As much as they have changed, they are still the same. The quality of their desire, the way they want each other. Lestat reading that in him still, easy. No need to touch his mind. Lestat knows Louis, all that he was and all that he is.
Easy to twist claws into each other. Easy for this too, for Lestat to unravel Louis even as he hisses and spits and snarls through the entire process.
Argument strangles in his throat as Lestat reapplies his mouth. As Louis' fingers spasm, tighten, loosen, tighten again in his hair, encouraging.
"You imagining things now?" Louis breathes out, frustrated, affectionate. Lestat has levered his weight down, harder over his thighs, but the tremors running through his body continue. Endurance fraying.
A flash of a look, icy and cutting, but Lestat is unwilling to break from this task as he feels Louis' will begin to fray under his hands. Tasting it, swallowed down, the salty precursor. And besides,
he's very attractive when he is a little cruel, in words, in his twisting hands. That and the sound of him and the taste of him all working together to warm Lestat's blood all over again, to send it in hot rivers through his body.
He wants more. Wants to climb over Louis and fuck him properly. Wants to lay with him after and then fuck him again. Insane with want and so, maybe he is imagining things. Imagining Louis feels the same.
He works him still, feeling an impulse to see him off before Lestat is a whole new mess. Louis, withholding still.
Satisfaction, awareness of hitting a nerve. Louis can't bite him; he digs claws in any way he can.
Doesn't matter. Struggling against the inevitable. Against falling back into Lestat, when he is already caught up beneath him.
His fingers scrape along Lestat's scalp. Gives up one hand gripping Lestat's hair to fling an arm across his face. (Old habit. Shades of New Orleans.) A passing, useless attempt at hiding, masking the sounds Lestat pulls from him.
Maybe if Lestat drew off again, spoke, exchanged a few barbs, it'd give Louis time to catch his breath. Regroup. Stave off the inevitable. But Lestat doesn't take the bait, and Louis comes, breaks apart, head snapping back against the seat.
Pulling on Lestat's hair, not to push him down but the urge him up. Unconscious desire, begging Lestat up to him.
Lestat gives a rough, satisfied groan as Louis shudders his way through the inevitable, staying attentive, taking it all until there is none left and Louis is tugging at him, urging him. He lifts his head, releasing him, eyes dark and hazy, and moves, slithering up Louis' body.
No more dedicated pinning, just his weight, incidental, braced against Louis or the car seat beside him. He noses close, heedless of sticky blood, sweat, saliva.
Strange, how Lestat remains draped over him, but the sensation of being pinned has gone. Hazy awareness of Lestat's strength, how he wields it, how he hid it, drifts through Louis' mind.
A shade of a scowl on his face as Lestat speaks. Louis feels wrung out, but not so much so that he doesn't find some annoyance for this needling.
He kisses Lestat anyway.
Bad form to encourage him, but Louis has made so many bad decisions. He can make one more. He can kiss Lestat properly, no bruising or snarling. He licks into his mouth, tastes all that they've done together. Indulges. Kisses him and kisses him and kisses him. Can think of no compelling reason to stop.
The beginnings of a chuckle taper off as he is kissed, and there are no bites, no snags. Soothing, instead, the brush of lips and tongue. Lacerations and piercing wounds have closed, mostly, leaving behind reddish spots and grazes, tingling sensitivity, and Lestat settles against him, a little beside him, putting the narrow real estate of the seating to the test.
He lays a hand on Louis' chest as he is kissed, as he answers it in kind. Expresses some tension in the way sheer fabric is gathered in a fist, just to hold.
Occurs to him midway through that this is special. Unexpected. It may feel like the most natural of things, but it has been so long. A gives a soft sound, collecting himself, kisses Louis all the more thoroughly.
But the fight drains out of Louis as they kiss. Lestat fits in alongside and over him just as he always has, and the seat is narrow but so was their coffin once. They find balance. Louis' hand tangles more fully into Lestat's hair, cupping his skull, keeping him close.
