Darkside - Part 6, 1994 (Summer, Fall, Winter)
© Gairid
stat1791@myway.com

Spoilers: Up to The Vampre Armand
Rating: NC-17
Status: Complete
Characters: Lestat, Louis, Armand
Other Characters:OC (Brian Callahan)
Summary: A look into the lives of Louis and Lestat told by a third-party observer. Brian Callahan is my window into their world.

NOTE: Second half of 1994.

July, 1994

I was not privy to what happened after we left the park that night but it was reasonable to guess that there had been an argument of some magnitude since Lestat left for New Orleans while Louis elected to stay behind.

"I would prefer it if you would stay here with Louis with the jet at his disposal. He prefers more regular methods of transport, as you know." Lestat said. His measured tone gave me to understand that he was in no mood for any sort of curiosity on my part. "He does not need to be looked after, as I am sure you are well aware, but I want you to be available if he should need anything.

"Of course." I said, feeling much less sure than I sounded.

"I have left something for you on the sideboard in your living room" He said with a feral little grin. "A little insurance, you might say. Good night, Brian."

The 'insurance' was a small vial filled with his blood, that dark, rich essence that I'd been craving since he'd conferred a small drink upon me this past winter.

I waited three nights before I finally drank it, taking all of it greedily and at once instead of the drop I'd told myself I would allow myself so as to make the small gift last. It was a good thing that Louis did not seek me out that night, for I'd been stupefied with the power of it, the tingling, alien life that I felt fusing with my own poor blood. I sat on the high balcony of my darkened flat, staring out into the fantastic glow that is a New York City summer's night, listening to the traffic and drifting along in a sort of dazed trance.

Sleeping through most of the next day was not unusual, since I'd grown accustomed to sleeping for at least part of the day in order to accommodate myself to Lestat and Louis' schedule. The ravening thirst I felt upon awakening was unusual though, the same thirst I remembered from when Lestat had last given me his blood.

Not that I had to worry about Louis looking for me. I didn't see him for a good two weeks after Lestat left and I spent my evenings trying out New York restaurants and progressing from there to checking out the bar scene. Sometimes I ate with Sal, the manager of the building that housed their penthouse and the apartment I occupied, but more often than not I went on my own. I knew people in New York but I felt apart from the things that went on around me and no amount of mingling seemed to mitigate the distance.

I'd found a bar on West 40th called Dewey's and I started showing up there two or three times a week to down a few brews and make small talk with the regulars; it was just the amount of social interaction I felt comfortable with. I was sitting at the bar there when I finally saw Louis.

I didn't see him come in or anything like that, I just felt his hand on my shoulder and when I turned he was there, eyes more sharply focused upon me than I had come to expect. He seated himself on the empty stool beside me. I signaled the bartender to bring another beer and Louis thanked him when the mug was set before him. He sniffed delicately and blinked, curving his fingers around the handle.

"I am not intruding?"

"Hardly." I told him. I had a hard time keeping my eyes from him, yet at the same time I was unable to meet his gaze for very long. "Did you need me for something?"

"Not as such. I smell Lestat in you. Faint, but still there."

I glanced around to see if anyone had taken note of the odd remark. I didn't really need to worry, though--bars are anonymous places and people are nearly always absorbed with whoever has attracted their attention at the time.

"He left--he left some in a little bottle." I said, acutely uncomfortable beneath his grave stare. He nodded and lifted the mug of beer to his mouth, taking a small sip. I watched him, fascinated. It was the first time I'd seen either one of them actually eat or drink anything other than blood. He grimaced slightly and put the mug back on the bar.

"You think me stubborn for remaining here." He stated with sudden accusatory flatness.

"No. No, I don't even know what happened."

"You can surmise easily enough." He snapped.

"I can surmise, but that doesn't mean I'd be right. And I wasn't thinking anything of the sort." I said. He calmed a bit. I had noticed quite some time ago that Louis dislikes amplified subservience on my part. In certain moods he much prefers a more challenging tone. This realization hit me when I heard the peremptory change in his attitude.

"Why are you still in New York?"

"Lestat asked me to stay in case you should wish me to take you--anywhere."

"Take me home, you mean."

"Anywhere," I repeated. I tipped my mug up and drained the last of my beer. He switched the mugs after I set it down and exhaled strongly through his nose.

