For a long (?) stretch of silence, it seems like maybe they can. Daniel even just sits there, and gets his phone out, and looks at the message, returns one. Stares at it, puts his phone away again—
'Yeah, the 'something' it means is that I am completely fucked up over you doing that because someone threatened me. My fucking fault that you got drugged and tortured. You walked away with some deranged psychopath after you just got your life back.'
And Daniel did vampire murder, and didn't hesitate because it was Louis, and isn't going to complain about the psychological reeling because it was for Louis. Louis, who didn't want to publish the book, who wants to get into a fight, who went and got tortured because some idiot made a threat that they had no reason to believe was even viable.
Two feet on the floor, stalled from further motion by Daniel's unexpected rejoinder.
A pause, Louis turning to look Daniel full in the face. He can hear just the barest hint of Lestat's chosen playlist. Insurmountable, for the immediate moment. Whatever complicated thing Louis' face does as he considers Lestat walling himself off with his Spotify account—
Well, something for the future.
In the present moment, Louis reaches to touch Daniel's face, cup his cheek. Feels the breadth of this thing he cannot say, because it is too much. Overwhelming. Words locked in his body because they mean everything. But some of it is there, as Louis' expression softens. As he touches Daniel's mind and this thing ebbs in alongside his reply.
You gave me my life back.
By completely demolishing his old one, but—
It's not your fault, what happened.
"We can talk tomorrow," Louis offers. Disinclined to let any part of this go, but more willing to give Daniel a day to process now that Daniel's cracked the door open. Comfortable with something near to a decided upon point for a future conversation. Louis had gotten a full night after Armand had sent a bomb into their room to make a point. It's fair.
As if all of Lestat's senses aren't keyed in to the two other vampires in the room, as if he were wholly focused on his phone, the music leaking from headphones. This time, he knows an unexpected flash of upset rather than the usual bruise he on purpose presses to make twinge, but sealed up tightly behind a taut expression and his eyes on his phone.
Sinks lower amongst his cushions, as he would for properly settling in. Reaches up, snagging a hand on the internal handle, coaxing the lid closed.
Takes a second to change gears again after deciding, alright fine, if Louis wants to be mean and get into an argument about it, let's fucking get into an argument about it— probably obvious on Daniel's face, telepathy or not, as Louis leans in to touch him. They've said plenty of awful shit to each other, why not more, when it means the most?
—distracted, by the coffin lid shutting.
Imagines the neon sign over the flat surface, You Two Are Being Annoying.
"Are you sure screaming about it wouldn't make us both feel better?"
This, too, is affectionate. Daniel sighs and stands up, so he can just give Louis a hug. Fuck all of this, alright, he just cares about him.
Maybe screaming about it would be easier. A lancing of all the stress Louis knows they are all three feeling. But instead, there is this.
Daniel puts arms around him. Louis breathes out. Leans into him, holds on. Tucks his face in against the bend of Daniel's neck and stays there a moment, eyes closed.
He doesn't regret any part of what he did. What he risked. Doesn't risk the toll it's taken on him, what has been staved off by a little blood and will be managed by rest after.
The argument they aren't having is still swirling in the air. Not gone, but staved off. (Maybe.) Lestat's coffin, closing. (The tightening in Louis' chest to observe it.) Daylight rising outside the window. They'll leave soon. Louis is alright.
He makes himself be the one to straighten first from the embrace.
Unless Louis wants to try very hard to reignite it tomorrow, it's probably defused— Daniel didn't want to talk anyway, he'll shelve it, compartmentalize, move on. Who knows what move on will entail. Maybe find a new game plan, maybe nothing. Tomorrow is a new night.
"Yeah, yeah." Fine!! "Goodnight, Louis. You too, Blondie."
Sulking but not forgotten.
Bedtime. Sure. He can pretend. Daniel does a last sweep to make sure he has the right phone charging brick (and to double-check curtains and screens), and then closes himself away in his coffin, sufficiently cowed into giving up the appearance of anything else, today. Into the casket, and the daytime world of anxiety texting, since he's never actually going to be able to get any fucking sleep.
