Yes, it does hurt. It hurts as it will always hurt. Maybe more so now for the freshness of the wound, torn open again by Daniel's revelations.
Lestat isn't prying. But the memory stirs up pain regardless, something to weather with a deep inhale, fingers running up and down the fabric of Leatat's jacket. He is here. They are here.
Claudia is still gone.
"Our daughter," Louis murmurs. A crack in his voice, eased by a breath, a pause. Gathering steadiness as he tells him, "She had plenty of you in her."
How different would things have been if they'd stayed? If Louis had tried harder to dissuade her from her plans?
"Headstrong," Louis says, a little laughter in his voice. "Talented. Voice like you wouldn't believe."
Twisted into something unbearable. But they don't need talk about that. Not tonight.
"I wish you'd seen her," softly. "I wish you'd gotten to see her before."
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."
Receiving it now, he is uncertain. There is still pain. The memory of that fight that lives in his body still, alongside the trial. Alongside the loss of Claudia.
But it's less open wound, more scar tissue. Healing sped along by the process of untangling the memories as Daniel tapped at his keyboard, pressed Louis with question upon question.
Even so, Louis of all people knows that there is some relief in speaking a thing aloud.
When Louis lifts his arms from about Lestat's shoulders, it's only to take his hand. Lace their fingers together over the frame.
"I know you were trying to apologize at the trial. That you meant it, then."
Since they are skirting along that territory.
"I wasn't ready to hear it."
Not in the least because Louis hadn't understood. Hadn't realized what role Lestat was trying to play.
"But I know now. I know what you were trying to offer."
He settles back ever so as that arm retreats, but splays his fingers willingly for the touch to his hand, accommodating it. Brings it closer to him, against his sternum, feels and allows to pass by the little twinge of renewed memory. An apology for Louis.
Claudia had been given none of it at all. He hadn't truly spoken to her, only read his lines, looked at her when he meant them.
Here, Lestat squeezes his hand.
"It was my heart's desire that you would live to do so," he says. "To hear it, someday."
A breath in, a theatrical way of hiking up his shoulders, "So now that I have it, I shall find a new one," with the rush of the exhale. He's fine and no one's crying, flinging a look back out at the park around them, keeping an iron grip of Louis' hand.
A flex of something in his chest. A new heart's desire. What will that be for the Vampire Lestat?
Louis is quiet. Makes a minor rearrangement as they sit together, reclaiming his arm's place around Lestat's shoulders, trading off the link of their hand. Intimate. They had sat so close in New Orleans, but never like this.
"We ruined it together, in New Orleans," Louis offers. "Wasn't just you."
Daniel may scoff over this, have something to say about how Louis takes on guilt.
But Louis says this anyway. Keeps hold of Lestat as he continues, "I don't need you to apologize for it again. Not anymore."
Quiet pleasure for Louis readjusting the way they sit together, letting him keep a hand, the resettling of the closeness of his arm around Lestat's shoulders, both of them leaning into the other. It feels a little like the world entire rearranging itself to become a more comfortable and amiable place, whole mountains moved to improve the view as Louis tells him he doesn't need to apologise again, again, again.
He has thought of so many ways to do so. Sometimes imagined what forgiveness would feel like. More often, imagined the sting of its absence.
Daniel may not scoff. If Louis had of rEaD tHe BoOk, him being a big book reader and all, he may find traces of nuance, of criticism. Of course, Lestat could not guide him this way. Call it ego, call it self-loathing, that he more or less only parses his own glaring mistakes.
He looks at him, a quiet study made of his features. He knows what it looks like when Louis is lying to him, knows better now when Lestat chose not to notice it. Here, a more careful regard, and then a flicker of feeling in him. Accepting it, quietly.
"'We ruined it together'," he says, meanwhile. "That might make a good lyric."
It is a lovely, cool night. The park is quiet, even with the noise of the city beyond them. Louis is so attuned to the link of their fingers, how Lestat permits him this minor touch, the shift and slip of his thumb across the back of his hand, knuckles, little bits of contact as they speak.
"It might," Louis agrees, as if he is any authority. Music had never been Louis' gift. "Will all your songs be about us?"