"It's always about possession. Always." He muttered. "Drink that."

I took swallow from his mug. "I think it was about your convenience." I said.

"You would see it that way. However, I think I know him a little better than you do, yes?"Of course he did. He didn't really want an answer, anyway. "Getting back to supposition." He went on. "You were with him when he saw Armand in the park, yes?"

I nodded warily.

"You heard what passed between them. You have observed Lestat's possessive, nay, his jealous nature on other occasions. I think, then, you have a fairly clear idea of what passed between us before he took his leave."

I wasn't really sure why he was pressing the issue, but it didn't seem like a good idea to argue the point and never mind that he would prefer some mettle as opposed to submissiveness on my part.

"I figured it was to do with Armand, yeah. He really put the screws to Lestat. Pissed him off in a big way."

"Armand has a knack for such things." Louis said.

"That's an understatement." I said, remembering my own anger just listening to Armand and how upsetting it was to see him getting under Lestat's skin so effortlessly. Louis looked sharply at me and I wondered what he saw or picked up or whatever it was they did. After an acutely long moment, he glanced away.

"Are you finished?" He said at length. I nodded. "Come with me, then."

We went outside and he hailed a cab with such a mortal air that I know I gaped stupidly at him even as he reached to open the door.

"21st and Irving." He told the driver. He settled back and said nothing else for the entire drive. When the driver dropped us off, Louis waited patiently as I paid and when the car pulled away he crossed the street, gesturing for me to follow him.

He stopped before a beautiful old brownstone. "I lived in this building with Armand." He stated. "It was from this place that I finally walked away from him."

A lot of things had passed through my mind on the cab ride to this place, but this has not been one of them. He looked at me and I felt like he must be expecting some remark from me.

"When?" I asked, because I couldn't for the life of me think of anything else to say.

He shrugged. "1935 or thereabouts. It was after Lestat had gone to the earth, I know that. I didn't know it then, however. I knew Lestat was alive, but I didn't know where he was or why he had not come to find me and I didn't know how injured he'd been or that Armand had been the one to lay him so low. Neither was I privy to what he had done to my poor, doomed Claudia beyond what I had known at the time of her destruction."

"Why did you go with him?" I blurted. "Why him?"

"He was a link." Louis said simply. "That was what I told myself, anyway. A link to Lestat, a Lestat I had not known, a newly made vampire daring to break the rules laid down for centuries because he saw no point to them." A fleeting smile crossed his lips and thawed a little of the coolness in his green eyes. "Gradually I woke from my grief over Claudia to find that I did not believe Lestat had also been destroyed. Had I not been so numb I might have realized it sooner." He hesitated for a moment, and I waited to see if he would continue. I wouldn't have been surprised if he left the conversation dangling; he'd done it before. Not this time, though. "There was one other reason. At the time the very idea of being alone was unbearable to me and so I left with Armand."

He tucked his hair behind his ears in a gesture that had become entirely familiar to me. When he spoke Louis was deliberate and thoughtful, choosing his words carefully and he often presaged his thoughts with that particular gesture. Still gazing at the brownstone, he continued.

"There were many things that stood between Lestat and me. Barbed words. Cruelties and mistrust. Jealousies-- mine as well as his. And Lestat's fear. I hated that. I hated that he had so little faith in what I felt for him." He turned from his perusal of the building with its warmly lighted windows. "I hated it then and I hate it now. Do you see?"

I did, or I thought I did. I even thought I understood what he meant by Lestat's fear. It was the fear that Louis would leave him. Why else mistrust and jealousy? Why else try to drive him off before he might leave of his own accord?

"Why else?" He said, echoing my thought perfectly. I knew, then, that it wasn't a flash of sudden understanding, but a brief vision that he'd shown me. Understanding came when I realized just how much that mistrust hurt him.

September, 1994

After a short stay in Atlanta, we returned to New Orleans in August. In spite of the beastly heat and wretched humidity it was good to be home again, good to be back on Royal St. where I knew the people that lived around me and the smells and sounds were familiar and comforting.

