Now Lestat gives in to impulse, gets up, a restless wander around that doesn't beeline for Louis, but breaks up the scenery, the tableau being studied.

"This one is up past his bedtime," he says, a little gesture to the old man baby on the couch before setting hands against the back of an armchair, leaning. So casual, never mind the transparently desperate way Lestat hasn't taken his eyes off Louis since he entered the room. "I was about to say to him that he needed his beauty sleep."

As if it's perfectly normal for either Louis or Lestat to be up at noon themselves, that everyone in the room doesn't look various degrees of wrecked, some self-inflicted. One problem at a time, he rationalises.