The usual disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I don't make money from them

The Storm Effect

(Gairid- 2001)

Lestat left Louis sleeping the sleep of the utterly sated and content sometime earlier. He himself, as happened often, had dozed lightly for ten minutes or so, and awakened with a driving energy. He stepped out on the balcony, and sensing the approaching storm, decided to take a walk.

There were still people about at that hour, not far yet into the early morning. Street people huddled in the doorways beneath awnings, most of them asleep, or passed out. He ignored them, as he ignored the small knot of drunken young men weaving their way down the middle of the street. He moved at a leisurely pace, keeping his gait even, and human-like. He was enjoying the way the wind tore at him, cool but not cold.

When he reached the river, he slowed even more, watching the rushing water, frothed with whitecaps, fascinated. The wind lifted his pale hair back from his face, and the long, black coat he wore flared out behind him, flapping. He could scent the rain in the clouds above him and he felt the building electricity there. A downpour was imminent, but still he walked, delighted by the energy of the coming storm.

He came to a halt, sitting down on a bench, and listening to the wind, letting his mind wander. Lifting his hand to push his hair from his mouth, he scented Louis, drying blood under his nails. He had a sudden vision of Louis, as he'd been earlier, the look on his face as he'd climaxed, poised above him, his hips jarring Lestat's own. Oh, that look...the beautiful face flushed with blood, gleaming fangs bared, and the green, green eyes locked to his. Louis' keening wail as he spent himself deep inside Lestat's body.

Lestat was snapped from his reverie by a blue flash of lightening. He'd been motionless, staring at the surging river for gods knew how long, he suddenly realized. Feeling the first drops of rain, he stood to make his way back home...back to Louis. When the clouds at last released their burden of rain, it was a deluge. Lestat never picked up speed, just walked slowly along, letting the rain soak through his clothes. By the time he reached their front door, he was soaked to the bone, blonde hair turned several shades darker, hanging long and bedraggled about his face. He let himself in, humming to himself under his breath.

He glanced up and saw Louis standing at the top of the stairs looking at him. He let the coat fall into a sodden heap on the floor and toed off his boots.

"What *can* you be thinking of, mon cher?" Louis asked, as Lestat peeled off his wet shirt.

"I was thinking that if I came home all wet and shivering that you would wish to bundle me back into bed and bring me back to life." Lestat grinned insouciantly up at Louis, struggling out of his clinging, wet jeans.

Louis leaned against the banister, still watching. He jerked his head a little, licking his lips as the golden flesh was revealed to his avid eye.

"Well, you'd better come on up here, then, hadn't you?" he smiled enigmatically, and moved away down the hall. Lestat waited a beat, and then bounded up the stairs after him, naked and shivering, his tawny skin gleaming with the moisture still clinging to him.

Entering their bedroom, he could hear Louis in the bathroom. Before he was across the floor, Louis came out with a large bath towel, and without the robe he had been wearing when he'd been watching Lestat shed his wet clothing. Lestat turned and Louis draped the fluffy towel over his shoulders, and began rubbing him briskly, drying him and warming his skin at the same time. He made Lestat bend his head forward and set about toweling the wet, tangled mane. After several moments of this he dropped the towel, and took Lestat's hand and pulled him toward the bed. Pushed him down onto it and followed him in, pulling the comforter over them. And, at last, pulling his golden one into his arms.

A little while before Lestat's return, Louis had awoken suddenly, sitting upright. Scenting the air....he knew immediately Lestat was not in the flat. He pushed back the niggling sense of worry that he sometimes felt upon his lover's absences, short though they usually were. He disliked it when he didn't know where Lestat was, a holdover from that dreadful time when....his eyes closed everytime he thought about it....when Lestat had tried to take his own life. He'd shaken it off, knowing it to be a false worry. He'd felt Lestat rise from the bed earlier, sensed his restlessness, and, also aware the approach of a thunderstorm, had concluded that Lestat had taken a walk. The Brat loved storms.

Still, in spite of knowing all this to be true, and accurately predicted, Louis was relieved when he'd heard the front door open. He'd slipped into his robe and gone to the top of the stairs to greet Lestat. Watched, amused and aroused, as Lestat peeled his sodden clothes off. Smiled at Lestat's stated and transparent reason for letting himself get so thoroughly soaked. And now, Lestat was nestled in his arms, his damp skin warming as Louis held him close.

"Where did you go?" Louis asked, moving his head to one side as Lestat licked at his neck.

"Walked by the river. " Lestat answered. He looked up from Louis' neck, laughing suddenly. "I lost track of time, Louis, thinking about you. Next thing I knew it was pouring out."

"You *knew* it would rain. " Louis said, answering the Brat's smile with one of his own.

"I did, " Lestat agreed. "I wanted to feel you warm me up." He nipped Louis' earlobe and lapped at the welling blood. The tiny wound quickly closed.