That familiar comfort was important; Lestat and Louis were on careful speaking terms but there remained an aloofness that played on my nerves even though it had nothing at all to do with me. The politely strained conversations and long silences were in many ways worse than their battles; it was unlike them to be cool toward one another; passion usually reigned. Lestat's habit of picking at the edges of things drove Louis to this reserved chill. He would tell Lestat to just say what he meant and Lestat would unleash a bitter torrent that they both knew had little or nothing to do with what actually stood between them and Louis would just close in upon himself.

And how did I know this? I was often witness to such things. Neither of them had any qualms about expressing themselves in extreme ways in front of me; embarrassment was not something that occurred to them and neither did politesse. I was not a victim to be lulled or a mortal that had no idea just what sort of creatures they were and so such pretense was cast aside where I was concerned. Lestat might summon me to go over his plans for a renovation or a change in the garden and by the time I walked across the courtyard it would be forgotten because they had once again engaged in the clash of wills that seemed never to end.

Such a scene took place one muggy September night when I was with Lestat in the adjoining townhouse to theirs. Work had been underway for some time to renovate and refurbish it to Lestat's taste and he'd come with me to inspect the painting that had just been completed.

"How does it look in the daylight?" He asked me after he'd pronounced the red currant color of the walls and the cream trim to be acceptable.

"Richer. You can see more of the purple tones in it when it's bright in here." I said. He asked me things like that now and then and I wondered how the color appeared to him with his enhanced vision. He had commented on a number of occasions how dull and dreary things seemed to him when he had seen once again through mortal eyes.

"Impossibly dim." He'd said, "Except when I stepped out into winter sunlight. Only then did I feel that I was seeing properly."

"I can see the purple in it." He said absently. "It's fine. When the floors are refinished we can get down to furnishing the place. Perhaps not so 18th century, but keeping an elegant feel, yes?"

When we went back to their townhouse, Louis was back from wherever he'd been.

"Ah, Louis. Would you like to see how things are coming along next door?" Lestat asked.

Louis gazed at him. "I am certain that your plans are coming together as you would wish them to, Lestat. However, you will forgive me if yet another renovation fails to hold my interest as much as last night's unfinished discussion."

I took a step back and watched Lestat's face. His expression was bland, giving no hint at all to what he was thinking, even though Louis' pointed remark was an obvious challenge. I wanted to slink from the room, but Lestat was standing directly in the doorway and when they were intent this way it felt safer to remain still and unnoticed.

"Unfinished? How so?"

"You want to know something of me, yet you have not asked. Why is that?"

Lestat sighed heavily. "We went through all this in New York. What is the point of rehashing it yet again?"

"If we went through all of this in New York, why did you bring it up last night?" Louis challenged.

"It was a passing comment." Lestat said, exasperated.

"Ah. I see. You may make comments and I am expected not respond."

"When I asked you in New York, you saw fit not to respond." Lestat muttered through clenched teeth..

"You are angry. Always, this anger. Possessive, unreasoning anger. Armand does not matter, yet you will dwell upon what may or may not have passed between us when I believed you lost."

The room crackled with tension. When Louis spoke Armand's name, Lestat bared his fangs in a brief snarl. "And you will push the issue all the while refusing to tell me what may or may not have passed between you." Lestat sneered. "You have always known how to put me past all patience, Louis."

Louis regarded him steadily. "I can only surmise that you believe I am made of stone. I have watched you walk away from me time and again and when you return I am told your dalliances meant nothing. Akasha meant nothing? David, who you brought over to this life? Did that mean nothing?" He wielded his words with surgical precision, each cut deep and accurate. "How, then, is it different for me? Was it so dreadful that I might wish for companionship in my desolation? Or was it who I chose to be my companion? Perhaps I would not have been drawn to him at all in the beginning had you chosen to share something – anything -of yourself with me."

"Perhaps not, but you knew what he'd done to bring you to his side." Lestat said tonelessly.

"As I knew what you'd done to keep me at yours." Louis' voice was wintery. "I love you, Lestat. I always have, but that does not mean that I care to be fought over like a bone between two wolves and it does not mean I care to be told I am what matters to you, yet I am continually pushed away because you refuse to let go of your anger and your fear."

"And just what is it that you think I am so afraid of? Dare I ask such a thing and expect a straightforward answer?"

"If you cannot see it for yourself, Lestat, you will only bristle at whatever I say to you." Louis said with implacable calm. Lestat threw up his hands in frustration.