Their hearts beat together, perfectly synced through the rise and now the fall of their clash.
Louis drinks the sound Lestat makes. Wants to hear another, hear it again. He can taste himself, his blood, some chemical, in Lestat's mouth. Licks after all of it, trading heavy breaths back and forth.
It's been such a long time. But Louis falls into him just the same. He keeps Lestat caught close.
If they keep kissing, maybe they simply never have to talk about anything at all ever again.
He'd had some plans to say some things. Had thought of them while he was occupied. Did Armand, for instance, ever get such a reaction, or did he just hang his mouth open like catching flies? Would Louis like to discuss the specifics about what he's been missing?
But Louis is kissing him, tasting him, holding him like no one else presumes to. Leaving wounds no one else could. Sharp words set aside and Lestat breathes out slow through his nose and dreamily kisses back as the car roves around the streets without real purpose beyond staying in motion.
Louis doesn't make the prospect of withdraw easy, the way he holds him. When the kisses do break, Lestat is kept caught, their mouths a fraction away from each other. What is he imagining now? Something like he had hallucinated in New Orleans?
He runs a finger down Louis' healing cheek, letting his nail dimple the skin without scraping it.
Stings all the more for it, gentle instead of accusatory, prompting for an answer Louis doesn't have.
What is he doing?
A question striking at the moment, prompting immediate self examination of their entanglement, Louis' part in it.
Louis' expression flickers, hurt, lost, and then shutters. Feels caught out. It loosens his grip, but doesn't drop his hands from where they rest on Lestat's body, tangle in his hair.
"What am I doing?" He repeats, quieter, gathering tension is his body signaling movement. A fresh bid for freedom, perhaps more successful this time despite their states of relative undress.
"Mm," is a sound like, yes, that's what I said. And a delayed sense of movement beneath him, and Lestat sinks a little further back against the seat so that Louis can wriggle out from under him if he so desires. Boneless, suddenly, heavy but strength absent in the points of contact.
Keeps his hands on Louis as long as he is here. Palm spread against his chest, a finger worked beneath a leather strap. A leg draped over a thigh. Pale eyes set, intent, well-used to focusing on this particular face at this close a proximity.
"Not my business either," is a guess, not made in the best of faith.
The question is broad, open-ended. Felt directed at the immediate, the kiss, the way they are wrapped in each other but—
Louis watches him for long moments, Lestat shifting his weight and Louis' grip tightening slightly in response. Louis should go. He shouldn't have done any of this.
The urge to draw Lestat back down into a kiss is hard to ignore. Easier when they aren't talking.
"What are you talking about, Lestat?"
Direct. They've fallen into this trap before. Louis skirts it this time, or at least, attempts to.
He expects Louis to put some distance when given the opportunity. Not really because of all of that struggling, which had just been a fight to lose, but because clearer heads will prevail. But perhaps not yet. He holds onto him in return.
Even as this question is asked. Direct. Had he not also been direct? Should he repeat this back at Louis too, and around they go? A pause, and then a restless shrug—
"Well I would like to know if I am a part of your hobby now," rattles out of him, sharp, fast, still whisper toned in the tight space they make. "Blood-soaked dalliances with vampire kind. You must tell me what is more satisfying, removing a head or getting some."
Nettled. Frustration creeping back, despite the good work Lestat had done in banishing it from his body. It's always been the way. Lestat capable of both, plucking at his emotions effortlessly. A gift of knowing him so well.
"This isn't part of anything else."
Just maybe something they shouldn't have done. A car crash on its own merits. Lestat has hooked a finger through one of the harness straps and Louis likes it so much, even as he is annoyed by the questions and Lestat's near accusations.
Wants to ask, Do you really think that? but knows the answer wouldn't do him any good.
Perhaps it's too early to ask. Perhaps. Clothes in disarray, still clutching each other, blood and other bodily fluids still wet on the skin. The question sits restlessly on the tongue as Lestat studies Louis in the cramped little space they've made for themselves in the otherwise generous car.