Lucky for Louis, he had just had a whole tutorial by the very famous Daniel Molloy about how to discuss topics people would rather ignore.
But that's for sundown.
In the present moment, Louis drums fingers so softly along the top of Lestat's coffin as Daniel makes his rounds. Watches him, expression soft. All things are complicated, yes, but not so complicated that Louis is not endlessly pleased with Daniel's presence, his survival.
When Daniel is securely within his coffin, Louis' fingers lift away from Lestat's.
And he goes, quietly, as promised into his own.
"Good night," softly into the dark of the room, before drawing the lid down over himself.
Through layers of wood and plush silk, Lestat burns a hole staring where he knows Louis to be standing, as if he could will him to do something more than the light tap of fingers. Then, soft foot falls away, and in the dark interior, he scoffs, fitfully twists around with the object of going to sleep.
Sunlight is warming the sky by the time he gives in, and the lid of his coffin opens an inch, two inches. Evaluating the shaded living room, the closed coffins nearby, before opening the lid properly and climbing out. On quiet, slippered feet, he moves around to Louis', kneels down, places a hand at the edge of the lid.
He could already be deep in vampiric slumber, but Lestat is not above climbing in anyway. For now, he remains polite, and taps his fingers against the lid, a gesture from what feels like a million years ago and yesterday.
Drowsing, but not asleep. Taking quiet stock of his body, the aches and pains that have been dulled but not erased by cups and cups of borrowed blood. Thinking ahead to Vermont. To what he should say tomorrow to Daniel. What he should say to Lestat, if Lestat were still sulking when evening fell.
Then, a tapping.
A disorienting moment, trying to place the sound. Trying to decide whether or not he's dreaming.
The lid cracks open. Louis peers out, catching sight of Lestat's chest, then pushes the lid farther, opening wider to look up into his face.
"Hello," and then, worried, "Has something happened?"
Lestat lays his hand on the edge of the coffin, fingers curled over the edge, touching the soft interior. Not quite as obvious as putting a foot in a door before it can close, but a little motivated by the same instinct.
He is unhappy, afraid, frustrated, anxious with the sense of having had his feelings hurt and nO oNe hAs nOtIcEd, but another sentiment overrides all of these things, clear in the way he studies Louis' face. Most of it shoved aside, left behind in his coffin along with his headphones and ~portable~.
The lid is pushed all the way up and back, securely affixed with no immediate possibility of closing. Louis leans himself along the edge beside Lestat's fingers, arms crossed so he might rest his chin. Welcoming further conversation, for the moment.
A softening of Louis' expression at this given reason.
"Is it not helping as you thought to have us all here?"
For a moment, Lestat is still, nearly stiff. Some internal flinch back from Louis stating motivations so plainly when they had all agreed that to arrange their coffins like so was for the mutual benefit of protection, as opposed to whether or not Lestat could sleep. Protest rising, failing, a glance away as he considers the gloom of the space, the soft indication of sunlight peeking at the edges of thick curtains.
Very well. He can bear this latest bruise to his pride, and looks back at Louis.
"You were not so far away either, when you were taken," he says. "And there was nothing I could do."
Did he come here to talk? Not really, despite his little display moments ago. Louis will assure him he is fine, that nothing too terrible occurred. What else can be said? Lestat skips this possibility and adds, "I will sleep better with my arms around you. But that has always been so."
Yes, that has always been so. For him, for Louis. Sleep has come easier always when they shared a coffin. Louis' nightmares fewer and farther between when Lestat was tangled around him, a tangible ward against the worst of what lived in Louis' head back then.
Louis shifts, freeing a hand to touch Lestat. A well-worn bit of intimacy, his hand cupping Lestat's cheek, thumb at the corner of his mouth.
"You retrieved me. I was never in any danger."
No need to betray any deeper thoughts on the matter. Whether Louis wished they'd both stayed behind, left him to manage the after effects of his challenge on his own. Lestat had come. Louis was reclaimed. They were safe, all three of them.