Louis took that moment to notice my presence. "Brian, leave us be, if you would." He said without rancor. Lestat glared at me but moved aside and I left the room with a strong sense of relief. It's never pleasant to witness what should really be a private confrontation, but as I said, neither of them thought much about whether or not I was present most of the time. I can only think that the stomach churning anxiety I'd been experiencing had distracted Louis somewhat.

The door closed behind me and I left the flat, breathing in the rainy air of the courtyard in an effort to calm myself.

October, 1994

Nothing was resolved as the weeks slipped by, even though the arguments had ceased. Lestat was trying his level best to make things right between them but Louis' mood turned restive and somewhat vague and it added to the oppressive atmosphere that lingered like smoke in the air about them. The tension built, feeding on the frustrated silences that sat between them.

The silence broke at last.

I was working out of my living room when it happened, going over bids for some work that was being done at a house they'd purchased out by Breaux Bridge. I worked in the office in their flat during the day, but when they were awake it seemed a good idea to stay out of the way unless I was summoned. I had the air conditioning off and the windows open. There was a cool breeze blowing, presaging rain but comfortable for the time being and a thankful change from recirculated air.

I heard them outside and it became immediately apparent that it was a confrontation. I got up from the table and turned the tensor lamp to the wall before I approached the window. They were near the fountain, facing one another and I could see them well enough since the unobtrusive garden lighting was on. They had come in through the gate to the carriageway and it was obvious that were already embroiled in the conversation.

"These thoughts are not with me every waking moment, mon cher, but when they come they are strong." Louis said. "You did not come to me because you knew I would not let you go? Why would I? Why? Might it be because I love you? That I loved you from the first moment I saw you? Perhaps I was wrong to think that you felt the same thing for me. God knows the fledglings you have made since me were to give you something that apparently I could not. You were infatuated with David when he was mortal. I was there when you went to see him in London, remember?"

"I remember." Lestat said distantly. His hands were clenched at his sides.

"Yes. Of course you do. And you went to him after you faced the sun and he helped you and I suppose I should be grateful to him for that, at least. You knew when you came to me in that body that I would not turn you. You knew it." Louis crossed his arms over his chest and hugged himself as though he felt chilled. "Maybe it was another attempt kill yourself. Have me do it for you. After all, I have tried killing you before, have I not?"

"Louis, please. Tell me what you want of me. Tell me what I can do to--to ease you. I cannot bear to see you this way." Lestat's voice was low, strained.

Louis looked at him, anguished. "Don't you see, Lestat? That is precisely the problem. You can do nothing about it. Nothing. I know you love me. I know you are sorry, but there is nothing you can do to fix it. All your promises, sweet promises said in passion--and I do believe that you believed your own words--came to what? You loved me before you left, yet still you went. When you went into the sun, even then, you did not come to me. Not. A. Word. Correct me if I am wrong here. Lestat, but I don't recall you saying to me that you loved me well but had decided to kill yourself anyway." His anger was a palpable thing, shimmering heat, though his face was smooth and expressionless.

"I wasn't even sure until I actually did it that I would go through with it." Lestat said in a deadened voice. He met Louis' gaze. "I could not say good-by to you. I couldn't." He took a step, but Louis raised a hand as though to stop both speech and movement. His face was still immobile but his eyes blazed.

"You couldn't say good-bye. In the end seeing me was of no consequence."

Lestat took another step forward and reached to take Louis' arm. Louis pulled away. "Don't touch me, Lestat. Just don't."

"It wasn't like that." Lestat protested. "That was my weakness, my rashness. I felt so far away from things, disconnected as though I were drifting along." He looked at Louis miserably. "I know how it sounds."

"I never let you go, Lestat." Louis stated.

"I know you didn't. I didn't want to think of how you would react."

"What does that fucking mean?" Louis asked vehemently. "You know what you are to me yet you felt disconnected. You chose to leave. I can accept even that. God knows no one can control you and I would never try even if I could. But that you did not come to me first, that is what I will never understand! Do you know how I found out? David. David called me from the Motherhouse in London. David. For the love of God!" Louis shook his head disbelievingly. "Then the mad plan. You did turn to me then, though I can't imagine why since you had already made up your mind." Louis laughed bitterly, a jagged, glassy sound. "Coming to me in that body and begging me to bring you over. How could you do it? You say you love me, yet you would ask that of me? After you left that I night, I could make no sense of my existence."

