Daniel closes the lid of his laptop with a soft click, confident no one in this room is guessing his password, and stands up. He crosses the room to Louis, to look at him up close, assess him as best he can. He reaches out, lays hands on the other vampire's forearms, bracing. Just—
Something. Feelings, man. Daniel looks at him for a moment, trying to will him to understand how much he cares about him and all the shit he keeps trying to bury like layers of volcanic ash hardening inside of him, compressed and forgotten.
"Stop being so hard on yourself or I'll throw up or something," there.
That works. He looks over his shoulder to Lestat as he drops his hands, and gestures at him like!! Relax, remember? You'll be fine. Just fucking chill, chill right now, he sees you un-chilling yourself.
A thing Daniel might understand: the novelty of Louis carrying the memory of a fight into the next day.
The chair and it's debris are gone. How many times has it been as simple as that? Detritus swept up, the heat of anger cooled, the detail of whatever it was that prompted a disagreement lifted away?
But Louis has all of it still. Daniel's intercessions, Lestat's shouting, Louis' ugly sideswipe, the slammed door. All of it, here still. A strange, miserable kind of gratitude for it runs alongside a sickening awareness of how often, how easily, seventy-seven years passing with no friction to mark them.
Daniel's hands drop. Louis catches him on the downswing of the wider gesture. A tight squeeze of contact as Louis laces their fingers together. Holds there for a breath, as Louis tells him, "You should."
The squeeze of their fingers telegraphs, We're alright.
And then, Thank you, as an audible thing between them. Understanding clearly what kept Daniel awake, and knowing it wasn't awaiting Lestat's re-entry.
Louis and Daniel hold hands and Lestat doesn't vibrate himself into a million pieces.
Or anything. His grasp on the back of the armchair anchors him in place, and he tries out the thought that it will be okay, as Daniel said. It will be okay even if Louis pivots and returns to his room as soon as he has made sure Daniel is away to coffin. It will be okay if he stays and they exchange niceties, or they fight again, or Louis patiently untangles a remorseful Frenchman clinging to his legs. It will be, because anything is more okay than the nothing he has endured.
Manages a blink, a glance in return to Daniel. A tight smile. He is chill.
"Bonne nuit," soft-spoken. He has never yelled at anyone in his life.
Obliged to release Daniel to his coffin, to the sleep he needs, Louis is left to consider what next. How long he can linger in the entryway without making a choice. He watches Daniel go, lets him hold his attention until the sound of a door closing, the fading sounds of Daniel returning to coffin.
And then his gaze swings back to Lestat.
They are not so good with apologies, he and Lestat. Better with arguing, if their track record is anything to go off. All things feel fragile, unable to withstand the force of the cruelty they're capable of inflicting on each other. Too many new weak points, too many ways to shatter each other.
And Louis, closed in a room watching sunlight slant across the floor and thinking of promises made to their daughter. Almost made to Daniel.
"What now, Lestat?"
And then, a little thaw, rueful, as Louis observes, "The velvet is ruined."
As Daniel leaves, as Louis watches him go, Lestat steps out from around the armchair, hand trailing before bracing to lean. A significant percentage more concerned with striking a pose just so when Louis is in the room, even if he has spent most of the morning in various states of tears.
Tears that immediately threaten a return less for the observation of the velvet being ruined and more for that early sign of thaw. A smile breaks through, and he says, "It rained," with a gesture to indicate the sky from which rain happened to him personally.
What now, such a question.
"Louis, I'm sorry for last night," has a kind of familiar raspy quiet to it, like trying to near-whisper beneath some third party's notice, despite there being none present. Like they are speaking in a shared coffin, rather than an expansive living room. "And what I said."
Louis had recounted the series of apologies in New Orleans, the extravagance of each attempt, the persistence of them, how Lestat had made all his gestures on grand and grander scale, but this—
A simple string of words, offered so softly.
It is disarming in its unexpectedness. Louis is taken aback, and some flicker of that shows in his face, looking back at Lestat in his ruined velvet, his lovely hair drying into frizz, mascara dark beneath his eyes.
They hurt each other with such precision. Even after nearly eighty years parted.
"Do you still feel it?" is not an accusation. Only a carefully posed question, as Louis gathers himself.
