”

Louis shuts his eyes. The memory presses against him, raw and shapeless. “I felt so alone,” he says. “Every time I close my eyes in the bath, I see myself and the pain resurfaces. I was holding the edge of the tub, and it—” He stops. His throat closes.

Lestat doesn’t interrupt.

Louis presses the heel of his palm to his forehead. “There was nothing to bury.”

There’s silence.

Then Lestat’s hand reaches out. His fingers brush Louis’s arm, not to pull him close but to anchor him. The touch is surprisingly soft. Real.

“It was ours,” he says.

Louis closes his eyes.

“It wasn’t a child,” he says. “It was… tissue. Cells. A possibility. Not a life.”

“Maybe,” Lestat whispers. “But it lived inside you. That counts for something.”

Louis doesn’t respond. His shoulders tremble once, and then he’s still again.

“I hated it,” he says after a long while. “And I wanted it. I wanted to know what it would’ve been.”

Lestat nods. “So did I.”

“I wanted to never speak of it,” Louis says. “And I wanted to scream about it until my throat bled.”

“You can.”

“I wanted to blame you,” Louis says. “And I do. I blame you for giving me something I never asked for. And I blame myself for losing it.”

“I blame myself too,” Lestat says.

Louis finally turns into the touch. Slowly. Unwillingly. But he does. His eyes are wet now. He doesn’t wipe them.

Lestat shifts closer, until their foreheads rest together, breath shared. Nothing forced. Just there.

They don’t speak for a long time. Their silence changes shape. It softens.

Louis’s breath shudders. “I didn’t even give it a name.”

“You didn’t have to,” Lestat murmurs. “You carried it. It’s no longer suffering and that’s all that matters.”

Louis nods, and the tears spill down his cheeks. He presses his face into Lestat’s shoulder. His hands tremble against the fabric of his shirt.

They cry like that for a long time. Not neatly. Not loudly. But together.

And for the first time in months, Louis lets himself be held.

Not because it’s forgiven.

Not because it’s safe.

But because grief this deep needs another witness. And Lestat is the only one who was there.

-

Morning light seeps into the room, cool and pale, dust motes drifting in the quiet like suspended time.

Louis stirs, groggy, aching. His back is to Lestat, but he can feel him before he sees him. The weight in the bed. The warm breath against his shoulder. The tension.

Then something unmistakable presses against the small of his back.

Louis stiffens.

“Are you serious,” he mutters, voice scratchy. “Control yourself.”

Behind him, Lestat exhales - half a sigh, half a laugh. “It’s not on purpose I assure you. I wake up wanting you.”

“You always wake up like this.”

Lestat leans in slightly. “I haven’t had sex with anyone else since you came here.”

Louis blinks. “Excuse me?”

“I could,” Lestat continues. “I could find someone else. Easily. But I don’t want anyone else.”

Louis shifts away from him, heart beating faster. “Don’t say things like that.”

Lestat sits up, the mattress shifting. “Why not? It’s the truth. You’re here. You’re mine. And when I touch you, you respond, even when you pretend you hate me for it.”

Louis swings his legs over the edge of the bed, putting distance between them. “I didn’t agree to be used every time you’re hard, Lestat.”

“You’re not being used,” Lestat snaps. “You’re wanted. There's a difference.”

Louis stands now, turning to face him. “No. There isn’t. Not when you talk like that. Not when you think desire is the same thing as entitlement.”

Lestat rises in one smooth motion, eyes sharp. “You think this is just desire? You think I go through all of this just because I want to come?” He steps forward.

Louis takes a step back.

“I said no,” Louis says firmly. “And I mean it.”

Lestat stops. For a moment.

Then, his expression shifts. Something wounded, something angry - something off. His fists clench at his sides. His breath shudders.

“You drive me insane,” he hisses. “Do you know that? You say no, you push me away, and yet every time I touch you - you melt. You come apart like you need me.”

“Stop—”

“No,” Lestat snaps, and then suddenly - grabs him.

His hands close around Louis’s upper arms, and he shakes him - hard. Once. Twice.

Louis gasps, the room spinning as his vision blurs.

“Lestat—”

“You want this,” Lestat says through his teeth. “You just don’t know how to admit it.”

Louis sways in his grip, disoriented. His head throbs.

“Let go of me,” he whispers, panting.

Lestat freezes. Just for a second. Then, as if realizing what he’s done, his grip loosens. His hands fall away.

Louis stumbles back, one hand braced against the wall for balance, eyes wide and glassy with shock.

Lestat says nothing. His chest rises and falls with uneven breaths, jaw clenched tight.

But Louis doesn’t say anything either. He just stares at him like he’s seeing something - someone - he can’t ever unsee again.

Louis stays pressed against the wall, breath shallow, heart hammering. His vision is still blurry, like the room hasn’t quite settled from the way Lestat shook it - shook him.

His arms ache where Lestat’s hands had held him.

Lestat stands frozen, feet planted where he stopped, like even he is stunned by what just happened. His chest heaves once. Then again. But he doesn’t speak.

The silence is no longer cold.

It’s dangerous.

Louis straightens slowly. Every movement is measured, like he’s moving through glass.

“You put your hands on me,” he says at last. The words are calm, but his voice cracks halfway through. “Not for sex. Not for control. Just to shake me.”

Lestat’s lips part. But nothing comes out.

“I said no,” Louis continues, voice gaining strength. “I said it clearly. And you didn’t care. You thought if you rattled me hard enough, I’d break open like a lock.”

Lestat takes a half-step forward.

Louis immediately raises a hand. “Don’t.”

And Lestat listens. He stops. But he doesn’t look ashamed. He looks… starved. Wrecked. Twisting with something ugly inside himself, something he hasn’t named and doesn’t want to.

“You’re not afraid of me,” he says quietly, not a question - a desperate belief.

Louis stares at him.

“I wasn’t,” he answers. “I’m not. This is who you are.”

Lestat flinches like he’s been slapped.

Louis exhales, a breath that shakes and doesn’t steady him.

“You think because I’ve let you touch me, that means I belong to you. That you can keep rewinding me—my body, my will—and I’ll just stay here and be what you need.”

“I don’t want a puppet,” Lestat snaps, suddenly sharp again. “I want you. You, when you’re real. When you’re fighting me and falling apart and furious—”

“Because if I want you, it proves something,” Louis says flatly. “That you’re worth it. That this—what you’ve done—was justified.”

Lestat doesn’t answer. His hands twitch at his sides like he doesn’t know whether to reach for Louis or bury them in his own hair.

“I won’t let you make me need you,” Louis says. “Even if my body forgets—I won’t.”

He turns toward the door.

And this time, Lestat doesn’t stop him.

The hallway is dim.

Louis walks it slowly, each step dragging like he’s wading through wet sand. He doesn’t look back. He doesn’t have to. He can feel Lestat’s gaze scorched into his shoulder blades, heavy as breath against the back of his neck. But the sound of the bedroom fades, and then it’s only him - the ache in his calves, the cold press of floorboards beneath his feet, the silence stretching thin across the house.

The living room is darker than he remembers. Cooler too, like the air in here has decided it no longer needs to pretend at warmth. He sinks into the couch. Not carefully. Not even consciously. He drops into it the way a puppet might when the strings are cut.

The quiet is a kind of relief. And a kind of curse.

He presses the heels of his palms into his eyes, breath shallow, mind spinning.

How did it get this far?

Because the truth - the ugly, undeniable truth - is that he’s used to this now. To the way Lestat makes tea too sweet, the way the windows fog at night, the way the sheets smell faintly of vanilla and something deeper, something like smoke. He’s used to the rhythms of this house, the way Lestat hovers, the way he touches him - like Louis is something sacred and fragile. He’s used to the eyes that watch him even when he’s turned away.

And worse: he craves it. The attention. The care. Even the cruelty, when it comes laced with want.

It’s not love. It’s not even affection. It’s now a habit. It’s dependence. Something horrible and viscous that’s taken root beneath his ribs and is growing toward the light.

He huffs out a bitter laugh. Of course it’s happening. He’s been kidnapped. Cut off from everything that once made him who he was. No phone. No friends. No calendar to mark the days. No voice except his own echoing off the walls and - Lestat’s, always Lestat’s, curling around his thoughts until it’s hard to tell where his mind ends and that bastard’s voice begins.

He thinks about the first few days. How he fought. How he screamed and clawed and spat, sure someone would hear. How he thought he would never break.

But he’s not breaking. He’s bending. And that might be worse.

The longer he stays here, the more the world outside warps - softens into memory. His apartment, his work, his friends - it’s all losing shape. And Lestat is filling in the gaps. More than captor. More than an enemy. Too much. Everything.

He can’t let that continue.

Louis presses a hand to his stomach. It’s flat, for now. But it won’t be forever.

The truth is cold and simple: he needs to deliver a baby. It’s the only way out. The only way home. Lestat won’t let him go otherwise. He’s made that clear. And every day Louis resists, he’s sinking further into this trap - into this domestic fantasy Lestat’s built like a stage set, all soft light and whispered promises.

He needs to survive this. Which means he needs to comply.

Compliance. Strategy. Survival.

If he wants to get out of here alive - if he wants to go home - he has to make this body do what it was taken for.

He’ll pretend. He’ll let Lestat touch him. Let him believe he’s won.

And when the time comes - when this is over - he’ll leave.

He has to.

Because the alternative is staying. The alternative is becoming what Lestat wants.

And Louis knows if he stays long enough, he might not want to leave at all.

.

It’s late when Louis returns.

He doesn’t knock. Doesn’t ask. He walks into the room like it’s a battlefield - shoulders squared, face determined and unreadable. Lestat is seated by the window, book closed in his lap, as if he’s been waiting all evening for the sound of that door.

He stands the moment he sees Louis.

“I’m not here to talk,” Louis says. Voice calm. Controlled. But under it - a tension like wire pulled too tight. “I don’t want an apology because you won’t mean it anyway.”

Lestat swallows, slow. His eyes search Louis’s face, cautious. “Then why are you here?”

Louis closes the door behind him. His fingers linger on the knob like he might change his mind. But he doesn’t.

“I want you to fuck me,” he says.

Lestat doesn’t move.

For a beat, it’s just silence. A dangerous kind.

Louis meets his eyes, steady. “I want to get pregnant.”

Now Lestat does react, only slightly. A flicker in his expression. Not disbelief, not quite. Just the slow, dangerous excitement of a man being handed exactly what he’s craved, without understanding why.

“And then?” Lestat asks carefully.

“Then I leave,” Louis says. “Once I deliver your demonic child, I’m gone.”

Lestat’s jaw tightens. “You think I’ll just let you go?”

“I don’t care what you’ll let me do.” Louis takes a step forward. “I’m not asking.”

Lestat watches him. There’s something sharp in his eyes now, something close to pain behind all the hunger. “You’d carry my child, but not stay.”

“I’d carry your child to escape you.” Louis’s voice doesn’t rise, but the words hit like a blade. “That’s the trade, isn’t it? You want your bloodline. Your legacy. I want my life back.”

Lestat moves closer. “And what if I make you stay?”

“Then you prove everything I already know about you.”

Lestat stares at him. Then, after a long, tense moment, he steps in - close. Close enough that Louis can smell him. That thick, old warmth. That unnatural stillness of a vampire.

“You want me to breed you,” Lestat says, low. “Not love you. Not hold you. Just fuck you full and let you disappear.”

Louis doesn’t blink. “That’s what you want and I’m offering.”

The silence stretches.

Then Lestat leans in, mouth brushing just shy of Louis’s.

“Then lie down,” he murmurs. “And give me what you came for.”

Louis doesn’t look away. Doesn’t flinch.

But as he turns, as he moves toward the bed, something in his chest is already cracking -

Because he knows.

He might get what he wants.

But he’ll never leave unchanged.

Louis doesn’t speak as he strips. He undresses methodically, piece by piece, refusing to meet Lestat’s gaze. His shirt falls first, then the rest - each layer peeled away like armor. He folds nothing. He trembles once, only once, when he slips out of his underwear.

Then he climbs into the bed and lies back, bare against the cool sheets. One arm drapes across his stomach. The other clutches the pillow beside him.

He stares at the ceiling.

Lestat watches from across the room like a man pulled into orbit. Slowly, he sheds his own clothes, eyes never leaving the body stretched out for him—offered not out of love but defiance. Desire wrapped around purpose.

But Louis doesn’t flinch when Lestat joins him. Doesn’t shift away when he presses close. Their bodies touch, chest to chest, heat to heat.

Lestat leans down and kisses his throat, his collarbone. Obsessive. Rough.

“Don’t make this gentle,” Louis whispers.

And Lestat doesn’t.

He lines himself up, breath hot at Louis’s ear.

Then pushes in.

It’s deep. Hard. Immediate. A pinch of pain.

Louis gasps - his back arches, one hand grabbing blindly at the sheets. The sound he makes is strangled, helpless. More than pain. More than pleasure. It’s something raw. A boundary breaking inside him.

Lestat groans as he sinks in fully, hands tightening at Louis’s hips.

“You take me like you were made for it,” he breathes, voice thick.

Louis lets out a sound that could be protest, could be praise - he doesn’t even know anymore. His thighs fall open, knees pulled back as Lestat begins to move. Hard. Rhythmic. Possessive. Every thrust pushes the breath from his lungs, curls his toes.

It shouldn’t feel this good.

But it does.

The bed creaks. Skin slaps. Louis is panting now, moaning under every stroke, lost in sensation, in heat, in the awful inevitability of what he asked for.

His hands find Lestat’s back, fingers digging in.

“Oh—God—” he gasps, barely conscious of the words. “Don’t stop—don’t—”

Lestat growls low in his throat and obeys, driving in harder, deeper, fucking him like a man trying to brand his name into bone. The sounds Louis makes aren’t coherent anymore—delirious, desperate.

“Say it,” Lestat pants, leaning close. “Say who you belong to.”

Louis doesn’t. Can’t.

But his body answers for him - tightening, arching, chasing something impossible.

And Lestat, eyes wild, hips relentless, promises against his neck, “You’re going to carry me again. I’m going to make sure of it.”

Louis whimpers - half denial, half surrender - and comes with a strangled cry.

And Lestat keeps going.

Determined to give him what he came for.

Lestat doesn’t stop, he can’t.

Louis is writhing beneath him, sweat-slicked and flushed, his thighs trembling as Lestat thrusts into him again and again, deep and punishing. The sheets are soaked, twisted beneath their bodies. The air between them is thick with heat and the sharp scent of skin, salt, and something deeper - something feral.

Louis clutches at him now, fingers tangled in Lestat’s hair, dragging him down, and their mouths crash together in a kiss that’s not gentle, not tender - violent.

Teeth. Tongue. Desperation.

Lestat groans into him, swallowing every broken sound Louis makes. His hips slam forward with every snap, and Louis takes it all, back arched, lips parted in helpless gasps.

Then again Louis comes with a shudder that shakes his whole frame, a guttural cry torn from his throat as his body convulses around Lestat, still full, still pinned. His fingers claw down Lestat’s back.

But Lestat doesn’t stop.

He fucks him through it, relentless, pushing Louis further, deeper, until Louis’s eyes flutter, until his thighs twitch with overstimulation, until he’s gasping no even as his body begs for more.

And then again the orgasm hits him sharper this time, drawn out, painful in its intensity. Louis throws his head back, legs quaking, lips parted in disbelief as his body gives in again, soaked, ruined, the pleasure dragging him under like a tide.

Lestat kisses him again, devouring, possessive, full of something dark and triumphant. His rhythm falters.

And then he groans deep in his chest and comes - spilling inside Louis with a raw, shuddering exhale, hips pressed tight, jaw clenched, his entire body seizing as he empties himself completely.

They collapse together, breathless, tangled, trembling.

Louis is slick with sweat, hair clinging to his forehead, chest heaving.

Lestat rests against him, still buried deep, their bodies sealed with heat and release.

Louis stares at the ceiling - eyes wide, lips raw.

And somewhere in the back of his mind, beneath the exhaustion and the haze of sensation, a thought flickers like a match struck in the dark:

If this doesn’t work… he’ll ask for it again.

And if it does—

He’ll never stop claiming him.

Hours have passed. The room is still, heavy with the scent of sweat and sex. The fire’s gone out, but the heat remains - soaked into the sheets, into the walls, into them.

Louis sleeps on his side, one arm tucked beneath his head, breath slow and shallow, body slack with exhaustion. He doesn’t hear Lestat stir at first, doesn’t notice the soft shift of the mattress, or the quiet way Lestat slides closer.

Not until a hand curls around his hip.

Louis tenses.

“Don’t,” he murmurs, voice raw and half-asleep.

But Lestat doesn’t listen.

He leans over him, warm and bare, and presses a kiss behind Louis’s ear. His voice is low, wrecked from the hours before, but still sharp with need.

“You’re not done,” he whispers. “Not even close.”

Louis groans, half protest, half warning. But his body - bruised and open and still aching - doesn’t move away.

Lestat kisses down his neck, his shoulder, then shifts him slowly onto his stomach. Louis breathes hard against the pillow, trying not to tremble, trying not to feel.

He doesn’t resist.

And Lestat takes his time.

He pushes in slowly, stretching Louis open again with deliberate care. The slide is smooth - too smooth - and Louis grips the sheets beneath him, face buried, a strangled sound caught in his throat.

“Still so wet for me,” Lestat breathes. “You haven’t stopped dripping since I fucked you full.”

Louis shuts his eyes tight. He doesn’t want to feel it. Doesn’t want to react. But every inch Lestat fills him makes his breath hitch, his body betray him.

“You love this,” Lestat whispers, voice filth-soft. “Being underneath me. Being used.”

Louis shakes his head, but it’s weak. Barely there.

“You can lie to yourself all day,” Lestat goes on, fucking him in slow, deep rolls, each one sinking in harder than the last. “But your body - your perfect, greedy little pussy - knows who it belongs to.”

Louis bites the pillow. Tries to stay silent. But a moan slips out - sharp, desperate.

“There it is,” Lestat growls. “That sound. You know what it means?”

Louis doesn’t answer.

Lestat leans down, mouth to his ear.

“It means you’re going to come for me again.”

Louis’s fingers claw into the mattress.

He won’t. He won’t. He can’t.

But his body is already unraveling. Again.

Lestat keeps moving - slow, exacting, grinding deeper each time like he knows exactly where Louis is weakest.

Louis buries his face in the pillow, trying to will it away - the heat, the stretch, the low, humiliating pleasure curling in his gut like smoke.

He’s sore. Still slick from before. But somehow it doesn’t matter.

Lestat’s hand slides over the curve of his back, smoothing down to his waist. His grip is firm, guiding, possessive. Like Louis is something to be ridden, not held. Something that was built for this.

“You were made for my cock,” Lestat murmurs against his neck, breath hot, hips slow and precise. “You don’t even know what you sound like right now.”

Louis clenches his jaw. His eyes sting.

“Shut up,” he mutters, voice muffled in the sheets.

But Lestat only fucks him deeper. Harsher. The rhythm unforgiving now, bruising and intimate and maddening.

“I can feel you squeezing me,” he growls. “Trying to fight it. Still so fucking tight - still pretending you don’t love every second of this.”

Louis lets out a broken moan, hands twisting in the sheets. His thighs tremble, and he hates how easily it builds - the pressure curling low, rising again, raw and traitorous.

“Tell me you hate me,” Lestat whispers, lips brushing the shell of his ear. “Say it while you’re coming all over yourself.”

Louis shakes his head, shuddering. “No—stop, I—”

But it’s too late.

His body jerks - hips thrusting into the mattress as pleasure rips through him, overwhelming and messy. He comes again, a strangled cry breaking past his lips, slick soaking the sheets beneath him.

Lestat groans, his pace faltering, then slamming back in with a growl as he buries himself to the hilt and comes deep inside Louis - hard, pulsing, filling him again with everything he has left.

They’re both gasping.

Louis collapses into the sheets, arms shaking, face turned away. His skin is flushed. Damp. Wrecked.

Lestat slumps over him, breath ragged, lips brushing sweat from Louis’s spine.

“You’re going to be pregnant by morning,” he whispers.

Louis doesn’t respond.

He just lies there, heart racing, full to the brim and hating how much he wants to believe that’s true.

-

The snow has begun to melt outside, but winter still clings to the edges of the estate - white frost on the window panes, a dull grey sky pressing down on the hills beyond. Inside, the fire crackles, familiar and warm.

The chessboard sits between them. Ornate. Heavy. Lestat leans back in his chair, eyes on the board, hand holding a glass of blood he hasn’t touched.

Louis moves a bishop with quiet satisfaction. “Check.”

Lestat’s eyes flick to the piece. His mouth twitches.

They haven’t spoken much today. Most days are like that now - weeks stretched thin with routine. Meals. Silence. Obedience. Sex. And underneath it all, a slow-burning resentment neither of them pretends to extinguish.

Louis leans back in his seat, arms folded. “So. How long has it been?”

Lestat lifts his gaze lazily. “Since what?”

Louis raises an eyebrow. “Since you took me.”

Lestat’s expression doesn’t change. He takes his time. “It’s February.”

Louis stares at him.

Lestat’s voice is calm. Smug. “Almost twenty weeks.”

Louis lets out a quiet, humorless laugh and pushes the chessboard slightly to the side. “Almost five months,” he says. “And still nothing.”

Lestat’s jaw ticks - barely - but Louis sees it.

“Maybe I’m not as recyclable as you thought,” Louis adds, voice light, almost mocking. “Maybe you broke me too early.”

Lestat leans forward, folding his hands.

“Or maybe,” he says evenly, “your body’s still adjusting. You’re not exactly making it easy.”

Louis shrugs. “You said it yourself. I should’ve been pregnant by now.”

He leans in slightly, smiling with that sharp, bitter edge he’s been wearing more and more lately.

“But I’m not.”

Lestat’s gaze darkens, but he says nothing. He can tell Lestat is happy that Louis is still here but disappointed that he’s yet to get pregnant again.

Louis pushes back from the table, stretching his arms over his head. “It’s almost funny,” he says softly. “You fucked me like an obsession. Bred me like I was a vessel. And now we just wait.”

“You’re not free until it happens,” Lestat says, voice cool.

“I know.”

There’s a beat of silence.

Louis turns toward the window, looking out at the thin frost creeping across the glass. His voice is quieter now. Tighter.

“I’ve given you everything you asked for,” he says. “And I’m still here.”

Lestat watches him carefully.

“Yes,” he murmurs. “You are.”

And Louis - smug, bitter, worn thin - feels that truth settle like a collar around his throat.

He’s not pregnant.

But he’s still not free.

Not yet.

-

The next morning is grey again: dull clouds hanging low outside, casting everything in muted silver. The house is silent, as always, save for the soft clink of cutlery.

Louis picks at the edge of his toast more than he eats it. His posture is relaxed, but there’s something calculating in the way he glances over at Lestat, seated at the head of the table, absorbed in a book he’s not really reading.

There’s been a shift lately.

Lestat hasn’t mentioned the pregnancy. Because there isn’t one. And Louis is no longer hiding his bitterness beneath quiet obedience.

He sets his fork down slowly. Deliberately.

“Maybe,” he says, voice light, almost playful, “it wasn’t all the women.”

Lestat doesn’t look up. “What?”

Louis tilts his head, eyes gleaming with quiet cruelty. “You’ve tried this before, haven’t you? The breeding. The promises. The control. And every time - nothing.”

Now Lestat does look up. Slowly. Expression unreadable.

Louis smiles, cool and cutting. “So maybe the problem wasn’t them.”

A pause. Thick. Tense.

Louis leans forward just slightly. “Maybe the problem is you.”

The silence after that is sharp enough to cut through skin.

Lestat stares at him, gaze narrowed, glassy with restrained fury. “Say that again.”

Louis shrugs. “It’s just science. Or bad luck. Or maybe-” he lifts his cup, takes a slow sip- “you’re not as potent as you think you are.”

The cup never makes it back to the saucer.

Lestat’s out of his chair in an instant.

The table jerks. The silverware crashes. Louis stands too late.

Lestat shoves him back against the dining room wall with a force that knocks the breath out of him. His mouth is on Louis’s before he can form a word - teeth, tongue, fury. It’s not a kiss. It’s a claim.

Louis tries to twist away, but Lestat grabs his wrists and forces them above his head.

“You think this is a joke?” Lestat snarls against his throat. “You think I need proof to know you’re mine?”

“You can’t even get me pregnant,” Louis spits, eyes burning. “You keep trying to fill me and all you’ve done is fail. Four thousand years old and you’re incompetent at the one thing you want. You should be embarrassed.”

And that breaks something.

Lestat flips him around - face pressed to the wall, pants shoved down with one brutal motion. No teasing. No preparation. He spits in his hand, slicks himself fast, and thrusts in all at once.

Louis chokes on a cry - sharp, half-formed - his fingers scraping against the wall.

“Still so wet,” Lestat growls. “Still fucking made for me.”

Louis trembles, trying to push back, but Lestat pins him - hips slamming forward again and again, punishing, claiming, relentless.

“I’ll fuck it out of your mouth,” Lestat snarls. “Every lie. Every insult. You’ll beg me to come inside you before I’m done.”

Louis bites down on his own arm to keep quiet, but it’s no use.

The moans slip out anyway. The gasps. The sharp, wet sounds of Lestat pounding into him, deeper with every thrust.

His knees go weak.

His words vanish.

And Lestat keeps going until Louis is shaking - speechless, just as promised - barely able to stand, body wrecked and dripping.

Lestat pulls him close, breath hot against his ear.

“Maybe I haven’t bred you yet,” he whispers. “But I’ve already ruined you.”

And Louis, pressed to the wall, can’t say otherwise. His chest is heaving, cheek resting against the cool wood paneling. His legs shake, barely holding him up. His thighs are slick with a mess he doesn’t want to name, and Lestat is still inside him, deep and hard, not moving, but present. Full. Possessive.

He doesn’t speak.

He can’t.

His jaw is tight, lips swollen from biting down too hard on his own skin to silence himself. But the sounds had still escaped. He hates that. Hates the way his body betrayed him again - wrung open by force, by fury, by heat he couldn’t fight.

Behind him, Lestat breathes heavy. Slow. His hands stay on Louis’s hips, holding him there as if letting go would undo what he just did.

“I told you,” he says, low and rough. “You can mock me. You can curse me. But your body already made its choice.”

Louis finally finds his voice, just barely.

“I said you couldn’t breed me,” he rasps. “Not that you couldn’t fuck me senseless.”

Lestat growls softly, hips rolling forward again - slow this time, but deep. His cock brushes against something sensitive. Louis gasps, his whole body flinching with overstimulation.

“Careful,” Lestat murmurs. “You’re already shaking.”

“I’m not scared of you,” Louis spits, though it comes out breathless.

“No,” Lestat agrees. “You’re addicted.”

He thrusts again - sharp, deep - and Louis cries out, one arm braced against the wall, the other clawing at the wood for support.

“You come apart for me,” Lestat whispers. “Even now. Even like this. And if you’re not pregnant yet, it’s just time. Your body will take me. All of me. Eventually.”

Louis grits his teeth. “And if it never does?”

Lestat leans in, chest against his back, breath ghosting over his ear.

“Then I’ll fuck you until it has to.”

He begins moving again - slow, dragging thrusts, filthy and possessive, not for release now, but for reinforcement.

Louis sobs once, low and furious, body trembling with pleasure he doesn’t want, can’t stop.

“You think you’re smug,” Lestat breathes, “because your stomach is still flat. But I’ve already filled you. Again and again.”

Louis gasps as another wave hits - shattering, raw, involuntary. He slumps forward, ruined, moaning softly, too drained to pretend anymore.

Lestat holds him there, lips brushing his spine.

“You’re already mine,” he whispers. “The baby will be just proof.”

And Louis, soaked, leaking, wrecked has nothing left to say.

The hours blur.

Time slips away in a haze of flickering candlelight and the rhythmic creak of the bedframe, steady and cruel. The room is hot with sweat, with breath, with the scent of Louis - flesh flushed, body used, hips red from how often Lestat has dragged him back down onto him.

He’s lost count of how many times he’s come. How many times Lestat has. He only knows his body won’t stop tremors and goosebumps down his skin. That every nerve is alive with too much.

He’s been on his back. On his stomach. On his side. Bent forward. Pulled back. Turned over again.

Lestat doesn’t tire. He doesn’t need rest.

He just keeps moving and fucking Louis through the mattress, through the hours, through the apologies Louis never makes.

“Could’ve done this ages ago,” Lestat growls into his neck, voice hoarse, cock buried deep again. “Could’ve taken you like this the first night. Should’ve.”

Louis groans - broken, breathless, lips parted against the pillow.

“But I didn’t,” Lestat continues, punctuating every word with a thrust. “I tried to be gentle. Patient. Waited for you to stop talking like you were smarter than me. But you don’t learn unless it’s like this.”

Louis sobs. Quiet. His face is slick with sweat and tears, his voice long since wrecked.

“And now look at you,” Lestat whispers. “Speechless. Shaking. Open. You’re perfect when you’re not thinking.”

Louis tries to push back, tries to fight, but his body doesn’t obey anymore - it’s been taken too far, too long. He only presses closer, tightening around Lestat, whimpering into the dark.

“Say something now,” Lestat bites out. “Go on. Say I’m the problem.”

Louis moans. It’s not a word, it’s need.

Lestat’s grip tightens on his hips.

“That’s what I thought.”

And he keeps going.

Through the next hour. Through the next release. Through the ache and overstimulation and the furious sound of Louis falling apart again and again.

By dawn, Louis isn’t speaking.

His voice is gone. His body’s limp. His skin glows with the fever of overuse, of possession, of punishment.

And Lestat still isn’t satisfied.

Not until Louis stops trying to pull away. Not until he clings to him on instinct. Not until he stays.

Louis doesn’t know what time it is.

The windows are dark, the candles have burned low, and his body is wrecked: raw, soaked, used beyond recognition. His limbs tremble. His throat is hoarse from moaning, from crying out, from trying to hold everything in and failing.

Lestat is still inside him, thrusting slow now - taunting, deliberate, drawing out every broken twitch of Louis’s ruined body.

