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.
The most unsurprising news in the world. It might be tempting to presume that vampirism has instilled this lack of fear in Daniel, but Louis is well aware it's a pre-existing trait.
He leans over to take up the soft washcloth, unbidden, to dip into the rising water. Douses it, squeezing away the excess, as he tells Lestat, "He has never minded the possibility of a sudden death."
Maybe because after surviving San Francisco, all else paled in comparison.
Louis does not say this.
"Why did you go looking for him, Lestat?"
Unclear if this is safer territory. It feels easier than giving Lestat leeway to ask any questions that are surely waiting for the right moment, to talk about the immediate past. Lestat's presence on the tour. The surprise of him echoing back through Daniel's head so suddenly that night.
A quick search of Louis' face—is this a transgression, despite the gladness? perhaps—before that softens, and Lestat shrugs bare shoulders.
The water, lapping a little at curved sides as he draws his knees up, anchors his hands at the ankles. "My name," he says, "that, at first. Like a sudden swarm of butterflies in a garden—radio and conversation and TV and the internet. Not so noisy, just new." Seven unwanted sons deep and Gabrielle de Lioncourt started making up names, he supposes. No one else has it. Or it's just old. He doesn't know for sure.
Easy, then, to pick up when it became a public item. "I learned of the book. I read the book. Then the man who wrote it, also on the radio and on TV, an obvious vampire. I wanted to meet him. I was curious. I might have kept my distance if he wasn't attacked."
A beat, then Lestat says, "No, I wouldn't have. But it made for a thrilling meet-cute."
A flash of humor in response, a shadow of a smile. Yes, it likely made for a unique first impression. Lestat would like that. Would perhaps have sought an equally dramatic entry if one had not presented itself.
Louis works a lather into the cloth. Uses the sodden fabric to begin working the streaks of blood from Lestat's skin. Something to do with his hands. An excuse to touch Lestat safely. A test, seeing how much he can tolerate before he must leave the room.
"I owe him a great deal," Louis says. Soft. A little distant in spite of himself. Gone a few steps away with his guilt, with his pain. Sinking in to the loop of confirmation: he'd been in the building, and he hadn't realized what was happening. And now here they all are.
Beneath the water, nails dimple flesh. Not quite breaking it.
And Lestat submits to this attention, head tipping side. A hidden tangle of blonde hair where blood had dried into it like mud, coming loose beneath warm water and the texture of the cloth and focus. His eyeline skims away, looking at the rising surface of clear water, the distortions of himself through it. It's been a long time since he's been touched this way.
And it's happening so effortlessly. There were a lot of moments in the book that had made compelled him to rip it into little pieces, his first review to Daniel when he'd baited him to ask for it. One word, undeserving, which he had felt anger for, and then felt it burrow its way into him, and stay there, and become truth. Thinks it now, or, thinks it in the way a splinter is thought of when one accidentally makes contact with it.
A breath out, an agreement. Louis owes him a great deal and Lestat is aware of the ways he does as well, splinters or no splinters.
"Yes," is easy, and he looks back up at Louis to say it. "He finds the right kind of joy in it, I think. He reminds me of my own early days."
After the horror, anyway. One can't judge a whole vampiric life on a few hours of horror.
A little fragment of a memory—How could you keep it from me!—and then, what he barely remembers being his own voice—You have misunderstood everything. And then disaster.
"It would have ruined him, back then," Lestat says.
Not because he knows Daniel well, or understands what kind of young man he was. But he understands Louis' caution. He has felt it himself. But Louis had been wiser, and stronger, clearly, than Lestat had been. He sways a little, leaning into the touch at his shoulder. That he thinks of Nicki again, that he thinks next of Gabrielle, only confirms to him something that he knows is true.
All vampires share the same story. Face the same conflicts. It takes some conscious effort to draw himself away from the enticing whirlpool of his own past, sitting bare and vaguely out of time, the scent of floral soap and blood and Louis in the air.
Yes, he can relate. In too many ways. Maddening amounts.