There is still an overwound snarl in him, he knows, quick-grown tangles that have yet to be worked out. A few knots loosened. The hand braced on the chair back works claws into upholstery, a minor release of tension.
"Not all of it. I spoke a lot of nonsense," a dismissive gesture, that hand dropping, finding an anxious little handhold on an outer velvet seam. "Telling me of Armand would have done nothing to change the other night. It only would have made me feel better about things."
Which, in the grand scheme of it all, has no bearing on Louis' protective capacities, of his measure of the threats against them, of his abilities or maturity—those things Lestat swiped at with claws out, among others.
Still tender, still bleeding, the wounds Lestat had scored.
A lot of nonsense, Lestat says, but not entirely detached from the reality. From what Louis had allowed to happen through what feels like negligence now, in the light of day.
Maybe everything would be different if Louis had said something. Maybe Daniel wouldn't have been hurt.
Louis keeps these things to himself. Wounds to nurse slowly, to set against the running loop of thought Armand had left behind.
Says instead:
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you."
Not we. I.
Louis could hide behind Daniel. It wouldn't be entirely untrue. They'd come to that conclusion together, and like the story of that room in San Francisco, some of it was simply Daniel's to tell.
But what parts of it were Louis', he had not been eager to share.
Still sensitive enough for the continued gathering of crimson at his waterline, even as Lestat nods to this, attempts to let it in. The singular pronoun, the admission of a wrong thing. How habitual it had been to yell at each other about their various hurts and then wait until they decided not to be angry about it anymore, walls ignored rather than dismantled.
Tempting to make some excuse and scuttle away while the going is good, but the urge to remain in the same room as Louis overrides this easily.
"Eighty years on," he says. "More than that, even, and I am still unaccustomed to not being the only one you—"
A gesture, to fill in the rest of the sentence. Trust, maybe.
Trust. Of course he trusts Lestat. Louis had trusted him even when he had believed the worst, believed Lestat the architect of the trap that had killed their daughter. He had dreamed Lestat, a hallucinatory confidant.
Lestat has always been trusted. It's only—
"I don't want you to see me like that. To have all that in your head when you look at me."
There's no avoiding it with Daniel. Daniel had been there, in Dubai. He'd seen it. Unraveled it. Named it.
A pause, and Lestat leaves his post by the chair. Moves forwards. Close enough, then, that he can reach out and touch the collar of Louis' cardigan, unnecessarily adjusting. A recent habit for smaller, less pointedly intimate, but no less affectionate touches when the desire overtakes him.
"You have nothing to fear of how I might look at you. How I see you." A flutter of a hand at his chest. (More flattering details up close, like where rain didn't wash away a thin film of blood up the side of his neck, the clinging of micro-glitter next to his mouth lifted off the skin of someone unfortunate.) It's not about trust (or whatever other quality Lestat didn't verbalise), but isn't it? says the tip of his head.
He shrugs. "I will be here, anyway. I will always only be moments away from you."
Lestat is permitted this approach, these little touches. Louis meets him, fingers lifting slowly to skim a light, inspecting touch up the faint trail of blood at his throat. Press fingertips to collect the shimmer of glitter at the corner of his mouth.
"I came here because I wanted to be near you," Louis reminds him. "You and Daniel both."
There is no game.
If Louis had been wiser, he'd have stayed in Dubai. A defensible position, easy to draw those who might harm Daniel into the city to die. But they'd asked him to come, so Louis had boarded a plane. Promised Lestat his company for the duration of the tour.
Lestat holds himself very still at that touch to his neck, his face, breath held low in his chest while his hand rests butterfly-light at Louis' sternum. Be here, Daniel had advised, and Louis, too, asking for no greater purpose to his presence, save that his presence intrinsically has purpose.
"Yes," he says, still quiet between them. Resigned to the now predictable, familiar sting of being a third, perhaps the third, but in the mood to quietly ache about it rather than explode. Surely this will be fine in the longterm.
Still, he teeters on the edge of saying more, the urge to do so transparent in his expression, before saying, "I would like it if you spoke to me about hard things. Even when they have little to do with me, or nothing at all. It had been good for you, once."
Long ago. Park benches, walks through the Quarter, and Lestat had made himself an attentive listener.