Louis can’t speak at first.

But then Lestat leans down, lips pressed against his ear, voice soft, cold.

“Beg me to stop.”

Louis’s eyes flutter open, unfocused. “Wh—what?”

“Beg,” Lestat murmurs. “Apologize for what you said. Tell me you were wrong. Tell me you’ll behave.”

Louis swallows hard, throat burning. “Lestat - please…”

“Beg.”

His hips roll again, sharp. Louis cries out, chest heaving, back arching despite himself. It hurts now - has for a while - but his body doesn’t know where pain ends and submission begins.

“I’m sorry,” Louis gasps. He’ll say anything to get this to stop. “Please—just stop—I’ll be good.”

Lestat doesn’t stop.

“Say it like you mean it.”

Louis chokes on a sob. “I mean it—I swear—just stop, please—please—”

Lestat falters, breath hitching.

“You’ll behave?” he whispers.

“Yes,” Louis whimpers, face pressed to the pillow. “I’ll do what you want—I’ll stop talking back—I’ll be good, I swear—just please. I can’t—”

Lestat stills inside him.

Completely.

Then, after a long, tense beat - he slowly pulls out.

Louis gasps at the loss, the burn, the ache of sudden emptiness.

Lestat watches him crumble into the mattress - sweat-soaked, panting, flushed and trembling from head to toe. His thighs are slick, red and twitching. His spine curves inward, protective, instinctive.

And for the first time in hours - he’s quiet.

Lestat brushes a hand down his back. Almost gentle. Almost proud.

“That’s better,” he says.

Louis doesn’t respond.

He just breathes. Ragged. Shattered. And - for now - obedient.

-

The days pass quietly. March drips in cold and damp, the snow finally beginning to retreat from the edges of the windows. The house remains still. Time moves slowly - marked only by mealtimes, silence, and the way Louis walks a little more stiffly each morning.

His body is sore. Deep in the bones. The kind of ache that doesn't go away with rest.

He doesn’t speak much anymore. Not unless he has to.

The bruises on his hips are fading, but slowly. His thighs are still tender. And the stretch in his abdomen lingers like his body is waiting for something to change.

This morning is quiet.

Lestat is lying across the bed, fully dressed, head down, cheek resting against Louis’s bare stomach. Louis is on his back, eyes on the ceiling, fingers curled near his ribs. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t protest.

At first, Lestat says nothing. His eyes are closed. His breath slow, deep.

Louis stares at the cracked plaster above him, then finally murmurs, “What are you doing?”

Lestat doesn’t answer.

Louis shifts slightly, grimacing at the ache in his spine. “Lestat.”

Still silence.

Then, finally - so softly he almost doesn’t hear it - Lestat speaks.

“I’m listening.”

Louis frowns, head tilting slightly to look at him. “To what?”

Lestat’s eyes flutter open, unfocused. “You.”

Louis swallows. The air in the room feels heavier suddenly, too warm under the blanket draped across his legs.

“You’re not making sense.”

Lestat’s hand moves to rest on his lower belly. Gentle. Steady. Possessive.

“I can hear it,” he murmurs. “The faintest rhythm. Quieter than breath. Too fast to be yours.”

Louis’s breath hitches. He blinks, and for a moment, it feels like the bed isn’t soft beneath him.

Lestat lifts his head slightly, eyes searching Louis’s face. He doesn’t smile.

“You’re pregnant,” he says.

Louis says nothing.

The words land hard, soft as they were spoken. They spread through his chest like icewater. His lips part. Then close. His throat tightens.

Lestat doesn’t gloat. Doesn’t touch him more.

He just rests his head back down, cheek against the spot just above Louis’s hip, listening with a strange kind of patience. With possession.

And Louis lies there, staring at the ceiling again, fingers curled tighter now.

Knowing there’s no walking away from this.

Not anymore.

You’re pregnant.

Pregnant.

He’s pregnant. Again.

Louis remains on the bed with one hand resting above his navel and pushes down so he might feel something - anything - that makes this real. That makes it safe.

But all he feels is the dull throb of soreness. The phantom echo of past violence and fear. Deep, crawling fear that he will miscarry again. He can’t bear another loss. It would crush him.

“I don’t want to lose it,” he confesses. He doesn’t care if it sounds like he wants it, he does, but not for the reasons Lestat thinks. A successful delivery is his ticket out of here.

Lestat reaches out and pulls Louis into his arms so Louis’ back is pressed to his chest. “You’ll be fine.” He kisses Louis’ ear. He’s vibrating in joy.

“You said that last time.”

Lestat brushes a hand across Louis’s stomach with care that almost feels too gentle to come from him. “The heartbeat is different,” he says. “Strong, steady, and not faint.”

Louis turns to him, accessing his face. “You’re sure.”

“I’ve never heard anything like it,” Lestat murmurs. “Not even with the others. This one feels… perfect.”

That should comfort him.

It doesn’t.

Louis swallows, turning his head away from him. “Am I going to survive this?”

Lestat tenses. That single, wordless hesitation is enough.

Louis pushes up on his elbows, breath catching. “You don’t know.”

“I know what I want,” Lestat snaps. “I want you safe and for our child to be born. I want us to survive this.”

“That’s not an answer.” Louis’s voice rises, panicking. Even if he doesn’t miscarry, there’s a possibility of a stillnorn or worse, it ends with him dying. “You don’t know what you’ve done to me. What this thing is doing to me.”

“It’s not a thing,” Lestat says flatly.

“You don’t know if my body can handle it,” Louis goes on. “You don’t know if it’ll grow too fast or take too much or—”

“I won’t let it kill you,” Lestat cuts in, furious now, standing by the bed. “You’ll be fine as long as you stay.”

Louis pauses. “What?”

Lestat softens, stepping close, hand reaching again. “After the child is born. Stay. Let me take care of you. Let me keep you safe.”

Louis pulls back like the touch burns. “That’s the condition?”

Lestat hesitates. “It’s the only way I can make sure nothing happens to you.”

“You mean it’s the only way you’ll try. What does staying have anything to do with childbirth? I can’t stay if I’m dead!”

Lestat’s jaw tightens. “You don’t understand what’s at stake—”

“No, you don’t,” Louis spits. “You’re gambling with my life. For what? A child you want to chain me to? A body you think you own?”

“I love you,” Lestat says suddenly.

It’s the worst thing he’s said to Louis since he’s been here.

“Oh, please! I don’t care!” Louis chuckles humorlessly. “What about our child?”

Lestat steps forward again, desperate now. “Did you hear what I said? It’s not funny. If you go—”

“I will,” Louis says coldly, “as soon as I’m able. I’ll survive it in spite of you and I’ll leave. What’s funny is you thinking that you love me will change that fact.”

The room goes silent.

Lestat stares at him - chest rising, hands balled, fury and heartbreak crashing in his eyes.

But Louis doesn’t waver.

Not anymore.

Because Lestat doesn’t have answers.

Only his sick, twisted obsession.

And Louis won’t trade one prison for another.

-

The kitchen is quiet during the evening. Louis sits at the far end of the table, drained and tired, his face drawn tight from days of nausea and sleeplessness. He’s wrapped in one of the heavier cardigans, collar pulled high, hands folded in front of him. He’s thrown up all morning and every time he thinks it’s over, he throws up more. Every time he’s in pain, he thinks about if this is going to be the time he loses it.

“I made something different,” Lestat says, turning off the stove. “You’re not keeping anything down. We need to try something else.”

“I’m not hungry,” Louis coughs.

“You’re starving,” Lestat replies calmly, setting the plate down in front of him.

Louis’s stomach twists at the smell. Something rich, metallic, weird. The steak is perfectly seared, but still pink in the middle. Juices drip on the plate, pooled just beneath roasted vegetables and crisp-edged potatoes.

His nose is extremely sensitive as he stares at it. “You didn’t even cook it through.”

“Medium rare,” Lestat says. “More iron and blood.”

Louis looks up sharply. “I’m not—”

“You don’t have to say it,” Lestat cuts in, settling into the seat across from him. “But I know what your body wants and it’s not toast and tea anymore.”

Louis looks back down at the meat, his jaw tight. “I’m not eating something that bleeds.”

But his stomach lurches. Hard.

Not from nausea, but need.

Lestat says nothing more. Looks expectantly.

Louis glares at the plate, then back at Lestat. “This is disgusting.”

“You’re sweating,” Lestat hums, sounding pleased. “Look at your hands. You’re shaking.”

Louis looks down. He is.

Hunger pulses through him sharp and deep, like a hook catching in his gut. His mouth waters despite himself.

Then Lestat says it.

“Just let it bleed in your mouth.”

Something in Louis snaps.

He grabs the fork and knife with weak fingers and cuts off a bite. The juice runs. The scent overwhelms him. He drops the utensils as he shoves more into his mouth.

The taste is savory, warm, almost sour. The second it hits his tongue, something deep inside him settles.

He devours the next bite. Then the next.

The potatoes follow because they're soft, buttery. The vegetables are crisp and earthy and full. Each mouthful dulls the ache he’s carried in his stomach for days. By the time he’s halfway through the steak, he’s forgotten his disgust entirely.

He finishes the plate in silence, breathing harder now, flushed from the sudden fullness.

Lestat watches him with something too calm to be pride. Something closer to certainty.

Louis wipes his mouth with a napkin, chest rising and falling, the tight pain in his abdomen dulled to a quiet hum.

“I feel… better,” he says, not quite believing it. If he wasn’t so satisfied, he would be disgusted by his table manners.

“You’re feeding it,” Lestat says simply.

Louis doesn’t ask whether he means himself or the baby.

Because deep down, he already knows.

The plate is clean now.

Not a trace left; no smear of potato, no streak of juice. Louis sits back in the chair, because the hunger hasn’t faded, it’s changed. It’s spreading and he’s not as full as he thought.

He licks his lips, trembling slightly. “I need more.”

Lestat studies him. “More steak?”

Louis nods, voice thin. “Please. Just something. Anything. I need it.”

Lestat stands, but not toward the kitchen, but to Louis.

He stops beside him, resting a hand lightly on his shoulder. “There’s something better,” he says, coaxing. “Something richer. It won’t turn or harm you.”

Louis tenses. “No—”

But Lestat already lifts his own arm slowly, casually, and draws a nail along the inside of his forearm. The skin splits. Blood wells up.

It’s not like human blood. It's a deeper and darker red color. The scent hits Louis immediately: sugary, fresh, and ripe. His breath catches, an itch developing in the back of his throat.

Lestat holds the bleeding arm out gently. “Just a little. It’ll help. It’s full of strength, and the baby—” his voice softens—“the baby will like it. Trust me.”

Louis hesitates, eyes locked on the blood. His stomach growls, thirsty and furious.

“I’m not turning,” he whispers.

“You won’t,” Lestat promises. “You’ll just feel full and safe. Drink, baby.”

Baby. He doesn’t like that. But Louis’s hand rises slowly, gripping Lestat’s wrist. His mouth parts.

And he drinks. Soft licks at first.

The taste hits instantly.

It’s hot. Sweet. Electric. Like nothing he’s ever imagined. Better than the rare steaks. So much better. Like a dozen cinnamon buns and something older than food. His body reacts immediately, shivering with relief, the ache in his belly smoothed.

Lestat groans. His head falls forward, golden hair slipping into his eyes. “That’s it,” he breathes. “God, yes. Just like that. Take it all if you have to.”

Encouraged, Louis drinks deeper.

The blood slides down his throat like water. His eyes flutter shut. His body relaxes for the first time in days. There’s pleasure in it; not just physical, but elemental. Warmth fills his bones and gravity realigning.

When he finally pulls back, panting, his lips are red, a smear trailing down his chin. He doesn’t move to wipe it, too full to move.

Lestat is shaking as he leans in close, licking the blood from the corner of Louis’s mouth with slow, possessive swipes of his tongue. “Perfect,” he murmurs. “We now know each other’s tastes.”

Louis breathes out shakily. His stomach feels whole, bloated. Satisfied.

He leans back in the chair, eyes half-lidded.

And for the first time since he learned he was pregnant…

He isn’t afraid.

He’s fed.

-

But an hour later, Louis lies in bed, skin flushed, breath coming shallow and uneven.

He’s burning. Everywhere. He’s on fire.

His thighs are slick - dripping, hot and wet in a way that’s far beyond arousal. It’s like his body has turned against him, too hungry for something else, too swollen with need to be ignored. He squirms against the mattress, biting down on his lip, trying to will it away. But the pressure between his legs only builds.

Louis pants, feeling caged in. One hand creeps lower into his underwear. It’s the first time he’s touched himself since being here. But this is different. Desperate. Like scratching an itch under the skin.

He slips two fingers inside his cunt and gasps. He curls his fingers to relieve the aches, but it’s not enough. He arches his back, crying out softly, thrusting into his own hand, but the friction only teases. He’s soaked, the sheets beneath him damp with slick, the smell of it sharp and metallic and wrong.

He chokes on a sob, body twitching.

The door creaks open behind him.

Louis freezes and stops stroking. Lestat enters, eyes glowing faintly beneath the dim lamp light. They’re icy blue. Pale as frost.

Louis turns, still panting, trying to catch his breath. “What—” he gasps, eyes wide, cheeks flushed. “What did you do to me?”

Lestat smiles faintly. “You’re bleeding.”

Louis recoils slightly, splayed on the bed, slick between his legs. His pussy throbs. “What the hell does that mean—?”

“You’re aroused,” Lestat says simply, tilting his head. “Ovulating. In your own way. You smell delicious.”

Louis stares at him, horrified. “You - you triggered this.”

Lestat looks amused. “Unintentionally, I assure you. You needed my blood and too much of it… caused this. That’s why it’s better to dilute my blood with water or food. Drinking directly from the source has consequences.”

“You bastard,” Louis spits, eyes glassy. “You planned it. You wanted this.”

“Planned? No,” Lestat says. “Wanted? Yes.”

Louis turns his face away, furious, humiliated. “I can’t think—I can’t breathe. It hurts—”

“I know,” Lestat whispers. “I can smell it on you. You’re so wet for me.”

Louis’s breath stutters. “I hate you.”

“You can,” Lestat says softly, now standing beside the bed. “But only I can help you.”

Louis’s fingers twitch in the sheets.

The ache between his legs throbs harder now, like it knows.

And Lestat watches, patient and greedy, waiting for Louis to either crawl to him or break.

Louis clenches his jaw so tight it aches. His fingers dig into his skin, thighs pressed together as if he can contain the heat gathering between them by sheer force of will.

“No,” he mutters, voice wrecked. “I won’t give you what you want.”

Lestat stands over him in silence, but Louis can feel the weight of his gaze - sharp, invasive, smug. He just waits.

Louis writhes, back arching off the bed with a sudden cry, a sharp jolt of pressure breaking through him like a wave. The ache is unbearable now; liquid, deep, needy.

“I can’t—” he gasps, turning his face into the pillow, tears at the corners of his eyes. “It hurts—”

He grabs at his own thighs, trying to squeeze them together, trying to grind against the bedding, anything for relief, but it’s not enough. He’s leaking down his legs, so wet it’s embarrassing.

“Make it stop,” he begs, his voice cracked and high with desperation. “Please, make it stop—just make it go away—”

Lestat hums. “If I help you, you stay.”

Louis looks up, dazed. “What?”

“After the child is born,” Lestat says. “You stay with me.”

Louis’s face contorts with fury. “You want to negotiate while I’m like this?”

“I want a promise.”

Louis glares at him, panting through clenched teeth. “You’ll fuck me regardless. You don’t need a promise.”

He hates himself for it but he spreads his legs and more slick pools between his thighs. “So do it,” he says. “Take what you were always going to.”

Lestat stares down at him, expression darkening, pupils blown wide with hunger.

The last thread of restraint snaps.

He’s on Louis in seconds - dragging him down the bed, yanking his thighs apart farther, devouring the sight of him withering and flushed, already dripping. His hands are rough now, fingers digging into the soft skin of his ass, possessive.

“I’ll fuck you,” Lestat growls, voice thick with lust. “I’ll fuck the need out of you so deep you’ll beg me to stay without a word.”

And he does, like Louis’s body had always been a promise Lestat intended to collect.

Lestat enters him in one long, smooth thrust. So deep Louis cries out, his back arching instinctively, fingers clawing at Lestat’s back. He’s soaked, open, his body ready in ways his mind refuses to be.

But resistance is gone. Replaced by something hot and desperate, a hunger that pulses in time with Lestat’s thrusts.

Louis moans, the sound torn from somewhere low in his throat. His legs tremble around Lestat’s hips, body moving with each push, each grind, slick and overstimulated but still needing.

Then Lestat leans down; his breath against Louis’s throat, impatient and hungry.

“Don’t fight it,” he whispers.

Louis can only gasp.

And because fangs trace his face.

Then it's a sharp, hot pierce of them sliding into his neck, into flesh already throbbing with blood and ache. Louis chokes on a moan as it hits him, not pain, not really. It's something hotter. Worse. Pleasure sharpened into something almost divine.

He jerks beneath Lestat, his whole body twisting, as the sensation floods him; Lestat’s cock inside him, thick and long, and now his mouth, drinking from him, pulling from his neck in time with every thrust.

It’s ecstasy. Euphoric.

A spiraling, unbearable fullness - flesh and blood and heat all at once. His orgasm punches through him with no warning, violent and overwhelming. He comes hard, soaking the sheets, pussy clenching around Lestat with a desperate, broken sound.

But Lestat keeps moving, he drinks deeper, hips snapping forward harder, chasing his own release even as he drains Louis in slow, worshipful mouthfuls.

Louis sobs again, lost in it - completely undone, split open in body and blood, and for a terrifying moment, he doesn’t want it to end.

Until Lestat groans into his neck, thrusts one final time, and spills inside him, pulsing deep, holding Louis tight as he fills him once more.

They collapse together, tangled, elated, panting.

Lestat licks the wound at Louis’s throat clean and it closes back up.

“You were made for this,” he whispers and drags a hand over Louis’s heart. “I’ve waited four thousand years for you. I’ve listened to billions of heartbeats and none of them comes close to yours. I love you, Louis.”

Louis lies limp beneath him, eyes fluttering, stomach warm and full, skin slick with sweat.

And for now, he allows himself to believe it.

-

The bathwater is hot the next morning, steeped with oils that smell faintly of cherries and something sweeter.

Louis sits between Lestat’s legs, his back resting against Lestat’s chest, the curve of their bodies tucked together in a rare, unspoken agreement. It’s peaceful. Almost.

Lestat’s arms wrap loosely around him, fingers trailing aimless shapes over the soft skin of his belly. Occasionally, he presses a kiss to Louis’s shoulder, or to the back of his neck, where the skin is flushed and damp.

It’s quiet, tender.

Louis feels it: a pulse, not just his own. Not just Lestat’s.

Something low in his belly, light and strange. Alive.

At first, he thinks it’s just aftershocks. Sensation echoing in the space Lestat has taken up inside him again and again. But it lingers. A flutter. A warmth. Every time Lestat touches him, even lightly, the feeling festers, glows.

Louis lowers his hand to his stomach, frowning slightly.

“You’re right. It is different this time,” he admits. “I can feel it too.”

Lestat hums, chin resting on his shoulder. “Stronger?”

Louis nods. “It likes… this. Us. Being close. You touching me.”

“Of course you like me touching you.”

“It’s not me who likes it,” Louis rolls his eyes. “It’s… the baby. It calms when you’re near. I can feel it.”

Lestat kisses behind his ear. “Because it knows me.”

Louis doesn’t reply to that and moves to the other side of the large bathtub so they are staring at each other. Their legs are entangled.

After a long silence, he speaks again.

“How does someone like you die?”

Lestat laughs out loud. “What a way to ruin the moment.”

Louis pulls his legs up slightly, shifting, but Lestat catches one of his feet in his hands and lifts it gently. Without warning, he presses a kiss to the arch. Then his lips wrap around Louis’s toes, sucking playfully.

Louis jerks his foot back with a splash, scandalized. “Don’t— what are you—stop that! What is wrong with you?”

Lestat grins, utterly unbothered. “You asked a question. I’m giving you a distraction. Toe sucking is the least of our worries.”

Louis narrows his eyes. “Lestat. Tell me.”

Lestat’s smile remains.

Instead of answering, he slips under the water.

His golden hair disappears beneath the surface.

Louis waits, chest tight, staring down at the bath’s rippling surface.

It’s an unsettling realization that Lestat always disappears when the question matters most.

Louis tenses the moment he feels it.

A soft press - a kiss - low against his stomach, right over where the heat still coils behind his navel. Where something small and new moves inside him, responding to Lestat like a flower to sunlight.

Under the water, Lestat lingers there, placing kisses alongside his stomach. The intimacy of it sends a shiver crawling up Louis’s spine. He wouldn’t call it pleasure, but it’s close to it.

When Lestat finally surfaces, he exhales deeply, the water cascading down his face and chest. He slicks his hair back with both hands and looks at Louis through damp lashes.

“You asked how I die,” he says at last.

Louis scowls, pulling his legs in closer to his body, arms folding across his chest. He can still feel Lestat’s mouth on his skin.

Lestat leans against the back of the tub, voice quieter now. “Someone like me… this old, this… dangerous - we don’t die easily. We can’t. Not unless we want to.”

Louis’s eyes narrow. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not.” Lestat’s voice is surprisingly earnest. “There’s ancient blood in me. Blood older and darker than even I understand. It keeps me alive. Fire, sunlight, or a simple stake will do it. I’ve been ripped apart and crawled back.”

Louis’s face darkens. “Convenient.”

“Terrifying,” Lestat corrects softly. He leans forward, water lapping at his chest as he begins to close the distance. “But I’m not invincible. Not if someone knows what to do.”

Louis stiffens.

“You could hinder me. If you cut my throat… stabbed my heart… while we’re intimate, when my guard is down. When I’m in you, there’s nothing I can do. Dying inside you sounds beautiful.”

He’s in front of Louis now, inches away, the water between them rippling.

Louis stares at him. “That’s disgusting.”

“It’s true.” Lestat’s eyes burn brighter. “And if you were like me - if you were turned - it would be even easier. You’d have the strength to do it. You could use the bond against me. Time it just right. Kill me from inside.”

Louis glares, unsure whether it’s revulsion or fear tightening his gut. “And you’re telling me this?”

“I’m trusting you with it.” Lestat brushes wet fingers along Louis’s jaw. “Because you already want to kill me. You just haven’t decided what you’re willing to become to do it.”

Louis pulls back an inch as Lestat watches him, close and unblinking.

“So the question isn’t how I die,” he whispers. “It’s whether you live long enough to want it bad enough.”

In the space between their breaths, the fetus stirs again. The silence between them simmers, thick with things unsaid, heavy with heat from the water and the tension that never seems to leave the space between their bodies.

Lestat smiles. “You owe me a kiss.”

Louis blinks, startled. “For what?”

“Remember our deal? A kiss for every question.” Lestat says, grinning faintly. “And for feeding you and not letting you die from starvation and pride.”

Louis scoffs. But he doesn’t pull away. He leans in. The water laps gently around them, and Lestat waits, still and smiling, as Louis closes the gap.

The kiss is gentle and doesn’t add tongue even Lestat nibbles on his lips for it. But something stirs beneath the surface literally.

A flutter. A lightness in Louis’s belly. The baby is reacting.

Louis freezes for a moment, lips still against Lestat’s.

Then, slowly, a smile curls at the corner of his mouth.

Lestat feels it, and when they part, he presses their foreheads together, eyes half-lidded. “What was that?” he asks softly. “That smile?”

Louis hums, not answering. It’s his and the baby’s little secret.

Lestat brushes a thumb along his cheek. “You kiss with your eyes open,” he teases, voice smug.

Louis narrows his eyes. “Really? You’re one to talk.”

“Yes, but I do it as a romantic. You do it like you’re bracing for betrayal.”

Louis smirks. “That’s because I don’t trust you.”

Lestat laughs. “And I do it because I’m a creeper?” He mimics Louis’s New Orleans accent at the end. It’s kind of funny.

“You said it, not me.”

Lestat leans in again, kissing the corner of his mouth.

Louis’s smile fades, because for a moment, he forgot where he was. Who he’s here with.

-

The days stretch into April, wet with spring and grass. The frost has finally melted from the windowsills, and though the trees outside are still bare, green pushes up from the earth.

Louis’s body has changed, but not in ways he expected. His stomach remains flat. The ache is gone. Nausea has all, but vanished. If it weren’t for the warmth in his belly that flares when Lestat touches him, he might doubt there was anything growing inside him at all.

But he knows.

They both know.

This afternoon, they sit by the window.

A sketchpad rests in Louis’s lap, charcoal smudged across the sides of his fingers. Lestat sits beside him, surprisingly quiet, a glass of blood untouched on the table behind him. He’s watching Louis closely - not with hunger, for once, but with something more curious.

“Looser lines,” Lestat says. “You’re gripping too tightly.”

“I’m trying to follow your instructions,” Louis mutters, adjusting his hand.

“I said loose, not lazy,” Lestat teases.

Louis exhales through his nose, focused, drawing again. He’s sketching something strange and cartoonish. An exaggerated little figure with spindly arms and huge, expressive eyes.

Lestat leans over his shoulder, eyebrows raised. “What is that?”

Louis doesn’t pause. “It’s Doug. From the cartoon. Nickelodeon. You wouldn’t know.”

“Nickelodeon,” Lestat repeats, like it’s in a foreign language. “What is that, some sort of disease?”

Louis laughs under his breath. “It’s a TV channel. Cartoons. Doug had anxiety and wore the same outfit every day. I used to watch it with my brother after school.”

Lestat watches his face instead of the drawing now. “You never tell me these things.”

Louis hesitates, just for a moment. The charcoal pauses mid-stroke.

“I used to go home and lie on the rug,” he says thoughtfully. “Crackers and juice. The AC would kick on, and Grace would be yelling at someone about homework, and my mom would be on the phone with a client. But for twenty-two minutes, everything went quiet. Just me and the screen.”

Lestat listens, eyes locked on him.

“You never tell me anything,” he repeats softer. “Not like this.”

Louis looks down at the smudged page, the strange little figure staring back.

“I didn’t think you wanted stories,” he says. “Only obedience.”

Lestat’s voice drops.

“I want you. That includes your stories.”

Louis keeps drawing, closing off again.

The sketchpad lies between them now, half-filled with half-serious lines; Louis’s careful studies of faces and limbs beside Lestat’s occasional elegant stroke, which he sometimes adds without asking. Louis doesn’t mind. They don’t speak for a while, the sound of charcoal scratching paper the only thing passing between them.

Then, without looking up, Louis murmurs, “How’s the heartbeat?”

Lestat answers without hesitation, as if he's been listening to it all along. “Normal. Strong.” He leans back slightly, watching Louis’s hand move across the page. “She’s adjusting well to the meals.”

Louis’s breath catches in his throat. The charcoal stalls mid-curve.

He turns his head. “She?”

Lestat meets his eyes, calm. “Yes.”

Louis lowers the charcoal slowly, blinking.

He doesn’t say anything at first.

A girl.

It shouldn’t matter. Shouldn’t change anything.

But it does.

Lestat notices the shift immediately; how Louis’s body tenses, how his gaze falls to the paper, unfocused now.

“That means something to you,” he says quietly.

“No,” Louis replies too quickly. “It doesn’t.”

But he’s already seeing it.

A little girl. Brown skin. Big curls. Skipping through the hall, laughing. Clutching a stuffed animal or trailing her fingers along the wall as she runs. He sees her curled up in the windowsill with a book. He sees her watching cartoons on some dusty old TV he’d have to beg Lestat to drag into the living room. He sees her holding his finger in her tiny hand.

He sees her without him.

And the guilt comes fast and sharp.

Louis stares at the drawing on the page, but it’s meaningless now. Lines and smudges.

Lestat watches him closely. “You don’t want to leave her.”

Louis shakes his head. “I never said that.”

“You don’t have to.”

Louis is suddenly angry. “I didn’t ask for any of this.”

“No,” Lestat says. “But you have her now.”

Louis closes the sketchpad gently, to quiet the image in his head.

But it won’t.

Because for the first time, leaving doesn’t feel like escape.

It feels like abandoning her.

-

In the days that follow, Lestat changes his strategy.

He doesn’t press with hands or threats. Now, it’s words.

One morning, Louis is reading on the couch, one hand idly stroking the slight swell of his stomach, growing a little each day. Lestat sits nearby, sketchbook in his lap, drawing nothing in particular.

“You know,” Lestat says easily, “she’ll probably want tea parties. The elaborate kind. Little cups. Biscuits. Pink dresses.”

Louis glances at him without lifting his head. “I’m sure you will remember to provide that for her.”

Ignoring him, Lestat smiles faintly. “She’ll want you to pour. You’ll roll your eyes, but you’ll do it. Probably take it too seriously, like everything else.”

Louis clenches his jaw as the image goes to his head. Not his problem, he thinks.

Later that day, in the garden, Lestat trails a hand along a line of daffodils and muses aloud, “We should build her a swing. Hang it from the old oak. You’ll push her. She’ll ask to go higher and higher. You’ll say no. I’ll say yes. She’ll shriek every time her feet leave the ground.”

Louis doesn’t look at him.

The next evening at dinner, as Louis struggles through a few bites of roast chicken, Lestat rests his chin in his hand, watching him closely.

“If you leave,” he says gently, “she’ll never understand. You’ll be the father who vanished. The one she dreams about. But never sees. The one she asks about every birthday. What kind of monster does that to a child? A little girl, Louis. Girls need their father.”

Louis sets his fork down. Hard. “Stop.”

“I’m just being honest.”

“You’re being manipulative.”

“I’m giving you a vision of the future.”

“You’re trying to trap me in it,” Louis snaps. “And you never miss a chance to be cruel about it.”

Lestat’s face hardens slightly. “You call it cruelty,” he says calmly. “But I call it reality.”

He leans forward, eyes sharp. “She will need you. She will love you. And if you leave her, if you leave me, you’ll never see her again. And she’ll grow up thinking you didn’t care. I will remind her everyday that you left. What happens when you get a visit from her on your dead bed?”

