Dedication: Cindy, torch, Teresa, Mic, Ari

Subject: A brief L/L vignette.

Spoilers: IWTV, TVL, QOTD, TOTBT, ?MTD

Warning: Sexual content including m/m vampire eroticism, adult situations (obviously), don't read if you can't deal.

Archiving: Permission is given to publish this speculation at http://digitalmidnight.simplenet.com/archive/ otherwise it must be requested from auden@siliconhenge.com with the url of the archiving page.

Let me invite you to consider one of the great mysteries of our time. Why does Louis Pont Du Lac always dress in rags?

From here I can study the subject of this consideration without being observed by my vampire companion. He is reading, a small crease appearing on his forehead as he alternates between perusing a small brown book, the word METAMORPHOSES appearing in faded gold on the spine, and consulting a Latin-English dictionary which is in imminent danger of cascading loose pages

We are in the library of our house on Rue Royale. I am ostensibly working at my desk. The angle at which I am sitting not only prevents Louis from noticing my perusal of him but means that, even were he to turn, he cannot see that my computer has been displaying the soothing waveforms of its screensaver for the past half hour. My desk is littered with papers of every shape and size. Every now and again my vast fortune requires my attention and this is the chaos that results. Louis' desk on the other side of the room is in no better shape but he keeps it locked, bundling his sheaves of handwritten manuscript inside it with as little concept of order as I have.

The rest of the library is more restful. Books line all the walls and sofas are placed artistically at various points along the large room. Tables here and there are covered with a loose scattering of books and magazines. There are no windows but a large fireplace laps us with a cheerful warmth and colour blazes from the patterned oriental rugs that cover the floor.

Louis is occupying all of the brown velvet sofa next to the fireplace. He is stretched out along it, his shoulders resting against one side and his knees slightly bent so that his feet tuck up against the opposite one. His books rest comfortably on his lap and he holds a long slim finger in one while he consults the other.

A perfectly civilised scene, you might say. Portrait of a scholar. A gentleman in his library. What turns this quiet setting into a sybarite's paradise, and has distracted me working to the extent that I'm not even pretending to tap the keyboard any more, is Louis Pont Du Lac's attitude to clothing.

Let us accept for a moment that I am vain about my appearance. For the sake of argument I won't contend the statement. I care about how others see me. I use clothing as costume: to awe, to impress, to conceal and to manipulate the perceptions of others. I enjoy selecting an outfit at the beginning of the evening. I like to blend in with crowds until such point as I decide to set myself beyond them. Let us accept therefore that I take my appearance seriously. Perhaps too seriously. But immortals should not grow too much apart from human interests and cares and I enjoy even the most trivial aspects of my reality.

So now let us consider the opposite attitude. Let us consider the vampire who cares so little about appearance that in my opinion 'dressed' is a courtesy term only when describing his current appearance. The theme is black. It's a deep dusty black which drinks in the light and shadows its wearer or would were it not for the luminously white skin which is revealed tantalisingly in tears and rents as if through prison bars. A long rip in the side seam of his black trousers exposes the sharp angle of a hipbone and enough of his thigh that I can see the muscle tensing and relaxing when he occasionally shifts to change books. In five more places this garment has worn so threadbare that it seems as if he wears a cobweb. Just below both knees, at the top of the right thigh, leading off a rip at the left ankle and another behind the knee on the left leg.

Is this dressed? I ask myself silently. No it is not. This is closer to art than clothing. If you have the same taste in art as I do, that is.

So now shall we consider this other garment? I hesitate to name it a sweater but it is by this name that it first entered our life. While it is hard to imagine such an item ever being new, unwrapped from tissue paper and worn for the first time, I equally cannot imagine that my companion is familiar with pre-distressed clothing and therefore it must once have existed in so pristine a state even if he purchased it from the Salvation Army. This speculation however is theory only, like deducing angels from the fallen state of man. If this garment was ever new it wouldn't recognise itself now.

It has nothing that could be called a hem. The bottom has frayed into a loose mesh of wool which falls apart to reveal a tight flat stomach more concealed by the books that rest nearby than by this net of threads. The cuffs and arms have suffered some kind of violent tragedy. Huge rips and gashes slice them this way and that right up to the shoulders so that they cannot be claimed to perform any function other than decoration. Even getting into this twisted mass of ripped wool is a significant accomplishment. The neck of this item has suffered similarly and recedes away from the skin it touches like an ocean afraid of land. Moths have bitten deep into the soft woollen flesh of this creation and smaller holes spatter it so that the opalescent skin beneath shines through like a galaxy of distant stars. Where these pinpricks have snagged there are rents and dashes tracing the points of these new constellations.