There are moments when it felt close. Their night at the opera. Enclosed in Lestat's cottage, a hurricane battering the windows. Their shared pain, easier to access than long years apart and the damage Louis had collected.
His fingertips come away with a sheen of glitter.
"It was good," Louis agrees. The words he'd chosen for Daniel: a coal fire, vital, life-giving warmth. Lestat had been that. Could still be, maybe.
"I'll try."
An honest offer.
"We can try. I'll give you what I can."
Which parts, if any, will come easy.
His fingers catch the stringy ends of Lestat's hair. Smiles a little, for the mess of him. How lovely he is still.
I'll try twinges a little at despair, the part of him that yearns for all to be as it was without any effort at all—but is also very sweet and dear, this offer. Miles more than what he is owed, this he knows on some difficult to access level that knows he is owed nothing at all, really.
So. Lestat says, "Good," more of a breath than a word, and the balance between despair and gratitude resolves itself a little when he sees Louis smile, and his heart warms.
Ah, that's right, he is nothing of his best, composed self. This latest argument is nearly nothing compared to the one that broke them forever, although it had carried its echoes, as all of their arguments will, he thinks—so, some memories of carefully choosing his outfits with which to present his apologies, whether finely tailored and expensive or modest(-ish) and humbled, but always purposeful.
Instead, he is asking Louis to trust him with his inner demons again while looking like one of them. He draws some hair behind his ear as he says, "I was going to acquire a new camera for you, but they all look different now," so. No gifts, this time.
What business does Louis have with a camera? He'd barely made anything of his film in Paris.
"I'd rather have you back here," Louis tells him. "No need for a gift."
Equilibrium returning. Louis finding his footing. Packing the desperate, gnawing misery away, tamping it down and down and down. Lestat's fingers warming his skin through the thin fabric of his t-shirt.
"Want a hand with this?"
A hand turning, displaying the shine of glitter on his fingertips. An offer, made in spite of the tentative quality to this conversation, their reconciliation.
No need for a gift, as predicted. But the apology had taken. So that is something.
But he can sense it, Lestat can, an easing in Louis. If not a relaxing, then a balancing. He will take it and it allow it to balance him in return, and even feel a little foolish for having cried so dramatically on the sofa not that long ago. See, everything is fine, and will continue to be.
He flicks a glance to Louis' fingers, momentarily puzzled, before he gives a quiet sound of recognition. Back to Louis. What other answer could there possibly be but—
"Sure."
And then waits to see what happens next. Will Louis lick his face clean. That would be good, if he's taking suggestions.
Louis doesn't belabor the point. They've had enough theatrics in the past twenty-four hours.
He trusts Lestat to follow as Louis turns, makes his way back through the archway.
Between the three of them, only Daniel and Louis have crossed into each others rooms. Lestat's has been left, sacrosanct, as far as Louis knows. And Lestat has not invited himself into Louis' room.
Louis makes the decision on the fly. Does not cross into Lestat's room, only passes through his own, heading towards the lavish en suite bathroom.
(Briefly grateful he is not led to his own room, where Louis will find a current bad habit for hoarding shopping bags still filled with their purchases, clothes strewn about in the drama of choosing an outfit for any given evening, makeup smears in the ensuite sink, and a series of slightly wobbly claw marks decorating the edge of the coffin within to mimic the keys of a piano.)
Glances around the place, as neat and tidy as Louis ever presents himself to be, of course. Into the bathroom, where he purses his mouth slightly at his own reflection. Okay, sure, a little messy. A glitterier version of the creature Louis had uncovered in New Orleans, those months ago.
Considers saying, You don't have to, but that would be stupid.
He doesn't have to be in New York at all. He could be in Dubai, in his tower, testing his new-found autonomy against any challenger that cared to heed his invitation.
He is here.
He is lowering himself down alongside the tub, testing the taps. Rachida has artfully arranged a number of bottles, various oils and lotions and soaps and shampoos and otherwise, and Louis is thinking about which suit Lestat.
"I can leave after it's ready," he is saying. "And you can soak."
Soak off blood and glitter in the privacy of Louis' bathroom. Lestat needn't feel obligated to test the outer limits of their tenuous friendship tonight.