His arms come out of the water, heedless of the mess that will be made as he follows impulse and circles them around Louis' waist. "I'm glad all the time that I made you," he says, gazing up at Louis with a certain kind of transparent adoration that both comes easier these days but harks to earlier history. "That you live still."
I'm sorry, he wishes to say again, but resists only because Louis will shush him if he does.
Emotion sticks in Louis' throat, disarmed by the combination of damp embrace and the expression Lestat wears. How underserving Louis feels of it, as much now as he had then.
Thank you, he'd said while the wind battered Lestat's little cottage. As rainwater dripped in through the ceiling. Insignificant words for the gift Lestat had given. Not just Louis' life, but the love in which he'd bestowed it.
Louis lays the cloth over Lestat's shoulder so he might touch his face. Wet fingers sketching along Lestat's cheek before Louis cups a palm there. Feels affection, overwhelming, alongside all other complicated, difficult emotion they feel for each other. Makes no attempt to break the embrace, looking into Lestat's eyes and feeling the way all things settle around them, the echoing of their heartbeats, their breath, perfectly in time.
"You saved me."
More than once.
"I'm glad it was you."
Is so deeply complicated. How many years, thinking Armand had saved him. How many years, thinking Lestat had damned both Louis and Claudia to the sunlight, washing his hands of their lives together.
How long Louis had loathed himself for loving him still, even after what had happened.
It's something of a guiding star, love. Lestat is more than capable of feeling a whole spectrum of contradicting things, sometimes violently, sometimes in ways that feel like demonic possession for how thoroughly it overtakes sense and reason. But if there is any opportunity to pause, then he can reach for this, this love, and make it make sense of everything. Unchanging and constant. For better or for worse.
His arms squeeze in answer, head tipping into the hand at his face. "You save me too," he says. "You give me reason."
And this will be so, no matter what they are to each other, or where they are. Of course, the reality of not being companions will continue to make him insane, but an insane person who would like to live out his eternity, and find the means to enjoy it.
Unbidden, Louis remembers Lestat, soaked in blood and gasping, telling him: We are joined by a cord, by a cord that you cannot see, but it is real. It is real.
His thumb slides across Lestat's cheek. Reason. Unexpected, somehow, to hear that he is anything near to that for Lestat after all this time. After such a clear reminder of the ways in which they can fail each other. Hurt each other.
But it is as it ever was. Alone, together, and Louis falls into him again. The link between them, more than maker and fledgling, more than blood. Them. Who they are to each other.
Lestat, who has saved Louis time and again. Kind of Lestat to pretend Louis has done anything of the sort in return.
Still, Louis bends down to him. Kisses his mouth softly, chastely. Noses bump. Lestat tastes of trace blood, rainwater.
"Let me finish," Louis murmurs. "You still have blood in your hair."
Should he be indulged, Louis washes the night out of Lestat's hair, the glitter from his skin. Swathes Lestat in the warmth of oversized towels when he emerges, rinsed clean. It is late afternoon. They are all tired. Daniel is already closed in his coffin. Lestat will follow suit. And Louis will take to bed, in the quiet of his room.
They emerge, wet splotches on Louis' thin t-shirt, his cardigan slipped off and laid over a chair as they go.
"I'll say good night," Louis murmurs. An offer, ceding his hold on Lestat to return him to whatever he wishes to make of these last hours before sunset.
He is kissed, and Lestat thinks he would let Louis do whatever he wanted.
In this instance, it's to clean him. Look after him. Whatever the motivation, Lestat relaxes into it, managing to find a measure of calm before it can become overwhelming. The hot water helps, the lateness of the hour helps, although he feels as aware of Louis' exhaustion as his own, maybe more.
The towel is generous enough that he can wrap it around himself, waist and shoulder. It has been a minute since he has been in anyone's presence without having messed around with eyeliner pens or garments as simple as a towel, a different kind of creature following Louis of the bathroom and into the bedroom. Maybe a nostalgic one. Ageless and unchanging as they are, its the fashions of the day that marks progress.
