#l. [you feel your heart taking root in your body] c: louis

[philtatoshetairos]

Of wine-flush and indigo flowers

Shortly after reaching the colony, I fell fatally in love with Louis, a young dark-haired bourgeois planter, graceful of speech and fastidious of manner, who seemed in his cynicism and self-destructiveness the very twin of Nicolas.

He had Nicki's grim intensity, his rebelliousness, his tortured capacity to believe and not to believe, and finally to despair.  

Yet Louis gained a hold over me far more powerful than Nicolas had ever had.

(...)

And I wonder sometimes if I didn't look to Louis to punish me for what had happened to Nicki, if I didn't create Louis to be my conscience and to mete out year in and year out the penance I felt I deserved.

But I loved him, plain and simple.

To anyone paying attention, it was impossible not to notice how fragile he was, but I was the one who also saw a tenacious strength underneath, a stubborn tendency to cling to his misery. He didn’t want to die, as much as he didn’t want to keep living as he was. He simply refused to see other options, and I was desperate enough that I couldn’t wait to introduce him to the intoxicating pleasures of the blood and the flesh. The wine and the bread of communion twisted into a raw feast of desires neither of us could – or wanted to – control.

He roamed the streets of New Orleans as if he didn’t know what to do with himself, new to losing in a world that had always given him everything... at least on a surface level, if one ignored what he truly longed for. Louis would never have been able to carry on with the life of lies he expected for himself, a meek little wife on his arm, kids he would never love, a lifetime of sorrow to cater to the part he believed he had to play.

What Louis won't tell you was that Paul's death was a stepping stone towards freedom. He was finally free to waste himself in sin, he found a reason to crumble as he was always bound to have done. My beautiful martyr, longing to be sacrificed at the altar and worshipped in burial clothes.

Perhaps in another life, there would have been time for us to become friends. Instead, I had him blooming under my lips, the rosiness on his cheeks fighting the indigo blue of his melancholy. We crashed into each other, Louis looking for damnation, and me for a home I could bury myself in. In the absence of the devil, I gave him what he wanted and took what was my share, a deal sealed with a kiss.

---

Of cinnamon and sugar cane

The ship took me to Saint Louis. Not the city, no, although that was to be my destination on paper. It was along the riverfront in New Orleans that my heart found a suitable home. Shortly after reaching the colony, I fell fatally in love with Louis, a young Creole business owner, graceful of speech but strong of posture, capable of pulling a knife on his brother to establish himself at the eyes of a society that would never truly respect him for who he was.

In his demeanor I saw Nicki’s ferocity as well as his agony and that was how I knew that underneath all that razzle-dazzle there was a never-ending well of sorrow. I feared that it wouldn’t take much time until that fire consumed him and burned him down to ashes, as it had once consumed my Nicki.

Yet Louis gained a hold over me far more powerful than Nicolas had ever had.  

And I wonder sometimes if I didn’t look to Louis to prove that I could do better than I had with Nicki, if I didn’t start a friendship with Louis to measure him out and make sure that he would be able to prevail where I had first failed.

But I loved him, plain and simple.

He was tortured and it seemed that no one but me could see it. He was utterly beautiful and yet people looked at him as if he was only worth as much as he served their purposes. It’s no surprise that a man in his position refused to show any vulnerability to the world at large, refused to let anyone see the sensitive soul underneath. How he bled under all that strength, how I wanted to pump him with enough powerful blood that he would never feel as if he had to hide again.  

What Louis won't tell you was that Paul's death was a stepping stone towards freedom. He could finally walk away from the responsibilities that shackled him, and I knew he would be delivered right to me. Yet it's Louis we're talking about, Saint Louis, making everybody's problems his own even as he raged at God and the world for forsaking him.

He spoke to me as a friend and I heard the pleas to give him the means to transcend the life he knew. Under my lips, he melted like sugar and tasted like cinnamon, sweetest of spices. He needed a home where he could be himself, I had an empty nest to offer. In the absence of the devil, I gave him what he wanted and took what was my share, a deal sealed with a kiss.

[philtatoshetairos]

♡ (aleko/heph) 💘(patrochilles) 💟 (loustat)

Send a ship meme

♡: who is the bigger romantic openly? secretly?