Every now and then, Lestat feels a little like he is being led down a path by Louis, heading somewhere unknown and strange, too curious to resist. To an opera, to a living room in which awaits terrible truths, and now to the fancy little bathroom, the sound of running water. Feeling along the boundaries of whatever they are now, exploring murky shallows.
Incapable, personally, of figuring it out for himself, clinging close to shore until invited to stray a little further out. Here, Louis asks that, and Lestat skirts doubtfully around the question, before feeling exasperated at himself enough to just say, "I don't want you to leave," which is a true thing.
It isn't a request Louis stay, really, but he feels it. Stay here, speak with him, be near, don't go be alone and afraid and sad. Lestat relieves him of his intent focus, shifting aside to go and peel his shirt off, still damp with rain water, pale skin cold with it.
Louis lowers himself down to perch on the side of the tub as water rushes from the tap. Watches Lestat, taking in the flex of muscle, the expanse of pale skin.
"Alright," acquiescing. Inviting. Yes, Louis will stay.
And now there is some time to fill between getting undressed and the tub filling to an acceptable degree, which nearly makes Lestat laugh as he sets about taking off his boots. He has never been shy in his immortal life, not when it comes to something as ordinary as his body. He doesn't remember if he experienced it in his mortal one, if he broke from it early, or never possessed it to begin with. Still, some feeling of willing vulnerability by the time he undoes his belt, and pushes damp velvet down off his thighs along with the layer beneath.
Doesn't bother with treating the garment as anything but something that needs to be thrown away, nudging it aside with an ankle.
"I've made my requests of you," he says. Talk to him. Be his friend again. Share what Louis can. Lestat paces for the bathtub, stepping into it. A sigh out for the pleasant warmth, up past his ankle. "Do you have any of me?"
It clearly hasn't occurred to Louis, that he might have requests. That he might make demands.
Louis reaches up a hand, an unnecessary offering. Lestat hardly needs to be steadied.
"I can't think of any," Louis admits. No sense scrabbling for something insincere. Can only offer: "I want you to stay. I was pleased, when I realized you and he were traveling together."
They were good for each other, Daniel and Lestat. Louis is reassured by their burgeoning acquaintance, would like to see it become a friendship.
Lowers himself down, absorbing this absence of request. Tempting to overthink it. His conduct is perfect the way it is. He is a lost cause. Or, simply, whatever problems exist aren't ones that can be corrected out. He worries at it a little before putting it away, settling close to where Louis is perched, as if not wanting to lose out on proximity.
"He wondered multiple times if I might kill him," comes out more amused than resentful. "I don't think he minded when he thought it was a possibility."
It never was, not really. Even before understanding their friendship, the things they shared, the love they have, and Louis' desire to have him as his own fledgling, before all of that, Daniel was Louis' storyteller. Chosen for that, at least. Lestat did not really make sport of destroying the things and people that Louis cared about, no matter what the good people of BookTok have to say.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Daniel closes the lid of his laptop with a soft click, confident no one in this room is guessing his password, and stands up. He crosses the room to Louis, to look at him up close, assess him as best he can. He reaches out, lays hands on the other vampire's forearms, bracing. Just—
Something. Feelings, man. Daniel looks at him for a moment, trying to will him to understand how much he cares about him and all the shit he keeps trying to bury like layers of volcanic ash hardening inside of him, compressed and forgotten.
"Stop being so hard on yourself or I'll throw up or something," there.
That works. He looks over his shoulder to Lestat as he drops his hands, and gestures at him like!! Relax, remember? You'll be fine. Just fucking chill, chill right now, he sees you un-chilling yourself.
Then, he announces:
"I'm going to bed."
no subject
The chair and it's debris are gone. How many times has it been as simple as that? Detritus swept up, the heat of anger cooled, the detail of whatever it was that prompted a disagreement lifted away?
But Louis has all of it still. Daniel's intercessions, Lestat's shouting, Louis' ugly sideswipe, the slammed door. All of it, here still. A strange, miserable kind of gratitude for it runs alongside a sickening awareness of how often, how easily, seventy-seven years passing with no friction to mark them.
Daniel's hands drop. Louis catches him on the downswing of the wider gesture. A tight squeeze of contact as Louis laces their fingers together. Holds there for a breath, as Louis tells him, "You should."