He shoved Lestat hard. The move was so sudden and so quick that it took Lestat completely off guard and he stumbled backward. It was the only time I ever saw him less than graceful. His face was a mask.

"I had a thought, you know." Louis rasped. "It would not leave my mind; it boiled and seethed. Do you know what it was? Do you?"

"Louis, --"

Louis ignored him. "I thought if I killed you, then you would be freed at last and I could end my own life. At last."

Lestat gasped, a short, wounded sound and my own gasp echoed his. You who read this may ask why I do it. Listen. Watch. Grotesque, lurking voyeurism. It must seem so, I suppose, but again I say that for them whether I was there listening or somewhere else entirely meant nothing to them, not when they were lost to one another in their violent, beautiful intimacy and not now, when they were attempting to sift through layers of pain and anger and things more hidden from the light of day then they themselves are. As well say do not watch the moon rise or the stars come out each night: my presence was not an intrusion because it was unnoticed.

"In the end I couldn't do it. It was not your body, your beauty, but I knew it was you. Your essence trapped in a shell of mortality once again. I couldn't do it, couldn't harm you in that vulnerable state. My weakness was my love for you. I thought then that I would take my own life. I thought of ways that such a thing might be done. David would help you, after all, and it was likely that you would manage to get one of the others to turn you, to get what you wanted." He looked at Lestat, his eyes glittering and remote. "You know that I could do it. The reason that you survived your face to face with the sun, my love, is that you did not want to die."

"Why now, Louis?" Lestat asked. "Why did you take me back after all that? Why have we lived together happily for the most part, for these past ten years? Why stay with me? Do you still wish to die?" The last was not a threat, but an agonized question that Lestat spat out like a chunk of bitter poison.

"Why did I take you back? You do all the taking, Lestat, just as you do all the discarding. You know as well as I do that it was you who reclaimed me. I remember it well. I wanted you back, oh yes, but it was you who laid claim as you did from the beginning. The bloodthirst is a meaningless thing when I think of how I love you and we have lived together, as you say, because that is what we both desired. Too many times I have thought you lost to me, and I don't speak of it because simply thinking about it makes me feel as though I am falling, alone and cold. Don't you understand? I could never leave you. I don't even have words for how I feel about you; just the thought of you makes my mouth well up and I want to eat you, fuck you, smear myself with your blood--consume you. And still that is not enough. That is why I know it will be you who does the leaving for I do not have that in me. The memories of the past lie uneasy and sometimes I need to be away, as if I must practice for what may happen again. But kill myself? The only way you will rid yourself of me is to do it yourself. Even should we part, you will never be alone, at least not while I walk the earth. What I want from you now is time. Only time and we have enough of that and to spare."

Louis reached and stroked Lestat's cheek softly with the back of his knuckles and Lestat closed his eyes. Louis made an agile twist and leap to the top of the wall and then he was gone.

~~~~~

It was weeks before he came back and Lestat did not weather the separation very well. He didn't speak to me much during that time and very often he warned me away. The papers told of random killings and disappearances and the fact that it was so noticeable spelled out his reckless distress. The papers spoke of damage to the tourist trade and stepped-up police presence. No policeman visited the townhouse, no reporters put anything together, but I saw the thread running through those articles. Any attempt on my part to reassure him was met with waspish frustration.

"You don't need to coddle me," He said testily one night, "I know perfectly well what he said to me that night."

I thought it prudent to step back quietly from the blue blaze of his eyes.

"Alright, fine." I said, "But you might want to tone down the feeding frenzy a little, or at least move it off to another area." I tossed the paper on the desk and he batted it to the floor.

"Oh, by all means, Brian." He snapped. "Do you think that worries me?" He kicked at the newspaper petulantly.

"Not now." I said, trying for a reasonable tone. "But when Louis comes home the last thing you will want is unwanted attention from the police or worse.

He glared at me and I shrugged placatingly.

"Fine. You actually have a point." He said, relenting. "Now go home before I lose whatever shreds there are left of my patience.

~~~~~

I saw Louis once during weeks he was absent. He stopped me somewhere around four in the morning as I wove my way home from Dauphine St.

"You are out very late." He said, eyeing me up and down and wrinkling his nose a little.