His eyeline falls, settling on whatever bite mark he can see. His own, he thinks. Did the other vampires get one in? He doesn't remember. The moments between knowing something was wrong and finding himself kneeling over a broken vampire body, a blur.
"How often do they come for you?" is what he finally settles on, wading through the pettier option.
A sense of having tread out onto delicate ground. Louis hadn't meant to talk about these things with Lestat. They have enough worries between them, and there have been moments where Louis had the sense Lestat was—
Fragile.
Not a word he might have applied in New Orleans. Not so readily, at least.
He sighs, letting his eyes drift to the ceiling even as his fingers play at the ends of Lestat's hair. Unconscious habit; he had so often practiced similar touches in their coffin.
"Not every night," he stipulates, before admitting: "But often enough. I usually get it taken care of before I meet you."
Regrettable that this particular group hadn't felt inclined to follow the timetable.
This information settles unhappily. Unhappy to be learning of this thing so late, to know he would not know it at all if Louis had his way. Unhappy it is occurring.
Simmers in it, deciding what must be addressed first.
Why haven't you told me?
Not yet.
"Do you provoke them still?" His finger crooks, gently setting nail against chest. "Don't think I didn't know about your little pronouncement, all those months ago."
Galling. Louis' anger comes simmering to the surface. The man with the knife in his cane, unable to back away from a conflict. Long years between now and then, but Louis has not left the instinct behind.
And he had liked that, of course. A ruthlessness, a quick hand to violence when the mood strikes, when it finds itself forced.
The vampire world is not a fumbling preacher on the street. Louis is not the fledgling who he refused to go past the borders of the New World. Everything skewed, warped. Lestat lets out a sharp exhale at this wording, as if permission is something he is clawing after, the point of contention.
"You have hidden it from me," quick on the back of this answer.
And he bites down on the first impulse. The parts of him that wish to say something unkind, to offer provocation. They could fuck again. They could stop speaking of this. They could make Lestat's driver roam the city a thousand times over while they fell into each other.
Louis sighs.
"It ain't for you to worry about. I didn't want it to be something you worried about."
Now, movement. Restlessness that seizes him suddenly, and Lestat is pushing away, climbing over, a gripping hand shoving himself back into leather pants ridden low. A bad sign for the prospect of a circling drive, of a second round, although hope springs eternal. But, a flash of hurt, anger.
He levers himself into the opposite seat, hair a mess, clothes a mess. Vest tattered on the ground, given up as refuse.
"Why isn't it for me to worry about? Why shouldn't it be? Or do you have your valet ready with the memo to my lawyer when she finds you torn into pieces or burned to ash?"
If Lestat is wearing clothes, Louis should do up his own trousers. Realizes quickly Lestat has broken the button, feels some flicker of easy irritation over it. A mess, Lestat has made a mess of him. Broken button, Lestat's spend joining the blood staining his shirt and drying tacky on the straps of the harness, there is no way to make it all presentable.
Sighs again, frustrated. Obliged to settle for simply tugging trousers up, mirror Lestat and shift upright.
"Because that ain't gonna happen."
Direct. Confident.
"I got a handle on it, Lestat. The timing just got fucked up this time."
"Oh, the timing just got fucked up this time," is sort of flung across at the driver, as if he is a participant in the conversation and not an anonymous human behind a partition. There is, thankfully, no acknowledgment, nor acknowledgment sought.
Mocking, back to form, but this time there's less mischief, less lightness, something heated in the look steered across at Louis. "You don't know what will happen. You are one man against a society of vampires, which, by the way, is perhaps ten times more numerous than when you were made." He doesn't even feel high anymore, which is a different kind of distressing.
Vodka in a compartment somewhere, probably, but he doesn't seek it just now. "I had a handle on it. This time, I did."
None of this is what he wants to hear, but this throwaway mention, of drawing focus while he's at it, earns visible bristling.