Egocentric, maybe, but Louis wouldn't begrudge him. Finds some sense in it. Louis has his book. Lestat will have his tour, his album.
He is entitled to it, to make something of their romance.
A quiet, breath of laughter, affectionate in the way it might be teasing.
"You're being so serious," Lestat says, hooking the photo against his palm so he can bring up one finger to tap a touch to Louis' chin. He can feel that earnest leniency behind the question. Louis and his deliberate deciding to be fine with whatever Lestat might commit to a record.
But, to answer his question, "Not all, yes, but some. The best ones."
Settling that hand and the photograph it carries back onto his lap. "You're an inspiring muse. Perhaps when you get back into your photography," spoken as an inevitability, now that Louis is free from the shadow of a most boorish gremlin, and also a little hair toss to accompany his claim, "I shall grant you the same favour. I am missing from your art."
It's not missed, that this is presented as inevitable.
What had Daniel said of it, in the book? Louis is hard pressed to guess. Daniel would be truthful, but perhaps his truth would be too generous, overly kind.
"My art," is a gentle scoff of a rejoinder. Dismissing. "I put that camera down almost eighty years ago, Lestat. Don't let Daniel be making me out as something I'm not."
Important, that he be recognized for what he was. Louis was no artist.
"Ah, nearly eighty years ago," Lestat says, leaning back in the hold Louis has on him to square on him a look. "I wonder what life might have been like at the time, for your passion to fail you. Such a mystery, and we may never know."
Goading, but he keeps his tone gentle, playful, including the innocence and impression of wounded feeling he loads into his voice when he adds, "You don't wish to take pictures of me?"
No, they do not need to dissect the nuances of Paris. Of when Louis put his camera down, why he had never found a reason to pick it back up.
They have not discussed the book.
Instead, tonight, Louis shakes his head. Squeezes their linked fingers.
"You're impossible," Louis tells him, achingly fond.
No use in splitting hairs between the finer points of photography and pictures he might take of Lestat. The difference between documenting and insighting. What he lacks, recognizes he lacks. What is missing in him that should come easy, to an artist.
"You don't think you'll have more photos than you know what to do with once you get yourself onstage?"
His kicked dog expression is immediately split open with a smile. Yes, he is impossible, an impossibility, and somehow, not half as stubborn as Louis de Pointe du Lac. Or perhaps equally, in his own way, at least about the things he wants. Louis, about the things he does not.
"Compelling, your argument," Lestat cedes. "But will any of them be able to look at me the way you do?"
They are not companions. This has been established. The heartache Lestat has for the potentiality, and occasionally the certainty, of Louis and Daniel finding each other has no bearing on the simple reality that they both view each other in certain ways.
His eyes hood, a little, as he adds, "Or shall your only documentation of the way you see me be through Daniel Molloy's account?"
Less playful, admittedly, but still soft, established hurt held in reserve. Off-roading into a conversation about himself rather than Louis' latent artistic tendencies. So it goes.
But it is as Claudia had once warned. Lestat is his heart. There is such relief in his nearness. How little time it takes to fall into him.
How intimately they know each other. Lestat, the only person on this earth who had seen Louis' brown eyes.
Lestat, who says will any of them be able to look at me the way you do? and Louis feels the old covetous flare of desire. All this time, wanting Lestat all to himself.
A held breath. Looking at him, conflicting emotions tangling in his chest.
"My account," softly, absolution for Daniel. "My memories."
His thumb, running along Lestat's knuckles as he tells him, "Is this what you want me to give you? Your portrait?"
This absolution is met with a steady look, a slight dimming of something behind his eyes. Yes, alright, Louis' account, memories, Louis' words. Is now the night to talk about the book? No, thinks Lestat. It's been a nice evening. He has a gift in his hands, and Louis' arm around him, and their hands tangled.
Will there ever be a time? Too good, too bad, just right?
Mercifully, there's no silence to fill. The smile he has for Louis' question is a milder thing than it might have been before, but not disingenuous.
"I would enjoy that indulgence," he says, easy. "But only if it would please you, Louis."
All the more reason for them to be better. More than what his limited ability could provide.
Louis' eyes drop to their linked fingers.
