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lestat de lioncourt. ([personal profile] damnedest) wrote2024-07-27 03:00 pm
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[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-12 03:20 am (UTC)(link)
Considering which Disney movie they should inflict on Lestat, or if they should introduce Lestat to Disney takes up a few minutes of Louis' time. His associations are somewhat removed from Daniel's. No childhood fondness in Louis' heart, and only some technical recollection of the properties. What he and Armand drifted past as they moved through the world back then, before they sequestered in Dubai.

But no need for that digression. Louis lifts his long-neglected drink, keeps it held delicately between his fingers as he tips a glance between Lestat and Daniel. Jeannie and Mark left to their own devices, debates about song choice or murmured gossip about locals.

"Daniel has a vast body of work. I'm sure he could accommodate the request."

Volunteering Daniel to Lestat's whims, casually. Louis tosses back the vodka, sets down the glass.
Edited 2025-01-12 03:28 (UTC)
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[personal profile] followups 2025-01-12 11:42 pm (UTC)(link)
Daniel had kids in the 80s and 90s. He has seen every classic Disney movie. He saw them in theaters packed with fussing babies and the worst popcorn known to man, in the days you could still smoke in some of the shittier cinemas. He did cocaine in the middle of The Great Mouse Detective. World's best dad.

"We'll find something more exciting than the continued existence of the planet we live on," Daniel tells him somberly, both pandering to Lestat and giving him shit.

Anyway. Vodka as well, he follows suit, salutes Louis with the empty shot glass, and looks up when Jeannie returns to show him his request list. Which is all bullshit. He complains about it, bemoaning the popularity of Frozen (which he hasn't seen, a product after his parental duties cutoff). Discussion, and then Mark goes Oh, oh, oh! with the enthusiasm of someone who is secretly drunker than he looks on. Whatever the suggestion he shows Daniel on his phone is gets grudging approval.

One more song between the end of Susan, and then it's Sonny and Cher time, and then, maybe, Daniel.
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[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-13 12:47 am (UTC)(link)
What a weird night Louis is having.

Having to straighten in his seat, a flicker of—

Jealousy?

Something.

Watching Lestat and Susan.

Maybe envy, a different kind of emotion. Susan, freely effusive in her admiration where Louis has not, cannot be.

A little too much introspection for this exact point in time.

Looking between Mark and Daniel, prompts: "Are you going to share the choice, or leave it to surprise us?"
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[personal profile] followups 2025-01-13 04:51 am (UTC)(link)
"You can buy me a drink after my song," Daniel says, very clearly teasing Louis about his doe eyes in Lestat's direction. Because they're a thing, or working on it. He's glad to see Lestat happy about music, and he hopes that his socializing with mortals at a bar isn't because he's going to go eat Little Mermaid later. C'mon. Behave.

More vodka? More vodka. We're having fun.

"Oh, well, what's the progress on picking out your own track?" Hm? HM? Daniel gives him a pointed look. Going to be the mysterious odd man out after all? What was that about a repeat performance?
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[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-13 05:22 am (UTC)(link)
Louis' gaze slides over to Daniel. Favors him with a smile, soft-edged and affectionate.

"I'll buy you a drink," he agrees. "Maybe a grasshopper, for old times' sake."

If they make it strong enough, it'll be all the sharp bite of alcohol, none of the sweetness. Suitable.

Side-stepping the latter question. Or attempting. Mark leans an elbow on the table, catching Louis by the wrist as he repeats it, rephrased: Are you gonna sing? Familiar, but Louis doesn't blame him, doesn't seem to take offense. Mark painted his nails, has been sweet, and is one of Daniel's people.

So Louis looks back to Daniel and says, "You're a bad influence on them."
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[personal profile] followups 2025-01-13 05:44 am (UTC)(link)
Daniel grins at him, and there's something boyish in the expression. Every so often there's flashes of continuity, the dopey kid at the bar. Here they are, at another bar, and he's about to be just as dopey. Worse, really, because at twenty he had pride to be ruffled, didn't want to hear Danny. And now he doesn't care. The freedom of being fucking old.

(Even if he still doesn't love 'Danny.')

