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lestat de lioncourt. ([personal profile] damnedest) wrote2024-07-27 03:00 pm
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[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-17 02:08 am (UTC)(link)
"Never again in Vermont," Louis suggests, as if this is the interpretation Daniel invited. "Save the rest for the next stop on your tour."

Is this a viable business strategy? Drum up some local interest prior to the reading?

Louis cuts a glance to Jeannie, perhaps assessing the likelihood of her getting in on the bit.
followups: by manual. (—0042.)

[personal profile] followups 2025-01-17 03:13 am (UTC)(link)
Where's his drink, Louis????

No it's fine. Anyway,

"Naturally weird," he laughs, but follows it up with a "Thank you", so. You know. Not too self-effacing. (Eyes that burn like cigarettes. The song means nothing, and Daniel is heterosexual, don't worry about it.)

Jeannie is hammered, still, but clapping delightedly. Drunk enough that she's considering doing a song by herself, which seems much easier this side of all the alcohol. So it's on a delay when she notices Louis giving her an opening, but she scoots in there— "Everything booked by a bar. By this bar. In the future. But like not here."

Nailed it.
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[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-17 04:45 am (UTC)(link)
The bottle abandoned on the table is easy enough to take custody of as Lestat absconds with Jeannie. He is filling his own cup to slide over to Daniel, casual about the allocation of resources as Mark levers unsteadily into Lestat's seat.

"He's exaggerating," Louis deadpans. An interjection that heralds a no.

Keeps an eye on Lestat's approach. There are a number of people perking up as the collection of assembled mortals notice Lestat and Jeannie making their way towards the current organizing entity, hands twitching towards phones.

Evidence enough for Louis to stand by it: this is certainly a marketing strategy worth considering.
followups: by manual. (—0116.)

[personal profile] followups 2025-01-17 09:00 am (UTC)(link)
"It was hardly singing, but thank you. I'm keeping my opera talents hidden. For now."

Most of the videos being taken are going to be wobbly and indistinguishable, even the shiniest, newest Pixel cameras struggling with the dim, low-ceiling bar lights and the bright single stage light with its slowly rotating gel wheel. But still. Alcohol-soaked memories, held by intangible data, whatever that is.

A salute with the glass, to Louis. Close enough to a grasshopper. (Which would taste like glue anyway.)

"Any predictions on what we think their direction'll be?"

Meanwhile: Johnny Cash of some description, and a guy really having a wild go at it.
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[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-18 01:10 am (UTC)(link)
"None," Louis admits to Daniel, turning back to him after having met Lestat's look with a small, teasing smile. "He is unpredictable."

Understatement.

Louis says this so affectionately.

Mark has managed his very careful transfer between two chairs. A sign, perhaps, of intoxication, one that becomes clearer without Jeannie to overshadow it. Louis nudges a stray glass of water along the table to him as he touches Daniel's mind, asks: Is he what you imagined?
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[personal profile] followups 2025-01-18 05:52 am (UTC)(link)
Mark takes the water; Daniel notices that, every so often, something he's drinking turns blue. Apparently he's not great at magic, but when intoxicated, weird shit can happen anyway. It's a little funny.

'Who, Mark?'

Daniel is very funny.

'Yes and no.' They're talking (sort of) about Lestat. 'He's charming, he's intense. I get it.'

Should he ask if they're making it work, if Louis is comfortable with Lestat around? If he feels safe after that outburst? Mm. Too much, for tonight.

'I'm glad you're here.'
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elbows an extra tag in here

[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-18 06:05 am (UTC)(link)
Louis slants a look at Daniel, expression soft. Fond.

I'm glad you're happy.

Among other things. Healthy. Safe, enjoying fame. All good things in the wake of something terrible.

You still owe me a tour of your apartment, by the way.

In case Daniel thinks Louis has forgotten. They left in a hurry, yes. But the interest, the promise, Louis holds all of it still.
followups: by manual. (—0031.)

owie

[personal profile] followups 2025-01-18 06:17 am (UTC)(link)
He's having a nice time, and so it's not very pointed, but he still feels it: a spark of suddenly realized guilt. Armand has been in his apartment before Louis. He might say that, in fairness, it's clear Armand had been there on his own prior to Daniel's awareness, but still. Invited him in, more than once. He gave him a fucking key. Again, he could make the pathetic excuse of, well, Armand was breaking in anyway, might as well.

Still.

His junky mismatched decor, his tacky ceilings. He doesn't think Louis will like it. But he resolves to make sure he comes over anyway. Even out the scales.

'Not if I move first,' he jokes. 'If my offer on a house goes through in time, you can just see a pristine, empty home, instead of all my totally pedestrian art and knickknacks.'
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[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-18 06:31 am (UTC)(link)
I'll help you box them up.

Cue the jokes about Louis' long hiatus from true manual labor.

But it's a real offer. Louis would do this for him. (He would also pay to have it done, oversee it from afar.)

Don't sell your apartment, Louis offers. Keep it. You might need it again.

A split between real estate advice and something more genuine. This apartment Louis had never seen that was once Daniel's home. It shouldn't be set aside.