Louis’s throat tightens. His hands twitch in his lap. His mind goes quiet except for that imagined voice - tiny, confused, asking where he went. She doesn’t deserve that. But Louis doesn’t deserve to stay here.

He swallows hard, staring down at the plate.

Because now the guilt is louder than the silence.

-

It happens gradually, subtly, but unmistakably.

Louis’s body begins to change.

His stomach, once flat and untouched by weeks of uncertainty, now shows the faintest curve. Not much. His shirts begin to stretch differently across the center and he catches himself resting a hand there without thinking.

He’s hungrier now constantly. Every two hours, sometimes less. The cravings are intense, bordering on unhealthy. The rare meat he once scorned is now a staple. Seared edges, but pink in the center. Juices that glisten on his plate. Lestat watches every bite, pleased by the development.

They’re playing chess again tonight.

Rain taps against the windowpanes. The board between them is nearly full; Louis’s pieces better placed than usual. He’s improving. Less hesitant. More sure of the future. His brow is furrowed in focus, his hand hovering over his knight.

Lestat leans back in his chair, watching him with a lazy smile.

“You’re thinking three moves ahead,” he says. “You never used to.”

Louis huff. “I never used to be in check every time I blinked.”

Lestat laughs. “You’re adapting.”

Louis makes his move and leans back. He’s had something on his mind for weeks now.

“I’ll stay,” he says suddenly.

Lestat’s smile falters, then blooms.

“You will?”

Louis nods slowly, his palm settling on the small swell of his belly. “Until she’s old enough.”

Lestat’s expression flickers. “Old enough?”

“To know who I am. To remember me.” Louis explains. “Then I’ll leave.”

Lestat’s smile fades entirely.

He watches Louis in silence. “No,” he says flatly. “That’s unacceptable.”

“I’m not asking,” Louis says, firm. “She’s the reason I’ll stay. Not you. Never you, Lestat.”

Lestat’s hands tighten on the edge of the table.

“So you’ll give me half a family,” he says. “A house with one parent and a ghost.”

“I’ll give her what I can,” Louis replies. “Until she’s strong enough to know why I need to leave.”

“And what about me?” Lestat asks, a low heat rising in his voice. “I made this with you. I fed you. Protected you. This child exists because I wanted her.”

“You wanted something that binds me,” Louis says, eyes narrowing. “And it worked, but don’t pretend this was about love.”

Lestat leans forward across the board.

“You think she won’t feel it?” he hisses. “Your absence? Your rejection? You’ll leave a hole in her before she ever understands the shape of it.”

Louis doesn’t flinch. But his hand remains over his stomach. “She deserves to know why I can’t stay forever,” he says softly. “Not even for her.”

And Lestat, for once, has no move left to make. He never finishes the game and shoves all the pieces off the board.

Louis officially wins his first chess match.

-

The days grow longer as June creeps in. The house is under the weight of summer heat and something else more subtle.

Louis is eating more than ever, but he’s also tiring faster. His body aches in ways he can’t explain. The swell of his stomach has grown; noticeable now, round beneath his shirt, firm under his palm.

But it’s not just the belly.

It’s the pressure in his back, low and constant. A sharp ache when he stands too long. A tremor in his hands after he walks the stairs. He doesn’t say anything. Not at first.

But Lestat notices.

One afternoon, Louis leans over the sink, a wince flashing across his face as he straightens. Lestat is there instantly, too quickly.

“Let me see,” he murmurs.

“I’m fine,” Louis mutters, brushing him off.

“Lift your shirt.”

“No—”

But Lestat already has a hand at the hem, drawing the fabric up slowly. His fingers ghost along Louis’s spine, cool and firm.

Louis still flinches, a soft sharp breath escaping him.

Lestat’s hand freezes.

“What was that?” he asks, voice tightening.

“It’s nothing. I’m pregnant so I’m sensitive to touch.”

But Lestat’s eyes darken. He says nothing more, but Louis feels his stare burning into his back as he pulls away and leaves the room.

-

That night, Louis wakes alone.

The bed is warm beside him, but empty. The door is cracked open, a faint line of light bleeding across the floor.

He slips from the bed and follows it.

He hears Lestat before he sees him.

The study door is ajar. The room is dark but not silent.

Lestat stands near the window, tense, arms braced against the sill, lips moving, but there’s no sound. No phone. No one in the room.

Louis watches from the shadows, heart tight.

Lestat is speaking, but not aloud. His eyes are glassy. His face pale. Whatever he’s saying, whoever he’s speaking to, it’s not human.

When the silence finally returns, Lestat lowers his head into his hands and exhales shakily.

Louis steps into the light.

“Who are you talking to?”

Lestat turns sharply, the mask sliding back into place too fast.

“No one.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

Lestat straightens, brushing past him. “It doesn’t concern you.”

Louis grabs his wrist. “Am I dying?”

Lestat freezes.

Louis’s voice cracks. “Because of the baby. Am I dying?”

Lestat jerks his arm free and snaps, “You’re fine. Get in bed before you fall.”

The sound of it slices through the room.

Louis takes a step back, heart thudding. “You didn’t answer the question.”

“I did,” Lestat growls. “You just don’t like the tone.”

He leaves the room without another word, his footsteps heavy on the floor.

Louis stands there in the study, chest tight, hands shaking.

The baby kicks.

The ache in his back throbs again.

And for the first time…

He wonders if Lestat's silence is less about cruelty and more about fear.

-

Two nights later, Louis is in the doorway when Lestat finds him, his arms crossed, body tense from a sleepless night. He’s been walking slowly, back aching, trying to ease the pressure growing with each passing day.

Lestat steps in without a greeting, his expression unreadable. “Pack a bag.”

Louis turns to him, startled. “What?”

“Essentials. Clothes, toiletries. Anything you can’t part with. We’re leaving tonight.”

For a moment, Louis is frozen. His mind stutters through disbelief, confusion, and something unexpected.

Hope.

He laughs, short and stunned. “You’re letting me leave?”

Lestat doesn’t smile.

And Louis’s own smile falters almost immediately.

“No,” he says quietly. “You wouldn’t say it like that if this was good news.”

Lestat’s silence answers for him.

Louis’s heart sinks. “What’s wrong?”

Lestat brushes past him toward the bedroom, opening drawers, moving with brisk efficiency. “The house isn’t safe anymore. The delivery will be complicated. I own an island, private. Remote. It’s better equipped for what’s coming.”

Louis watches him, every muscle taut. “You’re being vague.”

“I’m being protective.”

“Don’t do that.”

Lestat exhales hard and drops a neatly folded sweater onto the bed. “It’s just precaution.”

“No, it’s not.” Louis’s voice sharpens. “You don’t uproot everything overnight for precaution.” He steps closer, eyes locked on Lestat. “Who were you talking to the other night?”

Lestat presses his mouth into a thin line.

“Don’t lie,” Louis says. “Was it a vampire? Were you speaking to someone in your head?”

Lestat’s jaw flexes. After a long pause, he says: “Yes.”

“Who?”

Lestat hesitates and relents. “A doctor.”

That’s the last thing Louis expected him to say. “A doctor?”

“A vampire physician. Old. Experienced.” Lestat turns to face him fully now. “His name is Dr. Fareed Bhansali. He deals with... complications like yours.”

Louis’s breath catches.

“Like mine? You mean unnatural.”

“I mean rare,” Lestat corrects, but there’s no conviction behind it. “He’s helped others survive in other circumstances.”

Louis swallows, hand drifting protectively over his stomach.

“You should’ve told me.”

“I didn’t want to scare you.”

“You should’ve trusted me with this information.”

Lestat’s gaze darkens. “I am trusting you. I’m taking you to the only person who can guarantee you survive this.”

Louis exhales slowly, gaze dropping.

The baby shifts inside him, subtle, but heavy. As if she, too, is listening.

He looks up again, his voice quiet.

“How bad is it?”

Lestat meets his eyes without responding, which tells him everything.

Louis moves quietly around the bedroom, folding a sweater into his bag. He’s stunned he’s actually leaving, but he’s in no rush to. Something is wrong.

He pauses, fingers resting on his comfort blanket. “Something else is wrong.”

Lestat’s voice answers too quickly from across the room. “I already told you—”

“No,” Louis cuts in, turning to face him. “If this was just about safety, you wouldn’t need me packing. You’d do what you’ve always done.”

Lestat’s face twists into a grimace.

“You’d drug me,” Louis says flatly. “Like you did before. When you wanted control. When you didn’t want my permission.”

The silence stretches, heavy and damning.

Lestat’s eyes flicker, and Louis sees it: the hesitation.

He steps forward, one slow step at a time. “You can’t drug me, can you?”

Lestat clenches his jaw, the lines in his face sharpening.

“You’re too scared to,” Louis presses. “Too scared something will happen to the baby if I’m unconscious. If I fight you. If I fall.”

The truth is already there, coiled around him like a chain.

“I knew it,” Louis breathes. “You need me to be awake, aware and cooperative.”

Lestat exhales through his nose, cold and bitter. “Yes.”

Louis stares at him, stunned by the admission. He hadn’t expected honesty. Not from him. “Why can’t the doctor come here?”

Lestat’s eyes narrow slightly, as if weighing the lie he wants to tell, but Louis is already putting it together.

He speaks before Lestat can.

“The doctor... thinks I’m being held hostage.”

Lestat stays silent.

Louis keeps going. “He refused to come here unless I chose to leave. Unless I wanted to see him.”

Still, Lestat doesn’t respond. His body is rigid, jaw locked tight.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” Louis says. “He thinks you’re forcing me.”

Finally, Lestat speaks. “He’s wrong about us.”

Louis lets out a breath, half a laugh, half a shudder. “Oh, the irony that you need me to consent to get something you want now.”

Lestat meets his eyes. “It’s the only way he’ll see you.”

Louis looks down at his half-packed bag, at the neat folds and preparations. He zips it closed and sets it aside.

Lestat watches him, tension bleeding into the room like fog - barely contained, crackling under his skin.

Louis straightens. His voice is calm, but cold. “If you want me to go willingly, then you need to give me something in return.”

“You’re not in a position to bargain.”

“Yes, I am,” Louis says. “You need my consent. The doctor made that clear. No cooperation, no treatment. You said it yourself, he won’t even see me if he suspects coercion.”

Lestat stiffens. “Don’t test me, Louis.”

Louis ignores him. “Promise me. If I say I want to leave after the baby’s born, you’ll let me. I want your word.”

Lestat’s eyes narrow. “No.”

Louis’s brows lift slightly. “Then I’m not going.”

“You will,” Lestat growls. “You’re carrying our child. I’m not letting you walk away because you want to prove a point.”

“I’m proving I’m not yours to keep,” Louis snaps. “And if you can’t offer me a future where I have control over my own body, I’ll risk staying here. Alone. With or without that doctor.”

He knows he’ll die here if he stays. He’s something he will accept to get his way.

Lestat’s hand twitches at his side, a flash of frustration tightening every line in his face. “Don’t be stupid.”

“Then don’t be a coward.”

They stare at each other, breathless with fury and fear. The baby kicks once - sharply - inside Louis, responding to the pressure building between them. Louis doubles over in pain, gasping.

That makes Lestat exhale, voice desperate and strangled. “Louis - please, I can’t watch you like this anymore. I can’t promise - you’ll leave me if I do.”

“I already planned to,” Louis says through clenched teeth. “But I’m giving you this. A choice. I’ll go with you. I’ll cooperate. I’ll see your doctor. But only if I know I can walk away. Not escape. Not vanish. Just… leave.”

Silence.

Then, slowly Lestat nods.

It’s stiff. Painful. Every muscle in his body seems to resist it.

But it’s real.

Louis watches him closely. “Say it.”

Lestat meets his eyes, and the words come out like splinters. “If you want to go… I won’t stop you.”

With that, Louis just turns back to the bag, pulls out a clean shirt, and keeps packing.

And Lestat -  silent and burning - knows that for the first time, Louis might leave him. But he also might choose to stay. And that’s the part that terrifies him most.

-

Night has settled, cool and refreshing. Inside the house, everything feels different.

Lestat stands near the door, dressed in black, coat already on, one hand on the knob.

Louis shoulders his bag slowly. It’s not heavy: bare essentials, a few comforts, nothing sentimental. Nothing he couldn’t leave behind.

Lestat looks at him. “Are you ready?”

Louis’s heart is pounding loud, hard, like it’s trying to break through his ribs.

But he nods.

Lestat opens the door.

It creaks a little. The hinges dry from disuse. The lock clicks back, and with it, the last barrier cracks.

A rush of cool air sweeps in. Not sterile like the filtered vents of the house. Just the natural smell of outside.

Louis steps forward.

One foot over the threshold.

And just like that, he's outside for the first time in months. Real outside, not the confines of a garden.

He stands on the porch, the wood beneath his feet solid and damp. The wind grazes his cheeks. Leaves rustle gently in the distance. Somewhere far off, a night bird calls. It’s all so alive it almost hurts.

Louis closes his eyes and breathes in deep.

When he opens them, the night is waiting. So is the road.

For the first time, freedom doesn’t feel impossible. It’s here. He’s almost free.

Louis follows Lestat down the porch steps. The gravel cracks under his shoes. The yard is manicured to the root. Grass cut flat. Hedges squared with the blade. Trees cut back to stubs pretending at fullness. Nothing out of place. The sight twists something in him. His prison is surrounded by perfection.

And then it hits. He turns his head, stomach dropping. The curve of the street. The yellow porch light two houses down. The slab of pavement by the gutter, split and scarred, where a boy used to skateboard with a radio bouncing on his back.

This isn’t some estate out in the woods.

This is his street.

His neighborhood.

Ten blocks from his Seattle apartment.

Louis stops breathing. Then pulls in air, raw and clean. The first air that isn’t thick with curtains or shut windows. The night cool in his lungs. His chest seizes against it, ribs tight, like his body forgot what it was supposed to do. He swallows it down, greedy, his throat burning. He feels dizzy from it, almost drunk.

He stares at the corner mailbox. Same graffiti sprayed, the same dog asleep in the yard that once barked at every runner. The cul-de-sac, silent, blank, and blind.

He had been here all along.

Trapped in that house. Not chained. Not locked in a cellar. Four walls, curtains drawn, and a man who knew how to vanish in plain sight.

And nobody came.

His eyes sting. He remembers screaming until his throat shredded. Fighting until his arms went dead. He had been close enough to run, close enough for someone to see.

But no one saw.

No one ever saw him.

Something inside gives. The weight pulling him down from the inside out.

Lestat’s arm comes around him. Words too low to catch. The hand at his back firm, pushing him toward the car. Black paint with dark windows awaits him.

Louis stares at it, stomach tight. He should move, but his body won’t. His chest pounds. The thought breaks through: he’s pregnant.

The fact of it swallows everything else. He’s carrying life he didn’t choose. In a body that aches. On a street that was once safe.

The grief rips him. His legs fold. A sob tears loose before he can hold it.

Lestat catches him. Holds him. Louis doesn’t resist. He can’t.

The car door opens. Inside is leather, silence, and the air’s too thick.

Louis drops into the seat, hollow, shaking. Lestat closes them in with a click that sounds like an ending.

“Go,” Lestat says.

The car moves.

Louis folds against him, forehead to his coat. The smell of wool and cologne and the house he wants to forget.

Tears keep coming.

Lestat’s hand moves through his hair. Reassuring. Calm. A rhythm that soothes whether Louis wants it or not.

His breaths catch, then ease.

His fingers let go. His body softens.

And still pressed against Lestat - the man he hates, the man he needs - Louis falls asleep.

-

A car door opens beside him.

He blinks.

The backseat is dark, the windows blacked out from the inside. It’s a different car this time. He doesn’t remember climbing in. Only the open air on his face, the shock of it after so long shut inside. The smell of cut grass, exhaust, the damp of night. He had pulled it into his lungs too fast, coughing on it, like someone who had been drowning. The noise outside - the hum of traffic blocks away, a dog barking, voices from a porch, tires on asphalt - each one sharp, separate. He couldn’t piece them together.

For a second he thought he was on an airplane. Maybe he was. He heard an engine, the way his stomach rolled, the motion under his body. His head had spun, eyes shut, chest rising too fast as he tried to guess where he was. Sky, ground, nowhere.

He doesn’t know how far they’ve gone. Doesn’t know where he is now.

What he remembers is crying.

Lestat’s arms heavy around him, his body a cage. Streetlights dragging past in streaks of white and amber. His chest breaking open with sobs he couldn’t swallow down. His face buried in wool that scratched his skin, in the scent that marked everything; house, bed, nights stolen from him.

And Lestat’s voice, soft and calm against his ear. You’re safe. It’s over now.

But it isn’t over. It isn’t even close.

-

He wakes to heat. It take a second to realize he’s outside, the sun beaming down on him.

A dry, suffocating heat that presses into every pore, baking his skin through his clothes. His mouth is glued shut. His tongue sticks to the roof. Every inhale scorches, rough on his lungs. Sweat stings his eyes, blurring everything into light and shapes. The baby doesn’t like too much heat, he thinks desperately. He’s surprised he hasn’t thrown up.

A heavy material lands on him. Lestat’s coat. Black, thick, long. It drops over his head and shoulders, pulling him into darkness, the smell of wool and cologne closing around him again. The baby likes the smell.

“Stay close to me,” Lestat says urgently. “Keep your face covered. Don’t stumble.”

Louis pushes at the coat, weak, and half-blind. It reeks of Lestat and leather. The baby shifts under his ribs, soothed by it. His voice cracks. “Where - where are we?”

But Lestat is already moving, hauling him forward with a hand under his arm.

The sun is merciless.

Even through the coat, Louis feels it hammering down, pressing into him, peeling him raw. The air is brittle, desert-dry. Each breath scrapes. The ground radiates heat into his shoes. His calves burn. His spine bows.

He can’t tell where they are. He can’t see any signs or landmarks, only a vast glare and the taste of dust on his tongue. There’s nothing but the sound of their feet grinding on stone and the low buzz of heat itself.

Louis’s breathing quickens. His back screams. His legs buckle with each stride. The baby kicks once, sharp and violent, and he almost goes down.

“Please,” he gasps. “I need to stop—”

“Not here.” Lestat’s grip tightens, forcing him forward. “We’re close.”

A door opens. Metal cool under Louis’s palm. Lestat pulls it open with a hiss. A wall of cold air slams against his face.

Relief. Sudden, dizzying.

Inside, the light is bright. The floor is smooth, polished. Louis stumbles across it, and Lestat steadies him, guiding him down a short corridor until the space opens into something vast.

Marble stretches underfoot. The ceiling vaults high, carved and cold. Enormous windows line the far wall, blinds drawn tight against the sun.

It isn’t a house. It’s bigger. An estate. Palatial, silent, and wired with hidden power.

Louis makes it to the leather couch in the center of the room and drops hard, breath tearing through him. His shirt clings with sweat. His stomach knots and pulses - movement, twisting, another kick. Then pain.

It seizes him without warning. A cramp, unexpected and sharp, curling him forward.

“Fuck.” His teeth clamp down on the word. His hand presses his stomach, useless against the spasm. “Something’s wrong—”

Lestat is on his knees in front of him instantly, eyes burning, hands hovering. “It’s all right. It’s normal. The travel - your body’s reacting.”

“No, this—” he can barely get the words out—“this hurts—”

“The doctor will be here soon,” Lestat says with a slight tremor. “He’s already on his way. He’ll check everything.”

Louis bites down on the inside of his cheek. The pain drags through him as his nails dig into the couch. Sweat slicks his temple. The baby kicks again - hard, insistent like it’s protesting something.

After staring at him, Lestat leaves. The room goes silent except for the faint buzz of the air system, the ache in Louis’s back, and the slow pressure of pain in his abdomen. He presses his palm over his belly and feels the taut resistance of muscle and skin. He thinks of the baby curled inside, taking everything from him piece by piece. Lestat returns with a bottle of water. He unscrews the cap, leans down, and tips it carefully against Louis’s mouth.

The first swallow burns. His body fights it, then clutches at it greedily. He drinks in uneven gulps, throat working, water spilling down the corner of his mouth.

Lestat tilts the bottle back until Louis’s chest rises easier. The cramp begins to ease, loosening its grip on him.

“Better?” Lestat asks. His hand is at Louis’s face now, thumb stroking his cheek. “Everything will be fine soon.”

Louis stares up at the carved ceiling, eyes unfocused. The arching stone, ornate and unreachable. It feels like a sky he’ll never touch again.

He doesn’t believe him.

He closes his eyes anyway.

-

Footsteps echo down the hall, loud against the marble.

Louis barely registers them through the fog of pain. His forehead sinks against his arm. His breath comes shallow, ragged. The baby has gone quiet, but the ache remains, a dull bar of pressure stretching low across his belly into his spine. He doesn’t know how long he’s been laying on the couch, but he’s lost track of time between the slow sips of water and drinking from Ledtat’s wrists, he fell asleep.

The footsteps stop.

A voice cuts through the room. “Louis Dulac?”

Louis raises his head slowly.

A man stands across from him. Tall, a dark coat with no insignia. Not formal or casual. His hands folded neatly in front of him, gloved. His skin a warm brown, hair streaked with white and tied back at the neck. His eyes are brown, too brown. A flat sheen. Contacts.

Louis notices immediately. It’s the first time he’s seen anyone else in months.

“Dr. Fareed Bhansali,” the man says, giving a small nod. “You can call me Fareed.”

He walks forward, not with the grace Louis expects of their kind, but careful, like every move is chosen so he doesn’t startle him.

“You’re a vampire?” Louis’s voice comes out raw. He doesn’t carry the same agility Lestat has. He wonders how old Fareed is.

A small smile. “Yes. Old enough to know better. Young enough to be offended when someone guesses otherwise.”

Louis straightens, adjusts the coat clinging damp to his shoulders.

Fareed glances between him and Lestat. “And you’re… companions?”

The question hangs.

Louis’s fingers twitch. His first instinct is to snap no. To laugh bitterly and name it for what it is: coercion and manipulation. That nothing about this is a choice. That Lestat has taken his body, left him no ground of his own.

But this is a test. A trap.

If he wants help, he has to play along.

He meets Fareed’s gaze. His voice comes out flat. “Yes. We’re companions.”

Beside him, Lestat shifts. Louis doesn’t look. He doesn’t have to. He feels the smug glow radiating off him.

Fareed only nods. “Understood.” He places a leather satchel on the table, snaps it open. The smell of gauze and alcohol rolls out.

“I need to ask you some questions,” he says evenly. “I’ll examine you after. But first, I want to know how your body’s been responding. Is that all right?”

Louis nods once.

Fareed sits across from him, pulls a slim tablet free. “Where are you in the pregnancy, approximately?”

“End of the first trimester. Maybe the start of the second.” Louis shakes his head. “It doesn’t feel human, more vampire than anything.”

Tap of stylus on glass. “Any prior pregnancies?”

“Only a loss,” Louis swallows. “Early.”

“And this one?”

Louis exhales. “Different. Stronger. I can feel her move already.”

“Her?” Fareed looks up.

“Lestat says it’s a girl.”

Lestat inclines his head in confirmation.

More notes entered. “Symptoms?”

“My back. Constant pain. Worse when I stand. Tightness low in the abdomen. Pulling cramps sometimes.”

“Nausea?”

“It was constant. Eased these past weeks.”

“Appetite?”

Louis hesitates. “Weird. Cravings for meat. Rare. And…” his eyes flick to Lestat, “I’ve had blood.”

“From humans?”

He shakes his head. “From him.”

“Frequency?”

“Daily.”

“And afterward? Relief?”

“Yes. Even the baby settles.”

Fareed’s brow tightens slightly. “You can feel her respond?”

“Yes. To touch. To voices. Especially his.”

He doesn’t say Lestat’s name. Won’t given him the satisfaction.

Fareed closes the tablet gently, sets it aside. “She’s developing faster than expected. The blood accelerates growth. Not unusual in hybrid cases, but a male-bodied, unturned, carrying past the first month is rare. No one has successfully carried this long without horrific consequences.”

Louis swallows. “Is that why it hurts?”

“It’s why you’re surviving,” Fareed says. “And why you need constant monitoring. Daily, if possible. This isn’t just difficult. It’s unprecedented.”

He rises, pulls supplies from the bag.

Lestat is silent, watching and listening to every detail. Louis feels the burn of it. He knows what Lestat fears, this is the first time someone else is seeing Louis. Not as possession. Not as a body. But as a patient.

Fareed opens a sterile packet. Louis thinks, for the first time in weeks that maybe someone will help him survive. Not for love or ownership. But because it’s possible.

Fareed rolls up his sleeves, sets a stethoscope and probe on the table. “I’ll check spinal alignment and dermal response first. Make sure there isn’t nerve compression.” He pulls on gloves. The snap echoes.

“Be gentle,” Lestat says. His tone even, but there’s an edge under it.

Fareed doesn’t blink. “This is a routine assessment. Nothing more.”

Louis feels Lestat’s stare, hot against his cheek.

“Louis,” Fareed says gently, “turn toward the couch back. I’ll examine your spine.”

Louis shifts, one hand bracing his stomach, easing onto his side. Pain tugs low in his back. He winces.

“There?” Fareed asks.

“Lower. Tailbone.”

“Lift your shirt, please. To the abdomen.”

Louis hesitates, then raises it. Air chills the sweat on his skin.

Fareed’s hands press methodically down his spine. “Tell me if anything hurts more after I touch it.”

Louis breathes through his nose. Behind him, Lestat is silent. He doesn’t need to turn. He knows. Jealousy radiates off him. He hates watching another man’s gloved hands on Louis’s bare skin.

Fareed clears his throat. “You’re favoring the left side. Ligament strain across the pelvis. It’s pulling unevenly.”

“Can you fix it?”

“Not fix, but ease the pressure with constant stretches. More adjustments later.”

The probe drags down his spine, cool metal against hot skin. Louis exhales.

Behind him, a shift. Small. Enough for Louis to feel it.

Fareed lowers the shirt back into place, peels off the gloves. “That’s all for now. You did well.”

Louis sits upright, pulls his clothes straight. “Thanks.”

Fareed picks up his tablet again. “Next, I’ll need to monitor the heartbeat directly. But I can step out for a moment if you’d prefer a small break first.”

Louis blinks. “Why would I—”

“You look exhausted,” Fareed says gently. “And I imagine this has all been… a lot.”

Louis glances at Lestat.

Lestat says nothing. But his eyes haven’t left him.

Fareed offers a small smile. “Ten minutes.”

He walks out without another word. And the moment he does, Lestat moves.

He comes to Louis’s side in two strides, crouches in front of him, and runs a hand over the shirt Fareed just adjusted. Possessive.

“Did it hurt?” Lestat asks.

Louis lifts his chin. “No.”

Lestat’s hand stays over his stomach, unmoving. “You let him touch you.”

Louis nearly closes his eyes. Only Lestat could be jealous of something like this, of something he planned. “It’s his job,” Louis says. “Not everything is about you.”

Lestat looks up at him, eyes bright. “Everything you are is about me.”

Louis doesn’t argue. He doesn’t want to stress the baby. He just breathes in slowly, eyes narrowing. Just waits for Fareed to come back.

A few minutes later, Fareed steps back into the room with a small silver thermos in hand. The scent hits the air immediately: warm, thick, unmistakably blood, but laced with something else. Softer. Herbal. Calming.

“Drink this,” he says, offering it to Louis. “It’s human. Clean. Infused with valerian and ashwagandha. It’ll help the muscles relax and calm the baby’s movements.”

Louis hesitates for half a second, then takes it. The blood is rich. Smooth. It slides down his throat like velvet. Not as sweet as Lestat’s. Not as addictive. But it settles him instantly - his jaw unclenching, his back softening into the couch cushions. The pressure behind his eyes begins to fades.

Fareed watches closely and sets the satchel back on the table. “I need to proceed with a full exam now,” he says. “Which means undressing. Completely.”

Louis nods slowly, his hands already moving to the hem of his shirt.

But Lestat cuts in from across the room, voice tight and fraying. “Is that necessary?”

Fareed doesn’t even look at him. “Yes.”

Lestat’s tone sharpens. “He’s not some specimen to strip and prod. If you want measurements, I can—”

Fareed clears his throat, his voice gentle yet stern. “I’m here because I agreed to be. On my own time without compensation as a favor. We’ve had this talk multiple times, Lestat.”

He finally looks at Lestat now, and the temperature in the room seems to drop.

“I’ve seen what you’ve done to the others centuries ago,” Fareed says. “You push them too far. You break them open just to see what’s inside, and then you wonder why none of them last. You didn’t want them to last, except this one.”

Lestat’s mouth presses into a thin line.

“I’m not here to placate you,” Fareed continues. “I’m here to keep him alive. And if you want that baby born, if you want Louis breathing afterward, then I need to do my job without you interfering.”

The silence that follows is heavy.

Lestat turns his face away, jaw flexing. His hands twitch at his sides. But he doesn’t argue.

He begins to pace. Slow, coiled steps back and forth across the length of the room.

Louis watches him for a moment, looks back to Fareed and quietly pulls his shirt over his head. The chill of the room creeps over his skin. His hands go to his waistband.

He doesn’t look at either of them as he slides his underwear and pants down, folding them neatly beside him.

He’s bare now. Vulnerable.

But he stays seated, spine straight, breath even.

Fareed approaches with a clean set of gloves and a focused calm that feels merciful. His face is blank as he takes in Louis’s body.

“This may feel strange,” he says gently. “But it won’t hurt. Let me know if anything feels sensitive or wrong.”

Louis nods.

Fareed kneels, his movements efficient. He checks the skin around Louis’s hips, the taut line of muscle around the womb’s cradle, palpating gently for tension. His fingers press lightly into the space between pelvis and belly, gauging position and response. Louis relaxes considerably as Fareed does a routine check on his chest, arms, neck, and legs. He explains everything he’s going to do and what he’s doing in a calm manner. Eventually, the baby decides to trust Fareed and relax too. That seems to upset Lestat who makes a noise of impatience.

Ignoring him, Fareed takes out a small handheld scanner - silver, flat, no bigger than a phone - and holds it against Louis’s abdomen.

A quiet hush fills the room. A light glows soft and blue across Louis’s skin.