"I did not ask you for that," is hissed, hands braced on either side of him, nails ruining the leather. "I want their attention. I demand it. I welcome it. I am the starring villain of your fucking book they are so mad about, so it's what I deserve, and stop telling me," a flash of bloodied fangs, "what is nothing to worry about, bordel de merde!"
The taste of Louis' blood, sampled from his fingertips on the balcony. Leading them here. Broken flesh beneath his tongue. Say they had the fire gift. Say they made proper use of their ambush. Say Lestat had not been there.
So it's what I deserve pulls Louis' focus, a heavy statement on the heels of the pieces of interview Louis has observed, a heavy thing to say when Louis has made no assertions about what is and isn't deserved.
"It ain't something for you to worry about," pushing, stubborn. Louis leaning forward into the space between them.
They haven't argued about the book. Louis hasn't said that he burned it, tried to burn it. That it happened anyway.
He likes Daniel alive, is the thing.
"And you don't deserve fucking rabble interrupting your tour. I got it. It's my shit, doesn't have to be yours."
no subject
As much as they have changed, they are still the same. The quality of their desire, the way they want each other. Lestat reading that in him still, easy. No need to touch his mind. Lestat knows Louis, all that he was and all that he is.
Easy to twist claws into each other. Easy for this too, for Lestat to unravel Louis even as he hisses and spits and snarls through the entire process.
Argument strangles in his throat as Lestat reapplies his mouth. As Louis' fingers spasm, tighten, loosen, tighten again in his hair, encouraging.
"You imagining things now?" Louis breathes out, frustrated, affectionate. Lestat has levered his weight down, harder over his thighs, but the tremors running through his body continue. Endurance fraying.
no subject
he's very attractive when he is a little cruel, in words, in his twisting hands. That and the sound of him and the taste of him all working together to warm Lestat's blood all over again, to send it in hot rivers through his body.
He wants more. Wants to climb over Louis and fuck him properly. Wants to lay with him after and then fuck him again. Insane with want and so, maybe he is imagining things. Imagining Louis feels the same.
He works him still, feeling an impulse to see him off before Lestat is a whole new mess. Louis, withholding still.
no subject
Doesn't matter. Struggling against the inevitable. Against falling back into Lestat, when he is already caught up beneath him.
His fingers scrape along Lestat's scalp. Gives up one hand gripping Lestat's hair to fling an arm across his face. (Old habit. Shades of New Orleans.) A passing, useless attempt at hiding, masking the sounds Lestat pulls from him.
Maybe if Lestat drew off again, spoke, exchanged a few barbs, it'd give Louis time to catch his breath. Regroup. Stave off the inevitable. But Lestat doesn't take the bait, and Louis comes, breaks apart, head snapping back against the seat.
Pulling on Lestat's hair, not to push him down but the urge him up. Unconscious desire, begging Lestat up to him.
no subject
No more dedicated pinning, just his weight, incidental, braced against Louis or the car seat beside him. He noses close, heedless of sticky blood, sweat, saliva.
"You're welcome," he tells him.
no subject
A shade of a scowl on his face as Lestat speaks. Louis feels wrung out, but not so much so that he doesn't find some annoyance for this needling.
He kisses Lestat anyway.
Bad form to encourage him, but Louis has made so many bad decisions. He can make one more. He can kiss Lestat properly, no bruising or snarling. He licks into his mouth, tastes all that they've done together. Indulges. Kisses him and kisses him and kisses him. Can think of no compelling reason to stop.
no subject
He lays a hand on Louis' chest as he is kissed, as he answers it in kind. Expresses some tension in the way sheer fabric is gathered in a fist, just to hold.
Occurs to him midway through that this is special. Unexpected. It may feel like the most natural of things, but it has been so long. A gives a soft sound, collecting himself, kisses Louis all the more thoroughly.
no subject
Yes. No.
Never, really.
But the fight drains out of Louis as they kiss. Lestat fits in alongside and over him just as he always has, and the seat is narrow but so was their coffin once. They find balance. Louis' hand tangles more fully into Lestat's hair, cupping his skull, keeping him close.
