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?"
Does Louis want to fight about his coffin? About how he lays still in bed, now alone, telling himself he needn't change his habit? How he has not let himself think too deeply as to whose habit it is, truly? (Is he defenseless now, without Armand laid alongside him?)
Louis looks tired, abruptly. Composure fraying in the wake of the request, feeling it like a push towards many things Louis has been stepping past and around.
His fingers brush along the carved facsimile of keyboard.
"Are you afraid for me, Lestat?" Louis asks instead, voice quiet.
His folded arms tighten, ever so. A defensive bundling of posture, darting a look away—from Louis' face, his wandering hand. They have never really spoken of it, because they never really spoke about much at all. Certainly nothing difficult, not until it became an argument, but they did not even argue about this. About the dark paths Louis' suffering could take him. About the myriad of things Lestat felt for it.
Afraid, okay, yes.
"We want to protect each other," is a little defensive over, perhaps, his right to that fear. "We want each other to be safe and well."
Is this what Louis had been looking for? Is it what he'd hoped to hear?
Is Louis well? He has assured Daniel and Lestat both of it, but—
Lifts his fingers from the gouged wood so he might step in, close the space between them. Doesn't touch, an absurd bit of restraint considering the open coffin, their intention for the dwindling hours of daylight.
"I'll have it brought here."
A promise. Louis can decide what he makes of it when it arrives.
A relief, clearly, transparent in the longer breath in and a release in tension across his shoulders. If it occurs to him that Louis has found a loop hole by not promising to actually get into the coffin when it arrives—
Well, it doesn't. Lestat unfolds his arms, a swing of a gesture as he says, "Bon," and pivots to consider his own coffin. The small space they are to share, like friends might. Him first, then. He steps into it, lowers himself down. Scoots accordingly to rest back on an elbow, and then offer a hand out.
"It's been a while, hasn't it," is more sympathetic than a conscious attempt to figure out if Louis used to share like this with Armand. He means them. He means himself.
A measuring kind of pause. Trying to decide on an answer that won't upset Lestat, when the truth is yes, it's been a long while.
The moment is delicate enough, folding into the coffin alongside Lestat.
"Yes," is inevitable. Truthful. "But it comes back easy."
True about sleeping in a coffin.
True about sleeping alongside Lestat.
"I remember," Louis tells him quietly. Hardly bears remarking upon. See how they arrange themselves. Even with the novelty of Lestat sliding in first, they still make such easy work of settling in together.
Familiar, still, the closeness of this space. He has slept in coffins alone about ten times more than he has shared them, and yet, it feels a little like a homecoming. Shifting onto his side to make room, slotting together neatly. Shifting a leg to accommodate another.
Friendship or otherwise, there's no use in trying to fold in on themselves for the sake of propriety. Lestat lays an arm around Louis' side, breath catching at that initial press of contact. Opts against complaint that Louis is still in his day clothes. Louis is in a coffin, his coffin, and so there is nothing to complain about.
Then—a little laugh. "Wait," before the lid can close. Lifts a hand, presses his fingertip to a spot on Louis' cheek. Shows the stray sparkle of glitter that comes away from it. "Désolée. It clings."
Foolish, maybe. Maybe he is being foolish, putting himself in a coffin with Lestat within twenty-four hours of a proper fight.
But the arm slung round his waist, the hook and catch of their legs, knee to knee, ankle to ankle, settling in warm together in this close space—
It is good. It feels good. Soothes the ragged quality in Louis that has persisted in the passing hours since Lestat stormed out of the hotel.
And Louis is still charmed, inevitably, by the little press of fingers to his cheek. The glint of glitter on fingertips displayed after.
"I don't mind it," Louis tells him, hand coming to rest over Lestat's heart. "I like it."
It clings. Louis knew that.
A light graze of fingers at Lestat's cheek in turn.
"Close us in," he murmurs. A few hours together, in the dark. Louis can't pretend anything other than the truth: he is comforted by this closeness, the way they fit together.
Homecoming. His home, still contained in the chest of the man laid alongside him.
