Familiar, this pattern. Like trying to get a cat to like you, certain it might enjoy the attention it receives should it deign to allow for it. Lestat, of course, is a dog person. Unabashed love, a glutton for affection.

Knows better than to think Louis is being difficult on purpose. Knows the kind of tempers beneath the still like.

Still. He can push a little. He can reach across Louis, making a show even in his own tender state to specifically avoid touching him as he collects up his cigarette case while his focus remains on Louis' profile, and then settling back. Fidgeting loose a cigarette, the little crinkle of plastic.

"My television broke in the late nineties," he says. "Which I felt was for the better, at the time. Do you have a lighter?"