And also—

And I'd like to see it. Your place, before you tidy up all signs of yourself.
followups: by manual. (—0060.)

[personal profile] followups 2025-01-18 07:04 am (UTC)(link)
'I probably can't even sell it,' he admits. 'I've done too much to it over the years.'

Maybe he just doesn't want to have to paint over the clouds. They're not incredible or anything, but he likes them. Enough that he's been thinking about getting the same thing done in the new place. Maybe different shades, different times of day. Armand would probably have decent input. Frescos, all that shit.

Christ, what a bad thought.

'When we get back. First thing.'
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yet another tag of nothing

[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-18 07:49 am (UTC)(link)
They are very far away from New Orleans, from the courtyard stage of the Azalea, but the performance is now as it was then. The ability Lestat has to play to his audience, to sweep every individual observing him up into his wake as he fills the space with his presence.

There is simply no comparable performer.

Some awareness of the beginnings of a thing. Louis watching Lestat so attentively, picking up the invocation of the name, the descriptor Louis had relayed to Daniel that had perhaps made it into the book. Louis observes him summon it and realign it, make it into something to suit him.

Something to think about in the coming weeks, whatever they may bring. (Nothing eventful, surely.)

Presently, the expression of satisfaction and joy on Lestat's face matters more. Louis is so pleased to see it. Happier to applaud, whenever opportunity allows.
followups: by manual. (—0050.)

nothing but uwu eyes

[personal profile] followups 2025-01-18 10:14 am (UTC)(link)
Some people in the crowd have no idea what the Tabarnak with the great voice is talking about, most people think he's a very fun cosplayer here for the book thing, but a couple are believers. Little Mermaid especially. Lestat has a rapt, largely drunk, but fully enthusiastic audience. None more so than front table, but his own table — Daniel and the humans, at least — also help.

Daniel is off key. Mark is worse. Jeannie is great.

Lestat's just really good, is the thing. Takes Daniel's mind right off the Armand apartment guilt. He knows this one word for word, which is helpful for filling in the bits the audience choruses back. Exactly ten years after he encountered Louis is when it came out, he thinks. In New York by then, and it was playing nonstop in every corner store and train station. Nostalgia is so fucking weird.
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[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-19 02:58 am (UTC)(link)
If there were such a thing as encore in karaoke—

But there is no, and Lestat is welcomed back. Louis' head tips back to look at him, observe his expression, judge whether or not Lestat is enjoying the adoration of the crowd to the fullest.

Daniel has cigarettes and Louis does not, so he does not cut in. Lestat lays a hand on his shoulder and Louis lets himself indulge the impulse to reach up to tangle their fingers together. (Old habit. All the times Lestat laid a hand across Louis' shoulders, all the times Louis reached up to lay his hand over his to close the loop between them.) Looks between Lestat and Daniel, Mark and Jeannie as good as forgotten in this moment.
Edited 2025-01-19 02:58 (UTC)
followups: by sousaphone. (—0151.)

[personal profile] followups 2025-01-19 04:39 am (UTC)(link)
To Louis, "Don't look at me like that, I'm too old for you to suggest we go back to the rental and play Twister."

Get your sappy doe eyes away from him, nerd, he knows who you're looking at. Daniel pulls his cigarettes out of his jacket pocket, then, and thunks the pack against Louis' nearest wrist on the table. There you go.

"He's got them," Daniel then very helpfully informs Lestat. "Come back in time to watch Jeannie or she'll lose it tomorrow."
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[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-19 06:05 am (UTC)(link)
This too, Daniel has retained. Annoying, even as a vampire.

A nudge of contact, conveying some of this. Annoying (affectionate) needled at the edge of Daniel's mind as Louis collects the pack of cigarettes, rises to his feet.

Louis is content to trail after Lestat, observe the praise lavished upon him. Louis' brief claim to fame has been eclipsed, and he has no regrets about it. It's preferable, to avoid attention.

And then they are outside, into the cool air. Louis taps Daniel's pack against his palm, then turns to offer the contents wordlessly to Lestat.
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[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-19 04:47 pm (UTC)(link)
It had been ritual, back then. Lestat lighting his cigarette, then Lestat lighting Louis'. The little ways they tended to each other, small intimacies that could pass muster in the public eye. Lestat offers it out and Louis, cigarette already held between his lips, leans in to light his own off Lestat's.

Another little dip, another closed circuit.

Small intimacies, enduring.

"No," Louis confirms, a smile flashing up onto his face, just for Lestat. "You know I ain't never been much of singer."

Coaxed into it for Claudia's birthdays, as a wavering third when Lestat and Claudia vocalized at their piano. Always serviceable, never anything that might impress.

"I pity anyone trying to follow you anyways," is subtle praise. Lestat must know Louis' admiration is unchanged.
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[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-20 04:09 am (UTC)(link)
"Oh yeah?"

Teasing disbelief.

Louis is not a singer, not a dancer, not an artist. He appreciates all these talents, admires them where they manifest in others, in those around him. But they don't belong to him.

"You were leading, last I checked."

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