The assumptions it makes. Or sounds like it's making.
"I don't know what I will do after New York," Lestat says. "It depends on my meeting. On what the vampires of the east coast have to say about certain scandalous publications. It depends, as well, on what you will do."
A shrug that no one can see. "Have you already made up your mind?"
A little overwhelming to contemplate. What will Louis do? He has thought as far as New York. He is reacclimating to life without a soft hand and whisper guiding his steps.
What will he do? Anything.
Picking a fight had felt therapeutic then and it does now. But Lestat is right. It has created a new set of complications.
That sounds like a 'no'. Some quiet edge in him that had been forming, relaxes. Just.
Lestat draws his phone away to look at it, still hovered near his mouth. Contemplating it, the man on the other end of it. The sound of wind rustling the microphone in his pause.
He won't throw the phone into the river if this doesn't work, but he will bitch about it for spoiling his bit. Touches the appropriate button, and says, "Search for Vermont."
A moment later—
"Hm. Vermont, Louis, is known for its scenic rolling mountains, its quality? skiing?, and its organic locally produced food. What a dreadful bore. You should come with me so I am less tempted to abandon Daniel to the mercy of the Canadian covens."
That said, Lestat's never been skiing. But that's beside the point.
To himself, Lestat smiles. A beatific kind of grin. How good, to call Louis down from his tower, to be so irresistibly charming? And not have to resort to plan B, which was tearfully and angrily begging Louis to stop being so brave and annoying and far away. And whatever occurs after the end of Daniel's tour—
Ah, well.
"There was a busker," he says, "who had a little amplifier and a guitar and a microphone on a street corner. I don't even remember the song anymore, you know."
Is he crying again? Jesus. Even by Lestat's standards, that's a lot. But maybe this new world could stand to be less overwhelming and beautiful and frightening, and he'll get over it better. Anyway, he palms tears away like they're annoying, and continues.
"But she was very talented. It was like listening to someone break their heart for pennies, over and over, and nearly everyone walked by without stopping. I don't remember that kind of beauty just being everywhere."
And in summary, "I would like it if you were around."
As Lestat speaks, relays this story, Louis listens so intently. Lays aside the photos. Imagines Lestat as he's described, walking and stopping to listen. Louis remembers so clearly how Lestat could be transported by music, how reverently he would devote his attention to song and tune.
A brief ache for the break in Lestat's voice, remembering how Louis would touch his hand. Hook a pinky into Lestat's when he was overcome in the privacy of their orchestra box.
"I wish I had been there," Louis says softly. "I'd have liked to hear her."
The tickets have been purchased. The steamer trunk retrieved from storage. Suitcases laid out, awaiting Louis' selections.
"I'll be there soon," is offered as reassurance. A promise. "Remind Daniel to send me the hotel details. I'll arrange a car."
To deliver him from the airport at whatever late hour Louis arrives from Dubai.
And he will also tell Daniel of this good tiding, that Louis will continue to accompany them, and maybe Lestat will also feel a little smug, that it was he who coaxed Louis to stay on even longer, and Daniel will have to forgive him that.
Daniel, who has been—well, forgiving is the wrong word. Kind, was the one Lestat used. Even before the trading of favours, Lestat had imagined something different. Prepared for it.
"He is like a sweet little bulldog," he says. "Are you glad that he is a vampire? It's nice to have friends, I think, that you're not trying to decide when to eat."
The description makes Louis smile, sight unseen, alone at the table in Dubai.
The question requires an answer, and the answer itself is—
Complicated.
"I was going to offer it to him," Louis admits. "The Gift."
A significance he knows Lestat will understand.
As the interview drew towards a close, Louis had been considering it. Considering offering again, giving Daniel the opportunity to choose what he'd scoffed at once and asked for too young.
Of course, now Louis must consider if the idea came from him, or from someone else.
But it's a separate contemplation from the answer he is offering Lestat.
"He was dying then, and I'm glad he isn't dying any longer. I'm only sorry it was given to him as a punishment."
For Louis. For Daniel. Armand's spite reflecting back at them both.
Fuck the phone; Lestat considers throwing himself into the river instead.
Not that dramatically. Not to die like a mortal would be aiming for, there. It's a thought like collapsing onto a fainting couch or throwing a valuable into a wall, where the sudden record scratch from bliss and fondness to whatever it is he is now currently experiencing demands an instant reaction.
He doesn't do that. Sits there. Louis was going to offer Daniel the Gift. Armand did it instead. Punishment.
"Oh," he says. Plucks some words out of the scramble of white noise occurring between his ears. "You have known him for some time?"
The thread he plucked at in Daniel's mind, leading back decades. It did not feel like fifty years of companionship, but profound all the same.