On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you score spending millions on yourbeloved’s funeral, putting off the sacred flame on the temple upon his deathand asking the oracle of Zeus Ammon at Siwa to make him a god while laying out plans to buildtemples in his name throughout all of your empire but that will never happenbecause your generals can’t follow simple instructions?

Anyway aside from actual public demonstrations, which for them arecurtailed by societal boundaries, Aleko is generally a huge romantic in everysense of the word. He’s the nerd quoting poetry because it spoke to his soul orsomething and he’ll definitely make absurdly intense declarations because thisis just how his emotions run.

I don’t think either of them has any problem showing it to each other,but Hephaestion ends up having to play the rational part. So inside theirlittle bubble they’re probably the same, but for the rest of the people,Alexander seems more romantic for reasons way beyond love – like the image ofthe benevolent conqueror who just wants to unite worlds.

💘: who developed a crush on the other first?

They’re both dumb idiots with a childhood crush. That’s the answer. Butreally, Patroclus remembers the swoopity swoop feeling of staring at Achillesand wondering if he felt the same, while also rationally knowing that he was the only person the prince really wanted tospend time with. I’ll dare say that Patroclus was the one who became awarefirst but they were both already crushing hard.

💟: who spends time reading their zodiac compatibilities?

OH GOD LMAO this is something I’ve never thought about but Lestat, forsure. Even if he doesn’t believe in this shit, he would. He also spent the 90sand early 2000s doing those teen magazine quizzes like “are you and your crushcompatible?”/“will you have a spring or summer wedding?” about them and hedoesn’t regret a single moment spent on it.

I bet Louis will never admit it but he checked it out occasionally too.We see him.

[philtatoshetairos]

🧦 louis/lestat

SYMBOL MEME - Tension edition B)

“What a lovely little thing, your sister, it would do you good to learn from her sweet temperament…” Lestat mused out loud as he made his way down the corridor, only to find Louis’ bedroom closed. Never one to accept being left out of anything, he pursed his lips and knocked on the door twice before opening it and barging into the room. It couldn’t count as walking in unannounced when he had actually signaled his presence, could it?

“Already hiding a-…. oh, hello,” the blatant mockery in his tone was sharply interrupted, giving away to open appreciation and playful mirth in his gray eyes. What he found was a very dashing half-dressed gentleman, certainly in the process of changing from the expensive clothes Lestat threw at him – how the hell did Louis expect to receive visitors in dusty garments? An absolute disaster – into whatever it is that the fledgling considered more comfortable for hunting rats.

The new choice of clothes could be terrible in Lestat’s eyes, but he’d caught Louis with his torso exposed and his pants undone and there was no denying that the sight could be enjoyable. Good enough to touch or taste as well, if allowed that much.

“I came to say that it’s terribly, awfully late and I have no interest in going to town tonight,” he said calmly, calculated steps taking him closer to the other vampire, a predator on the prowl. He smirked when he was close enough to touch Louis if he reached out, but didn’t move his arm. “What if the clothes can stay off, hm?”

[philtatoshetairos]

♪ @ lestat (:

♪ - A secret they’re keeping from your muse.

“Why do youcontinue to believe I’m withholding things from you? I’ve written down everything I knewalready, there are no more secrets between us! If you’re so concerned aboutbeing lied to, go back to Armand.” Well, the cat was out of the bag now.

“Doyou really want to hear something I’ve never told you? That’s when I ripped the book to shreds. When you gushed about loveas if you had never felt such a longing before you sat with him at the theater,when all I got on those tapes came inthe form of insults and lies.”

[philtatoshetairos]

Did you make Louis week because you were afraid he was stronger than you? Did you leave him ignorant not because you were obeying the rules but because you wanted him totally dependent on you? Do you regret making him and Claudia? (for Lestat)

Dear God, what is this, my trial? So many questions! You better brace yourself for the answers then. First of all, I must correct you on your leading assumption. How could I have made Louis weak when I did the exact opposite of that? I made him strong with preternatural blood and immortal life. If he chose to weep about it instead of perfecting his vampire skills, it’s not my fault, but I assure you that I’m well-aware of his strength. I’ve said so myself, he has the peculiar ability of pushing through his own misery, which is proven in the fact that he has never buried himself into the ground as many of us do.

Now, I can admit my own selfish reasons for keeping him ignorant about so many of our secrets. Where’s the surprise in that? I’m a fiend, he’s a lovely companion, I did whatever I could to keep him. Yet although I have benefitted from making him dependent on me for many decades – just as I was dependent on him, but people often forget that – that wasn’t the sole reason for my behavior.