Absent of that, maybe also the slightly suspicious way of glancing around the space. "Mmh," at that, looking back to Louis. "I was going to say, let me change into something. Perhaps we could share a place to sleep, just for today. But you've hidden your coffin in the walls, I think."
"Rachida has it stored for me," is the easier thing to address. "I'll have her send it on to Vermont, I think."
Given Louis' suspicion that Vermont's lodgings will be less easily bent to the needs of three vampires. Or to Louis specifically. New York is a city given to accommodating the whims of, as Daniel had put it, absolute weirdos. Whatever stop has been earmarked for them in Vermont is probably not.
An answer that gives Louis a little time to consider the offer at hand. A place to sleep alongside Lestat. Closing themselves into coffin together, as they one had.
How Louis had described it to Daniel was all true. Would all come back, certainly. Louis didn't see how they could weave themselves that closely together and it not feel the same has he remembered.
On the tip of Lestat's tongue is Stored where? on the back of a theatrical glancing around, before both braincells catch up to the implications of what is being said.
"You have no coffin here?" he says, baffled before anything else. Too soothed to spiral off into the delusion that perhaps Louis and Daniel have been sharing THIS WHOLE TIME and instead looking towards the bed. Back to Louis. Accusatory. "You've been sleeping out in the open?"
A flip of a hand. "Call her now, have it sent here."
Operating off the half-formed instinct that there has been a mistake and Louis is being polite about it, as opposed to some conscious decision to the contrary.
As far as demands go, this one would be less imposition at this hour than it might have been. Rachida will be awake. A number of staff will be awake. It is within her power to see the coffin toted up from where it has been safely stowed in its crate.
Does not say, This room is safe.
Armand has very decisively demonstrated the breaches in security. Louis does not want to consider that just yet. Does not want to consider whether or not Armand would simply send someone in to draw the curtains open.
"It's likely at the warehouse," Louis admits. "Along with our other acquisitions from this trip."
Paintings, statues. Things procured to be sold or loaned out to museums.
The implication: yes, Louis has been sleeping in the open.
No need to be specific about the habit, it's cultivation. Whether it's continuation now is a kind of passive invitation to harm.
Lestat's mouth sets into a displeased shape. Measuring, now, how stubborn Louis is liable to be about this thing. The tactics he has at his disposal. Reason, begging, guilting. He could probably wring some more crying out of himself, in an emergency. There must be a way.
"Well, that's a useless place for it," he says. A magnanimous sweep of an arm. "But you may use mine until you make your arrangements for its retrieval."
There is a window right there, with its robust blackout curtains that, nevertheless, is a hand twitch or an electrical malfunction away from letting the afternoon light come streaming in.
Louis is doing his own measuring. How stubborn does he intend to be. How far should be indulge Lestat's fears, his protectiveness? Long years of sleeping alongside Armand in their bed. Long weeks of acclimating to having a bed to himself.
"I'm not gonna put you out of your coffin, Lestat," is a tacit agreement to what Louis had not yet addressed. A shared place to sleep, if only for today.
What does Lestat's coffin look like these days? Louis hadn't seen it in New Orleans. Has not invited himself into Lestat's rooms since arriving here.
Will Louis have Rachida bring the coffin here? It remains to be confirmed either way. Will he spend more than one night in Lestat's? Louis balks at the idea, uncertain. They are not companions. Louis doesn't wish to transgress, to crowd Lestat more than he already does.
Anger isn't a tactic, but it's the easiest thing. So much easier to be afraid if you can just be mad instead. So, he feels a spark of impatience that could catch and Lestat stands there silently while he smothers it out. Not today, when things are still tentative and sore between them, when hours ago he was on the wrong side of a closed door.
Louis isn't stupid, so Lestat doesn't have to explain that he could have the coffin delivered within the hour, or reiterate his offer. Lestat is not stupid either (don't @ him), and can see Louis working through it. That he doesn't know exactly the parameters of this working through is because he can't read his mind, so he says,
"You don't want to share," to prompt insight. And maybe he does it with a soft voice and big eyes.