It is an uncharacteristically meek kind of response. Daniel had said first, not like you do, on the subject of love. Of course, Lestat has no clear idea how Louis feels in turn, not really. Only that he shared his entire life story. Only that he spoke in great detail of Lestat's failings, sprinkled with lukewarm praise. Preternaturally charming, sometimes thoughtful. Only that he gave him photographs to print. Only that they speak in each other's minds.
How ridiculous, to feel jealousy. In what universe does he have the right to it? But then, when has he ever, when has that stopped it? Lestat watches the sky, its light pollution, its satellites amongst the stars.
"Yes," more sure. "Perhaps over a cocktail waitress or two." Haha, vampire jokes.
Or some tender thing beneath that. Aware of his own failings. Of his persistent aversion to killing that Daniel does not share.
So Daniel and Lestat eat together. Easily, perhaps, without any of the reluctance or argument that had come to mark Lestat and Louis' shared hunting trips. A sore spot, struck unexpectedly.
"Yes," echoed, leaving the question of drinks to his arrival. Pivoting away with, "Would you let me take you to an opera, if I can find a suitable production in the city?"
It's the kind of pivot that, if Lestat were confident in his standing with Louis, he would make fun of Louis for it. Oh, you wish to change the subject, mon cher? You wish to dangle an opera in front of me? Well, good choice, it has worked.
This is circumvented, and the mnh sound from his side of the phone is all pleasure. Louis can probably imagine the shape of the smile that produces it. The ugly snarl of jealousy relaxes slowly, as if being petted, soothed.
"Not as strict now as it used to be," Louis admits. "But if you'd like, we can arrange something more lavish."
Their past ghosting into the present. Two tuxedos. Lestat's fingers linking his in a box. Louis would not have to walk behind him anymore, no playing at servitude.
Would Daniel call him foolish for it? For touching the past this way?
Lestat pauses over that. Is that what he wants? All that finery, sophistication? Yes, there is appeal, he finds, a heart ache and yearning, and at the same time, the notion sounds a little like putting on an old costume of himself.
But. Maybe it would be nice.
And being, as mentioned, a huge fan of Molloy's work, having read his book so many times, he does recall the scene in question. Playing aristocrat and manservant. Louis' frustration, indignity, and what had his words been then? Lestat's opportunity to disarm him. He might consider the tenor, the hours they spent feasting, the context that it had all been done to placate him after he had raised his voice—
A very risky proposition, but it's been said aloud. Louis will deliver.
He wants to deliver.
"Will you call again?" He asks, after a moment's pause. A sliver of uncertainty. The possibility that Lestat won't. The same itch of worry that had marked their parting in New Orleans.
What a precious thing, that little pause. Another memory, Louis asking him if he's not enough. How Lestat had laughed—but not at him, dear reader! No, just the joy of the question itself, the conversation, Louis deigning to show his hand his own investment in their romance, and Lestat taking the opportunity to—not be overly reassuring, granted.
Like then, like now, Lestat can't help but feel a little bit of mean-spirited if good-intentioned gratification for that uncertainty. Let Louis be anxious for him. He will be happy to indulge in reassurance now.
"Yes," he says. Back to dreamy. "Can I call you whenever I wish?"
"If I'm awake, I'll answer," is a necessary stipulation. Louis is hours and hours ahead of him. And he does sleep, closed inside his coffin when Lestat may be inclined to call. "And if I'm not, I'll answer you when I wake."
What a thrill it would be, the immediate anxiety and affection of waking up to a missed call, of returning it while the sunset light is still fading from the sky in the darkness of whatever crypt or underground chamber he has found for himself.
"Will you call me as well?" Lestat asks. Possibly setting himself up for a new torment in the future any day Louis does not call, but perhaps that was inevitable. "Whenever you wish."
They've made so many other promises to each other that perhaps there's some wisdom to the concept of starting smaller. A phone call, a voicemail, while all other things between them hang overhead untouched.
"You don't need to answer if you're busy."
Just to be clear. Lestat is busy. He has meetings. Louis doesn't intend to interfere.
So considerate, now, to the point of offense, although Lestat manages not to feel that, not tonight. The patterning of little promises is important. So he indulges in a breath out that is close to a laugh, and says,
"Whatever you say," indulgent. He will entertain the idea of not picking up because he's too busy, and Louis being gracious about it. "What are you going to do when you end the call? More filing with Rashid?"
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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The assumptions it makes. Or sounds like it's making.
"I don't know what I will do after New York," Lestat says. "It depends on my meeting. On what the vampires of the east coast have to say about certain scandalous publications. It depends, as well, on what you will do."
A shrug that no one can see. "Have you already made up your mind?"
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A little overwhelming to contemplate. What will Louis do? He has thought as far as New York. He is reacclimating to life without a soft hand and whisper guiding his steps.