I wasn’t obeying any rule, but Marius’ counsel and final threat both had a lingering effect on me. Most of all, I feared driving Louis to madness, that once all his questions were answered he’d go into a shock worse than what Nicolas went through. Even the few things I told him were enough to make sit very still and contemplate the meaning of life or whatever it is. He scared me in those moments.

I didn’t tell him the biggest secret because, as I have mentioned in my first memoir, Marius quite literally threatened me not to say a word about it or else he would haunt us down. I didn’t know then the extent of his powers and I was sure he could have found me at the blink of an eye. And aside from Marius, there was Armand, and perhaps other vampires I hadn’t met, who could have hunted us for not abiding to whatever rules they had settled or even just for the fun of it. My main goal was to protect my fledgling since I knew the pain of losing another.

I warned Louis against the older ones, about the danger they could pose to a vampire as young and inexperienced as he was, and he still walked right into Armand’s trap. But what am I saying? I walked into it as well. Either way, what was the point in telling Louis more? I didn’t have the answers he truly wanted, the ones that appealed to his Catholic background.

Again, to counter your claim about my trying to make Louis weak, why can’t any of you see that I was in fact trying to free him from his religious despair? I had found my own strength in shunning the devil away, unlike the Children of Darkness, and I believed in the foolish idea that I could help Louis by shaking him out of his fear of God and Satan. Perhaps not very gently, however, as he has pointed out before, and so my mistake lies in being unnecessarily blunt. It’s a character flaw, sue me.

I do not regret making Louis. Claudia is a more complicated matter and there are times in which I wonder… but no, I don’t regret making her either. She’s one of those rules I have disobeyed, you can see I didn’t really stick by them in every way. It had a terrible, fatal ending, but the ultimate truth, the little detail that Louis managed to hide beneath his tale of suffering, was that we were happy for many years. I don’t regret the dashing trio we used to be, I don’t regret the sound of Claudia’s laughter echoing in the town house, or the brightness in Louis’ green eyes when he would pick her up. I don’t regret it and I’ll bear whatever hatred it comes with.

[philtatoshetairos]

​❝ i love the feel of your hair between each of my fingers. ❞ (loustat, a nice one for a change)

A smile took over his lips. What a sweet, precious comment, coming fromsomeone that had oft-times pretended not to indulge in these little pleasures.Lestat lacked patience for most things in life, but these moments were proofthat he had been right in keeping Louis with him.

He raised his head to meet green eyes, stretched out luxuriously on thebed like a lazy cat. Deft fingers trailed up Louis’ arm to cup his cheek, thumbstroking the fair skin that could imitate the warmth of a human moresuccessfully than his own.

“Far be it from me to deny you such a simple joy,” he replied cheekily, soonlowering his head to Louis’ shoulder once more and allowing those fingers tobury deeper into yellow curls. “Besides, I cannot hide how much I appreciatebeing pampered, either.”

[philtatoshetairos]

🥃 4 lestat

“Good God, everything’s spinning,” the vampire complained, reaching out to balance himself on the nearest couch. Heavy-lidded gray eyes turned to the other in deep thought, before he voiced out words that were usually locked away. “Are you going to help me into my coffin this time?”

[philtatoshetairos]

🔙 (4 lestat)

“I’ll do asI damn well please and—”

Even with superiorpreternatural skills, the sudden movement caught him off-guard, his backhitting the wall as a strong arm pushed at his chest. Louis had attacked almostlike a human, with a burst of feeling,not the coldness of vampires or his own particular detachment. It was like aspark had been lit, one of those random moments that allowed Lestat to glimpse morethan the perpetual grief in his companion’s eyes.

It was incredibly attractive.

They wereleft staring at each other – he suspected that Louis was surprised with his ownreaction and as for himself… well, he didn’t mind being pressed between the wall and the other’s body. He couldbarely remember what petty issue had prompted their argument in the firstplace, something about his lack of respect for human life, or money, or theplantation.

Honestly,Lestat didn’t care.

Slowly, asmile made its way to his lips, the tension in the air shifting. He leaned hishead back against the wall as if he had chosen to be there, staring at Louisfrom under long lashes. “Is that how you’re going to stop me?”