Lestat is watching him as he speaks, no impulse to hide away from it, even this close. Studying Louis' expression, drinking in the feeling of his voice, even as his own eyes remain that specific kind of glossy-bloodshot, both in concert with and in contrast to the way the corner of his mouth ticks up.

Fond. Devastated. He gives a small, hasty nod at this last thing.

Thinking further back, to that precious period of time where Lestat had gotten everything he had ever wanted. Louis' hand in his, Claudia's in his other. He just hadn't known it.

"Louis," he says. Voice not quite even, but we continue. "It was me that ruined it for us. I know it now."

He didn't before, not even in his coffin in New Orleans, laying there for however long beneath the trash. Not even during the awful pantomime in the theatre. Perhaps while reflecting on his origins in Magnus' prison. Perhaps after he'd read his own story, spoken by Louis, penned by Molloy. But now—

It isn't hard, to trace the fuck ups. Before the ball. Before the fight. "And I am sorry."