What will he do? Anything.
Picking a fight had felt therapeutic then and it does now. But Lestat is right. It has created a new set of complications.
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That sounds like a 'no'. Some quiet edge in him that had been forming, relaxes. Just.
Lestat draws his phone away to look at it, still hovered near his mouth. Contemplating it, the man on the other end of it. The sound of wind rustling the microphone in his pause.
"Have you ever been to Vermont?"
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"No," Louis tells him. "I liked cities, when I was traveling."
A deliberate choice not to invoke Armand even passively with the use of we.
"Have you?"
Because who knows, maybe Lestat has been to Vermont.
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He won't throw the phone into the river if this doesn't work, but he will bitch about it for spoiling his bit. Touches the appropriate button, and says, "Search for Vermont."
A moment later—
"Hm. Vermont, Louis, is known for its scenic rolling mountains, its quality? skiing?, and its organic locally produced food. What a dreadful bore. You should come with me so I am less tempted to abandon Daniel to the mercy of the Canadian covens."
That said, Lestat's never been skiing. But that's beside the point.
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On the table, the opened archival boxes, photos scattered. Louis lifts the nearest print, studies it for a moment before he says, "I'd like that."
He has, after all, been explicitly invited to intrude by both Daniel and Lestat now. There's little reason to refuse.
Aside from the many good reasons, but who's counting.
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To himself, Lestat smiles. A beatific kind of grin. How good, to call Louis down from his tower, to be so irresistibly charming? And not have to resort to plan B, which was tearfully and angrily begging Louis to stop being so brave and annoying and far away. And whatever occurs after the end of Daniel's tour—
Ah, well.
"There was a busker," he says, "who had a little amplifier and a guitar and a microphone on a street corner. I don't even remember the song anymore, you know."
Is he crying again? Jesus. Even by Lestat's standards, that's a lot. But maybe this new world could stand to be less overwhelming and beautiful and frightening, and he'll get over it better. Anyway, he palms tears away like they're annoying, and continues.
"But she was very talented. It was like listening to someone break their heart for pennies, over and over, and nearly everyone walked by without stopping. I don't remember that kind of beauty just being everywhere."
And in summary, "I would like it if you were around."
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A brief ache for the break in Lestat's voice, remembering how Louis would touch his hand. Hook a pinky into Lestat's when he was overcome in the privacy of their orchestra box.
"I wish I had been there," Louis says softly. "I'd have liked to hear her."
The tickets have been purchased. The steamer trunk retrieved from storage. Suitcases laid out, awaiting Louis' selections.
"I'll be there soon," is offered as reassurance. A promise. "Remind Daniel to send me the hotel details. I'll arrange a car."
To deliver him from the airport at whatever late hour Louis arrives from Dubai.
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And he will also tell Daniel of this good tiding, that Louis will continue to accompany them, and maybe Lestat will also feel a little smug, that it was he who coaxed Louis to stay on even longer, and Daniel will have to forgive him that.
Daniel, who has been—well, forgiving is the wrong word. Kind, was the one Lestat used. Even before the trading of favours, Lestat had imagined something different. Prepared for it.
"He is like a sweet little bulldog," he says. "Are you glad that he is a vampire? It's nice to have friends, I think, that you're not trying to decide when to eat."
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The question requires an answer, and the answer itself is—
Complicated.
"I was going to offer it to him," Louis admits. "The Gift."
A significance he knows Lestat will understand.
As the interview drew towards a close, Louis had been considering it. Considering offering again, giving Daniel the opportunity to choose what he'd scoffed at once and asked for too young.
Of course, now Louis must consider if the idea came from him, or from someone else.
But it's a separate contemplation from the answer he is offering Lestat.
"He was dying then, and I'm glad he isn't dying any longer. I'm only sorry it was given to him as a punishment."
For Louis. For Daniel. Armand's spite reflecting back at them both.
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Not that dramatically. Not to die like a mortal would be aiming for, there. It's a thought like collapsing onto a fainting couch or throwing a valuable into a wall, where the sudden record scratch from bliss and fondness to whatever it is he is now currently experiencing demands an instant reaction.
He doesn't do that. Sits there. Louis was going to offer Daniel the Gift. Armand did it instead. Punishment.
"Oh," he says. Plucks some words out of the scramble of white noise occurring between his ears. "You have known him for some time?"
The thread he plucked at in Daniel's mind, leading back decades. It did not feel like fifty years of companionship, but profound all the same.
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A passing thought: had Daniel omitted San Francisco from the book entirely?
"I knew him when he was a young man," Louis explains, slow over the words. "He was charming. I found him interesting, right away."
However—
"I think we should tell you the story of how we met together."
Or at least, Louis should impart it in person. With Daniel's permission.