"I'd like to please you," Louis tells him. A thing unearthed in him, this desire. Still inside him even now. What a pleasure it is to offer Lestat the things Louis is certain he will enjoy.
But photos. There is something fraught in that.
"Ask me again when you've finished your compositions. We'll see."
See if Louis can bear to give him something less than art.
After? he's finished? his compositions?, and then we'll see? For a portrait???
Lestat lifts their linked hands, brushes a kiss to Louis' knuckles, and says, "I don't agree to those terms, but we can reopen negotiations in due course. Come," and he gets to his feet, keeping Louis' hand, pulling him up off the bench with easy strength, and still not letting go once this is done. "Let's visit Giuseppe Verdi's monument and give our thanks for the nice evening out."
And it is a nice evening. A comfortable chill in the air that reminds Lestat of former homes before New Orleans, not unpleasantly. An opera, a gift, an absolution.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Lestat isn't prying. But the memory stirs up pain regardless, something to weather with a deep inhale, fingers running up and down the fabric of Leatat's jacket. He is here. They are here.
Claudia is still gone.
"Our daughter," Louis murmurs. A crack in his voice, eased by a breath, a pause. Gathering steadiness as he tells him, "She had plenty of you in her."
How different would things have been if they'd stayed? If Louis had tried harder to dissuade her from her plans?
"Headstrong," Louis says, a little laughter in his voice. "Talented. Voice like you wouldn't believe."
Twisted into something unbearable. But they don't need talk about that. Not tonight.
"I wish you'd seen her," softly. "I wish you'd gotten to see her before."
no subject
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."
no subject
Receiving it now, he is uncertain. There is still pain. The memory of that fight that lives in his body still, alongside the trial. Alongside the loss of Claudia.
But it's less open wound, more scar tissue. Healing sped along by the process of untangling the memories as Daniel tapped at his keyboard, pressed Louis with question upon question.
Even so, Louis of all people knows that there is some relief in speaking a thing aloud.
When Louis lifts his arms from about Lestat's shoulders, it's only to take his hand. Lace their fingers together over the frame.
"I know you were trying to apologize at the trial. That you meant it, then."
Since they are skirting along that territory.
"I wasn't ready to hear it."
Not in the least because Louis hadn't understood. Hadn't realized what role Lestat was trying to play.
"But I know now. I know what you were trying to offer."
no subject
Claudia had been given none of it at all. He hadn't truly spoken to her, only read his lines, looked at her when he meant them.
Here, Lestat squeezes his hand.
"It was my heart's desire that you would live to do so," he says. "To hear it, someday."
A breath in, a theatrical way of hiking up his shoulders, "So now that I have it, I shall find a new one," with the rush of the exhale. He's fine and no one's crying, flinging a look back out at the park around them, keeping an iron grip of Louis' hand.
no subject
Louis is quiet. Makes a minor rearrangement as they sit together, reclaiming his arm's place around Lestat's shoulders, trading off the link of their hand. Intimate. They had sat so close in New Orleans, but never like this.
"We ruined it together, in New Orleans," Louis offers. "Wasn't just you."
Daniel may scoff over this, have something to say about how Louis takes on guilt.
But Louis says this anyway. Keeps hold of Lestat as he continues, "I don't need you to apologize for it again. Not anymore."
no subject
He has thought of so many ways to do so. Sometimes imagined what forgiveness would feel like. More often, imagined the sting of its absence.
Daniel may not scoff. If Louis had of rEaD tHe BoOk, him being a big book reader and all, he may find traces of nuance, of criticism. Of course, Lestat could not guide him this way. Call it ego, call it self-loathing, that he more or less only parses his own glaring mistakes.
He looks at him, a quiet study made of his features. He knows what it looks like when Louis is lying to him, knows better now when Lestat chose not to notice it. Here, a more careful regard, and then a flicker of feeling in him. Accepting it, quietly.
"'We ruined it together'," he says, meanwhile. "That might make a good lyric."
no subject
"It might," Louis agrees, as if he is any authority. Music had never been Louis' gift. "Will all your songs be about us?"
Egocentric, maybe, but Louis wouldn't begrudge him. Finds some sense in it. Louis has his book. Lestat will have his tour, his album.