Their hearts beat together, perfectly synced through the rise and now the fall of their clash.
Louis drinks the sound Lestat makes. Wants to hear another, hear it again. He can taste himself, his blood, some chemical, in Lestat's mouth. Licks after all of it, trading heavy breaths back and forth.
It's been such a long time. But Louis falls into him just the same. He keeps Lestat caught close.
If they keep kissing, maybe they simply never have to talk about anything at all ever again.
no subject
But Louis is kissing him, tasting him, holding him like no one else presumes to. Leaving wounds no one else could. Sharp words set aside and Lestat breathes out slow through his nose and dreamily kisses back as the car roves around the streets without real purpose beyond staying in motion.
Louis doesn't make the prospect of withdraw easy, the way he holds him. When the kisses do break, Lestat is kept caught, their mouths a fraction away from each other. What is he imagining now? Something like he had hallucinated in New Orleans?
He runs a finger down Louis' healing cheek, letting his nail dimple the skin without scraping it.
"What're you doing, Louis?" is gentle.
no subject
What is he doing?
A question striking at the moment, prompting immediate self examination of their entanglement, Louis' part in it.
Louis' expression flickers, hurt, lost, and then shutters. Feels caught out. It loosens his grip, but doesn't drop his hands from where they rest on Lestat's body, tangle in his hair.
"What am I doing?" He repeats, quieter, gathering tension is his body signaling movement. A fresh bid for freedom, perhaps more successful this time despite their states of relative undress.
no subject
"Mm," is a sound like, yes, that's what I said. And a delayed sense of movement beneath him, and Lestat sinks a little further back against the seat so that Louis can wriggle out from under him if he so desires. Boneless, suddenly, heavy but strength absent in the points of contact.
Keeps his hands on Louis as long as he is here. Palm spread against his chest, a finger worked beneath a leather strap. A leg draped over a thigh. Pale eyes set, intent, well-used to focusing on this particular face at this close a proximity.
"Not my business either," is a guess, not made in the best of faith.
no subject
The question is broad, open-ended. Felt directed at the immediate, the kiss, the way they are wrapped in each other but—
Louis watches him for long moments, Lestat shifting his weight and Louis' grip tightening slightly in response. Louis should go. He shouldn't have done any of this.
The urge to draw Lestat back down into a kiss is hard to ignore. Easier when they aren't talking.
"What are you talking about, Lestat?"
Direct. They've fallen into this trap before. Louis skirts it this time, or at least, attempts to.
no subject
Even as this question is asked. Direct. Had he not also been direct? Should he repeat this back at Louis too, and around they go? A pause, and then a restless shrug—
"Well I would like to know if I am a part of your hobby now," rattles out of him, sharp, fast, still whisper toned in the tight space they make. "Blood-soaked dalliances with vampire kind. You must tell me what is more satisfying, removing a head or getting some."
no subject
Nettled. Frustration creeping back, despite the good work Lestat had done in banishing it from his body. It's always been the way. Lestat capable of both, plucking at his emotions effortlessly. A gift of knowing him so well.
"This isn't part of anything else."
Just maybe something they shouldn't have done. A car crash on its own merits. Lestat has hooked a finger through one of the harness straps and Louis likes it so much, even as he is annoyed by the questions and Lestat's near accusations.
Wants to ask, Do you really think that? but knows the answer wouldn't do him any good.
no subject
Perhaps it's too early to ask. Perhaps. Clothes in disarray, still clutching each other, blood and other bodily fluids still wet on the skin. The question sits restlessly on the tongue as Lestat studies Louis in the cramped little space they've made for themselves in the otherwise generous car.
His eyeline falls, settling on whatever bite mark he can see. His own, he thinks. Did the other vampires get one in? He doesn't remember. The moments between knowing something was wrong and finding himself kneeling over a broken vampire body, a blur.
"How often do they come for you?" is what he finally settles on, wading through the pettier option.
no subject
Fragile.