Louis, bare foot, t-shirt splotched with water, eyes lifting to Lestat's face as Lestat makes this assertion. As Louis weighs this thought, knows immediately that it is false.
They are already stood close. Louis draws a closer, then closer again. Narrowing the distance between them.
"I want to," Louis tells him. Louis still wants this, despite their fight. Despite hours flirting with sunlight slicing across the room. Despite the ways they've hurt each other. The newness of whatever it is they are forming together. Louis still wants him.
A subtle but immediate shift from sad wet meow meow to deeply pleased probably indicates a little bit of conscious performance at play to get what he wanted—but nevertheless.
"Then, let's," he says. "Before the sun beats us to it."
If Louis desires, he will be permitted to grab something to sleep in before Lestat steals his hand to lead him away. Across the common room to his own archway leading to his room. "Don't say anything," he says over his shoulder, before opening the door, and releasing Louis' hand.
Yes, a little chaotic inside. They do have staff, but their ability to get into Lestat's domain is inconsistent, and he has no issue with frightening humans away if he does not wish them to touch his things. Some clothing on the floor, draped over furniture, shopping bags shoved aside against the wall, and in the midst of it where a bed should be, a casket. A lovely rose-toned wood, which has been in part ruined with an improvised, scratched out set of piano keys clawed along its hinged side.
The towel is tossed aside, Lestat opening the coffin to fetch the sleep clothes he'd tossed inside. Less the fancy little pyjama sets he'd favoured once before—athleisure instead, black sweatpants, and a soft T-shirt (Nirvana's dead smiley face logo on the chest).
He does want to ask. About the missing coffin. It's transparent in his current bout of silence and sidelong study as he gets dressed.
Louis gathers nothing. Is stolen away from his room into Lestat's, which presents a familiar kind of chaos.
The opened lid, the scratched and gouged wood, that holds Louis' attention more than the shopping bags, more than Lestat himself tossing aside the towel. Louis puts careful fingers to the keys. Feels something in his chest twist, pained.
Louis hasn't forgotten how he found Lestat. Worries now about how much of that damage remains, despite how much steadier Lestat appears.
Doesn't ask. Not yet. He has, after all, been instructed not to say anything, and so turns, eyebrows raised, to invite Lestat fill the silence.
A little teasing. Louis knows what he is and isn't meant to be commenting on.
Inside the coffin, too, are his headphones and his phone. Lestat fishes these out, sets them aside. The interior is pillowy satin of cream-white, frills and an excess of softness and comfort, so much like his old sleeping place that he'd invited Louis into time and time again.
Turns back to Louis. Meeting that look with one of his own, arms folding across his chest.
"Will you promise me," he says, in that silent invitation, "to arrange for your coffin to be brought here tomorrow night?"
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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?"
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
He leans over to take up the soft washcloth, unbidden, to dip into the rising water. Douses it, squeezing away the excess, as he tells Lestat, "He has never minded the possibility of a sudden death."
Maybe because after surviving San Francisco, all else paled in comparison.
Louis does not say this.
"Why did you go looking for him, Lestat?"
Unclear if this is safer territory. It feels easier than giving Lestat leeway to ask any questions that are surely waiting for the right moment, to talk about the immediate past. Lestat's presence on the tour. The surprise of him echoing back through Daniel's head so suddenly that night.
no subject
The water, lapping a little at curved sides as he draws his knees up, anchors his hands at the ankles. "My name," he says, "that, at first. Like a sudden swarm of butterflies in a garden—radio and conversation and TV and the internet. Not so noisy, just new." Seven unwanted sons deep and Gabrielle de Lioncourt started making up names, he supposes. No one else has it. Or it's just old. He doesn't know for sure.
Easy, then, to pick up when it became a public item. "I learned of the book. I read the book. Then the man who wrote it, also on the radio and on TV, an obvious vampire. I wanted to meet him. I was curious. I might have kept my distance if he wasn't attacked."