"Come here," is invitation against whatever rebuttal Lestat surely has. Draws him down towards the utilitarian confines of Louis' storage crate. Well-cushioned but hardly luxurious, open to Lestat if he pleases.
Does Louis think that touching his face so gently while he says ridiculous things is a viable strategy against Lestat arguing them?
Because he would be correct.
But Lestat's jaw sets in a stubbornly displeased angle, a look that transparently conveys he is not convinced. Louis was in danger because Louis was hurt. Danger occurred, manifested. But an invitation is made, and Lestat moves to accept it, two centuries and a half of practice of crawling into small dark spaces, with or without another. Taking care with limbs, seeking out the most comfortable configuration.
Tonight, it is to settle his weight against Louis, pin him to the floor of this—storage crate, merde, what is the point of being a billionaire vampire—
A sigh, in the dark. Once they are settled, "Why are you doing this?" Not argumentative so much as an honest question. "Explain it to me like I'm an imbecile."
Louis isn't objecting. Like Daniel's embrace, Louis yields into this entanglement, transparent in the comfort taken from the contact. Breathes out as Lestat settles himself just so, reaching up past him to hook the handle and draw the lid closed over them. Lestat can certainly leave if he pleases, but no expectation from Louis that he expects Lestat to relocate, that he sees this as temporary.
His thumb runs along Lestat's cheek once more.
"Inviting you in?"
Not what he's being asked. Louis knows. Is reasonably sure Lestat won't find the joke charming.
"I am not actually an imbecile," grousing. "Neither are you."
Yes, less restraint. Sees no point in it. If they are to be friends, maintain a friendship, find themselves thrown into fraught circumstances like so, as friends, then a part of that will be, Lestat has decided, the ability to do just this. Lay against one another, find comfort in it. As long as Louis invites no other into this space, Lestat can lay some claim to it. They are friends but he is his maker.
Eventually, he is certain, the ability to do so will be gone from him, and he will resent having hesitated. And so.
Big questions, which apparently can take a back seat to more pressing matters.
Louis' thumb maintains it's steady back and forth across Lestat's cheek. Hooks a knee up alongside Lestat's thigh, little restless points of movement, ways in which Louis draws Lestat in more securely as he considers the question. Old habits, the way they align.
"They were already planning my death. They're eager for it. I want them focused on me. I welcome it," echoes Claudia, as self-assured now as she had been then. Calm, as he relates this to Lestat.
News that will be even less welcome than little jokes.
"They've grown numerous," Louis murmurs. Thumb following the cut of cheekbone, breathing soft in the dark, chest rising and falling in time with Lestat's. "Better to draw them into a conflict and thin them out, before they are able to make their dream of the Conversion something real."
A little derisive, but mildly so. The pull of the sun working its effect, as does the nearness of Louis' heartbeat, breath, the stroke of his thumb. Going perfectly still, until he has that sense of detachment from his own self, as if they are one being with two minds in this sightless space.
He has felt what it's like when Louis seeks his own annihilation. He has heard how it did not sound that way, when Daniel showed him the memory of Louis' challenge to the Many. Here, he picks through these words, sifts through them, silent and fretful.
Looping Lestat in alongside Daniel and his Talamasca contacts. Whatever the Talamasca intends, Louis assumes they have a vested interest in avoiding the Conversion. So Louis is a moving target. It is of use.
A train of thought curtailed as he considers Lestat has never seen him fight. Not truly. This evening had been a far cry from the hunting they'd done in New Orleans. Louis, grown into his power.
"And I do alright for myself," softly, remembering New Orleans. Remembering Lestat across the table, describing Louis drawing a knife and putting it to Paul's chest. Viciousness has always been in him. Maybe Lestat had always admired that.
This correction has its effect, Lestat allowing further misgivings to release, dissolve. Perhaps they will resolve again when the sun sets, but for now, allows it to make him feel a little better about things. His assistance welcomed. His presence given meaning.
