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licncourt · 4 months

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Headcanons about Loustat's first kiss? When? HOW? 👀

Woof okay sorry I've been MIA. The horrors etc...BUT I love this question so I'm glad I can finally do it.

I kind of wrote what imagine for their first kiss in ch 1 of my collab fic, but it's also kind of a standalone excerpt so I'll post it under a cut as a sort of ficlet if anyone is interested!

Outside of that though, I'm pretty open to the details differing (there are a few different scenarios I really like), just with the same overall vibe. I mean, it's Interview-era Loustat so it has to be kind of toxique but with whatever weird, almost-intimacy they had.

Regardless, I think it happened at PdL, there's no way they made it four years without some funny business given the everything

Almost for certain it was a heat of the moment love/hate type of thing, probably an argument that finally made the tension between them snap. How long could they realistically yell in each other's faces without making out lbr

I think it would have to be in a moment of heightened emotion like that because Louis is Louis and while Lestat is down bad, anything remotely resembling wooing or emotional vulnerability would stand between him and going for it properly

If Lestat was the one to initiate, I think it would be an impulsive decision in the middle of a Louis tirade, he just lays one on him mid vitriolic sermony bitchfest. Less yapping more tongue action, Louis' hot when he's angry but also very annoying so it works out for Lestat

If Louis initiates it, it's probably because he finally snapped under the weight of his own repression and Lestat's hot boy factor. They're arguing and for a second Lestat looks JUST right so Louis pounces on him like a horny coyote, hellfire be damned

No matter what it's all in. This is not a nervous peck or after dinner kiss, teeth would be breaking if they were human and it's a little feral. Kind of a collision

Something inanimate definitely gets broken also, maybe a lamp, a table leg, a door jamb, whatever. IWTV Loustat = collateral

The only options I see as a possibility post-kiss would be things escalating into some sort of blood sharing/sex/both depending on your preference, or both of them realizing what they did more immediately which makes Louis lose his shit and Lestat slam the emotional walls down so they both run off right away. Either way they avoid each other for a couple weeks after before repeating the cycle in various iterations until the Claudia dynamic shift

Lestat

Surveying the grounds of Pointe du Lac after dark in the height of a cold snap was not at all what Lestat wished to be doing on a January night, but he was quite used to not getting what he wanted, especially when Louis was involved. The man in question was nearly always cold anyway, and Lestat had half a mind to think this outing was some sort of punishment for him under the feeble excuse of preparation for re-sowing the following month. The offer to stay behind was predictably (and smugly) extended, but he refused to give Louis the satisfaction, nor any reason to solidify his misguided belief in his sole ownership of the plantation, legal deeds be damned.

Whatever the case, Louis would regret his decision, Lestat would make sure of it. Louis may have been succeeding in making them both miserable, but he had been just as successful at making himself a captive subject. The ground was damp beneath them and the mud, cold in the winter air, made the horses’ steps heavy. All the better, Lestat usually lost his hostage once they reached the house. Louis had a way of doing that, slipping through the cracks like a dormouse where even the cat couldn’t follow. It was out in the open that the cat had the advantage.

“I heard Charles Laurent proposed marriage for you and his daughter.” Lestat nudged his horse closer to Louis’ until their steps fell in time. “Béatrice, was it?”

“He did.”

Lestat hardened his stare, willing Louis to meet his gaze through the dark drape of hair that had fallen from its ribbon. It shrouded his expression rather entirely from view and Lestat wondered if he’d left it there on purpose. It wouldn’t be the pettiest thing Louis had done to shut him out. He pawed at the mouse again.

“I also heard you declined.”

“Yes.” A disappointing squeak indeed.

“How come? It is an excellent family, they do well in sugarcane. And Mademoiselle Béatrice is very beautiful.”

In lieu of an answer, Louis urged his horse to a near-trot that Lestat matched easily a moment later. Louis’ chest lifted in a silent sigh before he apparently resigned himself to conceding the bare minimum.

“They do. And she is.”

Louis was always so prim when he rode, enough to make Lestat twitchy. Heels dropped in the stirrups, elbows tight to his hips, back straight enough to look painful. Chin in the air of course, but that wasn’t relegated to the equestrian realm. At least the protrusions of the saddle pushed his thighs forward to improve the view, even if his other assets were covered by his tail coat. Unfortunate that. Louis was clenched tight enough that the view would surely have been sublime.

“Well?” Lestat asked, letting his mare sidle uncomfortably close again, their riding boots nearly touching.

Louis jerked his horse right quickly enough that the stallion’s hind quarters bumped his own horse’s shoulder. “I do not have to explain myself to you, Lestat,” he snapped, any appearance of leisure fully abandoned as he tried to break for the house. The attempt was half-hearted though and Lestat cut him off easily, the stallion balking and dancing in half-circles until Louis regained control of its head.