A beat, then Lestat says, "No, I wouldn't have. But it made for a thrilling meet-cute."
no subject
Louis works a lather into the cloth. Uses the sodden fabric to begin working the streaks of blood from Lestat's skin. Something to do with his hands. An excuse to touch Lestat safely. A test, seeing how much he can tolerate before he must leave the room.
"I owe him a great deal," Louis says. Soft. A little distant in spite of himself. Gone a few steps away with his guilt, with his pain. Sinking in to the loop of confirmation: he'd been in the building, and he hadn't realized what was happening. And now here they all are.
"Do you think he makes a good vampire?"
no subject
And Lestat submits to this attention, head tipping side. A hidden tangle of blonde hair where blood had dried into it like mud, coming loose beneath warm water and the texture of the cloth and focus. His eyeline skims away, looking at the rising surface of clear water, the distortions of himself through it. It's been a long time since he's been touched this way.
And it's happening so effortlessly. There were a lot of moments in the book that had made compelled him to rip it into little pieces, his first review to Daniel when he'd baited him to ask for it. One word, undeserving, which he had felt anger for, and then felt it burrow its way into him, and stay there, and become truth. Thinks it now, or, thinks it in the way a splinter is thought of when one accidentally makes contact with it.
A breath out, an agreement. Louis owes him a great deal and Lestat is aware of the ways he does as well, splinters or no splinters.
"Yes," is easy, and he looks back up at Louis to say it. "He finds the right kind of joy in it, I think. He reminds me of my own early days."
After the horror, anyway. One can't judge a whole vampiric life on a few hours of horror.
"Did you choose him, knowing he would be?"
no subject
But, working that soft cloth up along Lestat's neck, Louis considers coming at the question another way. Get near to the same truth.
"He asked for it, when we first met."
How many vampires do?
"He was too reckless then. Too young to understand the price he'd be paying for what intrigued him."
Unlikely that Daniel would use those words to describe his youthful shortcomings.
Louis' knuckles graze skin. He sighs.
"He's grown since. He's stubborn and insightful and curious. I thought he'd make the most of the Gift."
A soft swipe of cloth down over Lestat's shoulder as Louis tells him, "And I wanted him to live."
Maybe Lestat could relate.
no subject
"It would have ruined him, back then," Lestat says.
Not because he knows Daniel well, or understands what kind of young man he was. But he understands Louis' caution. He has felt it himself. But Louis had been wiser, and stronger, clearly, than Lestat had been. He sways a little, leaning into the touch at his shoulder. That he thinks of Nicki again, that he thinks next of Gabrielle, only confirms to him something that he knows is true.
All vampires share the same story. Face the same conflicts. It takes some conscious effort to draw himself away from the enticing whirlpool of his own past, sitting bare and vaguely out of time, the scent of floral soap and blood and Louis in the air.
Yes, he can relate. In too many ways. Maddening amounts.
His arms come out of the water, heedless of the mess that will be made as he follows impulse and circles them around Louis' waist. "I'm glad all the time that I made you," he says, gazing up at Louis with a certain kind of transparent adoration that both comes easier these days but harks to earlier history. "That you live still."
I'm sorry, he wishes to say again, but resists only because Louis will shush him if he does.
no subject
Thank you, he'd said while the wind battered Lestat's little cottage. As rainwater dripped in through the ceiling. Insignificant words for the gift Lestat had given. Not just Louis' life, but the love in which he'd bestowed it.
Louis lays the cloth over Lestat's shoulder so he might touch his face. Wet fingers sketching along Lestat's cheek before Louis cups a palm there. Feels affection, overwhelming, alongside all other complicated, difficult emotion they feel for each other. Makes no attempt to break the embrace, looking into Lestat's eyes and feeling the way all things settle around them, the echoing of their heartbeats, their breath, perfectly in time.
"You saved me."
More than once.
"I'm glad it was you."
Is so deeply complicated. How many years, thinking Armand had saved him. How many years, thinking Lestat had damned both Louis and Claudia to the sunlight, washing his hands of their lives together.