And he thinks, too, of Louis drawing a blade to his brother's breastbone. Of an alderman torn so gruesomely that his admiration for the deed had outweighed the usual preoccupation with maintaining their discretion. Of the bits and pieces of people that they'd decorated their home with in their final night spent there.
Louis and his capacity for ferocious anger, a willingness to resort to violence, ruthlessness. The things Lestat had imagined would make Louis a good vampire for him to spend eternity with.
"Mmhm. Do you enjoy it?" A cheeky question, maybe. The hand resting on Louis' chest curls, taps a finger. "Just a little bit."
Near whispered, like Louis can tell Lestat, just for Lestat. This is a safe space, here.
(Daniel, two coffins away, delayed likely only by his own misgivings about the night's events.)
Lestat, asking this question in hushed tones. Lestat, who has seen Louis struggle, has seen Louis' temper, has seen the worst of his violence and matched it, outstripped it.
Louis' expression flexes tender in the dark, even as he weighs up his own conflicted feelings.
"I did," he murmurs, the outcome of a moment's accounting. A quiet confession. "I felt alive. Had a long stretch there where I didn't feel like I was."
Words that sidestep. It's complicated.
Courting a fight is all that he told Lestat. Louis hadn't lied. But there is also this thing, this quiet desperate thing propelling him to shake himself free of so many years of careful equilibrium. To reassert control after having ceded it for so long.
Fondness fills him. Inevitable, aching, hurtful fondness. That hand spreads flat once more, covering Louis' heart.
This, more than anything else, makes sense to Lestat. More than fighting this Conversion, the proliferation of vampires. Allows it to sink in, in the quiet dark, the even measure of their breathing and heart beats, before he draws focus with another tap of his fingers.
"Then see that you stay that way," quiet. "Don't let them take you from me."
So much time spent wanting to die. Lestat had found Louis that way, saying the words aloud in a confessional as if he could be absolved for the way he craved his own death.
At his lowest, his nearest to death, there had been Lestat. One way or another, he had been there to tug Louis back.
This vendetta isn't a prayer for death. Louis can promise that without any hesitation or omissions. His fingers slip into Lestat's hair, thumb at his temple.
"I'm not going nowhere," Louis promises. "I'm staying. They can't take me anywhere I don't want to go."
Inevitably, a trap door through which Louis might step again if he feels he must. But tonight, the soft sweep of fingers through Lestat's hair, his heartbeat steady beneath his palm.
"And I don't wanna leave," Louis tells him. "I mean to stay."
The most natural urge in the world would be to close the distance between them, press a kiss to Louis' mouth.
Terrible and hurtful that he cannot, does not, that Lestat must partake in the tedium that is counting his blessings, of Louis in the same coffin as he, Louis saying sweet assurances (even if they have loopholes, yes, Lestat notices), Louis alive and warm and welcoming. But he does it anyway, because he is a saint and a martyr. Or rather, because they are blessings, true ones, and it feels good to count them anyway.
A subtle shift, a closer entangling, and Lestat allows the conversation to do as he'd requested and appease him. Sleeping assured that Louis cannot easily go anywhere, while he has him in his claws.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
For a long (?) stretch of silence, it seems like maybe they can. Daniel even just sits there, and gets his phone out, and looks at the message, returns one. Stares at it, puts his phone away again—
'Yeah, the 'something' it means is that I am completely fucked up over you doing that because someone threatened me. My fucking fault that you got drugged and tortured. You walked away with some deranged psychopath after you just got your life back.'
And Daniel did vampire murder, and didn't hesitate because it was Louis, and isn't going to complain about the psychological reeling because it was for Louis. Louis, who didn't want to publish the book, who wants to get into a fight, who went and got tortured because some idiot made a threat that they had no reason to believe was even viable.
no subject
A pause, Louis turning to look Daniel full in the face. He can hear just the barest hint of Lestat's chosen playlist. Insurmountable, for the immediate moment. Whatever complicated thing Louis' face does as he considers Lestat walling himself off with his Spotify account—
Well, something for the future.