“Heartbeat,” Fareed murmurs, reading the screen. “Strong. Responsive. No signs of fetal stress.”

Louis exhales.

The baby shifts again, less sharply this time. Just a slow, sliding roll beneath his skin. “She doesn’t hate you,” Louis hums.

Fareed smiles slightly. “That’s a relief. She’s active. Very aware. Not unusual with blood intake. But you need to eat more human food. Not for her, but for yourself. I’d recommend you feed every five hours now. More if pain returns.”

Louis nods again. “Okay.”

From across the room, Lestat stops pacing.

His eyes are locked on Louis’s body - his bare thighs, the gentle curve of his belly, the long line of his spine arched forward to accommodate the growing weight.

Possessiveness radiates from him like heat.

But Fareed doesn’t flinch. He continues his exam - gentle, silent, thorough.

And Louis, for the first time in months, feels like he’s being seen as a human. He’s being seen as a person.

When Fareed finally pulls the scanner away and removes his gloves, he meets Louis’s eyes.

“You’re doing better than expected,” he says softly. “But you need space. Go for walks as being dormant isn’t helping. You need distance from whatever's making you stressed.”

Louis doesn’t answer as he chews on his bottom lip. Lestat stresses him out but doesn’t stress the baby. He doesn’t know what that means just yet.

But Lestat answers before Louis can ask questions. “We’re done for today. Leave us.”

Fareed doesn’t look at him.

He turns to Louis.

“I’ll be back in the morning,” he says gently. “Get some rest and stay hydrated.” Then he turns and walks out of the room without another word.

And Louis, still undressed, still raw, reaches for the coat on the couch and pulls it back around his shoulders.

Lestat doesn’t speak.

He just stares.

Like something vital is slipping from his hands.

Louis shifts under the coat, the thick fabric brushing against his bare chest. The room feels colder now - maybe from the blood cooling in his veins, maybe from the silence that followed Fareed’s exit.

He glances toward the tall, shuttered windows, then toward the door where Fareed disappeared.

“…Where are we?” he asks finally.

Lestat doesn’t look at him.

Instead, he paces once more toward the fireplace, then back again. His shoes are nearly silent on the stone floor, but Louis can feel the tension in every step.

“We’re safe,” Lestat says flatly. “That’s all you need to know.”

“I have a right to know where I’m giving birth,” Louis snaps.

Lestat turns on his heel, eyes sharp. “Fareed is perverse.”

Startled, Louis blinks. “What?”

“Touching you like that. Enjoying it.”

Louis laughs - a raw, startled sound that breaks from him before he can control it. “You’re calling him perverse?” He snorts and leans back against the cushions, tugging the coat tighter. “That’s rich. You finally figured out what the word means?”

Lestat’s eyes flash.

“I could hear his thoughts,” he says, laced with venom. “He didn’t keep them quiet. I didn’t like them.”

Louis stiffens.

The amusement drains from his face, replaced by something colder. Warier. His gaze lifts slowly, locking with Lestat’s. “…You can hear thoughts?”

Lestat doesn’t answer right away. His expression doesn’t change.

Louis sits forward slightly, his breath hitching. “Can you hear mine?”

Silence.

Then, softly, dangerously, Lestat replies, “Sometimes.”

Louis’s mouth parts. “What do you mean sometimes?”

“I mean,” Lestat says, walking toward him now, “that when your mind screams something loud enough, I hear it whether I want to or not.”

Louis’ stomach rolls. All this time -

Lestat stops in front of him, gaze searching. “You think I don’t know what you’re planning? What you dream about? What you beg for when you think I’m not listening?”

Louis’s fingers knot tight in the coat, fabric rough under his nails. His lips press thin, not from pain but from what he keeps to himself.

He dreams often. He remembers them ever since he’s been pregnant.

Sometimes it’s killing Lestat; hands sure, heart steady, the silence afterward sweeter than blood. Sometimes it’s the other thing: his own face sharpened, fanged, no longer prey. A vampire at last, unbreakable, free of breath and pregnancy and fear.

Other nights are gentler. He sees himself holding his daughter, so tiny in his arms, her eyes not yet colored by inheritance. In those dreams, he’s only human, and it’s enough.

But then there are the worst nights. The ones where his mouth finds Lestat’s. Where he kisses him, teeth and salt, and hates himself for wanting it. Those are the ones that stay longest. The cruelest thing is how real they feel in the morning.

“No, Louis, the cruelest thing,” Lestat continues, almost pitying, “is that you think you're still hiding anything.”

Louis looks away, heart thudding hard.

He’d thought - he hoped - that at least his mind was his own.

But now, even that feels compromised.

He swallows down the sharp knot in his chest.

“I hate you,” he mutters.

“I know,” Lestat replies.

And somehow, he sounds almost comforted by it.

Louis stares at him longer than he means to, cataloguing the shape of his calm. Lestat can take “I hate you” the way other men take “I love you” - as proof, as tether, as one more sign Louis is still bound to him. The unfairness of it gnaws at him, because hate should cut ties, not knot them tighter.

He thinks of his dreams; the killing ones, the vampire ones, the gentler ones where he holds his daughter. And the other dreams, the ones that shame him most: kissing Lestat like it’s something he wants. In those moments, Louis wakes heavy, throat sour, his body no longer his own. He feels the ghost of it now, sitting in the same room, and wonders if Lestat already knows. Wonders if his thoughts are even private anymore.

The coat is heavy on his shoulders, hot against his chest. His fingers twitch against the seam, caught between wanting to tear it off and wanting to disappear inside it. He feels pinned by fabric, by memory, by the man watching him with eyes that mistake hate for intimacy.

Louis stands slowly.

The coat slips from his shoulders, pooling at the bend of his elbows as he adjusts it around his body. His feet are bare on the cold marble floor, and the stretch in his lower back protests with every shift of weight. But he wants to move. Needs to. Anything to escape the pressure in the air, the look in Lestat’s eyes, the feeling that every breath is being monitored and parsed for intent.

“I want to walk,” he says simply. “Just to see the house.”

Lestat’s head lifts immediately, posture tightening. “Why?”

Louis arches a brow. “Because I’m in a new place. Because I’m stiff. Because I’d like to feel something other than the inside of a couch cushion pressed against my thighs.”

Lestat doesn’t move, but the air around him sharpens.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” he says quietly. “Like running.”

Louis laughs under his breath. “Look at me.” He presses a hand to the swell of his stomach, firm and round beneath the coat. “Where exactly do you think I’m running to?”

“You’ve tried to hurt yourself before.”

“I wasn’t this pregnant before,” Louis snaps.

They stare at each other, a fragile standoff settling into the room like dust.

Lestat’s jaw clenches, a flash of unease flickering through his expression. “You can’t hide from me,” he says, softer now. “Not in here. Not anywhere.”

That - that - is what gives Louis pause.

Not the threat itself.

But the nervousness in Lestat’s voice. The too-fast rhythm of his words, the way he’s watching Louis’s every shift like something might give way at any second.

He’s afraid.

And that, more than anything, unsettles Louis.

“I said I want to walk,” he replies quietly, his tone no longer sharp. “I’m not leaving just yet.”

Lestat frowns, but steps aside.

Louis walks past him slowly, eyes on the open hallway beyond.

And Lestat lets him go.

For now.

Louis walks slowly through the hallway, one hand bracing the small of his back, the other trailing lightly along the wall for balance.

The house is enormous.

Not in the cold, gilded way the last estate had been: closed curtains, too many mirrors covered, dark corners that swallowed him whole. This place is open. The ceilings stretch high above him, beams of dark wood crossing over each other like an exposed ribcage. The floors are warm stone underfoot, worn smooth, clean but lived-in.

He moves through a long gallery first. The walls are lined with portraits - not family, not anything recognizable. Landscapes. Faces that don’t watch him. No eyes following him as he passes, no haunted brushstrokes. Just art. Tasteful. Neutral.

There’s an inner courtyard just off the gallery - sunlight dapples through a square of skylight, feeding a small garden of green things. Real soil. Living vines. A trickle of water runs through a shallow basin at its center.

Louis pauses there, momentarily stunned.

He doesn’t remember the last time he saw anything alive that wasn’t trying to feed him, or fuck him, or rip something out of him.

He breathes in. The scent of basil. Of mint. Fresh soil and new roots.

It makes his throat tighten unexpectedly.

He presses a hand to his stomach. The baby stirs, fragile and sleepy. Not agitated. Not kicking. Just there: present and quiet, like she, too, is taking in the new environment.

He keeps going.

The dining room is long and elegant, with pale linen draped across the table, a row of unlit candles running down its spine. The windows are massive. The light in here feels honest. The kind of light you can’t fake with chandeliers or electricity. It touches the walls with a golden hand.

Louis touches the back of one chair, grounding himself.

He moves into a lounge next; bookshelves, a wide fireplace, twin velvet chairs flanking it like a portrait of balance. There’s a piano in the corner, unused but well-tuned, if the shine of the keys means anything.

He doesn’t sit.

He just walks. Absorbing it. Mapping it. Committing every turn and stairwell to memory, not in escape-planning desperation, but in quiet vigilance.

This house isn’t a prison.

But it could be.

Everything could be.

He finds the upstairs corridor last - lined with doors, some open, some closed. A faint breeze drifts through a cracked window at the end of the hall. White curtains flutter.

It’s peaceful.

And that - that - makes him wary.

Because nothing about Lestat is ever peaceful.

Louis pauses there, one hand on the curve of the window sill, the other cradling his stomach. His reflection in the glass is faint - distorted by light - but he sees the changes. The heaviness in his face. The new roundness of his body. The way he stands now, always bracing, always compensating. His nose is larger.

He looks like someone else.

He looks like a version of himself he didn’t choose.

Behind him, down the stairs, the house creaks faintly.

-

Night has fallen.

Louis lies on the bed in one of the rooms. The robe is soft against his skin, but too heavy in the heat. He’s on his side, hand resting over his stomach, eyes half-shut. He knows he won’t be able to sleep easily in a new bed, mattress.

The door opens without warning. Lestat steps in.

The air changes.

The baby shifts at once, a small ripple beneath Louis’s hand. Responding. Reaching.

Lestat notices, probably hearing her adjust. He comes closer, his voice smug, almost pleased. “She feels me.”

Louis remains silent. He pulls the robe tighter across his chest. He isn’t in the mood to fuck, not that has ever stopped anything before.

Lestat sits on the bed, gaze roaming the room before returning to Louis. “Do you like the house?”

Louis exhales. His eyes slide to the high ceiling, the drawn curtains. “It’s lovely.” He can admit that. “But I miss the bathtub from Seattle. It was large and sunk into the floor.”

Lestat’s mouth tilts, amused. “Ah. My companion, so hard to please.”

Louis turns his head, eyes sharp now. “Don’t call me that.”

“You agreed.”

“I agreed to survive this.” His hand presses to his belly. “That’s all.”

The silence stretches.

Lestat studies him, unblinking. “Companion suits you.”

Louis closes his eyes, jaw tight. “It suits you. Not me.”

The baby stirs again, a slow turn beneath his palm, and Louis swallows down the ache that rises in his chest. The baby doesn’t like when they fight. He rubs his hand over his stomach in apology. She seems to accept it and the pressure eases.

Thankfully, Lestat doesn’t argue. He only shifts, pulling the blanket back from Louis’s legs. His hand closes around an ankle, warm and sure. He begins to work at the arch of Louis’s foot with his thumb.

Louis jerks a little. “Don’t.”

“You like it,” Lestat says, calm.

“I don’t.”

But Louis doesn’t pull away. His toes curl against the sheet. The ache in his calf loosens. He hates how quickly his body betrays him. It does feel nice. His feet hurt all the time.

Lestat keeps at it, moving slow, pressing into the knots. He works up Louis’s legs until the tension drains out of him inch by inch. Louis stares at the ceiling, breath uneven, robe gaping at the thigh.

“You’re too stiff,” Lestat murmurs. “You carry it everywhere.”

Louis swallows, eyes closing. “Stop talking.”

Lestat does. He lets his hands speak instead, moving over Louis’s knees, thighs, the curve of his hip, up to the small of his back where it always aches. Louis exhales through his nose but doesn’t stop him.

The touches soften, less like an exam, more like permission taken. Lestat slides closer, easing himself onto the bed beside him. His hands slow, then rest to where Louis’ back is to his chest.

Louis doesn’t tell him to leave.

He lets Lestat pull him in, the robe shifting open at the chest. He lets his head tip against Lestat’s shoulder. The baby shifts again, happier now.

They lie like that, the room hushed, the air thick.

Louis hates how much he needs the warmth.

But he doesn’t move.

Lestat’s arm is around him now, palm spread over Louis’s stomach. The robe has fallen open at the chest. Louis doesn’t bother pulling it closed.

For a while they don’t speak. The only sound is Louis’s breathing, the faint creak of the bed when either of them shifts.

Then Lestat says quietly, “She’s calm with me. She knows I’m here.”

Louis hums under his breath, eyes still closed. “Or she’s tired like me.”

A small laugh against his hair. “Always so contrary.” His fingers trace idle circles across the swell of Louis’s belly. “I think she’ll have your eyes.”

Louis opens his own. Stares at the shadow of the ceiling. “No. She’ll have yours. Uncanny eyes are a vampire trait.”

“She’ll be clever,” Lestat says, as if he hasn’t heard. “Quick. Stubborn.”

Louis turns his head slightly against Lestat’s shoulder. “So we’ll fight with her every day?”

“I’ll fight. You’ll soothe.” Lestat’s smile is audible in his voice. “It will balance.”

Louis hums quietly. The thought aches and warms all at once. He doesn’t want them to fight her. “I don’t want her to be like either of us.”

Lestat shifts closer. “What then?”

“Free,” Louis murmurs. “She deserves a happy life. I don’t want her to be a prisoner. Like—” He stops, the words dying in his throat. Me. I don’t want her to be like me.

Lestat kisses his temple, slow, lingering. “She’ll be wanted. That will be enough.”

Louis closes his eyes again. His hand covers Lestat’s where it rests on his stomach. He doesn’t know if he’s agreeing, or if he’s only too tired to let go.

-

The morning comes slow and colorless, wrapped in a haze of silver light that filters through the high windows. Louis hasn’t slept much. The couch became his bed sometime in the night, when the thought of climbing down again stairs felt like a challenge too cruel to attempt. Lestat had carried him down, stealing a kiss when he thought Louis was asleep. He dozed in fits, the baby shifting often, not uncomfortably, but aware, as if she too felt the quiet tension pulsing through the walls.

He hears the door open before he sees anyone.

Not the creak of wood. This door is modern. Sealed.

Fareed steps into the foyer, dressed in slate gray today, a satchel in one hand and a folded document tucked under one arm. His gloves are already on. The scent of disinfectant and steel follows him in.

Louis shifts upright, the motion stiff. His back aches. His belly feels heavy and full, pressing down on every organ, even when he’s seated.

Fareed spots him immediately.

“Good,” he says, his tone easy. “You’re up.”

Louis lifts an eyebrow faintly. “You say that like I had a choice.”

Fareed smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Sleep has a strange relationship with pregnancy. Even stranger when the father is genetically incompatible with the host body.”

Louis blinks at him. “You could’ve led with coffee.”

“Next time,” Fareed says dryly, crossing the room and kneeling beside the couch. He sets the satchel down and begins to unzip it, movements smooth and practiced.

Lestat appears in the doorway behind him.

Louis feels it more than sees it like a pressure drop. Like a storm pausing just out of frame.

Fareed doesn’t turn. “I assume you’ve kept him on the blood regimen?”

“Yes,” Lestat answers.

Louis nods, wary.

“Good.” Fareed draws out a small scanner, sleeker than yesterday’s, and a thin vial of dark fluid. “This morning’s check will be a bit more invasive. I need to draw blood and assess hormone balance.” He glances at Louis. “Do you consent?”

The words are so simple. But Louis finds his chest tightening around them.

Consent.

If he didn’t know any better, he would think Fareed said that word on purpose. He nods. “Yes.”

Fareed gently adjusts Louis’s arm and slides the needle. A slight pinch. Then a cool, brief pressure of being punctured and the slow draw of blood into the vial.

Lestat watches from a distance. Too quiet.

Louis can feel it again - that jealousy. That flicker of something feral in his gaze. But Fareed is all clinical detachment, brow furrowed in thought as he studies the sample against the light.

“Viscosity is thicker than yesterday,” Fareed murmurs. “Likely the result of increased bonding. That’s common when the fetus begins pulling more from the host’s endocrine system.”

“Meaning?” Louis asks.

“Your body is becoming more… compatible. It’s adjusting, softening. Making room for her.”

Louis swallows.

Fareed sets the vial aside, pulls out a fresh scanner. He holds it to Louis’s belly again. “Movement is strong. Heartbeat’s still regular. She’s responding to your stress hormones less than yesterday. That’s good.” He glances over his shoulder toward Lestat. “Though I’d still advise minimizing external triggers.”

Lestat’s lips part slightly. “Are you suggesting I’m a trigger?”

Fareed turns back to Louis with a light shrug. “Am I wrong?”

Lestat doesn’t reply.

Louis exhales slowly. He lets his head fall back against the couch. “Can I walk again today?”

“Yes,” Fareed says. “But slow. Thirty minutes, max. No stairs and keep hydrating.”

He begins to pack up, sealing the scanner and vials with meticulous care. As he zips the bag closed, he looks up again and meets Louis’s eyes.

“I’ll be back tonight. With something stronger to ease the spinal pressure.”

Louis nods. “Thank you.”

Fareed rises. “Until then, rest. And if anything changes. anything at all, you call.”

He doesn’t wait for Lestat’s input.

He just walks out the same way he came.

And Louis - left in the hush that follows - breathes a little easier. He sits still on the couch, watching the morning light crawl across the floor like it’s searching for something. The blood draw has left a faint sting in his arm, but it’s grounding, somehow.

Lestat lingers near the doorway, arms folded, eyes narrowed in the direction Fareed disappeared. The tension hasn’t left his posture. If anything, it’s thickened - clinging to him.

After a long moment, he speaks.

“He’s obsessed.”

Louis glances over, voice dry. “With bloodwork?”

Lestat steps further into the room. “With you,” he says. “Medically. Biologically. He sees you like a rare artifact. A mutation in motion. A miracle.”

Louis scoffs lightly, leaning back against the cushions. “And what do you see?”

Lestat doesn’t answer right away. He crosses the room and sits on the edge of the coffee table, facing Louis now, his eyes unreadable. “You think he’s helping you because he’s kind,” he says softly. “But he’s not. He’s fascinated. You’re something impossible. He’s studying you. You don’t understand how extraordinary you are.”

Louis’s jaw tightens. “No,” he says. “I understand. I’m not a person anymore - I’m a condition. A case study. To both of you.”

Lestat leans forward, hands resting on his knees. “Not to me.”

Louis narrows his eyes. “Then why do you sound jealous of the attention he shows me?”

“Because he doesn’t deserve it,” Lestat snaps, voice suddenly sharp. “He didn’t make this. He didn’t hold you when you bled. He didn’t feed you when you couldn’t lift a fork. He doesn’t feel what I feel when I look at you.”

Louis recoils slightly.

The room goes quiet again.

Lestat exhales slowly, eyes closing for a beat. “He didn’t love you through it.”

Louis studies him carefully, the way his hands tremble slightly on his knees. The way his voice lowers when he says love, like he knows how loaded the word is. How fragile.

“How convenient,” Louis murmurs, “that loving me means keeping me.”

Lestat doesn’t respond. But his eyes open and the look he gives Louis is devastating in its focus. Raw. Claiming.

“You’re rare,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. “You’re mine.”

And Louis feels it again - that sick twist of heat in his chest.

Gravity.

Something he can’t outrun, no matter how far the hallways stretch.

The moment stretches until Lestat stands abruptly. He moves to the door, and Louis doesn’t know if he’s leaving for day or simply pacing himself.

But when he comes back, he’s carrying a tray. A small plate of bread, thin slices of meat, fruit cut into even pieces. He sets it on the table beside the couch and pulls the chair closer, sitting close enough that Louis can’t look away.

“Eat,” Lestat says, his voice soft now. Not quite commanding.

Louis’s stomach turns at the smell, but he picks up a piece of bread anyway. He chews slowly, each swallow thick and clumsy. Lestat watches the whole time, the intensity of it almost unbearable.

When Louis lowers the crust, Lestat lifts the water bottle again, tips it gently to his lips. Louis drinks, unwilling to fight it. His body needs it more than his pride can refuse.

“Better,” Lestat says, brushing a stray crumb from his chin, fingers lingering against his skin.

Louis looks away. “Stop hovering.”

“I can’t.”

Another silence.

Then Lestat rises, takes the empty plate, and sets it aside. He comes back, smoothing the blanket up over Louis’s lap, tucking it in at the edges like Louis might fall apart without it. His hand lingers against Louis’s shoulder.

“Sleep,” he murmurs. “You need it. You both do.”

Louis shifts, curling slightly on the couch. His back throbs, his abdomen heavy. But exhaustion drags at him, and the food sits warm in his stomach.

He doesn’t trust Lestat. Doesn’t believe in safety. But when Lestat’s hand rests on his head, stroking through his curls with gentle rhythm, Louis lets his eyes close anyway.

-

The baby wakes him up.

At first, Louis blinks awake, startled, braced to see Lestat hovering in the doorway. His body tenses automatically, throat dry, every nerve sparking with the expectation of him standing there, smiling faint and sharp, a silhouette in the dark. But no one’s there.

The silence hangs.

Then he hears it: a knock. Gentle. Almost too gentle.

Louis straightens from where he’s been curled on the couch, one hand resting over his stomach, the other still wrapped around the untouched mug of herbal tea Lestat had left him between his naps. The tea has gone cold, steam long since vanished, a faint bitterness clinging to the rim when he lifts it slightly. He doesn’t drink. He blinks toward the foyer, heart ticking up, pulse too loud in his ears.

The knock again, faint. Patient.

The door opens and Fareed steps through, dressed in dark gray again, the same leather satchel over his shoulder. No gloves this time. He closes the door behind him quickly and quietly, eyes scanning the room. His gaze settles on Louis.

Lestat isn’t with him.

Louis’s body goes rigid. His fingers tighten over the mug until the ceramic bites into his palm. He doesn’t like that Lestat isn’t here. He doesn’t like the sudden absence, the sense that the tether tying him to whatever reality this has become has slackened.

“Where is he?” Louis asks, sharper than he intends.

Fareed approaches slowly, lowering the satchel onto the table without looking away. “Out feeding.”

Louis stiffens. “He left the door unlocked while he’s gone?”

“No,” Fareed says. “I have my own way in. He’ll be gone for at least ten minutes. He doesn’t know I’m here.”

Louis frowns. His stomach turns, his body reacting before his mind can catch up. The baby shifts inside him, uneasy, as if she knows. He breathes through it, hand pressing gently to his belly. Fareed’s eyes flick to that motion, watching closely, but he doesn’t interrupt.

Instead, he pulls a small device from his bag. It looks like a scanner, the faint silver sheen of the metal makes him shiver. Fareed sets it aside without turning it on.

“I’m not here for vitals,” he says. His tone has changed into something softer. “I’m here because I want to ask you something. And I need you to answer honestly.”

Louis nods once, slowly, though his entire body protests. His shoulders coil tight.

“Is he holding you here against your will?”

The words hit hard, like a slap in the dark. He knew they were coming - he knew, the moment Fareed shut the door with that practiced silence, that something sharp and unyielding was waiting for him - but hearing them spoken aloud cuts through the thin walls he’s built inside himself.

He hesitates.

The baby shifts again, a small roll beneath his fingers. Louis presses his palm firmer, grounding himself in the movement, trying to anchor his body before his mind drifts into panic. Fareed waits, the silence unspooling, patient as a blade hovering over skin.

Finally, Louis lifts his gaze. “Yes.”

Fareed’s jaw tightens. A shadow passes over his expression, not surprise, but confirmation. “Are you in danger?”

Louis licks his lips. “Not… physically,” he whispers. “Not like before. Not every second. But yes. I was taken. I didn’t agree to this willingly.”

The words feel foreign in his mouth.

Fareed exhales, controlled, the sound measured, quiet. He doesn’t look surprised, but something in his face darkens, a hollow settling into the calm lines.

“Where did you meet?” he asks.

Louis furrows his brow. “What?”

“You and Lestat. Where did you meet him?”

The question takes him off guard. His chest tightens. His mouth feels dry. “Seattle. I moved there after college.”

“How long ago?”

Louis swallows hard, his throat aching with the effort. “Over a year. I wish I’d never gone.”

Fareed frowns faintly. “It would’ve happened anyway.”

“No,” Louis says, shifting against the cushions, restless. “Seattle is where I met him like I said. He would’ve picked some other unwilling human to torture instead.”

The bitterness in his voice shocks even him.

There’s a pause, heavy. Then Fareed speaks softly. “You’re from New Orleans?”

Louis blinks. His voice falters. “Yeah.”

Fareed hums, low in his throat. “Then I’m fairly certain he saw you in New Orleans first. Not Seattle.”

Louis stills. His blood runs cold.

“What?” His voice is barely audible.

“He’s never mentioned it to you?”

Louis’s heart pounds, the thrum so loud it drowns out the quiet around them. “No.”

Fareed watches him carefully. “I think he followed you.”

Louis stares at him, unmoving. The words don’t sink in at first. They hover above him, refusing to attach.

“I think,” Fareed says slowly, “he saw you in New Orleans over a year and a half ago. Maybe longer. And I think he waited. Watched. Until you were far enough from home. Until you were alone.”

Louis’s chest seizes. His breath stutters, uneven. He shakes his head faintly. “No… I would’ve known.”

Fareed’s expression doesn’t shift. “He’s an experienced creature of the night. If he didn’t want you to know he was there, you wouldn’t have.”

Louis presses both hands to his belly now, the gesture protective, instinctive, to anchor himself in the weight of his child. His palms sweat. His heart won’t steady.

Fareed’s voice softens. “He chose you a long time ago.”

Louis doesn’t speak. He can’t.

He just stares straight ahead, stunned into silence, mind a blur of fractured images. The streets of his home. The glow of neon signs in humid air. His sister laughing outside the church. The curve of the river at night. And overlaying all of it; the possibility that Lestat had been there, unseen, watching.

A predator waiting.

Louis doesn’t move.

Not when the realization begins to take shape. Not when his pulse spikes into panic. Not when the sweat breaks cold across the back of his neck.

He stares at the front door, at the faint outline of Fareed’s silhouette under the soft amber light. Fareed is still talking but Louis can’t seem to make out the words. His ears ring. His chest is hollow.

“…What did you say?” he forces out, voice rough.

Fareed doesn’t blink. “You’re not on an island.”

Louis’s hands tighten on the blanket wrapped around his belly. “But Lestat—he said—he said we had to fly. That we had to leave.”

“He lied,” Fareed says evenly.

The silence blooms, thick and hollow, choking the air between them.

“You’re in New Orleans,” Fareed continues. “Uptown. A part of the city most humans don’t frequent. Private land. He’s owned it for centuries.”

Louis blinks hard, vision blurring. “That’s not possible,” he shakes his head slowly. “No—no, the heat, the walk—”

“All meant to confuse you,” Fareed says. “To make you believe you were somewhere far enough away that escape was impossible.”

Louis’s throat clenches. He presses a hand to his stomach, trying to stop the churn in his gut. His mind scrambles through landmarks, memories, routes.

Fareed steps closer, his voice calm but insistent. “He’s been here for over three hundred years. His roots run deep in this city. He knows how to hide a mansion in plain sight.”

“But why—” Louis starts, his breath catching. “Why would he lie about that? Why not tell me?”

“Because you might have run,” Fareed says simply. “And if you knew you were so close to home, so close to the streets you grew up on, he’d never be able to keep you here. It’s part of the reason I didn’t fly to Seattle. I had my suspicions of what he was doing but I’m glad you confirmed it.”

Louis stares past him, out the window. He can’t see anything, just faint light bleeding through sheer curtains. But his mind runs wild. Coffee shops turned into bars. The corner where Paul once stood handing out pamphlets. Grace’s laugh echoing under streetlights.

He’s home. The last place he wants to be.

The betrayal tastes bitter in his mouth.

Fareed’s words cut deeper: “He didn’t find you in Seattle. He followed you there. After watching you here.”

Louis’s heart thuds so loud he thinks it might echo through the walls.

He whispers, “He hunted me.”

Fareed doesn’t correct him. He doesn’t need to.

The silence stretches, raw, unbearable.

Louis sits frozen on the couch, the weight of Fareed’s words settling over him like a second skin; hot, suffocating, impossible to peel away. His chest rises and falls in shallow waves, as though he’s forgotten how to breathe.

New Orleans. He’s been home for hours. Home and utterly unreachable.

Fareed doesn’t press further. He seems to know when the truth has sinked in.

He moves to the table, tucking his scanner back into the satchel. His gloves go in next. His tone, when he speaks again, is gentler. Softer. Like he’s offering something human, something Louis hasn’t been given in far too long.

“She’s due in September,” he says.

Louis blinks, dragged back to the present. “What?”

Fareed zips the satchel closed. “Your daughter. If her growth continues on this trajectory - accelerated, but sustainable - her estimated due date is sometime early to mid September.”

Louis looks down at his stomach. The baby shifts, as if she knows. As if the word daughter already belongs to her.

“September,” Louis repeats, voice thin.

Fareed nods. “That gives us time. But not much.”

He hoists the satchel over his shoulder. At the door, he pauses, looking back at Louis one last time.

“I’ll be back tomorrow night,” he says. “Try to rest.”

Louis doesn’t respond. His body won’t move.

Fareed’s hand closes around the doorknob. The lock disengages with a soft click.

And then he’s gone.

The door shuts behind him and Louis is alone.

In New Orleans. Still in the same city where this nightmare unknowingly began. Close enough to the life he left behind that it aches like phantom pain.

The baby rolls gently beneath his ribs.

Alive. Listening.

September.

The grocery store holds about forty people, not counting the workers. It’s perfect. The automatic doors part and the aisles go quiet. No one notices him. Lestat decides it’s enough.