The squeeze of their fingers telegraphs, We're alright.
And then, Thank you, as an audible thing between them. Understanding clearly what kept Daniel awake, and knowing it wasn't awaiting Lestat's re-entry.
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Or anything. His grasp on the back of the armchair anchors him in place, and he tries out the thought that it will be okay, as Daniel said. It will be okay even if Louis pivots and returns to his room as soon as he has made sure Daniel is away to coffin. It will be okay if he stays and they exchange niceties, or they fight again, or Louis patiently untangles a remorseful Frenchman clinging to his legs. It will be, because anything is more okay than the nothing he has endured.
Manages a blink, a glance in return to Daniel. A tight smile. He is chill.
"Bonne nuit," soft-spoken. He has never yelled at anyone in his life.
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And then his gaze swings back to Lestat.
They are not so good with apologies, he and Lestat. Better with arguing, if their track record is anything to go off. All things feel fragile, unable to withstand the force of the cruelty they're capable of inflicting on each other. Too many new weak points, too many ways to shatter each other.
And Louis, closed in a room watching sunlight slant across the floor and thinking of promises made to their daughter. Almost made to Daniel.
"What now, Lestat?"
And then, a little thaw, rueful, as Louis observes, "The velvet is ruined."
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Tears that immediately threaten a return less for the observation of the velvet being ruined and more for that early sign of thaw. A smile breaks through, and he says, "It rained," with a gesture to indicate the sky from which rain happened to him personally.
What now, such a question.
"Louis, I'm sorry for last night," has a kind of familiar raspy quiet to it, like trying to near-whisper beneath some third party's notice, despite there being none present. Like they are speaking in a shared coffin, rather than an expansive living room. "And what I said."
no subject
Louis had recounted the series of apologies in New Orleans, the extravagance of each attempt, the persistence of them, how Lestat had made all his gestures on grand and grander scale, but this—
A simple string of words, offered so softly.
It is disarming in its unexpectedness. Louis is taken aback, and some flicker of that shows in his face, looking back at Lestat in his ruined velvet, his lovely hair drying into frizz, mascara dark beneath his eyes.
They hurt each other with such precision. Even after nearly eighty years parted.
"Do you still feel it?" is not an accusation. Only a carefully posed question, as Louis gathers himself.
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There is still an overwound snarl in him, he knows, quick-grown tangles that have yet to be worked out. A few knots loosened. The hand braced on the chair back works claws into upholstery, a minor release of tension.
"Not all of it. I spoke a lot of nonsense," a dismissive gesture, that hand dropping, finding an anxious little handhold on an outer velvet seam. "Telling me of Armand would have done nothing to change the other night. It only would have made me feel better about things."
Which, in the grand scheme of it all, has no bearing on Louis' protective capacities, of his measure of the threats against them, of his abilities or maturity—those things Lestat swiped at with claws out, among others.
no subject
A lot of nonsense, Lestat says, but not entirely detached from the reality. From what Louis had allowed to happen through what feels like negligence now, in the light of day.
Maybe everything would be different if Louis had said something. Maybe Daniel wouldn't have been hurt.
Louis keeps these things to himself. Wounds to nurse slowly, to set against the running loop of thought Armand had left behind.
Says instead:
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you."
Not we. I.
Louis could hide behind Daniel. It wouldn't be entirely untrue. They'd come to that conclusion together, and like the story of that room in San Francisco, some of it was simply Daniel's to tell.
But what parts of it were Louis', he had not been eager to share.
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Still sensitive enough for the continued gathering of crimson at his waterline, even as Lestat nods to this, attempts to let it in. The singular pronoun, the admission of a wrong thing. How habitual it had been to yell at each other about their various hurts and then wait until they decided not to be angry about it anymore, walls ignored rather than dismantled.
Tempting to make some excuse and scuttle away while the going is good, but the urge to remain in the same room as Louis overrides this easily.
"Eighty years on," he says. "More than that, even, and I am still unaccustomed to not being the only one you—"
A gesture, to fill in the rest of the sentence. Trust, maybe.
lol the link
Trust. Of course he trusts Lestat. Louis had trusted him even when he had believed the worst, believed Lestat the architect of the trap that had killed their daughter. He had dreamed Lestat, a hallucinatory confidant.