He is entitled to it, to make something of their romance.
no subject
"You're being so serious," Lestat says, hooking the photo against his palm so he can bring up one finger to tap a touch to Louis' chin. He can feel that earnest leniency behind the question. Louis and his deliberate deciding to be fine with whatever Lestat might commit to a record.
But, to answer his question, "Not all, yes, but some. The best ones."
Settling that hand and the photograph it carries back onto his lap. "You're an inspiring muse. Perhaps when you get back into your photography," spoken as an inevitability, now that Louis is free from the shadow of a most boorish gremlin, and also a little hair toss to accompany his claim, "I shall grant you the same favour. I am missing from your art."
no subject
What had Daniel said of it, in the book? Louis is hard pressed to guess. Daniel would be truthful, but perhaps his truth would be too generous, overly kind.
"My art," is a gentle scoff of a rejoinder. Dismissing. "I put that camera down almost eighty years ago, Lestat. Don't let Daniel be making me out as something I'm not."
Important, that he be recognized for what he was. Louis was no artist.
"Better muse than photographer, I'd say."
no subject
Goading, but he keeps his tone gentle, playful, including the innocence and impression of wounded feeling he loads into his voice when he adds, "You don't wish to take pictures of me?"
no subject
They have not discussed the book.
Instead, tonight, Louis shakes his head. Squeezes their linked fingers.
"You're impossible," Louis tells him, achingly fond.
No use in splitting hairs between the finer points of photography and pictures he might take of Lestat. The difference between documenting and insighting. What he lacks, recognizes he lacks. What is missing in him that should come easy, to an artist.
"You don't think you'll have more photos than you know what to do with once you get yourself onstage?"
no subject
"Compelling, your argument," Lestat cedes. "But will any of them be able to look at me the way you do?"
They are not companions. This has been established. The heartache Lestat has for the potentiality, and occasionally the certainty, of Louis and Daniel finding each other has no bearing on the simple reality that they both view each other in certain ways.
His eyes hood, a little, as he adds, "Or shall your only documentation of the way you see me be through Daniel Molloy's account?"
Less playful, admittedly, but still soft, established hurt held in reserve. Off-roading into a conversation about himself rather than Louis' latent artistic tendencies. So it goes.
no subject
But it is as Claudia had once warned. Lestat is his heart. There is such relief in his nearness. How little time it takes to fall into him.
How intimately they know each other. Lestat, the only person on this earth who had seen Louis' brown eyes.
Lestat, who says will any of them be able to look at me the way you do? and Louis feels the old covetous flare of desire. All this time, wanting Lestat all to himself.
A held breath. Looking at him, conflicting emotions tangling in his chest.
"My account," softly, absolution for Daniel. "My memories."
His thumb, running along Lestat's knuckles as he tells him, "Is this what you want me to give you? Your portrait?"
no subject
Will there ever be a time? Too good, too bad, just right?
Mercifully, there's no silence to fill. The smile he has for Louis' question is a milder thing than it might have been before, but not disingenuous.
"I would enjoy that indulgence," he says, easy. "But only if it would please you, Louis."
A surrender, giving up the game.
no subject
All the more reason for them to be better. More than what his limited ability could provide.
Louis' eyes drop to their linked fingers.
"I'd like to please you," Louis tells him. A thing unearthed in him, this desire. Still inside him even now. What a pleasure it is to offer Lestat the things Louis is certain he will enjoy.
But photos. There is something fraught in that.
"Ask me again when you've finished your compositions. We'll see."
See if Louis can bear to give him something less than art.
no subject
After? he's finished? his compositions?, and then we'll see? For a portrait???
Lestat lifts their linked hands, brushes a kiss to Louis' knuckles, and says, "I don't agree to those terms, but we can reopen negotiations in due course. Come," and he gets to his feet, keeping Louis' hand, pulling him up off the bench with easy strength, and still not letting go once this is done. "Let's visit Giuseppe Verdi's monument and give our thanks for the nice evening out."
And it is a nice evening. A comfortable chill in the air that reminds Lestat of former homes before New Orleans, not unpleasantly. An opera, a gift, an absolution.