Outside, there was a nearly constant barrage of lightening. The thunderclaps were painfully loud, and the rain lashed at the windowpanes.

Louis could feel Lestat's erection, as the Brat rubbed sinuously against him. He could tell Lestat was not being especially sexually aggressive ....he seemed more to be enjoying the warmth and the closeness. For the time being, anyway. As for the erection...well, *that* was a constant for them....the only difference being the matter of *degree*.

"It would appear that you have come 'back to life' as you put it, my love." Louis said, stroking Lestat's shoulders, the muscles beneath rippling and twitching under his hand. Lestat's muffled reply into his neck was unintelligible. They lay quiet together for a while. Louis, lost in the feel of Lestat's mouth at his throat, suckling his flesh. Waiting breathlessly to be pierced. His skin was tingling where Lestat's hands traveled, slowly circling, kneading, and his head was filled with his lover's dizzying scent.

Lestat raised his head to look into Louis' eyes, his voice was intense, pitched low and quiet.

"Do you feel that? " he asked quietly, pressing Louis' hand to his chest. "How my heart races? How it pounds?" His eyes, like gleaming aquamarines, iridescent, liquidly beautiful. "I sometimes feel as though I cannot bear to be separate from you...not for a moment..." Lestat moved on top of Louis, his long fingers moving on Louis' face, tracing the planes of his cheeks, the silken lips, brushing the dark lashes. "....and then, Louis, then I leave the house. I leave you alone..." His voice became ragged, as he pressed his lips softly to Louis', "...and walk. I walk alone, and all I can think about is returning to you. Not even an hour could I leave you tonight, but I had to turn and come back. I don't understand it. I only know I would not change this." His hands, plunged into the heavy ebony silk, cradling Louis' head as he pressed tiny kisses to his lover's closed eyes. He tasted the red tears squeezed from beneath the fragile lids, like trembling jewels on the black fringe of Louis' eyelashes. Lestat continued his litany, "... and then, when I came back here, you were there on the stairs, waiting for me, and gods, Louis, do you know that I could fall at your feet when I see you looking at me the way you do? I want...." he paused to kiss Louis passionately, "...I want to hold you, consume you... *devour* you, and take you inside of me. I want to possess you as surely as you have possessed me. Do you know this? Do you?" His voice was demanding, rough with his need to make Louis understand. He felt overwhelmed suddenly with the urgency of his desire.

Lestat said this last, his lips against his lovers, the words muttered into Louis' mouth. "Do you?"

"I know, love." Louis answered. His voice was a breath in Lestat's hair. He moaned softly, feeling Lestat's mouth once again at his throat. "You know that I do." And there...ahh...penetration at last....he arched his body up to Lestat as he felt the fangs stab into his flesh. Louis abandoned himself, feeling his angel all around him, their minds twined as their bodies strove together. Lestat straddled Louis as he drew upon him, took Louis' cock inside of himself, groaning. They rolled over, and Lestat locked his legs about Louis, held him tightly as he drank, and they lay thus, unmoving, their bodies shimmering with bloodsweat in the intermittent flashes of lightening. Lestat's wet suckling and Louis' ragged panting were the only sounds in the room. The images flashing through their connected minds were images of love and lust, and swirled color, strong, violent emotion and thousandfold pleasure, given one to the other.

Bodies jolted by climax over and over, and Louis, now battened on Lestat's throat, the blood passing through them both, and there was sweetness and bitter pain, and light as bright as their lost sun and unbearable, sweeping pleasure. When they finally released one another, they lay in a loose tangle, exhausted and exhilarated.

Louis stroked Lestat's hipbone idly, his body still sheened with sweat, sucking at the blood still between his teeth. Lestat was on his back, one arm flung above his head, the other playing in Louis' knotted hair.

"I see you are no longer restless, mon lion. " Louis said, turning his head to look at Lestat. The Brat smiled an indulgent smile.

"Not especially, non. If I were, I would definitely take another walk, only to be brought back to bed in such a manner." He kissed Louis' temple. "However, you have exhausted me, my love." He shifted his body slightly, snuggling closer to Louis.

"It's quite interesting, how the storm affected you. I would have sworn you were just as exhausted earlier." Louis said, a smile in his voice.

"No...that would have been you, Louis. You were the one taking a nap if I recall."

"I thought you might actually sleep for a while yourself. Mad of me, I know. As if you could ever remain still for more than a few minutes at a time." Louis teased.

"Well, I am still now, chaton. Thanks to you." Lestat answered comfortably. Their eyes met and Louis raised his head to kiss Lestat.

"Again, please." Lestat demanded, smiling, just as Louis moved back from him. Louis obliged him. The storm had passed for the most part, thought rain was still pattering at the windows. They could hear the distant thunder rumbling. Louis kissed him once again.

"Once more to celebrate the storm effect. " He murmured, his lips still on Lestat's.

~FIN~