Lestat has always been trusted. It's only—
"I don't want you to see me like that. To have all that in your head when you look at me."
There's no avoiding it with Daniel. Daniel had been there, in Dubai. He'd seen it. Unraveled it. Named it.
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A pause, and Lestat leaves his post by the chair. Moves forwards. Close enough, then, that he can reach out and touch the collar of Louis' cardigan, unnecessarily adjusting. A recent habit for smaller, less pointedly intimate, but no less affectionate touches when the desire overtakes him.
"You have nothing to fear of how I might look at you. How I see you." A flutter of a hand at his chest. (More flattering details up close, like where rain didn't wash away a thin film of blood up the side of his neck, the clinging of micro-glitter next to his mouth lifted off the skin of someone unfortunate.) It's not about trust (or whatever other quality Lestat didn't verbalise), but isn't it? says the tip of his head.
He shrugs. "I will be here, anyway. I will always only be moments away from you."
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"I came here because I wanted to be near you," Louis reminds him. "You and Daniel both."
There is no game.
If Louis had been wiser, he'd have stayed in Dubai. A defensible position, easy to draw those who might harm Daniel into the city to die. But they'd asked him to come, so Louis had boarded a plane. Promised Lestat his company for the duration of the tour.
"Do you understand?"
no subject
"Yes," he says, still quiet between them. Resigned to the now predictable, familiar sting of being a third, perhaps the third, but in the mood to quietly ache about it rather than explode. Surely this will be fine in the longterm.
Still, he teeters on the edge of saying more, the urge to do so transparent in his expression, before saying, "I would like it if you spoke to me about hard things. Even when they have little to do with me, or nothing at all. It had been good for you, once."
Long ago. Park benches, walks through the Quarter, and Lestat had made himself an attentive listener.
no subject
There are moments when it felt close. Their night at the opera. Enclosed in Lestat's cottage, a hurricane battering the windows. Their shared pain, easier to access than long years apart and the damage Louis had collected.
His fingertips come away with a sheen of glitter.
"It was good," Louis agrees. The words he'd chosen for Daniel: a coal fire, vital, life-giving warmth. Lestat had been that. Could still be, maybe.
"I'll try."
An honest offer.
"We can try. I'll give you what I can."
Which parts, if any, will come easy.
His fingers catch the stringy ends of Lestat's hair. Smiles a little, for the mess of him. How lovely he is still.
no subject
So. Lestat says, "Good," more of a breath than a word, and the balance between despair and gratitude resolves itself a little when he sees Louis smile, and his heart warms.
Ah, that's right, he is nothing of his best, composed self. This latest argument is nearly nothing compared to the one that broke them forever, although it had carried its echoes, as all of their arguments will, he thinks—so, some memories of carefully choosing his outfits with which to present his apologies, whether finely tailored and expensive or modest(-ish) and humbled, but always purposeful.
Instead, he is asking Louis to trust him with his inner demons again while looking like one of them. He draws some hair behind his ear as he says, "I was going to acquire a new camera for you, but they all look different now," so. No gifts, this time.
no subject
What business does Louis have with a camera? He'd barely made anything of his film in Paris.
"I'd rather have you back here," Louis tells him. "No need for a gift."
Equilibrium returning. Louis finding his footing. Packing the desperate, gnawing misery away, tamping it down and down and down. Lestat's fingers warming his skin through the thin fabric of his t-shirt.
"Want a hand with this?"
A hand turning, displaying the shine of glitter on his fingertips. An offer, made in spite of the tentative quality to this conversation, their reconciliation.
no subject
But he can sense it, Lestat can, an easing in Louis. If not a relaxing, then a balancing. He will take it and it allow it to balance him in return, and even feel a little foolish for having cried so dramatically on the sofa not that long ago. See, everything is fine, and will continue to be.
He flicks a glance to Louis' fingers, momentarily puzzled, before he gives a quiet sound of recognition. Back to Louis. What other answer could there possibly be but—
"Sure."
And then waits to see what happens next. Will Louis lick his face clean. That would be good, if he's taking suggestions.
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So little ceremony.
Louis doesn't belabor the point. They've had enough theatrics in the past twenty-four hours.
He trusts Lestat to follow as Louis turns, makes his way back through the archway.