"I'm a bad influence on everybody."

That's his thing.

Wrecking Ball is starting. Oh, god. It's going to be screams from everyone in here that knows the chorus.
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[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-13 05:58 am (UTC)(link)
The tepid attempt at scolding is ruined when Louis smiles back. Sees that familiar quality in Daniel's smile and is so pleased by it, pleased at the pieces of him that are recognizable, still there after all this time.

"I already put on a real good performance tonight," Louis reminds Daniel, pivoting back because no one at this table is going to allow him peace. Permits Mark custody of his hand as he declines their combined request. "One's enough."

Mark thumbs over Louis' rings, covetous. Jeannie is leaning on his shoulder, cheek smooshed and arm slung round Mark's waist as she whispers what sounds absolutely like criticism of Mr. Wrecking Ball into Mark's bicep.
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[personal profile] followups 2025-01-13 06:05 am (UTC)(link)
"You are hammered, homegirl," Daniel informs Jeannie, and it makes both the mortals laugh. Grandpa saying funny words never gets old.

After this he decrees that Louis shall be spared, at least from their peer pressure — privately reserving the potential for Lestat to try and wrench something into existence — and he sits back to sip at more alcohol while Mark shifts around to hold his girlfriend and join in the chorus with her when it hits.

To Louis,

'Are you having a good time? Honest.'
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[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-13 06:14 am (UTC)(link)
Readjusting his rings (one turned all the way in the opposite direction, one twisted at an angle at Jeannie's insistence) Louis doesn't look up immediately. Mind opening, a welcome, before Louis angles his body towards Daniel across Lestat's empty seat.

Gears turning, indistinct but unmistakable, as Louis weighs the question.

Yes, is tepid, certainly, but honest. I like seeing you all enjoying yourselves.

Aware that he is, to some extent, wall-flowering. Louis thinks he's entitled to hang back, to observe. But, just to be certain:

Are you happy, Daniel?
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[personal profile] followups 2025-01-13 06:36 am (UTC)(link)
Instead of an answer formed in words, Daniel offers Louis the psychic version of squeezing his hand— it's clumsy, but he wants to show him. Just how happy he is. Overwhelming, stupid sentiment, seeing Louis out in the world, Louis doing goofy shit like picking a fight, Louis watching Lestat perform with a look of wonder, Louis getting his nails painted. Louis, safe, here, alive.

(Daniel does love him. Not the way Lestat does. But he does love him.)

And then, the wrecking ball of Lestat de Holyfuck—

He can't help his sudden laugh. Heeyyyy.

"The kids are going up," he says, a little loud over the rowdy chorus of a bar that's forgotten all about a thrown punch. "And then: yes."
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[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-13 06:43 am (UTC)(link)
Louis, shockingly sober thanks to the tempering presence of Rachida and Ramiz, possesses the reflexes to catch himself rather than be knocked out of his chair. The look he gives Lestat is affectionate, rather than annoyed.

And it lifts too to Daniel beyond him. Understands this sensation as an affirmative, feels it high in his chest. There's little else to do but let it sit, because getting overly sentimental in a Vermont karaoke bar is a recipe for some kind of disaster.

Still, some soft, sweet squeeze of emotion in answer. Louis is here because of Daniel. It is an undeniable truth.

"He won't say which song," Louis mock-complains to Lestat. Reaches over to touch his wrist, a little insurance against Lestat tipping too far in his seat.
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[personal profile] followups 2025-01-13 07:50 am (UTC)(link)
"It's—" Oh? Oh. Yeah. He nods at Lestat, then looks back at Louis, shrugging. "Drama and showmanship."

He had only been derailing to try and drag Louis into more shenanigans, but sure, that too. Little telepathic fingers against his, still, reassuring. It's not the alcohol that's making him feel loser. The contentment of being here and it being real. Daniel isn't too social, not really, but once in a while? Pretty fucking cool, seeing something this way.

He confesses, about volume, "I don't think I'd been in a bar with anyone else in fifteen years, before you surprised me outside the train station."

Still getting his socializing sea legs back.
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[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-14 12:15 am (UTC)(link)
Unexpected, Lestat's fingers catching at his own.