In the present moment, Louis reaches to touch Daniel's face, cup his cheek. Feels the breadth of this thing he cannot say, because it is too much. Overwhelming. Words locked in his body because they mean everything. But some of it is there, as Louis' expression softens. As he touches Daniel's mind and this thing ebbs in alongside his reply.
You gave me my life back.
By completely demolishing his old one, but—
It's not your fault, what happened.
"We can talk tomorrow," Louis offers. Disinclined to let any part of this go, but more willing to give Daniel a day to process now that Daniel's cracked the door open. Comfortable with something near to a decided upon point for a future conversation. Louis had gotten a full night after Armand had sent a bomb into their room to make a point. It's fair.
no subject
As if all of Lestat's senses aren't keyed in to the two other vampires in the room, as if he were wholly focused on his phone, the music leaking from headphones. This time, he knows an unexpected flash of upset rather than the usual bruise he on purpose presses to make twinge, but sealed up tightly behind a taut expression and his eyes on his phone.
Sinks lower amongst his cushions, as he would for properly settling in. Reaches up, snagging a hand on the internal handle, coaxing the lid closed.
no subject
—distracted, by the coffin lid shutting.
Imagines the neon sign over the flat surface, You Two Are Being Annoying.
"Are you sure screaming about it wouldn't make us both feel better?"
This, too, is affectionate. Daniel sighs and stands up, so he can just give Louis a hug. Fuck all of this, alright, he just cares about him.
no subject
Maybe screaming about it would be easier. A lancing of all the stress Louis knows they are all three feeling. But instead, there is this.
Daniel puts arms around him. Louis breathes out. Leans into him, holds on. Tucks his face in against the bend of Daniel's neck and stays there a moment, eyes closed.
He doesn't regret any part of what he did. What he risked. Doesn't risk the toll it's taken on him, what has been staved off by a little blood and will be managed by rest after.
The argument they aren't having is still swirling in the air. Not gone, but staved off. (Maybe.) Lestat's coffin, closing. (The tightening in Louis' chest to observe it.) Daylight rising outside the window. They'll leave soon. Louis is alright.
He makes himself be the one to straighten first from the embrace.
"You can scream at me tomorrow."
Putting a pin in this.
"It's late now. You need sleep."
Growing fledglings, etc.
no subject
"Yeah, yeah." Fine!! "Goodnight, Louis. You too, Blondie."
Sulking but not forgotten.
Bedtime. Sure. He can pretend. Daniel does a last sweep to make sure he has the right phone charging brick (and to double-check curtains and screens), and then closes himself away in his coffin, sufficiently cowed into giving up the appearance of anything else, today. Into the casket, and the daytime world of anxiety texting, since he's never actually going to be able to get any fucking sleep.
no subject
But that's for sundown.
In the present moment, Louis drums fingers so softly along the top of Lestat's coffin as Daniel makes his rounds. Watches him, expression soft. All things are complicated, yes, but not so complicated that Louis is not endlessly pleased with Daniel's presence, his survival.
When Daniel is securely within his coffin, Louis' fingers lift away from Lestat's.
And he goes, quietly, as promised into his own.
"Good night," softly into the dark of the room, before drawing the lid down over himself.
no subject
Sunlight is warming the sky by the time he gives in, and the lid of his coffin opens an inch, two inches. Evaluating the shaded living room, the closed coffins nearby, before opening the lid properly and climbing out. On quiet, slippered feet, he moves around to Louis', kneels down, places a hand at the edge of the lid.
He could already be deep in vampiric slumber, but Lestat is not above climbing in anyway. For now, he remains polite, and taps his fingers against the lid, a gesture from what feels like a million years ago and yesterday.
no subject
Drowsing, but not asleep. Taking quiet stock of his body, the aches and pains that have been dulled but not erased by cups and cups of borrowed blood. Thinking ahead to Vermont. To what he should say tomorrow to Daniel. What he should say to Lestat, if Lestat were still sulking when evening fell.
Then, a tapping.
A disorienting moment, trying to place the sound. Trying to decide whether or not he's dreaming.