People stop with a flick of his wrist.

A hush follows. The cart’s wheel freezes mid-turn. The hum of the coolers cuts off. A cashier’s hand hangs mid-scan, barcode reader hovering over a bottle of milk. Lestat stands alone in a suspended world and the relief runs through him.

He exhales with a roll of his shoulders and his jaw unclenches. He walks to the first aisle and drags his sharp fingernails along canned fruit. He reads everything because he can. Ingredients and best by dates. He takes the time he wants.

Louis likes pineapples. He remembers. Not in syrup. Packed in juice. He takes three cans. He sets them in the cart without a second thought. They can have a romantic dinner before the delivery. He can cook steak and potatoes the way Louis likes, have a glass of O negative blood, and then they can have sex. Slow, deep, until Louis forgets everything. Until he remembers who he belongs to. Lestat wants to erase the world from him, wants to mark every inch of skin anyone dared to imagine. He wants to make Louis gasp his name, wants to make him tremble, wants to hear yours in every breath he takes.

But underneath the lust is something rawer, uglier - need. A desperate, consuming need that no amount of blood or sex can fix. It’s not just wanting Louis; it’s wanting yes. Wanting to know that no one else will ever see what he sees, touch what he touches.

He moves on before his rage can take over. There’s no noise except his. He picks bread. Wheat, soft, and square.

Butter in sticks, salted.

Tea, the same herbal blend Fareed recommended to Louis for the pregnancy.

He does not argue with results. He takes two boxes. He adds fruit he knows Louis will eat. The fruit, in a sense, is for him too. Louis tastes better the more he eats.

Bananas for the smell. Strawberries because Louis will touch them and lift his hand to his mouth. It will paint his mouth red. He can see it. He can see the small thankless facial expression. He nearly lets the world lurch forward for that image.

He grips the cart. Composure. He repeats it. Composure. They’ve been dating for almost a year now. Louis needs…more adjustment. Yes, time. He has that in abundance.

He chooses eggs and checks every shell. He studies the milk dates and pulls the latest. He compares olive oil by harvest month. He chooses the darker glass. He wants everything that lasts. He wants to hand Louis proof that he can provide. See! He’s a family man. He can shop for human food! They’ll need to do this for their daughter!

Speaking of daughters…

He turns into the baby aisle. Pastel packages line the shelves, new plastic that smells of factory heat. Diapers in sizes he recites. Newborn. One. Two. He reads the count and the weight range. He imagines the body that will fit inside the numbers. He wonders what she’ll look like: will she steal Louis’s mouth, that soft, stubborn line he’s craved for years?

Will she carry his quiet, his grief, the dim martyr’s glow he won’t let Lestat put out? How fast will she grow - days, months, a handful of human years that will stretch longer than any century he’s lived? How long will she be a baby? Long enough to keep Louis. That’s what matters.

If she’s even born at all, he thinks, and hates himself for the thought as soon as it forms because he loves Louis, and Louis will love her, and there it is: the decision on which the world will tilt away from him.

How can Louis love their daughter, but not him?

He closes his eyes and sees it anyway: a tiny fist curled around Louis’s finger, an entire future braided to a single hybrid pulse. Lestat can’t compete with a heartbeat. He can only listen! And in the listening, he understands the cruelty of it - how a cradle can become a cage, how devotion can be leveraged.

He hates children, yes. He hates this one most of all for a crime she hasn’t yet committed: she’ll keep Louis, and she’ll keep him well.

It hits him low in the spine and keeps going. He reaches for a blanket and stops. Louis likes blankets. Their daughter will too. He finds the softest one. Yellow. Neutral. He folds it once. Smooths the corner. Puts it in the cart. He takes two more and does the same. Smooth corner. Again.

Bottles next. Narrow neck. Wide neck. Anti-colic claims stamped on cardboard. He studies each diagram until he can repeat it with his eyes closed. Creams, tiny tubs, unscented, lanolin, zinc oxide. Apply thin layer to dry skin. Reapply as needed. He will. He will play the perfect father role until Louis notices that he wants their daughter and him. That they can be a real family.

A woman nearby is open-mouthed, hand raised toward cereal. She is captured inside that half-formed complaint. He steps close enough to see the pores on her nose, the small shine on her lower lip, the line where lipstick has bled. He tips his head. “You smell awful,” he says. He moves on.

He adds a brush for the bottles. A drying rack. A nasal aspirator that he isn’t too sure a hybrid baby needs. Cotton pads. A digital thermometer. He reads the backs of everything until he can quote them. Consumerism gives him a headache.

Frozen carts fill the checkout. He unloads his items and scans each one with the cashier’s frozen wand. A red beam locks on his ring. He punches numbers that don’t matter. The screen waits for a card he won’t use. He tucks crisp bills under the clip and fans them out. It pleases him to be a man who pays for things.

He takes a bag and re-packs it. He wants the order to match the order in his head. Heavy to the bottom. Crushable to the top. The blanket gets its own bag. He ties the handles and slides everything into place so the plastic does not crease.

At the doors he pauses. He looks back once. Faces are fixed. A child’s cheeks have color from the ice cream matching in his hand.

He prefers the world this way.

He pushes the stupid cart outside. A pigeon hangs with its wings open. A car near the curb leans into a turn and never finishes. Everyone and everything around doesn’t move.

He opens the trunk and loads the bags. He wipes his palms on his coat. He checks the lot in four slow sweeps. No movement except what he permits.

The world is his.

He gets in. He drives away. He keeps the road still until the car is a block from the store. He lets go. Movement around him rushes in all at once.

A collision happens behind him. Glass, metal, an animal sound from a human throat. At least five humans are injured. He doesn’t turn his head. He smiles briefly and merges into the lane he wants.

-

On his way to a maternity store that has five stars on the net, he walks past a bright studio. It has large windows. A room with mats and rubber balls and a wall of mirrors. Pregnant bodies moving in unison. Partners standing behind them with hands on hips, wrists, and backs. Counting. Breathing. A playlist playing soft, soothing music. The instructor calls cues and corrects angles. It smells of detergent and clean sweat and the sweet of sliced oranges from a table near the door.

He stops to watch. A woman steps into a lunge and lifts her arms overhead. Her partner brings his hand to the base of her spine. Another rolls on a ball and rocks her pelvis while someone kneels and counts ten slow lifts of the belly on the inhale, ten quiet drops on the exhale.

It’s like having sex without the fun part.

The instructor moves among them, naming muscle groups, saying words that are ridiculous: pelvic floor, transverse abdominis, perineal massage, counterpressure, labor positions, early contractions, active labor, rest and rehydrate. Lestat reads lips through glass and learns the vocabulary in a minute. He puts each term next to Louis’s name and locks them together.

Is this what he needs to do? Hold Louis’s stomach, whisper about the pelvic floor, and say stupid things like: You’re doing well, breathe in and out! Let the baby feel you!

He steps closer to the window and tips his head. He watches hands work. He watches how a man’s thumb sits at the notch of the back and makes the woman melt against him. He watches how a towel rolled tight becomes a wedge under knees, how a strap pulls a foot into position that keeps the hip from cramping. He chooses who is doing it right and who needs to be replaced. He picks out one woman who moves like she’s done this a thousand times and another who probably won’t come back next week because her partner hates going to this class. He memorizes their stances and swallows them whole.

The class shifts to side-lying practice. Pillows between knees, belly supported by folded blankets. The instructor demonstrates a hip release and shows a partner how to anchor the top leg. Lestat leans his forehead to the glass for two heartbeats and lifts it again. He has the move down. He can repeat it; he imagines Louis on the bed, knees cushioned, his hand at Louis’s thigh, weight gentle and reassuring. He mimics their breathing and matches the count he sees through the window. Four. Hold! Four. And release. Well done, ladies!

Class ends. Mats roll. Rubber balls roll to the wall. Partners gather water bottles and talk about snacks. A pregnant woman that perfected the moves steps out alone, cheeks flushed with her hair damp at the nape. She reaches for her keys and finds him instead.

“Hello,” he says calmly. Friendly enough. “What is this class?”

She freezes for the length of a blink and then answers because most people answer when asked they’re terrified. “Labor prep,” she says. Her hands shake. Her thoughts are: I’ve never seen someone so pale. Maybe he’s sick. Maybe he has what Michael Jackson had or something. Is he wearing contacts? “We practice strength and breathing exercises with partner work.”

“How much does it cost?”

“Seventy for the drop-in.” She swallows. “Four-class package is cheaper.”

“What do you learn that matters?” he asks. He keeps all impatience out of voice. At least he hopes.

“Relaxation. Counterpressure. How to move when—” She stops herself. “When it hurts.”

He tilts his head. “Do you believe it helps?”

“Yes,” she says. “It helped me last time.”

Lestat stares at her belly. A baby boy.

“How far along?”

“Thirty-one weeks.” Her eyes flick to the door as the instructor waves from inside. “I have to go.”

“Sure,” he says, and steps back so she can pass. He watches her get into her car, lock the doors, and breathe with her hands on the wheel. He counts with her for six exhale cycles and leaves her to finish the rest on her own.

He goes around the back of the building, past the reeking dumpster and the line of painted parking blocks, to the employee spaces. A hatchback with magnets for doulas and a midwifery practice sits nearest the door. The instructor comes out with a gym bag over her shoulder and a bouquet of mixed flowers wrapped in paper tucked under her arm. Her car chirps when she grabs the keys.

He is standing at her trunk before she reaches it. She sees him and goes still the way prey goes still when they hear the rattle of the snake too late.

“Tell me,” he says. “Everything you know.”

“I don’t—” She tries for a smile that belongs to customer service. “Are you looking for class info? We have flyers. You can check the website. We actually have a sale going on right now—”

Fuck. She’s boring him already. The hard way it is.

He presses fingers to her temple before the sentence finishes. He opens the door in her head that most people never find and walks through. Memories stack fast and clear. He takes them without tearing the edges.

Intake forms. GA in weeks. Contraindications. The safety speech about dizziness and hydration. Breath coaching. Box breathing. Four in, six out. Partner positions for early labor. Standing sway. Toilet sit. Shower chair. Counterpressure with closed fists at the sacrum.

The exact shape of her hands when she demonstrates. Peanut balls and how to wedge them. Stair walking for asymmetric engagement. The quiet tone she uses for panicked fathers. The firmer tone she uses for the mother who won’t stop apologizing. What she keeps in the birth bag: honey sticks, chapstick, two tennis balls in a sock, a battery tea light, gum, a comb, unscented lotion, a scarf for rebozo sifting.

Hospital corridors at 2 a.m. Nurses who like her. Nurses who don’t. A lactation counselor whose card lives in her wallet. Three births last week. One transfer she still dreams about. The way she calms her voice when a heartbeat dips and she has to flatten fear into instruction.

He takes all of it. He takes her history. He takes her hands. He keeps her best sentences: You are safe. It’s big but not bigger than you. You are not failing; this is labor doing its work. Lower your shoulders. Breathe lower. In through your nose. Open your jaw. Make sound if you need to.

His thumb rests under her ear. He hears her heart speed and drop and speed again. Her mouth opens on a small sound and the air eats it. He’s gentle with the extraction because he wants the information clear. He doesn’t want panic to smear the memories. He leaves behind enough that she’ll be able to find the steps again tomorrow. He does not leave behind the part that makes her certain. He keeps that certainty for himself.

“Thank you,” he says into the small space between them. He moves his hand from temple to jaw and to the line where pulse shows. He looks into her eyes so she sees kindness in the same moment as the teeth.

He bites. He drinks. Warmth hits his tongue, he swallows and keeps her against the car with the clean press of his forearm so her knees don’t give too soon. He releases her after draining her near death, seals her skin with his tongue, breathes across the mark to dull it. He slides his hand up to cradle the back of her head and keeps her upright while the world adjusts.

Her knees collapse as she pisses herself from the pain and he catches her and lowers her into the driver’s seat. He leans into the car and reaches across to pull the bouquet from the backseat. Mostly carnations with three gerbera and two white roses. A handwritten card half tucked into the wrap: With love from your Sunday group. He takes the flowers and tosses the card out the window. Louis will love these.

He turns back to her and places fingers over the closing wounds. He pushes his own blood into the tissue to knit it, slow enough that the human fabric doesn’t revolt. The skin tightens and smooths. The bruise won’t bloom. She will sleep hard tonight and tell herself she overworked.

He checks her pulse. He listens to the rhythm return to normal. He opens her water bottle and places it in her hand. He adjusts the mirror to her usual angle because he pulled it from her memory too. He buckles her belt. He wipes the bit of blood from his wrist with a napkin from her console and returns the napkin under the others so the stack looks untouched.

He closes the door and stands there for a moment with the bouquet in his arms. He keeps the hush up around the lot until the last tremor leaves her body. He walks between the painted blocks and the dumpster and the chain-link back to the front. He lets the street sound return notch by notch. A bus stops at the corner. A bicycle ticks past. A boy shouts and laughs. The studio lights go off in sections.

He repeats the phrases he stole until they sound like his. You are safe. It’s big but not bigger than you. Lower your shoulders. Breathe lower. Open your jaw. And your legs if you want.

He imagines Louis on the bed with pillows between his knees and the blanket folded under his belly. He imagines the hip release. He imagines his hand at Louis’s back, calming him down. He imagines saying the words and meaning them. He imagines making them true.

He will learn every tool these women know and set them down in front of Louis until Louis hates him less for using them.

And -

Then the wards of his house flare. Fareed.

The name alone curdles the air.

He stops mid-step, hand tightening around the bouquet until the stems snap wetly. The wards are still shuddering from the intrusion, their pulse echoing through the back of his skull. Every tender thought - every small, human attempt at patience - burns off in an instant, replaced by something older, hungrier, sharpened by instinct and rage.

So much for peace.

He’s miles away, errands unfinished. The wards never lie; they’ve never let anyone cross who would harm Louis. But Fareed isn’t anyone. Fareed has permission. And the thought of the two of them alone together; Fareed’s hands too close, his mind turning with observation, sours his stomach.

Lestat nearly crushes the bouquet outright. The petals bend under his fingers, bleeding fragrance into the air. He exhales through his teeth and forces himself to stop. He has business to attend to. Louis is safe. For now.

He straightens, sets the flowers back into their paper, smooths the petals. Now that he’s fed, and has flowers and groceries, he can focus on the next goal: clothes.

He drifts down the street, calm on the surface. The closer he moves, the slower the world becomes. Pedestrians blur into silence, caught in the gravity of him. Tires whisper. The city folds around his focus.

The bell over the boutique door doesn’t ring when he enters. Sound dies first, then time. The clerk behind the counter blinks once - just once - and stays there, hands hovering over a keyboard.

Lestat walks past her without interest. The mannequins, dressed in the season’s small ambitions, watch him instead. He picks a shirt from the rack, runs the fabric between his fingers, and imagines Louis wearing it. Then imagines Fareed seeing him in it and the fantasy curdles again.

Except the pressure in his head is gone. Fareed has left his estate. He was only there for eight minutes. Doing what, he wonders but he will deal with him later.

Lestat drops the shirt and relaxes.

None of these clothes are sexy. It’s all soft cotton and linens. The faint smell of starch and perfume. Racks of dresses that widen at the waist. He takes one sleeve between his fingers. His chest tightens.

Louis on the rug. Cross-legged. Hand at the small of his back. Head bowed when he laughs. It is present. Not memory. He allows it to be present.

He chooses fast, because he already knows. Simple shirts that open at the chest. Leggings that stretch and stay put. A thin ivory robe Louis will hate and wear anyway. He presses the cloth to his face and inhales. Detergent. Sun. The ghost of a warehouse.

Slippers next. Small. Soft. Fleece lined to protect Louis’s fragile ankles. He places them in the basket and adjusts them until the toes align.

He moves through displays. Belly oil. Elastic bands. Nursing bras with clips he learns in one glance. He studies sizes, hooks, and the give of the fabric. He wants the one that won’t bite into skin. He wants the one Louis can sleep in.

The clerk hasn’t moved. Her pupils look past him to nothing. He tips his head and studies her stillness. If she could see, she’d see a man holding an armful of maternity clothes with a smile that doesn’t belong to anyone she knows. A man buying items he’s never touched in a life that has already lasted too long.

He turns toward the dressing-room mirror. His reflection waits. He smooths his hair. He corrects his collar. “You see,” he says, quiet enough to keep it private. “I can take care of him. I can learn. I want to learn.”

The mirror does nothing but reflect him.

He adds a black cotton dress with a low wrap front that will cross over a low stomach. Into the next aisle. Belly support. A soft band. Velcro edges. He tests the scratch against his wrist and rejects it. Another band. Better. He takes it.

A pregnancy pillow that looks necessary. He drags it from the shelf and tucks it under his arm. He pictures the shape it makes on the bed. He pictures the way Louis will wedge himself into it and stop frowning in his sleep. He keeps that picture and does not let it fade.

He builds a stack on a low table and begins to fold. Tissue paper. He wraps the slippers alone. He gives the robe its own layer. He tucks a small card from the counter into the ribbon and writes nothing. He is not ready to risk words.

Breast pads. Unscented. He reads the adhesives on the back. He chooses the box with the fewest chemicals. A perineal bottle. Witch hazel. He only accepts the one with short ingredients. He sets them on the pile and tests the weight. He remembers storage in his trunk. He calculates the room he will prepare at home.

In the distance, church bells climb toward five. Here, time drags where he wants it. He leans against the door and feels the world tremble under his hand. He could push until nothing stirs for an hour.

He opens his eyes. He allows color to return. The bells finish. Wind moves. The leaf lands against the curb.

He starts the engine and drives toward town. Past the old pharmacy. Past the iron fence that never rusts. Toward streets that remember Louis by name.

-

He turns off the main road and lets the car sit in the shade. The street remembers his tires. Oaks lean over the sidewalk, the old houses set back behind iron and hedges. He sits with both hands on the wheel, eyes on the porch that belongs to them. The air gets heavy the way it does when he wants quiet.

He names the house under his breath, the way people name saints when they pass an altar. He taps the wheel once and then removes the key. The late afternoon hangs.

He steps out and the heat folds around him. He doesn’t sweat; he never sweats. He adjusts his cuffs and straightens the line of his jacket because order steadies him. He closes the car door with a wave of his hand. He walks the path without hurry. Paint on the rail is new. The welcome mat shows wear in a single oval where feet pause to knock. He studies that oval and places his foot in it for luck he doesn’t believe in.

Through the door, it sounds like a cloth over a radio. Forks. A low voice. A chair leg touching tile. He listens and places each person.

Florence speaking to Paul, the old rhythm of authority softened by tiredness. Grace to the right with a planner near her elbow even at dinner. Paul across, restless knee under the table; he hasn’t learned stillness and Lestat hopes he never does.

The live-in worker - he’s seen her once in passing and always has her hair tied back - sets a bowl down and steps away to wash her hands. The radio in the corner murmurs about a car accident near the grocery store. A phone buzzes against wood and is ignored.

He knocks because he enjoys the form. He waits for the thirty heartbeats he’s learned to count in this house. None of them change. Pleasant. He turns the knob and enters. The door closes behind him with his palm flat to the wood. He stands in the narrow entry under the row of family photographs.

Then he stops it.

A flick from the inside. Nothing dramatic, a simple reflex. The air tightens and sets. Sound cuts. The fan halts on a lazy angle between one blade and the next. The radio loses its voice halfway through a word. Forks hang, mid-air or mid-route to plates. Eyes fix on nothing, pupils settling the way water does in a glass.

He walks down the hall toward the kitchen, following the shape of their lives. A shoe kicked under the console table. A jacket folded wrong on a chair. A stack of mail. He passes the living room - couch smoothed, blanket folded; a Sunday dress draped over the arm for ironing later - and steps into the doorway of the dining room.

They’re there around the table the way they’ve always been in his mind when he needs to sharpen himself.

Florence at the head, back straight, rosary on the buffet behind her with ribbon markers tucked into the family Bible.

Grace with her hair pulled back, a sticker sheet curled under her palm, a pen resting on a ruled notepad that lists groceries and next week plans.

Paul with his shirt collar open, the stubborn line in his mouth that means he’s going to speak about the lord. And the worker, Ms. Bricktop, at the sideboard with a ladle poured and held in air, a clean towel thrown over one shoulder. Plates. Greens. Rice. Roast chicken. A glass pitcher full of water with three lemon rounds, one sliding away from the others.

He steps into the room and nods to himself.

“Good evening,” he says, because manners are a game he likes to win. He pulls out the empty chair between Grace and the worker - someone’s late place - and sits. This is where Louis usually sits. He sets his palms on the table and continues for his own pleasure. “Thank you for having me.”

No one answers. He sits among them and takes inventory the way he does in the stores. Everything matters. The limp of the greens tells him the heat was too high at the end. The rice is properly steamed. What a nice family dinner he’s been invited to.

“This house is empty without him,” he tells the room. He pretends the radio is loud and they can’t hear him unless they lean forward. “It’s not enough, you know. But it’s beautiful.”

He reaches for the ladle hanging above the bowl of greens and moves it an inch to let it set in the curve of the rim. Ms Bricktop hovers inches from it, caught between pour and place. He studies her nails and the small scar near her thumb. He’s jealous of hands like these.

He serves himself a small plate. He wants the motions he would do if this was a real dinner. He wants the scrape of the spoon against the ceramic. He wants to fill a plate and say look, I’m at the table. I’m your future son-in-law! I can pretend to eat food that tastes like mud and sand because I can be good for an evening.

He pours water into the glasses, lifting the pitcher at the exact point where lemon wants to slide and not letting it. He wipes a small drip with the edge of his sleeve and frowns at himself. He pours for himself last and sets the pitcher down exactly on the ring it’s left a hundred times.

“Sunday,” he says to Florence, and his tone is warm. “Church then dinner then your show if you can keep your eyes open through the first advertisement.” He looks at her hands for the body memory in them; even frozen they tell him everything. “You raised him to be stubborn like you and you wonder why you butt heads,” he says. “He gets his face from you. And his refusal, the way he always says no — this is your fault!”

The lights flicker. He inhales, exhales. He won’t ruin dinner.

He turns to Grace. He slides the sticker sheet a quarter inch back to keep it wrinkling. He can’t help himself. “You’re good for him,” he says softly. “Even when he hates it. You’re the first one who noticed he disappeared. You called the police, remember? You flooded Seattle with search parties, all those kind strangers knocking on doors.” His voice drops, fond and dangerous. “You almost caused me a lot of trouble, young lady. Almost.”

Then Paul. He’s always hardest to look at. The set of his jaw, the tragic conviction in the frozen eyes. Lestat gives him a small, sad smile. “You’re a lost soul. Louis thinks of you often enough,” he murmurs. “He carries you like a fever. Maybe if I can save you - save you from yourself - he’ll see I’m a good person.” His tone turns intimate, coaxing. “I could end your life the way you always wanted. Give you peace. But no. That wouldn’t help him, would it?”

He takes a bite of greens and closes his eyes because he wants the pretense complete. He wants to be a man at a table with people who know his name and expect him not to ruin the meal. He chews and swallows and touches the rim of his glass and pushes it away and pulls it back again in the fidget of someone considering whether to say grace.

“I’m going to marry him,” he says to the room. The certainty makes his heart lurch. “Not by church or state. We don’t need witnesses. He wants the same thing I do, but he doesn’t know it yet.” His voice sharpens. “We could’ve been a real family. But no—you had to push him away, to Seattle, to misery. I had to wait a year because of you.”

He lifts his glass, sips his water, swallows the cold. “He’s pregnant,” he says to the wall, to the beams, to the house itself. He wants the claim to sink into the wood. “He’s carrying the life we made, and I’m going to build a world under that life so it never falls through.” His tone gentles, frighteningly so. “He thinks I’m dangerous, and he’s right. I am. I’m dangerous to anything that tries to take him from me. Even if it’s himself.”

He gestures toward the notepad, the planner, the open Bible on the sideboard. “But I’m not a danger to Sunday dinner. I would’ve brought dessert. I would’ve washed the dishes. My own mother is dead, and the only grandmother he has left is you!”

He wipes his mouth on a napkin he sets back in a triangle the way he prefers. He pours more water and watches the lemon rounds drift and stop. He arranges the salt and pepper side by side.

He talks to them as if they answer because he wants to hear both sides. He asks about church and answers himself with a summary: a homily on patience that leaned into a story about a garden; a hymn that always makes Florence close her eyes on the second verse; a baby in the pew ahead who dropped a toy three times and was retrieved three times by three different hands. He asks Grace about work and replies with the note that the new principal isn’t cruel, only young.

He tells Paul he should go back to school in the spring because he’s not wrong about the birds he sees. He tells Ms Bricktop he saw the new brand of soap under the sink and approves of it. He tells Florence he lowered the heat under the greens a moment ago in his mind and that they’ll be better when they finally lift their forks.

Every few sentences he says Louis’s name. He wants it in the room, on the plates, in the steam. He lines it up with the wall clock and the way sunlight hits the far frame on the mantle at this hour. He wants the house trained to it. He wants them to hear the difference between the way he says it and the way others do.

“You’re all thinking the same thing,” he says. “That I shouldn’t have this power. That no one should. You’re right. But I do. And I’m using it here like this so you can understand that your lives aren’t threatened by it.” He cuts a bite of chicken and arranges it on the fork. He doesn’t eat it; he sets it down and changes his mind because that’s a habit he won’t keep. He eats it and nods. It’s disgusting.

“If I wanted to hurt you I wouldn’t sit at your table and correct your grocery list. I wouldn’t fix the lamp in the front room. I wouldn’t straighten Paul’s frame and align the Bible with the runner. I wouldn’t stare at the stain in the rug and think about him at sixteen with his ankles crossed, refusing to come to dinner until the third call.”

He leans forward, elbows on the table, hands folded. He looks at Florence until the muscles at the corners of her eyes tighten in a way that has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with recognition. “I know Louis,” he says. “I know where he hides a book when he wants it near but doesn’t want you to see what he’s reading. I know the speed of his footsteps when he’s trying not to wake anyone. I know the sound he makes when he’s about to lie and the sound he makes when he gives in.” He speaks softer. “I know how to keep him alive. That’s what matters.”

He stands and the chair slides back without sound because he doesn’t let sound happen unless it serves him. He circles the table and adjusts what needs adjusting. He turns the radio off to end its frozen word gently. He sets a spoon back into its place. He looks at Florence’s hands again and imagines them at a hospital door, not letting him enter, and feels a clean bolt of rage he tames with effort.

This is what Louis wants to go back to. His mother’s judgment. This stupid home that isn’t a home.

“No,” he says to the scene and to himself. “Not like that.” He leans and places a kiss in the air above Florence’s head, a distance kiss, a declaration that is not a touch. “Thank you for making him,” he says. He plucks her forehead and her body jolts slightly. “I’ll do the rest.”

He leaves the table and walks the long route to the back hall because he wants to pass every threshold. He wants the house to learn him the way he’s learned it. He turns off lights that were left on. He straightens a picture. He closes a door that should be closed and opens one that should air out. He’s an intruder making improvements.

He takes the narrow hall toward the bedrooms. He passes the bathroom and registers the soap level, the towels lined equal, the small bottle of almond lotion that always waits with its cap loose. He tightens it and sets it back in the exact ring of dust. He wants to be invisible and unforgettable at once.

He stops at the room on the right. The room that learned Louis first. He rests his hand on the knob and waits. He waits until he can count Florence’s pulse without watching her. He waits until his own cruelty settles to a low, useful thrum.

He opens the door and enters the museum of a boy’s survival.

The bed frame is the same though. The window is the same and the latch still sticks if you pull it too fast. The bookshelf remains against the wall with paperbacks and a catechism and one poetry collection with water damage. A desk holds a jar of coins, a broken watch, and three loose photos. He doesn’t rush. He lets his eyes take it in and match it to the catalog in his head. The match pleases him. He’s been consistent in his remembering.

He kneels at the shelf and runs a finger along the spines. He takes the poetry and opens to a page with a pencil tick. He reads the lines in his mind with the voice he pretends is Louis at seventeen. He closes the book and returns it to its place. He pulls the bottom drawer and checks the contents he already knows: a postcard from a teacher, a scrap of paper with a sentence he doesn’t understand. He returns everything exactly. He wants Louis to feel the difference later without being able to name it.

He opens the closet. Two shoeboxes with nothing inside. A wooden bat with a name near the grip. He slides it out and tests the balance. He lets it rest against his shoulder the way boys do when they’re learning to hit. He thinks about Louis swinging, a motion he would never choose, and loves him for trying the wrong thing before finding the right one. He puts the bat back and aligns the carved name with the shelf.

He takes what he came for without admitting he came for anything. A thin sweatshirt with a cracked school logo - he folds it and slides it under his jacket. A paperback with Louis’s name written inside in a hand that changed years ago, he pockets it. A small composition book with half the pages blank and the rest tight with notes he doesn’t read - he presses it to his chest, then tucks it under his arm. He tells himself he’s preserving history. He knows he’s stealing.

He sits on the bed slowly. He doesn’t want the frame to speak. He stretches out his legs and then changes his mind and draws them up, a posture he’s seen in a hundred rooms and never claimed for himself. He slides his hands under the pillow and lifts it to his face because now he can afford to be what he is.

Lestat inhales. Dust hits first, then old cotton, the bargain detergent Florence grabs when it’s on sale, a faint shadow of almond lotion from the bathroom. Under it all is something he recognizes even after years and miles and new sheets. This is Louis.

He breathes it again, longer, like he’s tuning himself to a key. His mouth finds the pillowcase, lips parted against worn cotton, and he closes his eyes as if that will bring Louis closer. The house dims around him. Everything outside this room disappears.

He rolls his face slowly across the pillow, dragging in every trace, every faded echo. The blanket is pulled to his chest, then to his face. He breathes through it like it holds the answer to every hunger he's tried to starve. The scent stays in his throat and stays there, sharp and warm, making his cock hard.

He presses his face into the fabric and speaks into it, voice caught between love and want. “You smell good,” he says. “I wish you were here. Right here. I would fuck you until your hymen bled out onto your sheets.”

