For the fic ask: obviously I want to know more about your Loustat piece, Delicate Desires! Give me a fun fact AND ALSO I’m curious to know your thoughts on what you think happens after this occurrence! Do you think they celebrated Lestat’s birthday in any way the following year? The final line gets me every time about it not being a perfect evening, but also “not the worst” like what do you think his WORST birthday was 😭 lmao birthday fics are always so fun and bittersweet and I love this one!
Send me a fic and I'll reply with a fact about it, or ask me a question about a fic!
A fun fact is that a long time ago (like 90s? Early 2000s?) there was a long fic called something like "The Secret History" by a writer I believe was named Cesare? And possibly I have gotten that entirely wrong so my apologies to the author if so. But the crux of it was, Louis and Lestat spent the Rue Royale years often fooling around, being very physically close, but hiding their intimacy from Claudia and obviously Louis did not speak of this in the interview. Which... I mean... is also what people get from canon but that fic implanted itself in my brain and I always think of it when I think of the Rue Royale Era. So when I was writing this, even though my memories of that fic are dusty and weak, I thought of that a lot.
Which brings me to your question! I feel like the bulk of what we get about that time is Louis trying to tell a very streamlined story about his grief and agony and guilt, and Lestat does mention that Louis left out of a lot of the fun times they had. So I think the truth is somewhere in between. I do think Louis would remember Lestat's birthday after he learned it and perhaps, if he was feeling like he wanted to try and connect with him, he might get him a small gift or try to make the evening pleasant without even mentioning he realized the date: get tickets for some show or something maybe, I don't know.
They had so many years together that they probably did have an actual celebration at some point, although they were more likely to do that for Claudia's birthday ("birth" day) which would probably lead to questions from her and a bad time all around, so maybe it wasn't something they brought up a lot. 😂
As for Lestat's worst birthday, I'm sure that was something in France, involving his father and brothers, and Gabrielle coming to his room to soothe him and comb his hair and tell him everything is okay at the end of the night. But with Louis, I don't know, probably one where they had some fight and Louis didn't even know what day it was. Maybe when he his father was still alive and he spent it in the big plantation house alone with his father while Louis wandered around the swamp eating rats.
Okay, this has gotten too long and rambly! Thank you so much for the ask! 💖