Between the three of them, only Daniel and Louis have crossed into each others rooms. Lestat's has been left, sacrosanct, as far as Louis knows. And Lestat has not invited himself into Louis' room.
Louis makes the decision on the fly. Does not cross into Lestat's room, only passes through his own, heading towards the lavish en suite bathroom.
no subject
(Briefly grateful he is not led to his own room, where Louis will find a current bad habit for hoarding shopping bags still filled with their purchases, clothes strewn about in the drama of choosing an outfit for any given evening, makeup smears in the ensuite sink, and a series of slightly wobbly claw marks decorating the edge of the coffin within to mimic the keys of a piano.)
Glances around the place, as neat and tidy as Louis ever presents himself to be, of course. Into the bathroom, where he purses his mouth slightly at his own reflection. Okay, sure, a little messy. A glitterier version of the creature Louis had uncovered in New Orleans, those months ago.
Considers saying, You don't have to, but that would be stupid.
no subject
He doesn't have to be in New York at all. He could be in Dubai, in his tower, testing his new-found autonomy against any challenger that cared to heed his invitation.
He is here.
He is lowering himself down alongside the tub, testing the taps. Rachida has artfully arranged a number of bottles, various oils and lotions and soaps and shampoos and otherwise, and Louis is thinking about which suit Lestat.
"I can leave after it's ready," he is saying. "And you can soak."
Soak off blood and glitter in the privacy of Louis' bathroom. Lestat needn't feel obligated to test the outer limits of their tenuous friendship tonight.
no subject
Incapable, personally, of figuring it out for himself, clinging close to shore until invited to stray a little further out. Here, Louis asks that, and Lestat skirts doubtfully around the question, before feeling exasperated at himself enough to just say, "I don't want you to leave," which is a true thing.
It isn't a request Louis stay, really, but he feels it. Stay here, speak with him, be near, don't go be alone and afraid and sad. Lestat relieves him of his intent focus, shifting aside to go and peel his shirt off, still damp with rain water, pale skin cold with it.
no subject
They know each other too well.
They want the same things.
Louis lowers himself down to perch on the side of the tub as water rushes from the tap. Watches Lestat, taking in the flex of muscle, the expanse of pale skin.
"Alright," acquiescing. Inviting. Yes, Louis will stay.
no subject
And now there is some time to fill between getting undressed and the tub filling to an acceptable degree, which nearly makes Lestat laugh as he sets about taking off his boots. He has never been shy in his immortal life, not when it comes to something as ordinary as his body. He doesn't remember if he experienced it in his mortal one, if he broke from it early, or never possessed it to begin with. Still, some feeling of willing vulnerability by the time he undoes his belt, and pushes damp velvet down off his thighs along with the layer beneath.
Doesn't bother with treating the garment as anything but something that needs to be thrown away, nudging it aside with an ankle.
"I've made my requests of you," he says. Talk to him. Be his friend again. Share what Louis can. Lestat paces for the bathtub, stepping into it. A sigh out for the pleasant warmth, up past his ankle. "Do you have any of me?"
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It clearly hasn't occurred to Louis, that he might have requests. That he might make demands.
Louis reaches up a hand, an unnecessary offering. Lestat hardly needs to be steadied.
"I can't think of any," Louis admits. No sense scrabbling for something insincere. Can only offer: "I want you to stay. I was pleased, when I realized you and he were traveling together."
They were good for each other, Daniel and Lestat. Louis is reassured by their burgeoning acquaintance, would like to see it become a friendship.
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Lowers himself down, absorbing this absence of request. Tempting to overthink it. His conduct is perfect the way it is. He is a lost cause. Or, simply, whatever problems exist aren't ones that can be corrected out. He worries at it a little before putting it away, settling close to where Louis is perched, as if not wanting to lose out on proximity.
"He wondered multiple times if I might kill him," comes out more amused than resentful. "I don't think he minded when he thought it was a possibility."
It never was, not really. Even before understanding their friendship, the things they shared, the love they have, and Louis' desire to have him as his own fledgling, before all of that, Daniel was Louis' storyteller. Chosen for that, at least. Lestat did not really make sport of destroying the things and people that Louis cared about, no matter what the good people of BookTok have to say.
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yada yada, holler for edits
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