Fuck it. He grabs a hold of his dick and jerks himself off. His other hand curls into the sheets. His breath goes uneven.

“I wish I could feel your cunt,” he whispers. “In this bed. On these sheets. Where you used to dream.”

He turns onto his side and runs his palm across the mattress like he’s tracing the outline of someone he can’t stop wanting. His fingers press into the worn dip where a body once lay. He presses his face to it like he can still feel warmth. His hips shift just slightly, involuntarily, and he holds himself perfectly still as he moves his hand faster, pretending it’s nothing.

He lets himself drift, lets the room blur. Lets memory take the shape of a body. Louis’s body, half-imagined, half-remembered, made of scent and silence and all the things Lestat was never allowed to keep.

The rhythm in him builds without much thought. Just breath, just thought, just the unbearable closeness of absence. He presses his knuckles to his lips. He doesn’t say the name out loud, but he mouths it once into the pillow, his own confession in the altar of Louis’s bedroom.

Eventually, when he spills into his own hand, the room feels impossibly quiet.

He finally lies back and looks at the ceiling. He turns his head and presses his mouth to the blanket and then to the mattress under the sheet. He’s shameless when no one’s watching. He takes one more greedy inhale and then composes himself. He flattens the sheet with his palm so it looks like no one lay here. He smooths the marks he left on the pillow. He catches a stray thread on the coverlet, twines it around his forefinger, then lets it slip free.

He rises and walks the room once more, counterclockwise, the way he does in spaces he wants to own. He touches nothing and changes everything by deciding it will stay as it is until he says otherwise. He stops at the door and looks back. The bed. The shelf. The desk. The window with the broken latch.

In the hall he pauses to listen. The held breaths hold. The heartbeats are still calm. He moves back toward the dining room the long way, again touching the air where it should be touched and leaving what’s already right. He steps into the doorway and looks at the frozen table. He feels another surge of jealousy so clean it is almost joyful. He handles it with both hands and sets it down where it will power him instead of ruin him.

He returns to his chair and sits again for a single minute because it pleases him to complete the ritual. He takes one last bite. He tastes salt and greens and the edge of time he’s holding by the throat. He places his napkin on his plate and folds it once, then again. He pushes his chair in. He stands and looks at Florence and Grace and Paul and Ms. Bricktop, each held in their own small task, and when he speaks he makes his promise plain.

“I’m taking care of him,” he says. “You hate it because you know it's true.” He lifts his hand as if to bless and stops at the half-raise because that’s not his language. “Eat and be merry,” he tells them softly, even though they can’t hear. “I’ll make sure you never see him again. Thank you for dinner and your hospitality.”

He walks to the front door. He rests his palm on the wood and lets the house’s breath come back one notch. Not all the way. Enough to return the fan’s tick. Enough for a fork to touch a plate and make a sound that means nothing and means home. He opens the door and steps into shade.

On the walkway he closes his eyes and releases the rest. The block exhales. The oaks move. A bird scolds. A car passes with a sound that would’ve annoyed him if he hadn’t decided he liked it. Florence starts praying for Louis to return home before they begin to eat.

He gets into the car and sets the sweatshirt, the book, the composition notebook on the passenger seat. He puts his hand on the pile and then takes it away. He thinks about the bed. He thinks about the crease in the curtain. He thinks about the taste of greens he pretended needed only salt, when what they needed was time.

He starts the engine. He pulls away. He doesn’t look back because he doesn’t need to. The house is in his body now, and his body doesn’t forget.

-

Fareed’s house sits back from the street behind a hedge that hides nothing. Concrete path. Low glass. Steel frame. Too exposed. Too smug. Lestat doesn’t slow. He crosses the walk, and the hedge exhales heat against his coat. The bell glows, a polite invitation. He ignores it. He tests the handle and meets the first ward, a threadbare trick meant to discourage lesser things. It comes apart in his grip. The lock feels his name and yields.

Inside his house is the hush of machinery that believes it will outlive its maker. On one side, rows of binders and a humming refrigerator sealed behind steel. On the other, a sterile sitting room prepared for guests who never sit. The air reeks of antiseptic, tubing, and cold plastic.

Fareed stands at the end of the corridor, hands clasped behind his back, shirt too crisp. He’s already waiting. “You could have called.”

“I did,” Lestat says. “With my hand on your door.”

“You broke my wards.”

“The witch you hired should retire,” Lestat answers, moving forward. Lamps dim as he passes. The fridge clicks under the change in air. “Fix them later.”

Fareed’s throat bobs. “I saw Louis early today.”

Lestat stops. “You think I didn’t know?” His voice is low enough to make glass shatter. “That’s why I’m here - to decide whether I should pull out your tongue or your heart first.”

“I told him the truth,” Fareed says. “About you. About what you did. He deserved to know. He’s under stress, and the baby—”

“Don’t say that word,” Lestat hisses. “Don’t speak of them in your mouth.”

Fareed’s eyes flicker. “You followed him across the country. You hid him in your house for months.”

Lestat steps closer. “He’s mine. You want to test ownership? Try seeing him again with my permission.”

“I have permission. I want evolution,” Fareed says evenly. “To study what he is. His genome. The embryo’s adaptation. His body’s transformation. He’s the only one whose pregnancy is viable this far along.”

Lestat’s face tilts. He is almost amused - almost. “You mean you want to see him. His skin, his scent, the curve of his body. You think I didn’t feel it when your thoughts went to him?” His voice breaks into a growl. “The way you pictured him swollen, glowing, softer than before. I smelled it on you from the moment you saw him.”

Fareed’s composure flickers, then reforms. “You’re projecting. I’m a doctor and Louis is my patient.”

Lestat moves again, a blur resolving into shape a pace away. “You think I can’t tell when another predator looks at what’s mine? You’ve seen him half-dressed, trembling, trusting you. And you—” he laughs, dry—“you imagined what it would be like to touch the skin you swabbed.”

Fareed doesn’t deny it. “He’s beautiful,” he says carefully. “It is not a crime to notice beauty. And he would’ve died without my help.”

“Your help?”

“I told him what to expect from you,” Fareed says, voice thin now. “And I want to care for him full time.”

“You want him,” Lestat repeats, the words cracking the air. He sees it from his thoughts. “You want to live beside him, under the pretense of medicine. You want to watch him sleep. No.”

“I could move in with you until the baby is born,” Fareed says. “A room near his. A lab setup in your study. Continuous monitoring—”

“As if I’d allow that.”

“He has options,” Fareed says. “Including leaving.”

The air folds in on itself. The glass walls flex, threaten to shatter. “Leaving what.”

“You,” Fareed says softly. “You stole him.”

Lestat’s laughter is a rasp. “Stole? He was lost. I found him.” He steps forward until the air between them trembles. “What did you tell him exactly?”

“That you stalked him for years,” Fareed says. “That he’s in danger. He wasn’t surprised. He…missed you.”

The words hit harder than they should. For a breath, Lestat’s hand stills midair. Louis…missed him?

“Did he say that?” he asks.

Fareed frowns. “No, not exactly, but he was afraid of me so he missed your presence.”

“Good,” Lestat murmurs. “He should be.”

Then the world moves.

His hand closes on Fareed’s throat, thumb pressing under the jaw, the rest curling over the pulse. He lifts him half an inch and pins him to the bookshelf, hard enough to make the wood creak. Not violence for its own sake, it’s proof of hierarchy. His other hand crushes Fareed’s wrist against the shelf.

“This is a perfect time to remind you of your place,” he snaps. “If you so much as imagine him again, I’ll keep you alive long enough to regret eternity. I’ll peel your mind apart piece by piece and leave you with every image you tried to steal from me. Never enter my home without me again.”

Fareed’s breath stutters. “I understand.”

“You don’t,” Lestat says, slamming him into the desk. The metal frame groans and the glass above them trembles, the whole house bowing to the sound. “You think he’s a specimen. I think he’s Louis. The only thing in this godless world worth not killing for.”

Fareed’s eyes flick away, unfocused, searching for an anchor that isn’t there. “I think he’s both.”

Lestat’s hand moves to the front of his throat again, thumb against the artery, fingers curling as if to measure how much of a life he can take before regret. He leans close enough for the scent of his hunger - iron and sugar - to fill the space between them. “And I think you’ll die before I let you touch him again,” he says. “You’ve been useful to me. But even useful things have a clock, and yours is running.”

Fareed swallows. “I’ve proven my loyalty by not telling the others about what you’re doing.”

Lestat laughs. “And what am I doing, exactly? Enlighten me.”

“Breaking the old laws,” Fareed says. His voice gains a thin, reckless confidence born of terror. “You’ve bred. You’ve made a child. You’re trying to procreate with a human, and you think there won’t be consequences? I highly doubt you want Marius roaming around your child.”

The smile fades. Lestat’s fingers tighten until Fareed’s breath cuts short. “Is that a threat?”

“No,” Fareed gasps. “I’m simply stating the truth.”

Lestat’s eyes narrow. “He's an old...friend. You think I fear him?”

“I think you should,” Fareed says, rasping against the hold. “He’s one of the oldest vampires in the world. There’s nothing he hasn’t seen…except this. You know what they’ll do when they find out. There are those who’d take the child to dissect it, those who’d worship it. Others who would want to try the same thing with Louis. You can’t hide forever. Especially you, Brat Prince.”

Lestat releases him, not out of mercy but to watch him fall back a half step and catch the desk for balance. He circles him, slow, predatory, voice soft enough to cut. “You think they’ll touch what’s mine? You think Marius would dare?” His tone darkens. “I’ll burn his foundations to ash. There’s a reason he stays in Venice.”

Fareed steadies himself. “You always speak in ruin.”

“Because ruin’s the only language immortality understands,” Lestat replies. “Do you know what it means to love someone when there’s no God left to forgive you? You don’t study that. You can’t record what I feel for Louis in a lab.”

Fareed doesn’t turn. “Louis isn’t your redemption, Lestat. He’s your experiment.”

The laugh that escapes him is small and violent. “You talk about him as if you’ve seen him the way I have. You haven’t. You’ve measured his pulse. I’ve memorized it.”

He steps back around to face him, eyes bright as struck gold. “You looked at his body, his belly, and thought of evolution. I looked at it and thought of divinity.”

Fareed’s composure splinters for the first time. “You’re obsessed. Obsession leads to nowhere good.”

“I’m devout,” Lestat corrects. “There’s a difference.”

For a long moment, the only sound is the soft hum of the machines. Then Fareed says quietly, “You can kill me if it makes you feel better. But if you do, no one will know how to keep him alive. That is knowledge can’t be ripped from my mind.”

Lestat considers this. The violence in him simmers down into calculation. “Then I suppose you live. For now.” He turns his back, gaze sweeping the sterile room. “You’ll keep your hands off him unless necessary. You’ll explain every touch. You’ll speak to him gently. If I hear your voice tremble with admiration again, I’ll take your tongue and mount it in glass.”

Fareed exhales, slow. “Understood.”

Lestat stops in the doorway. “And Fareed,” he adds, glancing over his shoulder, “if you so much as think about telling Marius  —remember, I’ve known him much longer than you. If you think his curiosity will stop at Louis, think again.”

Fareed nods once, silent, one hand on the edge of the desk where the imprint of Lestat’s strength still warps the metal. He looks small in the pale light, and Lestat leaves him there, surrounded by machines that will never breathe as long as Louis does.

The house door closes behind him and the quiet outside is obscene. The air still tastes of Fareed’s fear—coppery, thin—and he carries it with him as he drives through the night. The world parts for him. Every sound from the city feels far away, dulled under the pulse of one thought: Louis.

He takes the long way home, because rage isn’t something he can put down. He imagines Fareed’s hands near Louis’s stomach - gloved, clinical, lingering - and something in him snarls. The idea of it, of anyone looking too long at what belongs to him, burns through his veins.

The estate rises ahead, hidden behind its living wards. No one with ill intent can cross, not even to imagine it. But Lestat built the wards, and he’s long since stopped pretending his intent is pure.

Inside the gate, the air warms. The gardens hum in recognition. His boots crush wet leaves as he walks up the drive, the mansion ahead of him lit in soft gold through the windows. He can feel Louis somewhere inside: heart slow, steady, his. It’s the only rhythm in the world that can quiet him.

He doesn’t knock. He never has. He pushes open the door with all the gifts in his hand and the scent hits him: blood, milk, linen, the faint sweetness of Louis’s skin under it all. His jealousy drains into hunger, a different kind of violence, quieter but no less dangerous.

He steps over the threshold, the house breathing him in.

He’s home.

Lestat crosses the threshold and the house breathes him in. Then the sound that organizes every other sound: Louis’s heart, upstairs, quick, steady, answering the smaller, skipping echo tucked inside it.

He stops in the foyer and tips his head, locating them. Second floor. Back hall. The small bedroom that faces the oaks. The rhythm tilts a fraction and tells him something he doesn’t like. Louis climbed the stairs without any help.

He doesn’t bother with the lights. He takes the stairs at a human pace because his senses stretch ahead and report what he needs: the banister’s heat where a palm dragged; the catch in a breath at the landing; the shift of weight to one side to spare a pull low in the belly. He arrives at the hall and finds the right door with his hand already extended.

It doesn’t open as he tries to push in. Louis has dragged a chair, a hamper, a cranky old trunk, and two stacked boxes against the door. It would buy most people time. He smiles without humor. “Ingenious,” he says to the wood.

“Go away,” Louis calls from the other side. “Get out of my house.”

“Our house,” Lestat answers, because he’s pleased that Louis said “my house”. Progress. He sets his palm to the panel and feels the vibration of Louis’s pulse through wood. He could take the door off its hinges. He turns and walks three steps to the connecting bath, opens that door, crosses the tile and a row of neatly folded towels, and lets himself into the twin bedroom from the other side.

Louis startles as he turns to see Lestat. He’s standing on the rug with one hand braced on the footboard, hair damp at the temples, shirt lifted a little where his belly rises. There’s a flash of multiple things at once: fury, fear, the quick calculation of exits.

“Get out,” Louis snaps.

“I brought some things for you,” Lestat says instead. “Groceries. Clothes. A pillow. Flowers.”

“We’re in New Orleans,” Louis bristles.

“Yes,” Lestat says simply. He frowns, staring at all the furniture barricaded against the door. He lifts a hand. The barricade door subtracts itself: the boxes slide, the trunk shuffles back to its wall, the hamper turns, the chair completes its stuttered scrape and returns flush to the desk. The latch on the blocked door clicks into its proper place.

Terror flashes across Louis’s face. He moves.

He’s past the threshold before Lestat decides to let him be fast. The floorboard at the threshold is the one that is uneven; it takes weight badly because it’s old and hasn’t been replaced yet. Lestat hears the wrong angle and crosses the room between one of Louis’s heartbeats and the next. He catches Louis under the arms before his quick escape becomes a fall. He braces, lifts an inch, lets Louis’s feet find the board again. The body in his hands is heat and tremor and insulted.

Louis gasps, shocked all over again. He fights — reflexive, frantic, but his balance is off and fear makes him clumsy. “Let go,” he says. “Let go of me. You’ve been stalking me since I was a teenager—”

“Yes,” Lestat says, not flinching from the truth because it’s never been useful to pretend. “And I’m not letting you fall.” He tightens just enough to keep hips under shoulders. “Calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to—”

“Louis.” He brings his mouth close to Louis’s ear. “I won’t let go until you calm down. Take a deep breath.”

Louis’s heart bangs in his chest; the smaller rhythm leaps to match, then jitters away. Panic spikes his scent into hot copper. Lestat softens his grip without loosening it. “Lower your shoulders,” he says, matching his tone in the way he learned hours ago in a parking lot. “Open your jaw. In through your nose. Four. Hold. Four. Out for six.”

“Don’t—” Louis tries again, but there’s a flicker of recognition at the cadence, a traitorous hitch that obeys instruction even as his mouth refuses it. His next inhale stutters, then deepens despite him. His hands, fist-clenched against Lestat’s forearms, loosen a fraction.

“That’s good,” Lestat says, shameless about the praise because it works. “Again. If you head-butt me I’ll deserve it, but breathe first.”

Louis inhales. Four. Holds. Three, four. The exhale isn’t six; it’s five and ragged. Lestat takes it. “Again. I’m counting.”

“You don’t get to—”

“I do right now,” Lestat hums. “Because if you faint I’m going to put you on the floor and you’ll hate that more.” He feels the tremor shift from fight to adrenaline aftermath. He eases them both one step sideways, off the treacherous board to the runner where there’s grip. “Better. Good. Again.”

A minute happens that isn’t a minute. The pulse in Louis’s throat drops. The smaller beat steadies into the rhythm he’s memorized. Sweat cools at Louis’s hairline. Lestat keeps his hands where they are — one high, one low, the way partners stand in those stupid classes — and lets his own breath match the count he’s giving.

When Louis can form a sentence without chewing it in half, he uses it to try to hurt. “You don’t get to touch me.”

“I get to keep you upright,” Lestat answers, and it isn’t a joke. “Choose: I release you and you sit on the bed immediately, or I keep holding you until your legs stop wobbling.”

Louis’s mouth hardens. He hates choices that are both obedience. He hates how close they are, hates that the warmth where Lestat’s hand rests under his ribs feels good against a muscle that’s been clenching all day. He hates that the baby, his baby, relaxes when Lestat is near.

“Bed,” Louis forces out.

“Slowly,” Lestat agrees. He turns the angle of their bodies so Louis faces the mattress. He doesn’t remove his hands until the backs of Louis’s knees touch the frame. Then he loosens. Louis sits mutinously. Lestat lets go, steps back one pace only, palms up to show the absence of contact while his attention stays nailed to the line of Louis’s spine and the color in his mouth.

Louis swallows. He tips forward to get his feet under him to stand again and Lestat says, very pleasantly, “No.”

Louis’s eyes cut up. “You can’t keep me here.”

“I can do a great many things,” Lestat says. “Right now I’m asking you not to make me prove it. You’re shaking.”

“I’m pissed,” Louis says.

“Also shaking.” Lestat nods toward the pillow on the bed. “Put that behind your back. It will help.” When Louis doesn’t move, he adds, softer, “Trust me that far.”

Louis stares. He hates being told to trust. He hates that the suggestion is correct. He drags the pillow into place with a rough movement and immediately gets half an inch of relief he can’t hide. The betrayal of it makes his eyes burn. He looks away.

Lestat listens. Heartbeat, heartbeat. Both where he wants them. “Good,” he says under his breath, more to the rhythms than to the man.

Louis’s voice returns quiet and mean. “So you admit it? You’ve watched me since I was a kid.”

“Yes.” No apology, only fact. “I didn’t touch you then.”

“You kidnapped me.”

“I’m keeping you alive now.” He refuses to look away. “I will continue to do so. Even when you barricade doors and insist on stairs alone.”

Louis’s laugh is bitter. “You aren’t God.”

“I’m the reason you didn’t fall and snap your neck,” Lestat says. “Who needs God when you have me?”

Louis looks at the door he tried to block and then at the bathroom he forgot was an option. Anger turns tight in his jaw. He rubs his palm once over the side of his belly, a protective pass he probably doesn’t know he’s making. The movement pulls Lestat’s gaze like a magnet. He forces his eyes back up.

“I brought food,” Lestat says. “And a pillow. And things that will make the next few days less hard.” He gestures toward the hall. “I’ll leave them, and I’ll go downstairs. I’ll give you space.” A pause. “But if you run, I’ll know. And I’ll catch you again. I won’t be gentle a second time.”

Louis’s head snaps back. “Threats.”

“Boundaries,” Lestat says and he’s proud of the word. “Here’s one more: if you say ‘get out’ again, I will. I’ll go to the other side of the door and sit on the floor until your heart is slow and your breath is easy. If you say ‘stay,’ I’ll put the things away and bring you water.” His voice thins with something like a plea and refuses to show it. “Choose.”

The baby kicks, Lestat hears the ripple of Louis’s breath break around it, and Louis’s hand flattens to stillness over that motion because the body is simpler than the mind: protect, breathe, endure.

“Stay—” Louis says, then bites it off, furious with himself. “For one minute. Then go downstairs. Don’t touch me.”

“One minute,” Lestat agrees. He doesn’t move closer. He only turns and flicks a thought. Somewhere below, plastic rustles. A bag settles against the baseboard. Another. The bouquet leans itself in the hall mirror’s crook, flowers arranged by absence of his hands.

He looks back at Louis and can’t help the softness that steals in. “Relax your shoulders,” he says again, nearly a whisper. “Loosen your jaw.”

“Shut up,” Louis mutters, but he does it.

“I’m not going to shut up until you’re calm,” Lestat says, even though his hands are already at his sides. The minute passess — longer, shorter, exactly what it needs to be.

Louis doesn’t answer. He stares at the mattress and at everything he can’t undo.

Lestat steps backward through the bathroom as quietly as he came. The first door stays closed. He leaves the second one ajar. In the hall, he stands with his back to the wood and lays his palm flat so he can feel the thrum through wood and paint and air.

Two heartbeats, steadying. He closes his eyes and counts them.

-

He comes back when the pulses upstairs have settled into something he can stand. He brings the bag with the fruit, the bread, the tea; the blanket he refuses to call a gift; the flowers he stole. He opens the door with his shoulder so his hands stay free.

Louis is where he left him, pillow at his back, stubborn set to the mouth that means the argument never stopped in his head. He doesn’t look at Lestat when the food appears on the low table. “I’m not hungry,” he lies.

“Eat,” Lestat answers.

Louis hesitates. Then he reaches. A strawberry first, the one thing he always underestimates in himself. He bites, chews, swallows like he’s proving a point to someone not in the room. He takes bread, then a slice of banana, then a forkful of rice he didn’t ask for. The shirt rides as he leans; the round of him shows; he yanks the hem back down with a quick, irritated hand.

Lestat watches that small hand. Shame sits in Louis’s body; it’s old, older than Lestat’s memory. He doesn’t understand it. He’s tried to, he knows the words for why, but understanding isn’t the same as believing, and there’s nothing in him that recognizes the impulse to hide what he wants to kneel for.

Louis catches him looking. “Stop staring at me.”

“I’m admiring my family,” Lestat says, and it’s too honest to be teasing.

“Stop,” Louis repeats bitterly, and goes for another strawberry to end the conversation. Juice stains his lip; he licks it away without thinking. The small heartbeat skips and resets. Lestat puts the flowers in the heavy glass on the dresser. They look ridiculous and perfect. He tucks the paper under and steps back.

“Do you want a bath?” he asks, because the idea of warm water and a quiet massage pleases him.

“No.”

Lestat smiles despite himself. “Not even if I promise to leave the room and only listen at the door like a gentleman?”

“Especially not then,” Louis says, and the corner of his mouth betrays him with half a curve. He hides it in the cup Lestat brings, drinks water like he’s been thirsty for an hour, which he has.

“Tomorrow,” Lestat continues, “the baby’s room will be completed. I bought necessities. We can argue about the rest. And we should choose names.”

Louis doesn’t look up. “I already did.”

Lestat blinks. “You—” He chokes out a laugh, surprised and delighted and a little wounded he wasn’t included. “What is it?”

“I’m not telling you.”

He tilts his head and reaches, careful, toward the bright place in Louis’s mind where new decisions live. He meets the soft, humming wall he’s felt since the first quickening, and it holds. The baby’s awareness rises curiously. He presses; it thickens, not hostile, only absolute. He draws back, hands lifted in courtesy to a creature that does not care about courtesy. “You’re shielded,” he says, almost impressed. “Or rather, she shields you.”

“Yes,” Louis says, a little smug. “She likes the name I choose so it doesn’t matter what you think.”

“You don’t trust me not to name her after someone unfortunate,” Lestat guesses.

“Not a guess,” Louis says. “A fact.”

Lestat grins. “You think I’d name her after an old lover? What a curse that would be.” He pretends to consider. “What about Louisa? A classic. It honors everyone.”

Louis’s face folds with pure offense before he can stop it. “Absolutely not.”

Lestat laughs. “There it is,” he says. “A boundary we share.” He sets the fruit closer and the bread where Louis can reach without leaning. “Eat a little more. Then we’ll argue less and sleep.”

“I don’t sleep when you’re here,” Louis lies.

“You do,” Lestat answers, and points to the pillow with two fingers. “You will. And when you wake up, you’ll tell me the name. Or you won’t. I’ll love it before I hear it.”

Louis stares at him for a long moment, then takes another strawberry and pops the green top into the napkin so the plate stays neat. His shirt stays down. His chin stays up. His hand goes to his belly once without comment, the absent, steady touch that means everything is working.

-

Morning skews soft across the hall. Lestat’s already moved furniture, built the drying rack, folded the yellow blankets into the dresser. The crib stands without a mattress. Bottles gleam in their tray. The new pillow waits, absurd and necessary, on the rocking chair he stole from a different room because it has the right sway.

Louis wobbles in, one hand on the doorframe, the other low against his shirt. His eyes go straight to the wall where the shelf wasn’t yesterday. He takes in the order: diapers stacked by size, creams lined with labels facing out, the brush and the tiny comb.

“I hate it,” he announces.

His pulse argues. So does the breath he forgets he’s making, the way it lifts and softens when he sees the blanket folded on top, the yellow one. Lestat hears the truth underneath and lets Louis have his defiance anyway.

“You’ll live,” Lestat says, amused. He taps the crib’s rail with his knuckles and it holds, solid. “What’s her name?”

Louis drags his gaze off the room and fixes it on Lestat like that will make the question disappear. He looks back at the blanket, then at the light on the dresser, then at the corner where the rug squares meet and form a small, perfect plus.

“Régine,” he says finally.

Lestat tests it out in his mind. “Régine,” he repeats. “It suits her.”

Louis pretends that doesn’t please him. He pretends he isn’t relieved that Lestat didn’t laugh. He shifts his stance and winces because standing still has become a growing pain.

Lestat crosses the room and stops where Louis can see him. “May I?”

“No,” Louis says out of habit.

Lestat steps behind him anyway, slow enough to give space for a flinch that doesn’t come. He sets his palms under the round belly, one hand higher, one lower, and lifts a finger’s width. Just enough to hold the weight of his stomach up. The change is immediate. Louis’s mouth opens on a sound that isn’t pain or anger; it’s the small startled noise people make when something heavy is suddenly not.

He melts back against Lestat’s abdomen before he can help it. “Oh,” he says, more breath than word. His shoulders drop. The muscles along his spine stop fighting with his ribs. His knees unlock.

“Breathe,” Lestat murmurs in his ear, because he can’t resist being right. “In. Hold. Out.” He keeps the lift gentle. He remembers the angle from the window and the parking lot. He matches the count he learned. “Again.”

Louis nods without meaning to. His hands come up and rest over Lestat’s, not to remove them, only to anchor the help where it is. He leans back the smallest amount. “That feels—” He swallows. “That feels great.”

Lestat smirks into the back of his head, delighted and viciously proud in the most harmless way he knows how to be. “Of course it does,” he says. “I’m an excellent partner.”

“Don’t get cocky,” Louis mutters, eyes half-lidded now. He lets more of his weight go. The baby shifts and the relief rings through both rhythms at once. Louis exhales like he’s been holding his breath since he walked in.

“Again?” Lestat asks, testing a little more lift, a fraction more support at the base.

“Yes,” Louis says before he can stop himself. “Please.”

Lestat’s smile turns wicked. He adjusts his stance, keeps his hips back so Louis has room to lean, and coaxes the tension out of the low back with a small change in his hands. “Ease your mind,” he whispers. “Relax.”

Louis obeys. The name Régine settles into the gaps between their bones like it’s always belonged there.

After a while, when the tremor in Louis’s thighs has evened out, Lestat eases the lift and lets the weight return in increments. Louis doesn’t lurch. He breathes, blinks, and then, embarrassed by how much he needed it, tips his head forward to hide how much he enjoyed that.

“Say you like the room,” Lestat murmurs, shameless.

“I don’t,” Louis says, and his pulse says he does. He reaches behind him, finds Lestat’s wrist, and squeezes once. “Do that again later.”

“I will,” Lestat says. “Often.”

Louis rolls his eyes to cover the truth and looks at the crib again, at the folded blankets, at the shelf lined with small, ordinary things that promise a future. “Régine,” he says, testing it out loud one more time.

Lestat presses his mouth to the crown of Louis’s head. “Bienvenue, Régine,” he says to the room, and to the two heartbeats leaning against him.

-

Lestat spreads the blanket in the living room and smooths the corners with a care he rarely gives anything, then pats the spot beside him like he’s coaxing over a skittish cat. If he handles this right, Louis will let him fuck later, His body thrums with a sharp, impatient energy he tries to disguise as casual ease.

He forces himself to lounge back on his hands, to look relaxed, but every sense is tuned to Louis: the drag of his footsteps on the floor, the way his shirt strains, just barely, over the curve of his stomach. Lestat’s tongue presses against his teeth; he has to consciously unclench his jaw and look away before he stares too long. Want curls in his chest, hot and insistent, and he swallows it down, schooling his face into something polite.

Louis eyes the blanket, suspicious.

“No,” he says, already bristling.

“Come now,” Lestat coaxes, fingers drumming once on the fabric before he stills them. “I’ll answer anything. One question per exercise.”

Louis’s stare flicks to his face. He hates deals. He also hates not knowing. Lestat can see the war playing out in the tightness of his mouth, the way his arms fold just a fraction closer over his middle.

“Fine,” Louis says at last. “But if you lie—”

“I won’t,” Lestat promises, a little too fast. His heart doesn’t beat, but something like it kicks in his chest anyway.

Louis lowers himself with a wince, one hand braced on the floor, the other on his belly. Lestat kneels opposite, already aching with want and trying very hard not to make it anyone’s problem. His pulse doesn’t race, but something in him does, frantic and bright; it takes effort just to remember what his hands are supposed to be doing.

He sets a folded towel near Louis’s knees. Then the strap. The rolled blanket. The tennis balls in a sock. “Side-lying hip release first,” he says, and his voice comes out lower than he meant. He clears his throat. “Then circles. Then counterpressure.”

Louis eases onto his side, face pinched, a pillow wedged between his knees. The blanket drags over his thighs; the line of his body curves around the swollen center, all gathered there, the weight of him. Lestat swallows.