“Au contraire, mon cher. It is my livelihood at stake as well.” The endearment made Louis’ jaw tighten even further, but he let his horse fall back in step with Lestat’s.

“Are you so desperate to expand our wealth—my wealth—that you would marry me off like a medieval widow at the first offer?” Louis’ eyes flashed sharp and olivine at him in the lantern light. He looked so much like the portrait of his father in the foyer, the same cruel mouth on a fairer face.

“As if this is the first. Formal or otherwise.”

This seemed to disquiet Louis greatly, his tone shifting from serpentine anger to something a tad hysterical. “You would truly have me do such a thing? Move a woman into our home? Marry her? What do you suppose will become of you in such a situation?” There was an undercurrent to the protests that negged at Lestat’s ear, some suggestion of weakness he couldn’t name. Still, there was blood in the water and a source needed to be determined.

He laughed, as amused as he was intrigued by his companion’s clumsy parry. “Don’t be ridiculous, Louis. I’ll ensure she does not last to the first harvest.” There was a clump of gangling irises as they passed a marshy area. He reached down and ripped the flower heads off. “A few months would be sufficient to solidify your holdings over the Laurent estate, and then I can make it appear like the most tragic accident. I will even allow you to bed her a time or two before I do the deed, generous as I am.”

“You are as shameless and despicable as ever I see.” Louis sounded as much bored as disgusted, but Lestat smirked to himself at the way the horse pranced and tossed its head at its rider’s turmoil.

“So you intend to deny any profitable union with the fairer sex until we are both forced to leave the prospect behind and flee familiar company in a few years time?”

“I apologize, monsieur. Are your current accommodations so insufficient?” Lestat could almost imagine his ears pinned like the horse’s as he was cornered. “And here I was under the impression that you wanted for nothing while contributing just as much.”

“And it would be such a burden for you to endure the intimate company of a beautiful woman for a few months simply as an insurance policy?” The objections were so great that Lestat found he was genuinely asking in spite of his frustration. “Wed Mademoiselle Laurent, fuck her long enough to get the estate in your name, and then you’ll be rid of her! Honestly, any reasonable man would be chomping at the bit for such an opportunity.”

“I don’t fancy her.”

Lestat dropped his face into his hand, rubbing at the frustration gathering in his temples. “She is hardly your only option, Louis, Christ! The Blanchet girl was all but thrusting her bosom in your face all evening last Tuesday. She would’ve lifted her skirts at a single beckon. And don’t tell me that isn’t so or that you didn’t notice.”

Something about that assertion, likely the irrefutable truth of it, upset Louis visibly and impossibly further. At the very least, he didn’t seem prepared to argue that particular point.

“Of course I noticed. I don’t believe a blind man could’ve missed it.”

Perhaps Monsieur de Pointe du Lac could simply stand to be rejected more often.

“Then why in God’s name are you so obstinate? All your prattle about being a good Catholic and you refuse to perform the one duty which might bring you some tangible benefit?”

“I am not the slave to my faith you believe me to be. I doubt the thing that condemns me to hell will be remaining a bachelor.”

Even digging his heels in like a stubborn hog, Louis looked radiant in the moonlight, skin glowing white as fairy linen and feu-follet eyes enticing enough to follow to one’s death in the swamp. It was infuriating really. It made Lestat want to knock him from his horse and straight into the muck.

“Well, in that case, shall we go whoring? There is a new brothel a short ride into the city and you are in truly dire need. What do you prefer? Brunettes? Redheads? What about blondes? You seem like the type for blondes.” One could only hope.

“I will do nothing of the sort. You may do as you please—heaven knows I can’t stop you—but I will not be involved.”

“And why is that?” he asked, curiosity still piqued despite the outwardly ordinary nature of their disagreement.

“It is impious. Fornication.” Fornication. Lestat could show him fornication, starting with planting an absolutely punishing kiss on that haughty mouth. Nothing he’d seen Louis doing as a mortal came even close to being anything titillating enough to earn such a salacious title.

“I thought you weren’t a slave to your God.” There were at least hundred better potential retorts, but he was preoccupied with Louis now in an entirely different way, staring unabashedly and imagining the many methods by which he could turn the lustrous curtain of his hair to sweaty clumps or reduce his fancy words to primal noises.

“It’s not one or the other. I’m not perfect, but I try, where I can, to be godly.”

He snapped his head to the right, meeting Louis’ gaze before he could turn to avoid eye contact. “Bollocks.”

“And what do you mean by that?”

“I mean that you’re lying,” he said, eyes narrowed. “I’ve seen you taking pleasure with women. You did so the very night I first saw you, there on the docks.” The house was in view now, and Lestat was half-compelled to try and suck the truth straight from his companion’s veins before he lost his chance.

Louis’ cool demeanor remained static as Lestat glared daggers at him, seeming perfectly unconcerned with that possibility. As if he knew as well as Lestat did that it would never happen. “Well, I made a great many mistakes in the months after my brother’s passing.” He shifted the reins awkwardly in his hands. “I have no desire to engage in such behavior.”