Drunk as I was, my tongue was running way ahead of my brain. "Where have you been? Are you coming home?" I asked, shifting unsteadily from one foot to the other.

"I have been around." He said enigmatically. He looked arresting, wearing neoprene and leather. His eyes were ringed with kohl. "As you have been, it would seem."

"Just out with a few friends." I muttered. I wondered if the liquor I'd consumed was making me see the luminescent shimmer around him or if it was a trick of the light and the humidity.

"And going home alone again." He gave me a gentle push and we crossed the street.

I peered owlishly at him, trying to interpret what he was thinking. It was a useless effort, since I was not usually able to do it even when I had all my wits about me.

"Are you coming home?" I repeated. I couldn't seem to stop looking at him and as a result I stumbled on the uneven banquette. He caught my arm and steadied me.

"I will come home when I am ready to come home."

"Lestat..." I began.

"Lestat knows this and you do too, though I am quite sure you are incapable of very much in the way of cognitive thought at the moment."

"I'm trying to figure out if I should be insulted or not."

His mouth twitched a little. "Not at all. It was not a judgment, only an observation made by one who had a fair share of such nights at one time. You should have a care, cher. There are dangerous sorts around at this time of the morning."

"I can see that." I said a bit feverishly. The kohl beneath his eyes was smudged in a beguiling way.

"And now you are on Royal Street." He said. "You can make your way home safely enough from here, I should think." He paused for a moment. "How does mon ange?"

I gaped at him, surprised. "He's reckless." I said immediately. "But a little better the past two weeks or so. At least it seems that way to me."

"He came looking for me. We had a brief word." Louis acknowledged. "Go home, Brian. Sleep it off."

He waited until I turned and started up the street. When I looked back he was gone.

December, 1994

Louis came home in early December and they secluded themselves in one of their Garden District properties for a week or so, during which time I longed for a reason to drop by. There was no reason of course, and me and my curiosity just had to deal with it.

I was encouraged when Lestat called to instruct me to make travel arrangements for them. He wanted snow and cold weather, he said, and a snug, secluded place to stay for the duration of the winter holidays. No mean feat at such a late date, but I got to work on it and after a few days of recommendations and tracking down numbers, and a little creative bribery, I secured a place for them in Vermont.

I flew them up there and when we left New Orleans everything seemed fine, although we were late in taking off. We arrived in Vermont just after dawn and while they slept in the cabin, I rented a vehicle and drove up to the chalet to make sure everything was in order. A few details needed tweaking, but all in all everything was ready and I went back to the airport to pick them up.

Something had happened; not an argument, at least not one that was still in progress, but when I went into the hanger, I found them out of the plane wearing nothing but their robes, Lestat kneeling on the floor beside Louis with his arms wrapped about Louis's body.

The cold can't harm them, but they most certainly feel it. Louis in particular seems to crave warmth; he shivered in Lestat's embrace. I drove the Cherokee right up to them and opened the back door for them. The interior was warm, but I climbed into the cabin of the jet and fetched the blankets discarded on the floor. Lestat took them from me with a short nod of thanks. I drove out of the hanger and when I glanced in the rearview, Lestat had managed to swaddle both Louis and himself beneath them. Louis had his head on Lestat's shoulder, eyes closed. Lestat met my glance in the mirror with a troubled look.

"You have seen this place?" He said after a moment.

"Yes. It's all ready, wood laid in the fireplaces, heat turned up and everything just as you asked."

"You are going to visit your family?"

"Yeah." I said rather heavily. "I'll see how that goes. I might end up somewhere else, but I have the mobile phone with me."

He nodded distractedly and pressed his cheek to the top of Louis' head.

I brought in what little luggage they had. Louis went immediately to one of the chairs by the fireplace and sat down, eyes distant. Lestat walked with me to the door.

"Thank you, Brian." He said. "And you needn't worry, in spite of appearances. I will make things right this time, though I believe I have my work cut out for me. I will call you when we are ready to leave."

I nodded, still hesitant. "Maybe I should take a room in town somewhere for a day or two--"

"Not necessary, cher. Au revoir."