How long Louis had loathed himself for loving him still, even after what had happened.
no subject
His arms squeeze in answer, head tipping into the hand at his face. "You save me too," he says. "You give me reason."
And this will be so, no matter what they are to each other, or where they are. Of course, the reality of not being companions will continue to make him insane, but an insane person who would like to live out his eternity, and find the means to enjoy it.
yada yada, holler for edits
His thumb slides across Lestat's cheek. Reason. Unexpected, somehow, to hear that he is anything near to that for Lestat after all this time. After such a clear reminder of the ways in which they can fail each other. Hurt each other.
But it is as it ever was. Alone, together, and Louis falls into him again. The link between them, more than maker and fledgling, more than blood. Them. Who they are to each other.
Lestat, who has saved Louis time and again. Kind of Lestat to pretend Louis has done anything of the sort in return.
Still, Louis bends down to him. Kisses his mouth softly, chastely. Noses bump. Lestat tastes of trace blood, rainwater.
"Let me finish," Louis murmurs. "You still have blood in your hair."
Should he be indulged, Louis washes the night out of Lestat's hair, the glitter from his skin. Swathes Lestat in the warmth of oversized towels when he emerges, rinsed clean. It is late afternoon. They are all tired. Daniel is already closed in his coffin. Lestat will follow suit. And Louis will take to bed, in the quiet of his room.
They emerge, wet splotches on Louis' thin t-shirt, his cardigan slipped off and laid over a chair as they go.
"I'll say good night," Louis murmurs. An offer, ceding his hold on Lestat to return him to whatever he wishes to make of these last hours before sunset.
no subject
In this instance, it's to clean him. Look after him. Whatever the motivation, Lestat relaxes into it, managing to find a measure of calm before it can become overwhelming. The hot water helps, the lateness of the hour helps, although he feels as aware of Louis' exhaustion as his own, maybe more.
The towel is generous enough that he can wrap it around himself, waist and shoulder. It has been a minute since he has been in anyone's presence without having messed around with eyeliner pens or garments as simple as a towel, a different kind of creature following Louis of the bathroom and into the bedroom. Maybe a nostalgic one. Ageless and unchanging as they are, its the fashions of the day that marks progress.
Absent of that, maybe also the slightly suspicious way of glancing around the space. "Mmh," at that, looking back to Louis. "I was going to say, let me change into something. Perhaps we could share a place to sleep, just for today. But you've hidden your coffin in the walls, I think."
no subject
Given Louis' suspicion that Vermont's lodgings will be less easily bent to the needs of three vampires. Or to Louis specifically. New York is a city given to accommodating the whims of, as Daniel had put it, absolute weirdos. Whatever stop has been earmarked for them in Vermont is probably not.
An answer that gives Louis a little time to consider the offer at hand. A place to sleep alongside Lestat. Closing themselves into coffin together, as they one had.
How Louis had described it to Daniel was all true. Would all come back, certainly. Louis didn't see how they could weave themselves that closely together and it not feel the same has he remembered.
no subject
"You have no coffin here?" he says, baffled before anything else. Too soothed to spiral off into the delusion that perhaps Louis and Daniel have been sharing THIS WHOLE TIME and instead looking towards the bed. Back to Louis. Accusatory. "You've been sleeping out in the open?"
A flip of a hand. "Call her now, have it sent here."
Operating off the half-formed instinct that there has been a mistake and Louis is being polite about it, as opposed to some conscious decision to the contrary.
no subject
Does not say, This room is safe.
Armand has very decisively demonstrated the breaches in security. Louis does not want to consider that just yet. Does not want to consider whether or not Armand would simply send someone in to draw the curtains open.
"It's likely at the warehouse," Louis admits. "Along with our other acquisitions from this trip."
Paintings, statues. Things procured to be sold or loaned out to museums.
The implication: yes, Louis has been sleeping in the open.
No need to be specific about the habit, it's cultivation. Whether it's continuation now is a kind of passive invitation to harm.
no subject
"Well, that's a useless place for it," he says. A magnanimous sweep of an arm. "But you may use mine until you make your arrangements for its retrieval."