Then there is the thread. It lies across one slim white shoulder. A solitary wavy black strand falling through the single rip that exposes collarbone, shoulder and shoulderblade in one fell and deadly swoop. It calls to me, summoning me across the room with a secret siren song known only to me.

I swallow, uncomfortably. This is not clothing. Torture would be more accurate.

I must have made some motion because the computer screen flickers into life again and I stare uncomprehendingly at the columns of calculations it offers me. There's only one figure that interests me at the moment an unfortunately it's not available on spreadsheet. I shake my head and make some sound halfway between a laugh and a sigh as I lean my head on my right hand.

There is a movement across the room and through the net of my own lightly tanned fingers I see Louis double barred. The stripes of skin move and slide as he turns his head to glance at me.

"Problems, Lestat?" he asks with sympathy and I lower my hand so he can see my smile.

"No, just not concentrating properly," I admit.

"Am I distracting you?" he asks with innocent concern and I smile again.

"Just barely," I tell him and I can hear the laughter hiding in my own words.

"Why don't you call a halt for today?" he suggests. "Come and join me."

"Nothing would give me greater pleasure," I say, standing. But this is only half true. I can think of, am finding it difficult not to think of, several things that would give me greater pleasure. As I approach him I feel as if the warmth in the room radiates not from the wood stacked in the fireplace but from that pale starfire skin.

I pause by the end of the brown sofa. I feel unbalanced being this close to Louis after having watched him for so long. That long black thread is only inches away from my hand. I reach, arrest the motion and clench my fingers.

Louis is concentrating on his books again but, sensing either my motion or its lack, looks up questioningly. His hair is an unruly mop of dusty silk and I resist the temptation of that single thread by allowing my fingers to brush that silken head lightly.

"Beautiful one," I say softly.

"Damnedest creature." His gaze has already returned to his books and he says the words with an absentminded affection.

I am frozen in place. Aching. Wanting. Longing. I cannot move forward or backward. Soon. I think. Soon he'll look up again and ask me what I'm doing and then I'll make some excuse and be able to move again. But he doesn't speak and I'm held in place, mesmerised by that solitary woollen thread.

This close I can see that the smooth white skin is not really a single colour. Where the skin stretches taut over the bone it is ivory. Where there is flesh beneath it shades into a softer creamy whiteness like fresh milk. There is a slight dusting of a darker colour across the line of the shoulder, the merest suggestion of what might once have been freckles. Then there is a soft flush of colour beneath the skin, a mottled pattern of crimson blood vessels, a light tracery of bluish veins.

Feeling dizzy I inhale and smell books and dust and, incongruously, apple-scented shampoo. I bend a little lower and breathe in again. All senses seem heightened in this vampiric immortality and I can almost taste the mingled scents. My hand, until now resting lightly on the crown of Louis' head, has a will of its own and sinks lower towards that enticing thread. I glare at it and it comes to rest on that pale shoulder, fingertips making the slightest of indentations against the alabaster skin. This is a dangerous game to be playing with myself. I can feel how soft that skin is. How smooth beneath my fingers. I can imagine that sensation magnified all over my body.

I stare at the skin I am touching. Soon now I'll have to move and if I can't deny myself this moment I can at least savour it. I can see the line of the jugular vein stretched tight up the delicate column of his throat. I can see the pulse of blood through it. I think perhaps I can smell it. Taste it.

I am watching so intently that I see the swallowing motion of Louis' throat before he speaks.

"Lestat," he says and his voice sounds oddly ragged, a faltering between syllables unlike his usual melodic tones. "What are you doing?" he asks but does not look up. Instead I look down and see that even though his eyes are staring straight ahead at his books they are not focused and a slow blush is rising on his face.

"Nothing!" I say quickly, realising how close I am to pushing this too far, and snatch my hand away. I can see the lightest of pressure marks left by the five imprints of my fingertips and have to take a deep breath.

Louis doesn't say anything. But he moves his head so that the tangled mass of silk slides forward and hides his face from me. Before the curtain falls into place I have time to see that the blush has faded and instead he is biting his lower lip.

I turn away and fiddle with a pile of books on one of the tables. I know I should leave now and stop interrupting Louis. But he seems so peaceful here. So much a part of this room, this house, this life that I cannot tear myself away. Instead I replay the little episode that has just passed in my head. Checking that I haven't inadvertently betrayed myself too much. I am almost certain that I haven't although the tension in my body from keeping so much suppressed makes me feel as if I could break loose at any moment. Those who think they know me should try containing these impulses month after month while living with a white marble angel who could try the patience of a saint. Sometimes I feel it would almost be worth the anger and recriminations to give into one of those impulses just once. To become the old Lestat if only for a moment. But that is of course the threat and the temptation and it is to avoid such scenes that I contain myself.