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It is an uncharacteristically meek kind of response. Daniel had said first, not like you do, on the subject of love. Of course, Lestat has no clear idea how Louis feels in turn, not really. Only that he shared his entire life story. Only that he spoke in great detail of Lestat's failings, sprinkled with lukewarm praise. Preternaturally charming, sometimes thoughtful. Only that he gave him photographs to print. Only that they speak in each other's minds.
How ridiculous, to feel jealousy. In what universe does he have the right to it? But then, when has he ever, when has that stopped it? Lestat watches the sky, its light pollution, its satellites amongst the stars.
"Yes," more sure. "Perhaps over a cocktail waitress or two." Haha, vampire jokes.
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A pause, where Louis feels some absurd twinge of—
Envy?
Jealousy.
Or some tender thing beneath that. Aware of his own failings. Of his persistent aversion to killing that Daniel does not share.
So Daniel and Lestat eat together. Easily, perhaps, without any of the reluctance or argument that had come to mark Lestat and Louis' shared hunting trips. A sore spot, struck unexpectedly.
"Yes," echoed, leaving the question of drinks to his arrival. Pivoting away with, "Would you let me take you to an opera, if I can find a suitable production in the city?"
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This is circumvented, and the mnh sound from his side of the phone is all pleasure. Louis can probably imagine the shape of the smile that produces it. The ugly snarl of jealousy relaxes slowly, as if being petted, soothed.
"Yes," he says. "It's been some time."
For them. For him. On that note—
"How do they dress for operas, now?"
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Their past ghosting into the present. Two tuxedos. Lestat's fingers linking his in a box. Louis would not have to walk behind him anymore, no playing at servitude.
Would Daniel call him foolish for it? For touching the past this way?
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Lestat pauses over that. Is that what he wants? All that finery, sophistication? Yes, there is appeal, he finds, a heart ache and yearning, and at the same time, the notion sounds a little like putting on an old costume of himself.
But. Maybe it would be nice.
And being, as mentioned, a huge fan of Molloy's work, having read his book so many times, he does recall the scene in question. Playing aristocrat and manservant. Louis' frustration, indignity, and what had his words been then? Lestat's opportunity to disarm him. He might consider the tenor, the hours they spent feasting, the context that it had all been done to placate him after he had raised his voice—
No. Steals his mind back from that.
"Would you enjoy it? A lavish thing."
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"I'd enjoy a night with you," is the beginning, a place to unravel from.
Does Louis wish for it to be lavish? To tread through memories? Does he love opera still? Would it be something shared between them?
"It doesn't have to be lavish," is true too.
Weaving his way to:
"It doesn't even need to be opera. But I thought music would make a good start."
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"Let's go to the opera," Lestat says, a shake of his head. "Whatever you choose, I will enjoy it, I know. The dresscode is—"
A flip of his free hand.
"You can advise me of that as well. You may be mortified to discover I do not have any white tie packed in my luggage."
Or, like, luggage.
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A very risky proposition, but it's been said aloud. Louis will deliver.
He wants to deliver.
"Will you call again?" He asks, after a moment's pause. A sliver of uncertainty. The possibility that Lestat won't. The same itch of worry that had marked their parting in New Orleans.
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Like then, like now, Lestat can't help but feel a little bit of mean-spirited if good-intentioned gratification for that uncertainty. Let Louis be anxious for him. He will be happy to indulge in reassurance now.
"Yes," he says. Back to dreamy. "Can I call you whenever I wish?"
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Louis, more inclined to a direct answer.
Yes, whenever he wishes.
"If I'm awake, I'll answer," is a necessary stipulation. Louis is hours and hours ahead of him. And he does sleep, closed inside his coffin when Lestat may be inclined to call. "And if I'm not, I'll answer you when I wake."
Here are these promises, offered up to Lestat.
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What a thrill it would be, the immediate anxiety and affection of waking up to a missed call, of returning it while the sunset light is still fading from the sky in the darkness of whatever crypt or underground chamber he has found for himself.
"Will you call me as well?" Lestat asks. Possibly setting himself up for a new torment in the future any day Louis does not call, but perhaps that was inevitable. "Whenever you wish."
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How easy to promise this.
They've made so many other promises to each other that perhaps there's some wisdom to the concept of starting smaller. A phone call, a voicemail, while all other things between them hang overhead untouched.
"You don't need to answer if you're busy."
Just to be clear. Lestat is busy. He has meetings. Louis doesn't intend to interfere.
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So considerate, now, to the point of offense, although Lestat manages not to feel that, not tonight. The patterning of little promises is important. So he indulges in a breath out that is close to a laugh, and says,
"Whatever you say," indulgent. He will entertain the idea of not picking up because he's too busy, and Louis being gracious about it. "What are you going to do when you end the call? More filing with Rashid?"
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