Heart aching, near to overwhelmed, but overwhelmed is a natural state of being, and there are worser versions to be overcome by, certainly. Lightless darkness and they could be anywhere, any time, and there is just enough of a thread of awareness to prevent Lestat doing what his impulse would have him do, which is take Louis' face in his hand and kiss him thoroughly.
No, that would break something, and it isn't actually what he wants the most. What he wants the most is what he has right now. He's just being greedy.
Still.
No reserve in the way he tangles himself up with Louis as he settles, drawing them in close together. Lingers there, in these minutes of consciousness, to enjoy the nearness, the comforting quiet, the way he senses comfort in Louis as well, before finally giving over to a sun already sinking in the sky.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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.
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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.
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"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.
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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.
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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?"
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Louis looks tired, abruptly. Composure fraying in the wake of the request, feeling it like a push towards many things Louis has been stepping past and around.
His fingers brush along the carved facsimile of keyboard.
"Are you afraid for me, Lestat?" Louis asks instead, voice quiet.
no subject
Afraid, okay, yes.
"We want to protect each other," is a little defensive over, perhaps, his right to that fear. "We want each other to be safe and well."
no subject
Is this what Louis had been looking for? Is it what he'd hoped to hear?
Is Louis well? He has assured Daniel and Lestat both of it, but—
Lifts his fingers from the gouged wood so he might step in, close the space between them. Doesn't touch, an absurd bit of restraint considering the open coffin, their intention for the dwindling hours of daylight.
"I'll have it brought here."
A promise. Louis can decide what he makes of it when it arrives.
no subject
Well, it doesn't. Lestat unfolds his arms, a swing of a gesture as he says, "Bon," and pivots to consider his own coffin. The small space they are to share, like friends might. Him first, then. He steps into it, lowers himself down. Scoots accordingly to rest back on an elbow, and then offer a hand out.
"It's been a while, hasn't it," is more sympathetic than a conscious attempt to figure out if Louis used to share like this with Armand. He means them. He means himself.
no subject
The moment is delicate enough, folding into the coffin alongside Lestat.
"Yes," is inevitable. Truthful. "But it comes back easy."
True about sleeping in a coffin.
True about sleeping alongside Lestat.
"I remember," Louis tells him quietly. Hardly bears remarking upon. See how they arrange themselves. Even with the novelty of Lestat sliding in first, they still make such easy work of settling in together.
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Friendship or otherwise, there's no use in trying to fold in on themselves for the sake of propriety. Lestat lays an arm around Louis' side, breath catching at that initial press of contact. Opts against complaint that Louis is still in his day clothes. Louis is in a coffin, his coffin, and so there is nothing to complain about.
Then—a little laugh. "Wait," before the lid can close. Lifts a hand, presses his fingertip to a spot on Louis' cheek. Shows the stray sparkle of glitter that comes away from it. "Désolée. It clings."
no subject
But the arm slung round his waist, the hook and catch of their legs, knee to knee, ankle to ankle, settling in warm together in this close space—
It is good. It feels good. Soothes the ragged quality in Louis that has persisted in the passing hours since Lestat stormed out of the hotel.
And Louis is still charmed, inevitably, by the little press of fingers to his cheek. The glint of glitter on fingertips displayed after.
"I don't mind it," Louis tells him, hand coming to rest over Lestat's heart. "I like it."
It clings. Louis knew that.
A light graze of fingers at Lestat's cheek in turn.
"Close us in," he murmurs. A few hours together, in the dark. Louis can't pretend anything other than the truth: he is comforted by this closeness, the way they fit together.
Homecoming. His home, still contained in the chest of the man laid alongside him.
no subject
Heart aching, near to overwhelmed, but overwhelmed is a natural state of being, and there are worser versions to be overcome by, certainly. Lightless darkness and they could be anywhere, any time, and there is just enough of a thread of awareness to prevent Lestat doing what his impulse would have him do, which is take Louis' face in his hand and kiss him thoroughly.
No, that would break something, and it isn't actually what he wants the most. What he wants the most is what he has right now. He's just being greedy.
Still.
No reserve in the way he tangles himself up with Louis as he settles, drawing them in close together. Lingers there, in these minutes of consciousness, to enjoy the nearness, the comforting quiet, the way he senses comfort in Louis as well, before finally giving over to a sun already sinking in the sky.