There is a window right there, with its robust blackout curtains that, nevertheless, is a hand twitch or an electrical malfunction away from letting the afternoon light come streaming in.
"Please," he adds, tactically.
no subject
Louis is doing his own measuring. How stubborn does he intend to be. How far should be indulge Lestat's fears, his protectiveness? Long years of sleeping alongside Armand in their bed. Long weeks of acclimating to having a bed to himself.
"I'm not gonna put you out of your coffin, Lestat," is a tacit agreement to what Louis had not yet addressed. A shared place to sleep, if only for today.
What does Lestat's coffin look like these days? Louis hadn't seen it in New Orleans. Has not invited himself into Lestat's rooms since arriving here.
Will Louis have Rachida bring the coffin here? It remains to be confirmed either way. Will he spend more than one night in Lestat's? Louis balks at the idea, uncertain. They are not companions. Louis doesn't wish to transgress, to crowd Lestat more than he already does.
no subject
Anger isn't a tactic, but it's the easiest thing. So much easier to be afraid if you can just be mad instead. So, he feels a spark of impatience that could catch and Lestat stands there silently while he smothers it out. Not today, when things are still tentative and sore between them, when hours ago he was on the wrong side of a closed door.
Louis isn't stupid, so Lestat doesn't have to explain that he could have the coffin delivered within the hour, or reiterate his offer. Lestat is not stupid either (don't @ him), and can see Louis working through it. That he doesn't know exactly the parameters of this working through is because he can't read his mind, so he says,
"You don't want to share," to prompt insight. And maybe he does it with a soft voice and big eyes.
no subject
Louis, bare foot, t-shirt splotched with water, eyes lifting to Lestat's face as Lestat makes this assertion. As Louis weighs this thought, knows immediately that it is false.
They are already stood close. Louis draws a closer, then closer again. Narrowing the distance between them.
"I want to," Louis tells him. Louis still wants this, despite their fight. Despite hours flirting with sunlight slicing across the room. Despite the ways they've hurt each other. The newness of whatever it is they are forming together. Louis still wants him.
no subject
"Then, let's," he says. "Before the sun beats us to it."
If Louis desires, he will be permitted to grab something to sleep in before Lestat steals his hand to lead him away. Across the common room to his own archway leading to his room. "Don't say anything," he says over his shoulder, before opening the door, and releasing Louis' hand.
Yes, a little chaotic inside. They do have staff, but their ability to get into Lestat's domain is inconsistent, and he has no issue with frightening humans away if he does not wish them to touch his things. Some clothing on the floor, draped over furniture, shopping bags shoved aside against the wall, and in the midst of it where a bed should be, a casket. A lovely rose-toned wood, which has been in part ruined with an improvised, scratched out set of piano keys clawed along its hinged side.
The towel is tossed aside, Lestat opening the coffin to fetch the sleep clothes he'd tossed inside. Less the fancy little pyjama sets he'd favoured once before—athleisure instead, black sweatpants, and a soft T-shirt (Nirvana's dead smiley face logo on the chest).
He does want to ask. About the missing coffin. It's transparent in his current bout of silence and sidelong study as he gets dressed.
no subject
The opened lid, the scratched and gouged wood, that holds Louis' attention more than the shopping bags, more than Lestat himself tossing aside the towel. Louis puts careful fingers to the keys. Feels something in his chest twist, pained.
Louis hasn't forgotten how he found Lestat. Worries now about how much of that damage remains, despite how much steadier Lestat appears.
Doesn't ask. Not yet. He has, after all, been instructed not to say anything, and so turns, eyebrows raised, to invite Lestat fill the silence.
A little teasing. Louis knows what he is and isn't meant to be commenting on.
no subject
Turns back to Louis. Meeting that look with one of his own, arms folding across his chest.
"Will you promise me," he says, in that silent invitation, "to arrange for your coffin to be brought here tomorrow night?"
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)