"Good bye, then." I said. He smiled briefly and I stepped out on the porch, pulling the door shut behind me.

~~~~~

And so I went to Boston and I drove through the decaying housing project that I once called home. I saw people I knew but I didn't stop and none of them spare a second look; I left there when I was sixteen and I had only been back once, when I helped my parents move from the ratty second floor apartment to the house I bought them in Ipswich. No one seemed to recognize me and I suppose that's as it should be. I had long since closed the book on those days.

The visit with my parents was tense and uncomfortable as I had known it would be with my father thawing only after he'd lubricated himself with several glasses of whiskey. My mother never retreated from the icy fortress of her belief that I was the worst of sinners, though she unbent enough to give me a stiff embrace when I arrived. My brother Mick came from Gloucester to spend a day and that was a good day. We spent it away from the house for the most part, bending elbows and catching in one of the pubs in town. I left a few days after he did, and idea having taken hold in my mind.

I drove south into the Berkshires spent a week looking at property there, isolated places for the most part. After all, I had a lot of money and much of it was pretty much doing nothing more than collecting interest so I figured I might as well spend it. I thought a place of my own, a place I could retreat to from time to time might be a good idea. I settled on a cabin surrounded by twenty-three acres of forested land. Nine of the acres were under a spring-fed lake and the cabin sat on the east side of that lake.

The place needed work and while I waited to hear from them I stayed busy drawing up reconfiguration plans that would include a few niceties that the place sorely lacked. Contactors were hired and work would commence over the winter: they were happy to have the work, most of it indoors.

Two days before Christmas Lestat called. "Joyeux Noël, Brian."

"Merry Christmas." I said a little breathlessly. "How are things going?"

"Very well, mon cher." He murmured and I heard his throaty purr over the phone. "Are you still visiting your family?"

No. I'm in the Berkshires."

"Do you think you might get here by Christmas Day?" The contentment in his voice resonated even over the telephone.

"Not a problem. I'll drive back to Boston and fly up sometime tomorrow."

"Très bon. Nous vous verrons alors."

"Right." I said, already feeling the anticipation creeping in. "I'm glad things are working out."

"As am I." He said with a warm chuckle. "Louis said to tell you to drive carefully." He chuckled again. "Bon soir, Brian."

~~~~~

I arrived in the late afternoon. There was a fresh blanket of powder on the ground, fallen early in the day, but the clouds had broken and the westering sun heliographed redly off the floor-to-ceiling windows that graced the front of the chalet. I let myself in and immediately noted that everything looked much as it had when I'd left nearly three weeks earlier. I wondered if the bedroom had fared as well. The room smelled pleasantly of balsam, emanating from the massive tree set up before the window. I took a little time to get a fire going in the grate and to admire the Christmas tree festooned with lights and groaning under the weight of the glass ornaments hung upon its branches.

I didn't look in on them, even though I most sincerely wanted to. The bedroom door faced the western windows, still glowing in the sunset and darting spears of light off the glass ornaments on the tree. I hung up my jacket and, put my wet boots in the closet and went to the kitchen to brew some coffee. By the time I'd poured myself a cup, the sun had set.

"It smells good out here." Lestat said from the bedroom doorway. He stood there without a stitch of clothing on, a supremely satisfied look on his face. Louis appeared behind him, snaking his arms around Lestat's waist and nuzzling his neck.

"It smells good here." He murmured. He pushed Lestat and the crossed the room and they arranged themselves on the couch. Distinctly dizzy, I sat down in a chair by the fire before my legs could give out. They looked insanely happy and beyond beautiful.

"You are staring." Louis murmured, licking delicately at a spot just below Lestat's ear. He moved his left hand up to caress Lestat's chest and the firelight glanced off a ring he wore on his third finger. Platinum, by the look of it. I noticed then that Lestat, too, wore a ring on his left hand, a wide, gold band.

"You had a wedding and didn't invite me?" I said. I felt an absurd pang.

"A private ceremony, if you will." Louis said. "But here you are now, and we will celebrate together, oui?" Lestat had quantities of food delivered yesterday evening, though I imagine there is but one nourishment you would wish to taste."

He smiled, then and Lestat turned his head to press a languid, warm kiss to Louis' mouth and that action caused them to twine together and continue their kissing for a little while, unmindful of me or anything else. When they at last released one another, Lestat looked over at me.

"Well, aren't you going to say something?"

"What happened?" I asked, feverish to find out, feverish with watching them.

"We came out from the dark side." Louis said enigmatically.