I think again of my fingers against Louis' skin and the slow blush rising and the odd tone of his voice and his expression of disappointment before his hair swept forward to cover his face. His expression of disappointment. Disappointment.

I look back quickly, almost stumbling against the table in my confusion. Surely I only think I saw that. My mind playing tricks on me? He has returned to his books and his head has been pushed back again and all I can see on his face is concentration.

But I have been watching Louis for long enough to distinguish between true relaxation and its counterfeit. Circling in front of the sofa I stand looking down at him.

"Louis?" I say softly and he looks up with an expression of careful unconcern.

"Yes, Lestat?" His voice is even now but I can see the pulse in his neck quickening and I can feel my own blood racing to meet its tempo, pounding in my ears so that it is hard to hear my next words.

"Are you aware your clothes are practically falling off you?" I ask and reach to take the errant thread between finger and thumb, holding it poised where he can see it.

His eyes are wide and catlike in their green intensity as he stares up at me. His lips part, he swallows and speaks.

"You exaggerate, surely?" he says, his gaze falling on to the thread I hold trapped and then flying back up to meet mine. Is it my imagination or is there a challenge in that look? Is his breath coming a little faster now?

Only one way to be sure and now I couldn't stop myself even if I wanted to. I tug at the thread gently and feel no hint of resistance as the skeins of wool at his shoulder loosen and begin to separate. I hold his gaze with mine as I draw the thread further and then sit back and pull sharply, watching as the sweater unravels, stripping him naked in front of me.

Black wool falls in hands and loops about him. He could be clothed solely in the mesh of his hair. White skin. Black cords. I release the single thread and reach out to bury my hands in the mass of wool, feeling the soft smooth skin shudder under my touch, pulling him up to me. He is breathing quickly and raggedly in soft shallow gasps but when I close my mouth on his he moans and lifts his body to me with a helpless seduction I was not prepared for and throws me off my balance so that we tumble to the floor together.

We are both breathing hard and it is hard to move my mouth from his enough to kiss him. I invade his mouth with my tongue and feel his body pushing up from the ground to meet me as he sucks the breath from my mouth in his urgency to accept me.

My head is swimming and I don't know whether to laugh or cry and perhaps I am doing both already as I struggle to separate myself from him for an instant. Looking down I can see my prediction was correct and our struggles have ripped the last shreds of cloth from Louis' body so that his flushed skin now writhes naked beneath me and his eyes darken suddenly as he sees me watching him.

"Tell me," I stammer, gasping for breath, for sanity, for understanding of what is happening. The vivid reality of him is all that convinces me this is not a dream. "Do you want this? Do you want me?"

"More than anything else you could ever give me," he replies instantly and unequivocally. "I want you, Lestat."

We fall together again and as the heat from the fire laps at us and Louis' burrows under my clothes so that flesh can touch flesh and join us together, and I pause in kissing him to lick at the warm skin of his throat where I can feel the hammering pulse in promise and anticipation, and my heart catches in my chest with a sensation of pure unadulterated happiness, I suddenly find myself laughing softly.

"What?" Louis asks reproachfully, his hands pausing in their almost frantic exploration of my body.

"I'm sorry." I bury my laughter in his hair and then have to break off to kiss my way from his ear to his collarbone. "I was just thinking."

"Mmmm?" Halfway between a moan and an interrogation and I answer the unspoken question.

"Only... why do you wear these rags, Louis?"

He turns his head sideways to answer me and his slender fingers are slowly skimming down my body in the lightest touch which will draw me into an ecstasy of pleasure I can already feel building as he trembles with what could be laughter or the beginnings of a rising passion which threatens to crest over both of us at any moment.

"For the same reason you always insult them, I suspect," he says breathily.

"I don't think I'll be insulting them any time soon," I say, brushing my lips against his chest as I slide lower down.

He laughs and then suddenly hisses with pleasure and as our dialogue becomes more physical and I feel the hovering wave of ecstasy's agony ready to crash down over us I hear him gasp out one last sentence.

"I don't think I'll be wearing them again any time soon either."

And then the wave falls and it's not until much later in the dim fathoms of the morning that I realise what he meant and laugh again as I draw his sleeping figure closer into my embrace.