The lid cracks open. Louis peers out, catching sight of Lestat's chest, then pushes the lid farther, opening wider to look up into his face.
"Hello," and then, worried, "Has something happened?"
no subject
Lestat lays his hand on the edge of the coffin, fingers curled over the edge, touching the soft interior. Not quite as obvious as putting a foot in a door before it can close, but a little motivated by the same instinct.
He is unhappy, afraid, frustrated, anxious with the sense of having had his feelings hurt and nO oNe hAs nOtIcEd, but another sentiment overrides all of these things, clear in the way he studies Louis' face. Most of it shoved aside, left behind in his coffin along with his headphones and ~portable~.
"I can't sleep."
no subject
A softening of Louis' expression at this given reason.
"Is it not helping as you thought to have us all here?"
no subject
Very well. He can bear this latest bruise to his pride, and looks back at Louis.
"You were not so far away either, when you were taken," he says. "And there was nothing I could do."
Did he come here to talk? Not really, despite his little display moments ago. Louis will assure him he is fine, that nothing too terrible occurred. What else can be said? Lestat skips this possibility and adds, "I will sleep better with my arms around you. But that has always been so."
no subject
Louis shifts, freeing a hand to touch Lestat. A well-worn bit of intimacy, his hand cupping Lestat's cheek, thumb at the corner of his mouth.
"You retrieved me. I was never in any danger."
No need to betray any deeper thoughts on the matter. Whether Louis wished they'd both stayed behind, left him to manage the after effects of his challenge on his own. Lestat had come. Louis was reclaimed. They were safe, all three of them.
"Come here," is invitation against whatever rebuttal Lestat surely has. Draws him down towards the utilitarian confines of Louis' storage crate. Well-cushioned but hardly luxurious, open to Lestat if he pleases.
no subject
Because he would be correct.
But Lestat's jaw sets in a stubbornly displeased angle, a look that transparently conveys he is not convinced. Louis was in danger because Louis was hurt. Danger occurred, manifested. But an invitation is made, and Lestat moves to accept it, two centuries and a half of practice of crawling into small dark spaces, with or without another. Taking care with limbs, seeking out the most comfortable configuration.
Tonight, it is to settle his weight against Louis, pin him to the floor of this—storage crate, merde, what is the point of being a billionaire vampire—
A sigh, in the dark. Once they are settled, "Why are you doing this?" Not argumentative so much as an honest question. "Explain it to me like I'm an imbecile."
no subject
Louis isn't objecting. Like Daniel's embrace, Louis yields into this entanglement, transparent in the comfort taken from the contact. Breathes out as Lestat settles himself just so, reaching up past him to hook the handle and draw the lid closed over them. Lestat can certainly leave if he pleases, but no expectation from Louis that he expects Lestat to relocate, that he sees this as temporary.
His thumb runs along Lestat's cheek once more.
"Inviting you in?"
Not what he's being asked. Louis knows. Is reasonably sure Lestat won't find the joke charming.
no subject
Yes, less restraint. Sees no point in it. If they are to be friends, maintain a friendship, find themselves thrown into fraught circumstances like so, as friends, then a part of that will be, Lestat has decided, the ability to do just this. Lay against one another, find comfort in it. As long as Louis invites no other into this space, Lestat can lay some claim to it. They are friends but he is his maker.
Eventually, he is certain, the ability to do so will be gone from him, and he will resent having hesitated. And so.
"This fight. This war."
no subject
Big questions, which apparently can take a back seat to more pressing matters.
Louis' thumb maintains it's steady back and forth across Lestat's cheek. Hooks a knee up alongside Lestat's thigh, little restless points of movement, ways in which Louis draws Lestat in more securely as he considers the question. Old habits, the way they align.
"They were already planning my death. They're eager for it. I want them focused on me. I welcome it," echoes Claudia, as self-assured now as she had been then. Calm, as he relates this to Lestat.
News that will be even less welcome than little jokes.