Not a word he might have applied in New Orleans. Not so readily, at least.
He sighs, letting his eyes drift to the ceiling even as his fingers play at the ends of Lestat's hair. Unconscious habit; he had so often practiced similar touches in their coffin.
"Not every night," he stipulates, before admitting: "But often enough. I usually get it taken care of before I meet you."
Regrettable that this particular group hadn't felt inclined to follow the timetable.
"It wasn't supposed to interfere."
no subject
Simmers in it, deciding what must be addressed first.
Why haven't you told me?
Not yet.
"Do you provoke them still?" His finger crooks, gently setting nail against chest. "Don't think I didn't know about your little pronouncement, all those months ago."
no subject
Galling. Louis' anger comes simmering to the surface. The man with the knife in his cane, unable to back away from a conflict. Long years between now and then, but Louis has not left the instinct behind.
"I'm allowed a few of my own."
So, yes.
no subject
The vampire world is not a fumbling preacher on the street. Louis is not the fledgling who he refused to go past the borders of the New World. Everything skewed, warped. Lestat lets out a sharp exhale at this wording, as if permission is something he is clawing after, the point of contention.
"You have hidden it from me," quick on the back of this answer.
no subject
And he bites down on the first impulse. The parts of him that wish to say something unkind, to offer provocation. They could fuck again. They could stop speaking of this. They could make Lestat's driver roam the city a thousand times over while they fell into each other.
Louis sighs.
"It ain't for you to worry about. I didn't want it to be something you worried about."
no subject
Now, movement. Restlessness that seizes him suddenly, and Lestat is pushing away, climbing over, a gripping hand shoving himself back into leather pants ridden low. A bad sign for the prospect of a circling drive, of a second round, although hope springs eternal. But, a flash of hurt, anger.
He levers himself into the opposite seat, hair a mess, clothes a mess. Vest tattered on the ground, given up as refuse.
"Why isn't it for me to worry about? Why shouldn't it be? Or do you have your valet ready with the memo to my lawyer when she finds you torn into pieces or burned to ash?"
no subject
Sighs again, frustrated. Obliged to settle for simply tugging trousers up, mirror Lestat and shift upright.
"Because that ain't gonna happen."
Direct. Confident.
"I got a handle on it, Lestat. The timing just got fucked up this time."
no subject
Mocking, back to form, but this time there's less mischief, less lightness, something heated in the look steered across at Louis. "You don't know what will happen. You are one man against a society of vampires, which, by the way, is perhaps ten times more numerous than when you were made." He doesn't even feel high anymore, which is a different kind of distressing.
Vodka in a compartment somewhere, probably, but he doesn't seek it just now. "I had a handle on it. This time, I did."
no subject
Bristling in spite of himself. Saying this thing in spite of himself. Defensive. Pride stung by the implications.
"I play it right, I can cut down their numbers. Keep attention off you and Daniel too, while I'm at it."
As if that would be any more welcome.
"You're worrying over nothing. Bunch of fledglings barely half my age, it ain't gonna touch me in any way that matters."
Say less of the wounds Lestat had licked closed, the rest that are knitting even as they speak.
no subject
"I did not ask you for that," is hissed, hands braced on either side of him, nails ruining the leather. "I want their attention. I demand it. I welcome it. I am the starring villain of your fucking book they are so mad about, so it's what I deserve, and stop telling me," a flash of bloodied fangs, "what is nothing to worry about, bordel de merde!"
The taste of Louis' blood, sampled from his fingertips on the balcony. Leading them here. Broken flesh beneath his tongue. Say they had the fire gift. Say they made proper use of their ambush. Say Lestat had not been there.
no subject
"It ain't something for you to worry about," pushing, stubborn. Louis leaning forward into the space between them.
They haven't argued about the book. Louis hasn't said that he burned it, tried to burn it. That it happened anyway.
He likes Daniel alive, is the thing.
"And you don't deserve fucking rabble interrupting your tour. I got it. It's my shit, doesn't have to be yours."
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)