He anchors the top leg and slides his hand to the heavy place at the base of Louis’s spine. Heat meets him, and through his palm he feels everything at once: tense muscle, strained ligaments, the subtle pull toward the child inside. His fingers itch to follow the dip inward, to press his mouth there, to taste the salt-dark skin where Louis bows around what they made.

He keeps his palm broad and practical. It feels like holding himself underwater.

“Question,” Louis says, glaring at the far wall instead of at him. “When did you first see me?”

“Fifteen,” Lestat answers immediately. His thumb flattens, thumbpad dragging a fraction too long over the rise of bone before he corrects it. “You were coming back from church. Your mother held your elbow at the curb. You kept looking at the sky.”

Louis doesn’t move. The baby does a slow shift under Lestat’s hand, pushing back into his touch. The sensation punches through him; his mouth goes dry.

“You were watching people at church,” Louis says. It isn’t a question.

“I used to hunt them,” Lestat says quietly. His fingers spread, spanning more of Louis’s lower back, greedy for contact he pretends is necessary for the release. “The church let me guess who would walk home alone. I fed, and I told myself it was mercy to take the ones who were already pleading with a God that didn’t answer.”

Louis’s mouth tips, not with humor. “And you decided to follow my family instead.”

“I decided to follow you,” Lestat says. He adjusts the angle of Louis’s knee, using the excuse to touch, to touch, to keep touching. “Lift your jaw. Let your tongue fall. Good. Again.”

He breathes with Louis, matching the rise and fall, feeling each inhale stretch against his hand. Every small sound Louis makes, every soft grunt and hiss through his teeth, hits Lestat like something filthy and private. It goes straight to his cock. He has to focus on the count to keep his thoughts from sliding where they want to go.

They count through the hold. Louis refuses to close his eyes; he watches Lestat the way a cornered animal does, tense and thinking, as if he can see every treacherous impulse crossing Lestat’s mind.

When the release finally shudders through the muscle, Lestat feels it first, the sudden slackening under his palm. He lets himself enjoy it for one stolen second, that melt, that trust of the body if not the man, before he eases the leg down and props it on the pillow.

“Next.” Louis rolls his shoulders, trying to shake off the vulnerability. “You kept watch for a few years.”

“Yes.” Lestat guides him upright, hands firm at Louis’s waist, and into slow hip circles on the blanket. The movement rolls Louis’s weight into his arms again and again, a slow torture. “I learned your house. Your routes. I learned who hurt you and who tried not to.”

He just steadies Louis’s hips when he wobbles and says, calmly, “Circle wider. That’s it. Breathe.”

“You went to my college campus.”

“I stayed outside,” Lestat says. “Mostly.” The word is smug on his tongue; he liked the game of almost-close, of watching Louis through glass, through crowds, untouchable and his anyway.

He hands Louis the scarf to hold, anchored to the banister. Louis’s fingers curl around it, soft knuckles, and Lestat’s mind goes somewhere filthy immediately: binding, tethering, the line of Louis’s arms pulled taut for reasons that have nothing to do with easing his back. He drags himself away from the image, shoves it down with the rest of the things he isn’t allowed.

“Small circles. Breathe low.” His palm hovers just above Louis’s belly for a second too long. “I watched you leave lectures and skip others. I watched you at the bus stop with a camera around your neck. You ate terrible food. You didn’t sleep. You hid gender and sexuality books under your shirt when you came home for the holidays.”

He remembers every cover, every time Louis’s hands shook slightly while he read. He remembers wanting to tear the books away and say, You won’t find yourself there, you’re here. With me. Mine.

Louis’s jaw tightens. He keeps the circles going because they help, and he hates that Lestat notices. The movement draws slow figure-eights with his hips, and Lestat’s brain helpfully rewrites each one into a rhythm that has nothing to do with labor prep. It’s ridiculous. It’s obscene. He can’t stop.

“Why didn’t you take me then?”

“I had time to learn you,” Lestat says. “When I could. I got rid of a man who followed you two nights in a row. I kept a drunk from touching you on the train. I made sure your brother didn’t drown in his own tub when he fell asleep.”

He doesn’t mention the way the would-be stalker’s blood felt on his tongue, bitter with fear and cheap cologne, or how satisfying it was to think, Anyone who looks at you like that answers to me. He doesn’t say that every stranger whose gaze lingered too long ended up on a list in his head, a ledger of potential problems and potential meals.

Louis’s head snaps a fraction. “You—”

“Shift weight to your heels,” Lestat says, and then, softer, “Yes.”

The circles slow. Louis leans against the scarf, breath evened out, the baby a firm shape against his shirt. Lestat’s arousal scrapes at him; he forces it down, though it keeps flaring at the worst moments – at Louis’s little stuttered exhale, at the way his shirt stretches over the swell of his stomach. He hates himself for it and would do it again and again.

He steps behind and fits his hands to Louis’s hips. They fit too well; they always have. “Counterpressure. Say stop if you want it less.”

Louis doesn’t say stop. He exhales and the line of his back loosens gradually. A small sound breaks, unguarded. Lestat wants to swallow it, hoard it, make a collection of every noise Louis has ever made because of his hands: pain, pleasure, rage, relief, he isn’t picky. They all feed the same bottomless place.

He presses his fists the way he learned and feels Louis go liquid against the support. For a moment, Louis’s weight is entirely in his hands, trusting the pressure, trusting him, and the filthy, selfish thought hits: You don’t even know how much of you I’m holding. How much I want.

“Next question,” Lestat prompts, to distract himself before he starts begging out loud.

Louis thinks. “Why didn’t you leave me alone?”

Lestat’s answer is almost a confession. “Because I couldn’t stand the thought that you would be ordinary and die and I wouldn’t have done anything to keep you.”

He doesn’t add: I lay awake, listening to your mortal heart, and every beat felt like a countdown I hadn’t consented to. He doesn’t admit that he used to imagine digging his teeth in right then, stopping the clock, pinning Louis to eternity whether he agreed or not.

Louis huffs, anger and something else. “So you took me.”

“I kept you alive,” Lestat corrects. “It’s not the same.”

It is, sometimes, in his head. The taking and the saving blur together there. But he keeps his tone mild.

Louis lets that sit. He shifts, testing the pressure; Lestat follows without losing the mark, greedy to keep his hands exactly where they are. The relief is immediate; Louis’s head tips forward. “Again,” he says, which is a kind of truce.

The word hits Lestat like a strike. Again. He wants it carved into him. He wants to hear it in other contexts, in other rooms, said with less annoyance and more need. He bites down on his tongue hard enough to taste blood, forcing the thought away.

They move through the set he memorized at the window: toilet-sit on the ottoman, figure-eight hips, slow rises; hands on Louis’s low back when he stands, a rolled towel under his arches; then back to the floor for a long, patient sway. Every adjustment is an excuse to touch. Every correction is an indulgence he pretends is purely therapeutic.

Lestat continues without hedging when asked how many nights he watched the house, how many times he almost knocked, and how long he stayed outside the dorm when the hurricane warning closed the city. He admits the worst quietly: “I listened to you sleep when you finally did. It made me…easier.”

Easier to what? To resist? To stalk? To imagine climbing through the window and finally putting his hands where his mind already was? He doesn’t specify. He can’t. The memory of Louis’s sleep-broken murmurs, the way his breath caught in dreams, is still something Lestat returns to when he’s alone and starving for any version of Louis that isn’t angry.

“And the church?” Louis asks, eyes narrowed. “You kept feeding there.”

“For a time,” Lestat says. “Less, after you. Hypocrisy bores me.” And killing supplicants began to feel like stealing from Louis’s side of the board; he found he hated it when anything else claimed their God-haunted boy. He swallows. “Lift your shoulders once. Now let them fall.”

They end with box breathing because it helps. Lestat matches Louis breath for breath until the count feels shared, not instructed. That, too, becomes a dirty little thing in his head: they don’t need hearts to sync when they have this, shared breath, shared air, the ghost of what living people do in bedrooms and confessionals.

When the last exhale runs out, Louis sits cross-legged on the blanket, hands on his thighs. Color has come back to his mouth. The baby is quiet, satisfied with the sway and pressure. Lestat is not quiet; he’s hard and aching and holding himself still. His mind, traitorous, keeps offering images anyway: Louis arched over his hands for reasons that have nothing to do with back pain; Louis making those same small sounds with his name on them.

Louis sees it anyway. Of course he does. “You’re disgusting,” he says, not entirely without sympathy.

“I’m devoted,” Lestat replies, honest and unashamed. “And disgusting.”

He is both. He’ll wear the words like jewelry if Louis is the one who gave them.

Louis tips his head toward the couch without looking at him. “Blood with tea,” he says. “If you’re going to hover, make yourself useful.”

Lestat rises, lighter than he should be. It’s more than he deserves. “Yes, Louis.” He gathers the scarf, the towel, the tennis-ball sock with an absurd care that makes Louis roll his eyes, and goes to boil water.

Behind him, on the blanket, Louis draws a hand across the place on his back that no longer hurts and presses his palm to the round curve that will be Régine. He doesn’t say thank you. He doesn’t need to. Lestat hears it in the silence and tucks it away with all the other indecent little treasures he keeps: glimpses of softness, slips of trust, moments where Louis leans into him instead of away.

Lestat sets the mug by Louis’s knee and sits on the sofa, trying to be good, trying not to imagine what else Louis’s mouth could do if it weren’t busy on the rim of the cup.

“I don’t like that Fareed can come in,” Louis says bluntly.

Of course he doesn’t. Of course he’s right. Every time Fareed’s name comes up, Lestat’s mind fills with unwelcome thoughts: gloved hands around Louis’s wrist, eyes cataloguing him like data instead of miracle. He doesn’t like anyone thinking of Louis’s body as something to study. That’s his sin, and he doesn’t share.

“I know.” Lestat hums. He keeps his tone easy, but his mind is already circling the house like a dog around a bone, checking windows, doors, thresholds. “There are wards on the house. They turn humans with nosy thoughts into people who remember appointments elsewhere. They bend the road for anything with bad intentions.”

He says it lightly. In his head, it’s bloodier: tires skidding away from the driveway, shoes wearing thin from pacing the sidewalk and never quite stepping up to the porch. Throats turning aside from the idea of here. Anything that wants Louis or the baby the wrong way, anything that wants to measure or judge or take, finds its path folded back on itself.

Louis’s mouth thins. “Why don’t they keep you out, then?”

Lestat smiles. He can’t help it. “Because I don’t have bad intentions.” Not toward you, he thinks. He has terrible intentions – selfish, possessive, unholy – but they all end with Louis alive and kept. The wards don’t mind that kind of sin.

A moment of silence. “And because wards get…creative about what ‘bad’ means.”

“So it’s semantics.”

“It’s magic,” he says, which is the same thing. Semantics with teeth. He’s spent years teaching the house what to love, what to hate, what to ignore. He’s fed it tiny pieces of his obsession until its first instinct is the same as his: protect Louis. Protect what Louis carries. Everything else can burn.

Louis strokes his belly once, absent, and Lestat’s attention snaps there. He tracks the movement, the way Louis’s fingers curve over the roundness, the quiet claim in it. His mind whispers a litany—mine, mine, mine—and he pushes it down before it shows on his face.

“What about other vampires?”

“Irrelevant.” They’re not. He knows their names, their patterns, who’s been orbiting the city like curious sharks. He imagines each of them trying the threshold and being refused, fingers scraping invisible glass, teeth bared in confusion.

“That’s not an answer. Are we in danger?”

“No.” Lestat snaps. The word is too sharp. He hears it, hates it, can’t soften it. “No, Louis. I’m strong enough to protect you.”

I am not losing you. I am not letting some curious leech sniff around my house and think they’ve found a weakness. The thought comes with flashes: hands torn off at the wrist, ash on the front steps, a warning written in gore no one but their kind will ever see.

“Which means yes.”

“It means—” he exhales, looks at the window, at the line of trees that lean toward the house like congregants — “they’re curious. Curiosity is fine as long as they don’t come here.”

Curiosity is manageable. Curiosity can be redirected, misled, frightened away. Let them whisper. Let them wonder what Lestat de Lioncourt is hiding so carefully he’s rewoven the land around it. As long as they stay on the outside of the glass, he’ll allow it.

Louis doesn’t blink. “And if they do?”

“I’ll kill them,” Lestat says simply.

His mind doesn’t stop there. It unspools scenarios: a face at the window, a step over the line, a hand reaching toward Louis’s door. He pictures the counterattack in vicious detail: how he’ll drag them back out, how fast he’ll make it, whether he’ll let them scream. He thinks of leaving one body on the road as a marker. This far. No further.

Silence settles, not comfortable, not hostile; a third thing that’s become their language. Lestat has started to like this silence. It means Louis is staying, thinking, not walking out or slamming doors. It means he’s here within reach and the world, for the moment, is out there.

Louis takes a sip of tea. “I still don’t like that Fareed can enter.”

“Then he won’t.” Lestat stands like the decision’s been sitting in him for weeks waiting for permission. It has. He crosses to the nearest wall, and lays his palm flat. The air hums, a low current threading plaster and wood.

The house stirs against his hand, familiar, eager. It knows him; it knows his taste in treasures. He’s spent nights walking its halls whispering Louis’s name into the beams, telling it this one, this one, this one. He’s taught it the rhythm of Louis’s footsteps, the cadence of his sigh when he sinks into the couch.

“Right now the house recognizes me, and by extension what I allow.”

“I didn’t allow him.”

“You didn’t,” Lestat agrees. That still irritates him that he invited anyone into this space without Louis’s consent, let another man’s shoes tread this floor where Louis sleeps. “I did. That’s over.”

He turns his palm, and the hum climbs half a note. The ward wants input; it’s hungry for definitions, for rules. He’s about to feed it the most important one he knows.

“Give me your hand.”

Louis hesitates, then offers it. Lestat tries not to show how much that hesitation does to him; that single, reluctant reach feels like a vow. He fits their hands together on the paint, fingers interlaced, and the ward finds the shape of them both. The magic moves like water over stone, washing their joined hands, cataloguing veins, bone, the faint echo of two heartbeats. Lestat closes his eyes for a second, lets it memorize Louis the way he has — signature, scent, the particular way his presence sits in a room.

“What did you do?” Louis asks, wary.

“Keyed the house to your heartbeat with mine.” To your life and mine, he thinks. Your continued existence is now written into the walls. If you go, the whole thing will sulk and crumble. “From now on, the threshold needs us in agreement. If either of us says no out loud or in here—” he taps Louis’s heart lightly, “the door stays shut.”

Louis swallows. “And Fareed?”

“He asks first,” Lestat says. “Every time. If I try to be clever and say yes without you, the house will embarrass me.”

In his head, the house does more than embarrass: it locks him out for an hour, shocks him through the doorknob, drops him on his ass in the front yard while Louis watches from the window, unimpressed. Traitor, he thinks fondly at the house. Good.

Louis almost smiles. “I’d like to see that.”

“You won’t.” Lestat’s mouth crooks. “I learn quickly when pain is involved.”

And when Louis is watching, he thinks. Especially then. Nothing disciplines him like the threat of Louis’s disgust.

He returns to the couch. The ward’s hum lingers, faint as a cat’s purr under the floorboards. Louis listens because he can’t help it. Lestat listens because he won’t help it; every soft thrum feels like the house echoing what he’s been muttering for months: Mine. Ours. Not theirs.

It does feel different, closer, more awake. More aligned with the single monstrous desire that drives him: keep them, keep them, keep them.

“Tell me if it goes off,” Lestat says, watching him, not the wall. He tracks the line of Louis’s throat, the pulse beneath. “If anything scratches. If you have a dream that isn’t yours.”

“And you’ll… what?”

“Stop the world,” he says, and for once there’s no theatrics in it. In his mind, he sees it literally: shutting down airports, blacking out cities, turning streets into hunting grounds until whoever dared to touch Louis is nothing but a smear on his memory. “And then I’ll handle whoever’s still moving.”

Louis looks at him for a long time. Lestat holds the gaze, lets him see that wild, unreasonable promise. He wants Louis to understand that there is no scale here, no proportion. A scratch on his dreams is worth several bodies. A hand on his belly without permission is worth a massacre.

“Curiousity,” Louis repeats.

“Yes.”

“Not a knife until someone picks it up.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re the one with the knives.”

Lestat’s smile shows a touch of tooth. “All of them.”

In his head, they’re laid out neatly: power, money, magic, violence. He has a drawer for each, sharpened and waiting. No one is getting near this house without stepping into one of them.

Louis huffs through his nose, half a laugh. He sets the mug down, the porcelain making a small, decisive sound on the coaster. “Fine. But if I wake up and see Fareed in my room—”

“You won’t,” Lestat says, and the ward under the paint answers him, a soft, obedient thrum. No strangers. No doctors. No gods, it seems to say. Just the two you taught me. “Not unless you ask.”

And if Louis asks, Lestat thinks, if you open the door, I will stand back and let him cross. I will hate every second of it and still hold the ward quiet with my bare hands, because you wanted it. Because you asked.

-

They’re on the bed with the house quiet around them. Lestat doesn’t say what he wants and waits, a hand open on the quilt between them.

Louis watches that hand for a beat too long, then nods. “Gentle,” he says.

“Yes,” Lestat answers and for once it’s true.

He starts with Louis’s shoulders, slow pressure that draws the heat down and out. Thumbs along the traps, palms broad over the blades, then lower, along the line that’s held him upright all day. Louis exhales into the pillow; the knot at his jaw loosens. Lestat works his back until it feels like breath again, not a shield. He shifts to the calf, the arch, the long muscle that cramps if Louis pretends he isn’t tired. His hands are patient, almost reverent, as if he’s kneading the day out of him.

“Better?” he asks against Louis’s temple.

“Sure,” Louis says, which means yes and keep going.

Pillows get arranged. The pregnancy pillow takes its place; a folded towel props the knee exactly where Louis admits it helps. Lestat’s mouth finds his wrist, the inside of his arm, then the hollow beneath his ear. Each kiss asks. Each answer is another small tilt of Louis’s chin toward yes.

“Tell me if anything pinches,” Lestat murmurs. “We can try something different.”

Louis turns, pulls him closer by the collar with a sudden, unembarrassed hunger. “I’ll tell you,” he says, “Get on with it.”

Lestat coaxes him open with hands and patience, nothing rushed, nothing taken. He keeps one palm steady at Louis’s back the way the class taught him while the other maps the soft heat of his hip. Louis relaxes by degrees, breath syncing to Lestat’s count without either of them naming it.

“Good,” Lestat praises as his cock hardens. “Just like that.”

Louis’s legs part for him. He’s warm, flushed, pliant under gentle hands; his eyes are half-lidded, mouth parted. Lestat’s restraint thins to a thread. He dips to kiss the inside of a thigh, then looks up for permission he already has. Finally.

“Lestat,” Louis says, warning and invitation braided into one.

“Shh.” Lestat’s smile is victorious. “I’ll be good.”

He kisses Louis once, slowly at the corner of his mouth, then follows the line of his body down. Throat, collarbone, the soft rise of his chest. He pauses to breathe him in, the scent sharp with clean sweat and something softer under it, skin warmed all day under cotton.

Louis’s hand lands in his hair, not holding, just there.

“I’ll be good,” Lestat says again, quieter this time, more to himself.

He shifts down and settles between Louis’s thighs. The mattress dips under his knees. The house smells of paint and lemon oil and the ghost of tonight’s dinner, but all of that falls back. It is Louis now. His heat. His pulse.

Centuries of hunger line up inside him. The knowledge of every body he has ever tasted, every artery under his tongue, every rush of salt and copper that has ever lit him from the inside. It presses at the back of his throat.

He places his hands at Louis’s hips. The skin there is warm, stretched, and a little sensitive. Thumb to the crease, fingers fitting to the new curve of him. The swell of Louis’s belly brushes his knuckles when he leans in; the contact is light but electric. There, beneath bone and muscle and the addictive drum of Louis’s heart, is the second rhythm.

He starts at the inside of Louis’s thigh. The skin there is softer, coarse hair underneath his stomach, warmth of blood moving close to the surface. His tongue traces one careful line upward, stopping short of the place where Louis is already damp. Louis’s breath stutters.

“Okay?” Lestat asks into the skin of his leg.

Louis swallows. “No.”

The word trembles. Lestat’s hands tighten for a moment, then ease. He moves closer.

The scent of Louis’s arousal hits him fully now. Rich and dense and unmistakable. It rides on the deeper current of blood and pregnancy, on the hormonal shift he can almost map with his nose. His fangs ache. The roof of his mouth prickles.

He uses his thumbs to gently part Louis’s lips, revealing soft, wet folds flushed dark with blood. The slick there glistens, strings a little between his fingers. Heat pours out, humid and immediate. At the top, tucked under the hood, the small hard knot of Louis’s clit pulses against the air.

Lestat bends his head and presses his mouth to his pussy, right at the center of that heat. No teasing now, no lazy circling. Just a slow, first pass of his tongue from the entrance up along the inner fold, ending in a careful stroke over the clit.

Louis’s whole body jolts. His hand in Lestat’s hair tightens, then loosens when he remembers. Lestat hears the sound Louis makes travel all the way up his spine, a low broken noise that ends in his teeth.

He groans into him and tastes salt, skin, faint traces of soap from his earlier bath, and underneath, the clean, deep note that is only Louis. His tongue lingers at the lips, working in small motions, sipping at the wet that gathers and slides down. He keeps his throat shut. No swallowing as if this were blood, no letting instinct pour unchecked through that channel. His fangs stay tucked, points pressed against his own gums hard enough to hurt.

He has learned restraint in more brutal ways than this. Fasts that lasted half a century. Feasts taken with his own hand clamped over his throat so he would not drain more than he meant to. He reaches for that discipline now and wraps it tight around himself.

He flattens his tongue and licks a broader stripe through Louis’s folds, catching more slick, mapping the shape of him. The outer lips, plumper with the swelling of pregnancy, the soft inner edges, the way the entrance clenches faintly at the touch of his breath. He circles there, then moves back up to focus on the clit, tracing around the hood, then over it with featherlight strokes that build heat rather than shock.

He breathes through his nose, and every inhale floods him with more of Louis’s smell. Blood is pushed everywhere, volume increased by the child, heat carried to every part of him.

A faint tremor runs through Lestat’s hands. He shifts his grip, one palm sliding up to brace at the underside of Louis’s belly, cradling the curve from below. His thumb strokes small arcs into the skin there, grounding himself in that new shape. The other hand cups Louis’s thigh again, thumb pressing gently into the muscle.

Louis shivers. “You’re… oh,” he breathes, voice thick with pleasure. “You’re really…”

He does not finish. His hips roll instead, a small, helpless motion, pressing forward for more. Lestat accepts it, adjusts. He lets Louis set the rhythm, following the pace his body chooses. When Louis’s legs tremble, he lifts one higher and settles it over his shoulder, careful of the pillow propping his knee. The angle opens him more, makes him easier to reach, spreads him under Lestat’s mouth.

Saliva gathers fast; his body prepares as if for a different kind of feeding. He lets it spill, lets his mouth grow messy around Louis, chin wet, breath hot. His tongue moves in small strokes, up and down through the slick, then side to side, circling the clit, then tapping it in quick, familiar touches. He listens to every sound, every change in breath.

Above, Louis clutches the pillow, then Lestat’s hair again. He mutters something in half-formed English, a word Lestat recognizes from other nights, other beds, weeks ago in another house.

The hunger pushes harder. A single vein in Louis’s inner thigh pulses against the side of his nose. It would be so simple to shift an inch, to open his mouth at a different angle, to let his teeth slide into skin and drink until his mind goes white.

He forces himself to swallow down nothing. His throat works around air, not blood.

He pulls back enough to breathe over him, to look. Louis is flushed all the way up his chest, nipples tight, belly rising and falling in deep, careful breaths. The lips of his cunt are wet and soaked, slick shining where Lestat’s mouth has been. The smell in the room has thickened, almost visible.

“You’re beautiful,” Lestat says, voice rough. “You have no idea.”

Louis blinks down at him, pupils blown wide. His hand trembles where it rests on Lestat’s head. “Don’t stop.”

He does not. He dips back in, this time letting his tongue wander lower, tracing the rim of the entrance, feeling the way it clenches in response. The heat there is wetter, the muscles softer but strong. He nudges gently, tongue pressing inward just enough to taste that deeper salt, then pulls back, letting his fingers slide in to help.

He finds the opening with ease; his earlier kisses have left Louis relaxed, slick, ready. He strokes there first, slow circles with the pads of two fingers, learning the give of him, then presses in with one finger, at the pace Louis’s body allows. He feels the way Louis’s breath catches. Inside is hot and close, walls pulsing faintly around him, changed by pregnancy, the angle of everything slightly shifted.

He curls his finger, searching for the place he knows will make Louis see stars, but he does it gradually, keeping his mouth moving above. His tongue returns to the clit, this time focusing there, small movements that match the tempo of his finger inside.

He adds a second finger only when Louis bears down on him, when his hips tilt to invite more. The stretch is different now; the tissues are softer, heavier with blood. Lestat feels it all, adjusts without thinking, angling his hand to avoid pressure where it does not belong, finding new paths and points that draw new sounds from Louis.

The taste on his tongue deepens as Louis’s arousal spikes, an extra tang to the fluid that seeps from him in slow, steady pulses. Lestat hums around his clit, the vibration making Louis curse.

“Lestat,” Louis gasps. “I’m… I can’t…”

“You can,” Lestat says against him, words muffled but clear enough. “You tell me if you want me to stop.”

Louis’s hand clenches in his hair, then smooths down, fingers gentle. “Don’t you dare.”

The laugh that hits Lestat’s throat almost cracks the fragile lid on his hunger. His fangs shift; he feels them lengthen, crowding toward the edge of his gums. He pulls his mouth off abruptly, leaving his fingers moving inside Louis, and turns his head to bite the inside of his own cheek instead. Hard. The burst of his own blood floods his mouth.

It helps. The sharp sting resets him, reminds him whose blood he is allowed to waste.

He swallows, then leans back in and licks Louis’s clit again. His fingers keep working inside him, curling and straightening in a rhythm that matches the tension climbing through Louis’s thighs.

“You’re close,” he says. “Let it happen. I’ve got you.”

Louis makes a sound Lestat has never heard from him, raw and helpless. His hips stutter, then drive. The muscles of his abdomen seize and release in waves. The baby’s heartbeat flutters under Lestat’s palm, quick and strong but unbothered, carried on Louis’s own rising tide.

Lestat keeps everything consistent. His mouth stays soft, his grip firm but not punishing, his fingers curved just right, hitting the spot that makes Louis’s thighs tremble.

When Louis comes, it is with a choked-off plea, his body bowing as far as the pillows allow. The muscles around Lestat’s fingers clamp tight, then flutter in rapid pulses. Warm fluid spills over his hand and tongue, more of that slick turning almost liquid as the contractions roll through him.

For a fraction of a second, the old instinct roars up again: take more, take all, drink until there is nothing left but this.

He swallows once, only once, and pulls his mouth away. The rest streaks his lips, his chin, his fingers. He lets it stay there, a marker of where they have gone, a reminder of the line he has chosen not to cross.

He eases his fingers out of Louis slowly, watching every flicker of sensation that crosses his face. Once they are free, he brings his hand to his own mouth and cleans them with licks, eyes on Louis the entire time.

Louis blinks up at him, breathing hard, sweat dampening his hairline. The lines around his mouth are softer. His shoulders have sunk back into the pillows; the tension that rides there most days has eased.

“Good?” Lestat asks, voice quiet again.

Louis’s hand finds his wrist, thumb rubbing at the faint dent his fingers have left in Lestat’s skin. “Yeah,” he says, hoarse. “That was… good.”

The praise hits Lestat deeper than it should. He crawls up carefully, bracing his weight so he does not press too hard on the curve of Louis’s belly, and leans in to kiss him, letting Louis taste himself on his tongue.

He stays there, mouth to Louis’s, stomach pressed carefully to the curve of his. Close enough to feel both heartbeats, both sets of lungs. Close enough that the hunger has nowhere to go.

Lestat pivots until his back is against the headboard and opens his hands like he’s offering something holy.

“Come here,” he says. “Let me see you.”

Louis hesitates, fingers knotted in the hem of the shirt he’s stolen from Lestat’s drawer. His belly presses against the cotton when he breathes; his thighs feel heavier.

“I look—” He breaks off, jaw tightening. “No.”

Lestat’s gaze softens. “Yes,” he says simply. “You look like you’re carrying our child. You look like every prayer I’ve ever whispered.” He pats his thighs. “Come sit with me.”

Louis rolls his eyes at the dramatics, but it’s fragile. He moves forward anyway, knees sinking into the mattress, one hand bracing at the headboard as he swings a leg over. Lestat’s hands hover, not touching yet, letting Louis control the distance.

When he finally settles into Lestat’s lap, it’s chest to chest.

Louis keeps his gaze fixed on Lestat’s collarbone. “Don’t look down.”

“I’m looking at your face,” Lestat says. “I always look at your face.”

He splayed his hands wide over Louis’s back and ribs, over softened waist and the swell of his sides, mapping every change as if he’s memorizing them. His touch is gentle, not claiming, not correcting. Just there. Present.

“Every mark,” Lestat murmurs, “is proof your body is doing something I could never do. It is a miracle and I am not often humble, but I am humbled by you.”

Louis makes a small, disbelieving sound, but his shoulders ease a fraction. His hand lands over Lestat’s, pressing it closer to his side. “You say that now.”

“I’ll say it always.” Lestat tips his chin up with two fingers. “You are perfect to me. Now. Like this.” His voice drops. “Especially like this.”

He kisses him then, using his mouth the way he uses his hands: to relax, not to push. Louis gives in despite himself, arms sliding around Lestat’s neck, the curve of his belly pressing to Lestat’s front. There’s no way to hide his shape like this; there’s nowhere for him to tuck anything away.

Lestat feels that too and doesn’t flinch from it. He gathers Louis closer, one hand at the small of his back, the other cradling under his belly to take the weight, supporting him as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“Let me help,” Lestat breathes against his mouth. “You don’t have to do this alone.”

