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."
They have the shape of reassurances, these phrases. You don't deserve implies generousity, and yet, the shape of Lestat's mouth is a hard, unhappy line.
"You knew I would worry," he says, still snippy, teeth bared and eyes bright, relentless. "You kept it from me because you knew that, and you knew that because I should. Why should I not, when if anything happened to you, if you were harmed, it would destroy me? Knowing you were courting these fights and I could have done something."
To stop them. To stop Louis. He is sure this is, too, why he has hidden it from Lestat. Not interested in the way Lestat might have his influence. Lestat, apart from it all, contained, like nuclear radiation, like a virus. His eyes sting, even though he stubbornly refuses to crumble.
Louis is close to him again, and it will always have an effect. Never mind having sated himself minutes ago, his blood warms, summoned, redirects the flow. Never mind the context, and that Lestat wants to shake him. He keeps his hands planted on either side of the seat, nails dug in, but doesn't lean back.
Unsatisfied with this nonsense reassurance.
And then a flicker of some other ill feeling at the question that follows. The implication of it, the way it doesn't feel like a true question, that all it says is Lestat could do nothing, nothing helpful, nothing wanted. A restless little fidget winding its way through his body.
"I would know," has a sulky slant to his tone. "I would know if you needed me and I could come to you."
The intricacies of the connection between them aren't always clear to Louis, but he knows that it is as Lestat had told him, just before Louis cut his throat: they are connected, bound by a cord Louis cannot see. But it's there. It is real.
Maybe Lestat would know. Louis cannot say for certain he would not.
"Even if it were in the middle of your show?" is unfair. Deliberately so. "Even if you were entertaining?" is even less so. Heavy implication, a little tell for Louis' jealousies, nurtured so quietly.
It hurts. A flicker of injury in his expression, the choking unfairness of these words. Maybe if he still did not taste Louis at the back of his tongue, was not maddened by the scent of his blood in this close space, he would do something other than—
"I am your maker," in a furious whisper. "You bled me dry and still, did I not come to you? Rescued you from the execution you court now? Is it not me who saves you, again and again and again? Fuck you."
And he cannot bring himself to shove Louis away, to strike him, even as anger runs hot through his body. To do so would invite disaster. He will not.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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"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.
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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.
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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."
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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.
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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.
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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."
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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."
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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.
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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.
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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."
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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?"
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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."
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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."
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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.
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"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.
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"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."
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"You knew I would worry," he says, still snippy, teeth bared and eyes bright, relentless. "You kept it from me because you knew that, and you knew that because I should. Why should I not, when if anything happened to you, if you were harmed, it would destroy me? Knowing you were courting these fights and I could have done something."
To stop them. To stop Louis. He is sure this is, too, why he has hidden it from Lestat. Not interested in the way Lestat might have his influence. Lestat, apart from it all, contained, like nuclear radiation, like a virus. His eyes sting, even though he stubbornly refuses to crumble.
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Is such a nonsense reassurance. Bullshit, as Daniel would and has said.
Louis says it anyway.
Comes across the divide, leaning further into Lestat's space. Are they fighting? Is this a proper fight?
"Say I told you." Hypothetically. "What you think you'd do?"
Interfere. Louis is talking around this.
He knew Lestat would worry. Would do what he could to stop Louis. And Louis doesn't want to stop.
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Unsatisfied with this nonsense reassurance.
And then a flicker of some other ill feeling at the question that follows. The implication of it, the way it doesn't feel like a true question, that all it says is Lestat could do nothing, nothing helpful, nothing wanted. A restless little fidget winding its way through his body.
"I would know," has a sulky slant to his tone. "I would know if you needed me and I could come to you."
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The intricacies of the connection between them aren't always clear to Louis, but he knows that it is as Lestat had told him, just before Louis cut his throat: they are connected, bound by a cord Louis cannot see. But it's there. It is real.
Maybe Lestat would know. Louis cannot say for certain he would not.
"Even if it were in the middle of your show?" is unfair. Deliberately so. "Even if you were entertaining?" is even less so. Heavy implication, a little tell for Louis' jealousies, nurtured so quietly.
Unfair. Unfair, unfair.
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"I am your maker," in a furious whisper. "You bled me dry and still, did I not come to you? Rescued you from the execution you court now? Is it not me who saves you, again and again and again? Fuck you."
And he cannot bring himself to shove Louis away, to strike him, even as anger runs hot through his body. To do so would invite disaster. He will not.
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