And there, in the clipped condemnation of a righteous man, was the truth Lestat had failed to see before. It was painfully obvious, simple enough that it seemed ridiculous he’d not suspected before.

Louis could not read the minds of mortals, but Lestat could. He had seen a great many things in his companion’s before the turning. Most of all he had seen how Louis looked at him, enthralled by his supernatural radiance certainly, but not only that. There was desire there as well, for more than immortality, lustful admiration followed by a flood of nauseating shame that gave Lestat sympathy pangs.

Even with the Veil of Silence now in place, he didn’t miss Louis’ gaze on him, the way his eyes were drawn by the deep ‘v’ of Lestat’s undershirts or the way they lingered on the shape of his lower half in breeches. It had been a marvelous turn of events, that they were already alike in…sexual predilections. How splendid! But he had been wrong, at least in part. Louis was not, it seemed, quite so much like himself as Lestat had previously assumed.

“Is it because you’re a homosexual?”

The brashness of his question brought exactly the desired result. Not an answer, of course, no more than indignant, scandalized curses as Louis turned his horse toward the house at a near-run, but it was too late. Lestat followed quickly, chasing the smell of fear on the wind.

Louis made surprisingly little effort to avoid him at the house, and Lestat found him easily in the drawing room, removing his boots and coat in front of the fire. He didn’t acknowledge the arrival with a greeting or even a glance, though he was sure to have heard Lestat enter. Even once he turned away from the hearth, Louis remained silent, fixing his ribbon as he looked down at a pile of accounting documents on the side table.

Lestat tossed his coat on the chair, waistcoat, riding gloves, and his own ribbon going with it, leaving him in breeches and undershirt, curls shaken loose. He stretched, making sure the taper of his waist was clearly visible in silhouette, leaving his arms up to fluff his hair into place. Louis always objected to his traipsing about so undressed. Perhaps he should’ve been taking it as a compliment.

When he turned back from the display (a bit more quickly than normal), Louis was giving him a particularly doe-eyed look. He hadn’t moved from his place by the table, but it was obvious where his attention had shifted when given a semblance of privacy. He startled when Lestat spun to look at him, and what followed was a truly atrocious poker face, smacking with guilt and panic like a child caught stealing sweets.

“Fear is not the first reaction of an innocent man merely questioned on a crime he did not commit.”

“You don’t frighten me,” Louis said, valiantly steady in voice, but only just.

“I do now.”

To his great surprise, Louis didn’t protest, seemingly accepting his fate with the melancholy stoicism of a condemned philosopher. It was almost unnerving to see the patron saint of losing battles so eerily content with this defeat. The display tugged at Lestat’s heartstrings enough to conjure his merciful side, and he let his eyes roam freely over the form in front of him, taking in the view in an obscenely conspicuous manner.

Even more surprising was the way Louis’ expression hardened and the anger returned to his face. Before he could take more than a step forward, Louis had backed up in equal measure.

“There’s nothing you can do to me,” Louis said, voice hushed but dripping venom. “I’m more powerful than you in any way that matters. Your mockery is all you have.”

“You think I’m mocking you?” Lestat took another step closer that Louis mirrored, then another.

“When have you ever done otherwise?” It was impressive really, the way Louis stood his ground, how he puffed his chest and set his jaw with the second-nature arrogance that Lestat had found himself so charmed by months ago, undiminished in the face of supernatural power and potential blackmail alike.

It was that self-destructive defiance that had first enlightened Lestat to this discovery of his kindred spirit, and it was what drove him forward now, what compelled him to cover the final distance between them until Louis’ back bumped into the wall and to press their mouths together. For all his posturing, Lestat kept the force behind it minimal, just enough insistent pressure to make his point (and his intentions) clear.

The performance must have been convincing enough, because it was only seconds before the mouth against his softened to the kiss. The fire was hot to his back, the arms that wrapped around his neck even cooler in contrast. He pressed his palms against the crushed velvet of the damask wallpaper, bracketing Louis’ head on either side for a spare moment before succumbing to the urge to increase their contact, stroking lightly at the skin of his jaw up to his temple.

Louis was tired, terribly so, and such a lonely creature. Lestat knew this of course, it was part of the siren call that had drawn him close and held him so completely in thrall, but it was only now, as awful as it sounded even in his mind, that the pity came, the burning desire to ease that loneliness rather than admire its lovely darkness like a Siam ruby or a Rembrandt.

Even more enchanting than Louis’ loneliness was watching his fleeting absolution from it, the way his eyes stayed gentle and half-lidded when they parted, how they closed again when Lestat cupped his cheek and or sighed as kisses were pressed to his neck. Lestat stayed there a long while, inhaling the scent of blood and cold skin and floral water at the juncture of his neck, content to allow the uncertainty of the future remain there for now.

#answered #vc #hc tag #otp: do you love me now?

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