And what an indulgence, a luxury, to be playing with each others fingers, hands together over the table. So much of their courtship and their relationship afterwards was stymied and obscured in public. Separated by tables, by Louis relegated to long steps behind or assigned sections of this and that space.

Now, Lestat simply turns his hand to link into Louis' and there is nothing at all to it. Just a simple thing happening. Easy as Mark's arms around Jeannie.

Behind all of this, some absurd envy for Lestat and Daniel in a bar. But Louis holds that too in check.

"When was this?" he inquires. Invites details.
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[personal profile] followups 2025-01-14 03:27 am (UTC)(link)
Ayup. He shrugs at Lestat, hands spread. The older vampire is only familiar with him through his rejuvenated state, his celebration of his unlife— never met the dying, cranky man suffering from chronic pain who sat in Louis' penthouse. No friends, no reason to go out. Even before Parkinson's, even before the pandemic; illness and quarantine did not make him unpleasant, or distrustful, or disinclined to go bar crawling without a specific mission in mind. Bridge destruction has been a lifelong hobby.

It's nice to be here. It's nice to have fucking superpowers, and steady hands, and a spiraling career he's set on fire. Fun, in fact.

"Pleasant company," he says. "For a couple of old guys leaving the house for the first time in a while."

They are friends, see.
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[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-14 04:29 am (UTC)(link)
It's nothing Louis hasn't said before: he likes this, their friendship. He'd liked that Lestat was traveling with Daniel. He likes that they have this, a connection.

Louis can like it, and envy it at the same time. It doesn't take anything away from his expression softening, looking between them as his thumb strokes along Lestat's knuckles.

How small Louis' world has become. But even if it spins out beyond him, vast and crowded, Louis is certain there will be no one else he loves more than these two.

Aloud, he summarizes, "And now you're here."

The pair of them. Out in the world. Louis glossing over whatever has been obscured from him. Whatever adventures occupy Lestat and Daniel's time when Louis is apart from them, maybe better untold.
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[personal profile] followups 2025-01-14 06:19 am (UTC)(link)
There is a tiny crack in the proverbial door, in which Daniel could feel jealous— he's been trying to get Louis out of the tower for a while now, but it took Lestat to get Louis to do it. Do it pretty quickly, in fact.

But he doesn't push the door open. He's just grateful. It's clear they both need this, and Daniel is happy they're able to, happy Louis found a reason to shift, get a different perspective on the outside world. Dubai is an artificial bubble even if he did ever go down for a walk out among the humans.

"He was picking his moment, fashionably."

Helping.

And now— Ah! Jeannie and Mark are up. Daniel will do his level best not to take out his phone like somebody's dad, but he will fail in about thirty seconds.
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[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-14 06:27 am (UTC)(link)
"I was invited."

By them both. An invitation made fairly stridently if Louis is recalling right, but he is not so eager to invoke it now when everyone is having a nice time and thinking not at all about vampires that would like to tear Louis apart.

And besides, Jeannie and Mark are going to sing.

Louis turns obediently towards the stage. A flash of memory: Claudia, rehearsing, looking out into the theater to find him. It twists hard in his chest.

Claudia would have liked karaoke, Louis is certain.

A mental detour that wards against the impulse to let go of Lestat's hand first. Louis retains it while Jeannie and Mark perform, and Daniel films, and the bar chatters and whoops and applauds around them.
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[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-15 04:46 am (UTC)(link)
Real protest is not entirely off the table. There is some part of Louis that balks, a complex tangle of emotion at Lestat's light tug.

Aware they are in public.

Remembering New Orleans. Remembering their ball, but remembering beyond that. Remembering their home. Remembering Lestat drawing Louis into an embrace, a waltz. The years before Claudia, the years after, when she would join them and they three would dance together.

And now here, in a very public bar, Lestat rises to his feet and means to draw Louis after him. The intention is clear, familiar even after eighty years.

Maybe Louis' hesitance is clear too. Balking, a stretch where he looks into Lestat's face, fingers tightening around his before he permits himself to be drawn up onto his feet.

enjoy a tag of nothing

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nothing but uwu eyes

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