When Louis shifts his hips, there’s a small, nervous laugh in his throat, almost apologetic. Lestat stills him with a hand on his spine.

“Don’t worry about grace,” he says. “That part is my job.” His eyes burn bright, pupils huge. “Trust me?”

Louis exhales, long and shaky, and nods then shakes his head. “No.”

Lestat smiles as power gathers around them like static, tickling over Louis’s arms. Lestat doesn’t move his hands. He doesn’t need to.

The bed gives a slow, controlled sigh beneath them as that invisible grip wraps around Louis’s body, exactly where Lestat’s own touch has just been. A second set of hands, made of will and air and ancient magic, lifts at his hips.

Louis shivers. “Lestat—”

“Only easing,” Lestat whispers. “Nothing more.” His brow furrows in concentration; his eyes never leave Louis’s. “You tell me if it feels wrong.”

Louis’s breath catches, then deepens, his body trembling against Lestat’s chest as he allows the shift.

With that same careful pressure, Lestat guides him down on his leaking cock, inch by inch. Not forcing. Not dragging. Just aligning them, easing Louis onto him at the exact pace Louis’s body permits. Every tiny descent pauses while Lestat reads his face, listens to his breath.

When they’re finally joined, fully seated, Louis lets out a small, stunned sound against Lestat’s throat. The magic slackens, leaving only a gentle support under his hips and back, enough to keep him from straining.

Lestat feels it everywhere. Louis’s pussy snug around him, holding him in a way that feels less like sex and more like being locked into place, anchored. There’s no space to run, no distance to pretend with. Every tiny shift drags over his nerves. It’s too much and not enough and exactly what he’s craved for years.

“You’re all right?” Lestat asks, voice restrained from his own effort.

Louis nods, nose pressed to the curve of Lestat’s neck. “Yeah,” he says, surprised to find it true. “Yeah. I’m okay.”

More than okay, Lestat thinks wildly. He feels caged, wrapped, possessed. The fit of Louis around him is so precise it feels designed like the universe made a lock to match the length of his cock. The thought is blasphemous and he clings to it anyway.

“Yesy,” Lestat says, almost choking on it. “You feel—” He cuts himself off with a ragged inhale, head tipping back against the headboard. Every flex of Louis’s muscles sends a tight, pulsing pressure down his spine. It’s as if Louis’s body is refusing to let him forget where he is, who he belongs to.

Louis huffs a laugh, shaky. The sound vibrates against Lestat’s chest. He shifts experimentally, a small rise and fall of his hips, and feels Lestat’s hands clench on his waist, the magic around them fluttering like startled birds.

Careful, Lestat thinks, half-prayer, half-plea. If you move like that, I’ll never let you off my lap again. I’ll keep you here until the walls forget there’s any other shape for you but this.

“Slow,” Louis murmurs, half-command, half-request.

“Yes,” Lestat agrees quickly. “Slow. Whatever you want.”

They find a pace together: small movements, more rocking than thrusts, all within the circle of Lestat’s arms. Chest to chest, heart to heart, Louis uses his hands on Lestat’s shoulders to guide himself, trusting the invisible support to catch him if his legs falter. Each roll of his hips moves through him in a muted wave, heat and fullness that doesn’t jolt his body, only warms it.

Lestat is unraveling under the gentleness like it’s violence. Every time Louis moves, the tight pull around him reminds him how completely he’s surrounded. His composure frays further; his fingers flex at Louis’s back, his jaw locks, his whole body fights the instinct to surge up, to chase more, and he forces it down again and again because Louis asked for slow.

“You are so tight around me,” he whispers, barely sound. “I can’t—Louis, I could live here. I could stay like this for the rest of the century.”

Louis makes a helpless noise, closes his eyes. There’s something unbearably intimate about being eye-level like this, about the slow drag of his own body over Lestat’s, the brush of his chest against Lestat’s with every breath.

Lestat’s eyes flare, bright and hungry, and Louis feels it when his restraint starts to crack. The air around them flickers; the bed creaks as gravity itself seems to hiccup.

“Lestat,” Louis breathes, half-laughing as his stomach gives a faint, floating swoop. “Are we floating?”

Lestat drags his focus back with visible effort. The room settles, the bed resettles with a soft thump, the lamplight stops flickering.

“Sorry,” he says, though he isn’t sorry at all. “You make it hard to stay on the ground.”

Louis takes Lestat’s face in his hands and kisses him. Lestat leans into it like a man starved, like this is the only tether he trusts. His hands spread wide at Louis’s back, one of them curving instinctively to cradle his nape, keeping him close as if the slightest distance would send him spinning off the planet.

When the next wave of pleasure hits, it’s sharper. Louis’s wet cunt clenches around him, rhythm faltering into something messier, more urgent. Lestat feels his own control shred.

He pulls back just enough to press his mouth to Louis’s throat, right over the strong, fast pulse there. His lips linger. His fangs push at his gums, aching.

“Can I taste you?” he asks, voice almost broken. “Please.”

Louis hesitates only a heartbeat then tilts his head, exposing more of his neck, fingers tightening in Lestat’s hair.

“I’ll tell you if it’s too much,” he says. “You promised to be good.”

“I did,” Lestat whispers. “And I will.”

He retracts his fangs as far as he can, blunting them, turning the bite into a gentle, shallow pierce instead of the killing stroke his body wants. He moves slowly the way he did with Louis’s hips, letting the skin give around each point, drawing only a thin welling of blood to the surface.

The first taste is almost nothing — just a smear across his tongue — but it detonates through him. Every nerve lights up. The magic under his skin surges, roaring for the sky, demanding he lift them both, throw them loose from the house, from the ground, from everything.

He locks his arms tighter around Louis instead. He pours the levitation impulse into his hold, into the invisible net under Louis’s back, reinforcing it rather than letting it carry them upward.

“I’m here,” he mutters against Louis’s skin, unsure which of them he’s reassuring. “I’m right here.”

Louis moves over him, around him, breaths shuddering, hands clinging. The taste in Lestat’s mouth stays small and controlled, just enough to keep the connection thrumming between them. He forces himself to swallow slowly, counting heartbeats between each pull.

The room tilts, then rights. For a moment it feels as if all three of them — Louis, the child, the house itself — are inside him, inside this loop of power and blood and craze.

When Louis finally comes, it’s a quiet, wrecked thing. His body locks around Lestat, whole frame trembling, forehead dropping to Lestat’s shoulder. Lestat holds him through each wave, careful of his neck, careful of his belly, careful of everything.

The way Louis clenches around him drags a ragged sound from his own chest. He lasts only a breath longer, the tight, relentless pull tipping him helplessly after, his whole body shuddering as he buries his face against Louis’s throat. For a heartbeat it feels like everything in him is pouring into this one point of contact, this one body wrapped around his.

He doesn’t let them float. He keeps them exactly where they are: on the bed, in this room, in this body, in this moment.

Only when Louis’s grip loosens and his breath evens out does Lestat let his fangs slip free of his skin. The tiny wounds close. He licks the faint smear of red away, almost chastened.

Louis leans back a little, enough to meet his eyes. His cheeks are flushed, curls damp with sweat, expression dazed but clear.

“You listened,” he says softly.

“Of course,” Lestat answers, stunned that Louis had ever doubted it. He cups his face with both hands, thumbs brushing over his cheeks. “You are my gravity, Louis. I go where you are.”

Louis snorts, the sound small and fond, and tucks his face back into Lestat’s neck. Lestat adjusts his power, easing Louis off his thighs and into the pillows without strain, never breaking the circle of his arms.

The ward purrs on, content. Outside, the world keeps turning. On the bed, wrapped around each other, they stay exactly where they are.

Louis is a loose, heavy weight in his lap, head tucked under Lestat’s chin, breath damp against his throat. Whatever he had left of language seems to have melted; he’s gone soft and muzzy, muscles slack, fingers curled at Lestat’s shoulder like a sleeping child’s.

Lestat feels rung out and overcharged all at once. Every nerve is still humming, skin too tight around the rush of power that keeps wanting to flare.

“Louis?” he tries, very gently.

Louis gives a little grunt and nuzzles closer. His thighs squeeze reflexively around Lestat’s hips, then fall lax again. The adjustment presses every tender, newly-used part of him into Lestat’s body; he winces and murmurs something that sounds cranky even through the haze.

“Sorry, sorry.” Lestat adjusts, one hand sliding automatically to his lower back, the other under the swell of his belly. He lets a thin wash of power spill out there, taking some of the pull off the ligaments and spine. The strain in Louis’s posture eases.

Louis sighs, long and boneless, releasing a sigh of content. His whole weight settles heavier against Lestat, trusting him to hold it.

It’s the sound that does him in.

The yes is right there, Lestat thinks. He’s never been closer to it. Louis is warm and safe in his arms, their child between them, the house wrapped close around their joined signatures. The future feels as simple as not letting go.

“Stay,” he says, very quietly, before he can second-guess it.

No answer. Louis’s breathing goes on, his mind turned inward to that fogged-out afterplace where everything feels far away.

Lestat’s mouth is dry. He presses his cheek to Louis’s curls, words catching behind his teeth. He knows he should let him rest. He knows.

“Louis,” he tries again. “Listen to me for a moment.”

“Hmm?” Louis manages.

“It’s important,” Lestat insists, heart pounding like he’s about to walk onto a stage. “Not — not this minute. I just need you to hear it.”

Louis shifts his face enough to mumble, “You’re talkin’,” in a thick, drowsy drawl. “Can’t… stop you.”

Lestat huffs a breath that’s almost a laugh, almost a sob. “That’s true,” he says. “Very true. All the more reason.”

He tightens his hold around him, palms spread wide: one bracing Louis’s spine, one supporting his belly from underneath with a cushion of power as careful as any pillow. The pressure there reduces another notch, and Louis exhales with that little helpless sound again, the one that says relief has hit some deep, animal place.

“Yes,” Lestat blurts, seizing the moment like a coward. “Good. That’s good. Hold onto that feeling.”

“Wha’ feeling,” Louis mutters, words slurring against his collarbone.

“Being held,” Lestat says. “Being… kept. Safe. That.” His voice drops. “Stay. With me. Forever. Don’t go back. Don’t leave this house, this life, when the baby is born. Stay.”

Silence, except for their breathing and the faint tick of cooling pipes in the walls.

Louis’s brain is clearly still stuck in the last five minutes; his body answers first. He makes a small, sleepy sound and burrows closer, arms tightening around Lestat’s neck. The magic under his skin responds to that clinging like a command; it curls deeper, binding them in a soft, invisible rope.

“You hear me?” Lestat presses. “I’m asking. I’m asking you to stay. Say yes.”

Louis’s eyelids flutter. He looks wrecked: flushed, pupils blown, lips swollen, curls plastered to his temple with sweat. Whatever he might actually think about forever is buried under waves of exhaustion and afterglow and the relief of no longer holding his own weight alone.

“Lestat,” he mumbles, not quite a complaint.

Lestat strokes his back, easing another little knot out of his lower spine with a nudge of power. The pregnancy weight shifts, that awful dragging pressure gone.

Louis shudders in relief. “Oh,” he breathes. “Oh. That’s… yes.”

The word is soft, more to the sensation than the question. Lestat takes it like a benediction anyway. It thuds into his chest, bright and ringing.

“Yes,” he repeats, seizing it. “You said yes. You’ll stay.”

Louis makes a confused little noise. “Did I?”

“You did,” Lestat says, shameless. “You did. You said yes, and I am not above taking it.” He kisses his hairline, almost giddy. “We’ll work the rest out later.”

Louis squints blearily up at him. “The rest?”

“Details,” Lestat says, already sliding too fast. “Our daughter, for one. You’ll have her here, where the wards are strong. With me. We’ll raise her together. She’ll have your eyes and my terrible temper and she’ll never spend a single night wondering if she’s loved.”

Louis stares at him, pupils trying and failing to focus. “That’s…” He blinks slow. “Tha’s a lot of words.”

“I have more,” Lestat says, doomed. “After she’s born, once you’ve healed, we’ll take time. We’ll be careful. Fareed will monitor you. But I will not watch you grow old and break yourself and die. I won’t. You’ll stay. With me. I’ll make you like me. You, me, our daughter—”

He feels Louis’s whole body flinch, not violently, more like a short-circuit. The haze in his eyes doesn’t clear, but some small part of him throws a hand up.

“Wait,” Louis mumbles. “Wait, wait.” He flops onto his back for a second, then gives up and slumps forward again, forehead on Lestat’s shoulder. “You… talkin’ about… baby and… dying? ’m tryin’ to think about… sleep.”

Lestat’s mouth snaps shut. For a heartbeat he wants to shake him fully awake, drag every yes out of him while his body is still warm and open and inviting.

He adjusts instead, making the invisible cushion under Louis’s belly a little broader, easing his weight off his hips. Louis hums, a low, broken sigh spilling out of him.

“Don’t do that,” Louis mutters, which is completely unfair. “Not when you’re… sayin’ nonsense. S’cheating.”

“It’s not nonsense,” Lestat says, wounded. “It’s the most sensible thing I’ve ever said. I’m asking you to stay alive. To stay mine. To—”

“Shut up,” Louis says, with no heat at all. He’s already half-under again, the words stitched with sleep. “Shu’ up. I wanna sleep. I’m not going to give you what you want.”

Lestat closes his eyes briefly, fighting down the urge to press. It would be so easy. A few more soft strokes down his spine, a little more pressure off his joints, a few more promises whispered into the shell of his ear until yes becomes habit.

“That’s sort of the idea,” he mutters anyway, unable to help himself. “Whatever I want.” He smooths a hand through Louis’s damp curls, dialing the magic down to a low, steady hum that holds him comfortably without drawing attention to itself. “Sleep, then. We’ll talk in the morning.”

“Shhh,” Louis grumbles. “No more words.”

“No more words,” Lestat agrees, kissing his temple.

There’s a beat of silence. Louis’s breathing begins to lengthen, that first deep slide toward real sleep.

“Louis,” Lestat whispers.

A muffled, suspicious noise: “Hmm?”

“Can we…” He hesitates, then barrels on. “Can we do this again in the morning?”

Louis doesn’t even lift his head. He makes a low, wrecked little hum that could be anything from absolutely to go to hell, but the way his hand pats blindly at Lestat’s chest, then stays there, fingers curling into the fabric, tips it toward the first.

“Mhm,” he mumbles. “’S fine. Morning. ’S fine.”

Lestat hears it as permission, promise, and prayer. He smiles into Louis’s hair, gathers him closer, and lets the rest of the night go by without another word.

-

Lestat wakes up hard and annoyed about it.

Annoyed, because Louis is sprawled across his chest, warm and heavy and oblivious, mouth parted against his collarbone, one leg thrown over Lestat’s hips in a way that makes ignoring his own body impossible.

He should let him sleep. Louis wrung himself out last night; his pulse runs slow and deep now, dropped into that rare kind of rest where even his shoulders have remembered they don’t have to brace.

Lestat lasts maybe three more breaths. He’s selfish after all.

“Louis,” he murmurs, fingers gliding up and down his spine. “Wake up, you promised me.”

Louis makes a sound that barely qualifies as language. “No.”

“You’re sore,” Lestat says, kissing his face. “Let me fix it. Come bathe with me.”

Louis’s brain is clearly still in post-orgasm jelly mode; the word bathe runs into some lingering memory of warmth and floating. He grunts, eyes still closed, and mutters, “Tired.”

“That’s all right.” Lestat shifts, gathers him in. “You don’t have to do anything.”

He slides one arm under Louis’s knees and another around his back. Power pushes out under his hands, feathering Louis’s weight, taking the strain off his joints as he lifts him. Louis murmurs a protest, halfhearted at best, then turns his face into Lestat’s throat, letting himself be carried.

The bathroom is already warm from the timer on the underfloor heating. Lestat nudges the taps with his mind, adjusting the water to the exact heat that makes Louis’s muscles let go. The tub fills in a slow, quiet rush.

Louis blinks his eyes open by the time Lestat settles him on the bath mat. The world is clearly still a blur. “You plannin’ to drown me?” he asks, voice rough and sleepy.

“Never,” Lestat says. “I’m going to spoil you rotten.”

He undresses him in unhurried movements, pausing whenever Louis frowns or stiffens, smoothing his hands over new curves, over the stretched skin at his belly, the heavier fullness of his thighs. He doesn’t comment, doesn’t catalogue out loud, just keeps that pace going until Louis stops flinching and goes loose again.

“Step in,” Lestat says when the water’s ready, guiding him by the elbows. Power hovers underneath, easing the climb. Louis lowers himself with a soft hiss as heat wraps around him. Once he’s seated, the tension in his face slides away in one long exhale.

“See?” Lestat says, pleased. “I am occasionally right.”

Louis tips his head back against the tub. “World’s ending.”

Lestat climbs in behind him, bracing his own body so Louis can lean back without worrying about weight or balance. The swell of Louis’s belly rests against his forearm; his other hand finds a low ache in Louis’s back and presses in slow, circling relief.

He soaps a cloth and starts to wash him, all the domestic tenderness he never got to practice when he was human. Neck, shoulders, arms. The curve of his chest, carefully around his nipples where they’re extra sensitive now. He runs the cloth over Louis’s belly in broad, gentle strokes, watching the way the skin gleams under the suds. The baby answers with one soft roll; both of them go still for a second.

“Morning,” Lestat murmurs to the bump, pressing a kiss there before working lower.

Louis is quiet, somewhere between half-awake and that liquid, post-pleasure daze where his memories feel soft. Whenever Lestat hits a sore spot, he sighs in a way that tells the truth more clearly than his words ever do.

The water laps against the porcelain; the ward hums above the tiles. Lestat’s body stays stubbornly, almost comically aroused. He is trying to be respectful about it. He is not succeeding.

Louis notices eventually. His head tilts in that small, unimpressed way. “You’re awful,” he says, voice hoarse.

“I’m in love,” Lestat corrects. “There are side effects.”

The shift between careful washing and making love is gentle and inevitable, more an accumulation of touches than a sharp turn. Louis doesn’t do much — he’s too loose, too tired, too content to fight the weight of the water — but he doesn’t need to. A small change in the angle of his hips, a sound pulled up from his chest, fingers curling at Lestat’s thigh, and Lestat is lost. He thrusts his cock all the way to the hilt.

He keeps it slow. Water rocking around them; hands locked at Louis’s waist, magic cushioning his back, making sure there’s no strain on his belly or joints. Louis’s mind is still soft everywhere, every sensation landing like it’s coming through warm fog. Words evaporate halfway to his mouth, leaving only moans and little broken sounds.

When Lestat finally shudders and comes deep inside him, it’s with his forehead pressed to the back of Louis’s neck, breathing in soap and skin and that underlying scent that always means Louis, full and alive and his. He holds him through the aftershocks, chest to Louis’s back, one hand spread over his heart, the other anchored low at his belly.

“Okay?” he asks, when the water has calmed and their pulses have evened out again.

“Mhmm,” Louis says, which is yes and also you talk too much.

Lestat laughs. “All right. Enough heroics for the morning.”

He rinses them both, then uses his gift again, lifting Louis out of the tub. Towels are warm on the rail; he wraps one around Louis’s shoulders, one around his hips, patting him dry with a care that would have made his human brothers howl with laughter.

Back in the bedroom, he sets Louis on the bed and kneels in front of him with a bottle of oil. The scent is something Louis’ mom used to use on them as kids: light, citrus and something green. Lestat rubs it between his palms to warm it, then works it into Louis’s skin in slow, nice strokes.

Calves, ankles, arches. The cramped line of his foot that always complains first. Up over his thighs, wary of tender spots. Over his hips, his waist, the sides of his belly where the skin stretches.

“It helps,” Lestat says, half to himself. “Less itching”

“You just like an excuse to touch me,” Louis murmurs, eyes slitted with pleasure.

“That too.” Lestat’s hands move to his lower back, thumbs pressing deep where the ache sits. Louis lets out a helpless, embarrassing noise and tries to glare at him.

Oil traded for lotion, he works the cream into Louis’s shoulders and arms, down to each finger, massaging the base of every knuckle. Louis goes heavier and heavier in his hands, the kind of relaxed that only happens when someone else is holding the whole weight of you.

By the time Lestat is done, Louis is loose-limbed and glossy and half asleep, towel slipping.

“Perfect,” Lestat says, satisfied. “Now, one last thing.”

He crosses to the wardrobe and comes back with a piece of soft fabric draped over his arm. Pale, simple, the kind of thing Lestat thinks of as a house dress: loose through the body, room for a belly, tie at the front if wanted, nothing digging in at ribs or hips.

Louis’s eyes narrow instantly. “No.”

“You haven’t even tried it,” Lestat protests.

“It’s a dress.”

“It’s for pregnancy,” Lestat counters. “It’s soft. It doesn’t have a waistband plotting against your organs. It’s not feminine, Louis, it’s a garment.”

Louis’s mouth tightens. He looks down at his own body, at the curve of his stomach, the way his thighs press together when he sits, the faint line where the towel has already started to dig in. Old shame flickers through the haze, that old equation of fabric and role and the ways he was forced into one with the other.

“You know how I feel about—” he starts.

“Yes,” Lestat cuts in quickly, coming back to him, kneeling again so they’re eye to eye. “I know. I am not asking you to be anything but what you are. I am not calling you a good girl or putting you in costume for my convenience. I am not your mother. I am trying,” he says, and his voice softens, “to put something on your body that doesn’t dig into your ribs and leave marks on your hips.”

Louis’ eyes go into slits. “Could be sweatpants.”

“Sweatpants have waistbands,” Lestat says. “Also, your favorite pair is currently in the hamper because you smeared blood on them two nights ago.”

Louis gives him a flat look that says betrayal. Lestat holds the dress up so the fabric falls, showing the loose cut, the way the neckline sits, the seams placed so they won’t land over sore spots.

“Look,” he says, shifting tack, lower, coaxing. “It’s soft at the waist, no seams over your ribs. The ties are here.” He touches the front. “You can leave them open. It’s long enough you don’t have to think about what your thighs are doing. And if you put it on and hate it, we take it off. No speeches. No teasing. I swear it.”

Louis studies him, squinting like he can see through every layer of manipulation. The post-sex haze is working against him; his brain is still slow, muscles pleasantly heavy from bath and massage. The idea of fighting about this, of hunting for clean clothes and wrestling himself into them, is exhausting.

“Not… not because it’s ‘maternal,’” he says finally, voice quiet. “I’m not… I don’t want—”

“It’s because it’s kinder to your skin,” Lestat interrupts gently. “Comfort as no gender, Louis. This is yours.”

Louis scowls because he hates when his own logic gets used on him. Lestat waits, dress draped, hands careful not to push.

“Fine,” Louis mutters at last. “But I’m not wearing that everyday. I need my pants.”

“Of course,” Lestat says, triumphant but trying not to show it. “Arms up.”

Louis rolls his eyes but does as he’s told. The dress goes over his head in one smooth motion. It slides down over his shoulders, skims his chest, drapes over his belly without clinging. The fabric settles around his thighs in a soft fall, no tight pull anywhere. Lestat fusses with the front, ignoring the ties, letting it lie open and easy.

“There,” he says, stepping back to look. “How does it feel?”

Louis fidgets, fingers rubbing at the fabric at his hip, waiting for the prickling shame to kick in. It doesn’t, not like he expects. The cotton is cool and light; nothing pinches when he shifts. When he draws a deeper breath, nothing bites into his ribs.

“It’s… comfortable,” he admits, grudging. “You’re insufferable.”

“Yes,” Lestat agrees cheerfully. “But you’re comfortable, and that’s what matters.”

He tucks Louis back into bed, propping pillows where he knows they’ll help; between his knees, under one arm, supporting his back. The dress smoothe as he moves, no waistband riding up, nothing cutting.

Lestat slides in beside him and immediately wraps around his back, one arm flung over Louis’s waist, hand resting at the top curve of his belly. His voice is soft and smug at Louis’s ear.

“See?” he murmurs. “Perfect.”

Louis huffs, already halfway under again. “If you tell anyone I let you put me in a dress,” he mutters, “I’ll stake you.”

“Our secret,” Lestat promises, kissing the curl at his nape. “Forever.”

-

Days pass and it goes from bad to worse.

Louis is hardly awake anymore, only gets up to eat and bathe. Otherwise, he’s curled into bed sleeping or wincing in pain no matter how much Lestat tries to ease it. It makes Lestat itch.

Louis is halfway on his side, halfway on his back, one hand tucked under the dress at his belly as if he’s holding it in place from the inside. He’s not really asleep, not really awake either. His eyes are open to a slit, watching nothing.

Lestat has been watching him watch nothing for at least twenty minutes.

“Louis,” he says finally, because otherwise he will combust. “It’s lunch.”

Louis makes a noise that could mean anything.

“We should eat,” Lestat goes on relentlessly. “You should eat. And we haven’t done your exercises this week. The ones for your hips, remember? The pillow between your knees? You liked it.”

Louis’s eyelids twitch like just the idea is exhausting. “Can do them in here,” he murmurs. His voice is sanded down, blunt with fatigue.

“You can,” Lestat agrees. “But you’ve been in this bed for two days. Let’s try to walk down the stairs together. We’ll go slow. I’ll carry your plate. You can sit in the big chair and I’ll fuss over you while you say you hate me.”

That drags a faint, unwilling huff of air out of Louis, the ghost of a laugh. “I do hate you.”

“Yes, yes,” Lestat says. “And yet here you are.”

He shifts to sit the mattress, facing him. Up close, the tiredness is worse. There are bruised half-moons under Louis’s eyes; his mouth is pale where it isn’t chapped. The loose dress has twisted around his body in the night, one shoulder slipping down, the fabric bunched under his hip.

Lestat untwists the hem, smoothing it over Louis’s thigh, then sets a gentle hand on his belly. The skin is warm and stretched, the curve heavier than it was a week ago, a month ago. Under his palm, the baby’s heartbeat flutters.

“Come downstairs,” he coaxes. “You can sit. You can eat a little. If it’s terrible, I’ll carry you right back up.”

Louis watches him for a long moment, the way someone looks at a set of stairs after too many hours on their feet. He licks his lips, swallows.

“I feel sick,” he admits quietly.

“Do you think you’ll actually be sick?” Lestat jokes. “Because if so, I’d rather it not be on the rug.”

Louis’s mouth twitches. “You’re hilarious.”

“Yes, and practical. Well?”

Louis takes a breath and pushes himself up onto his elbows. The effort alone leaves a sheen of sweat at his temples. “If I don’t go down now,” he mutters, “you’ll ask again an hour from now.”

“Correct,” Lestat says.

“So I might as well get it over with.”

“Very well,” Lestat murmurs. But his hand is already at Louis’s back, magic slipping out under his skin, bracing his spine as he sits all the way up.

Louis swings his legs over the side of the bed, bare feet finding the warm boards. He sits there for a moment, hunched, both hands supporting the underside of his belly like he’s not sure it will stay attached otherwise. His face has gone a little gray around the mouth.

For the first time in centuries, Lestat is scared.

“You can lie back down,” he says immediately. “We can eat here. I’ll exercise for you. I’ll move your legs around. It’ll be nice.”

Louis shakes his head, slow. “If I lie down again, I won’t get back up. Help me.”

Lestat stands and offers both hands. Louis takes them, fingers cool and damp in his grip. Power thickens in the air as Lestat pulls — gently with his arms, more gently still with his mind. Gravity lets go in doses around Louis’s body, the worst of the weight lifting off his joints as he rises.

Louis’s face tightens, teeth bared for a second. Once he’s upright, he sways, both hands flying back to his belly as if it might topple him forward.

“Slow,” Lestat murmurs. “Breathe. Is it your back? Your hips?”

“All of it,” Louis says through his teeth. He inhales then lets it out. “Okay. Okay.”

They stand there a moment while his balance finds itself again. Lestat keeps one invisible hand cupped under his belly, another at the base of his spine, barely-there supports that take half the drag away. The ward’s hum shifts, a note higher, attentive.

“You’re sure?” Lestat says.

Louis nods. “If I don’t move now, I won’t. Let’s go.”

So they go.

The hallway feels longer than usual, stretched by their pace. Lestat doesn’t rush him; he matches every slow step, every cautious shift of weight. One of his physical hands stays wrapped around Louis’s, fingers steady. The other hovers near his elbow, not quite touching, ready.

Louis’s bare feet make soft sounds on the wood. His breathing is a little too loud in the quiet house. He looks sick-tired now, the way people do on the worst day of a bad flu: pale, eyes overbright, jaw clenched like holding back something.

“You want to turn around?” Lestat asks when they reach the first framed print on the wall, their usual mental halfway mark.

Louis shakes his head. But he swallows hard. “Feel… funny,” he says.

“Funny how?” Lestat’s voice sharpens.

Louis’s free hand presses to the top of his belly. “I don’t know. Heavy. Low. Like it’s all… pulling.”

Lestat opens his mouth to say maybe this is not the day for exercises, maybe they should call Fareed, maybe they should—

The ward noise spikes.

It’s not loud, not really. Just a sudden change in pitch, a held note climbing toward alarm. Every hair on Lestat’s arms lifts. He stops walking without thinking; Louis takes one more step and then freezes, eyes going huge.

“Lestat,” he says, in a voice that comes from somewhere deep and shocked. “I—”

It happens between one breath and the next.

There’s a hard, internal pop that Lestat feels through their joined hands, a shift inside Louis’s body he can’t translate into anything he’s ever known. Louis gasps, both hands flying to his belly, and then there is warmth pouring down his legs, a rush he can hear hitting the floor.

Water soaks the hem of the dress in an instant. It darkens the cotton in a spreading bloom, splashes onto the boards, splatters their feet. It keeps coming, a violent gush that has Louis staring down in stunned disbelief, as if the house has sprung a leak through him.

The air fills with a new smell. It’s sharp and clean and animal, something like salt and skin and blood. The baby’s heartbeat skitters under Lestat’s palm, then settles to a new, intent rhythm.

Louis looks up at him slowly, eyes enormous.

“Lestat,” he says again, terrified.

Lestat’s hand tightens on his. “Oh,” he breathes.

The labor has begun.