"They've grown numerous," Louis murmurs. Thumb following the cut of cheekbone, breathing soft in the dark, chest rising and falling in time with Lestat's. "Better to draw them into a conflict and thin them out, before they are able to make their dream of the Conversion something real."
no subject
A little derisive, but mildly so. The pull of the sun working its effect, as does the nearness of Louis' heartbeat, breath, the stroke of his thumb. Going perfectly still, until he has that sense of detachment from his own self, as if they are one being with two minds in this sightless space.
He has felt what it's like when Louis seeks his own annihilation. He has heard how it did not sound that way, when Daniel showed him the memory of Louis' challenge to the Many. Here, he picks through these words, sifts through them, silent and fretful.
Eventually, "You fight well," offered. "Viciously."
no subject
Looping Lestat in alongside Daniel and his Talamasca contacts. Whatever the Talamasca intends, Louis assumes they have a vested interest in avoiding the Conversion. So Louis is a moving target. It is of use.
A train of thought curtailed as he considers Lestat has never seen him fight. Not truly. This evening had been a far cry from the hunting they'd done in New Orleans. Louis, grown into his power.
"And I do alright for myself," softly, remembering New Orleans. Remembering Lestat across the table, describing Louis drawing a knife and putting it to Paul's chest. Viciousness has always been in him. Maybe Lestat had always admired that.
no subject
And he thinks, too, of Louis drawing a blade to his brother's breastbone. Of an alderman torn so gruesomely that his admiration for the deed had outweighed the usual preoccupation with maintaining their discretion. Of the bits and pieces of people that they'd decorated their home with in their final night spent there.
Louis and his capacity for ferocious anger, a willingness to resort to violence, ruthlessness. The things Lestat had imagined would make Louis a good vampire for him to spend eternity with.
"Mmhm. Do you enjoy it?" A cheeky question, maybe. The hand resting on Louis' chest curls, taps a finger. "Just a little bit."
Near whispered, like Louis can tell Lestat, just for Lestat. This is a safe space, here.
no subject
(Daniel, two coffins away, delayed likely only by his own misgivings about the night's events.)
Lestat, asking this question in hushed tones. Lestat, who has seen Louis struggle, has seen Louis' temper, has seen the worst of his violence and matched it, outstripped it.
Louis' expression flexes tender in the dark, even as he weighs up his own conflicted feelings.
"I did," he murmurs, the outcome of a moment's accounting. A quiet confession. "I felt alive. Had a long stretch there where I didn't feel like I was."
Words that sidestep. It's complicated.
Courting a fight is all that he told Lestat. Louis hadn't lied. But there is also this thing, this quiet desperate thing propelling him to shake himself free of so many years of careful equilibrium. To reassert control after having ceded it for so long.
no subject
This, more than anything else, makes sense to Lestat. More than fighting this Conversion, the proliferation of vampires. Allows it to sink in, in the quiet dark, the even measure of their breathing and heart beats, before he draws focus with another tap of his fingers.
"Then see that you stay that way," quiet. "Don't let them take you from me."
bow??
At his lowest, his nearest to death, there had been Lestat. One way or another, he had been there to tug Louis back.
This vendetta isn't a prayer for death. Louis can promise that without any hesitation or omissions. His fingers slip into Lestat's hair, thumb at his temple.
"I'm not going nowhere," Louis promises. "I'm staying. They can't take me anywhere I don't want to go."
Inevitably, a trap door through which Louis might step again if he feels he must. But tonight, the soft sweep of fingers through Lestat's hair, his heartbeat steady beneath his palm.
"And I don't wanna leave," Louis tells him. "I mean to stay."
🎀
Terrible and hurtful that he cannot, does not, that Lestat must partake in the tedium that is counting his blessings, of Louis in the same coffin as he, Louis saying sweet assurances (even if they have loopholes, yes, Lestat notices), Louis alive and warm and welcoming. But he does it anyway, because he is a saint and a martyr. Or rather, because they are blessings, true ones, and it feels good to count them anyway.
A subtle shift, a closer entangling, and Lestat allows the conversation to do as he'd requested and appease him. Sleeping assured that Louis cannot easily go anywhere, while he has him in his claws.