damnedest: (Default)
lestat de lioncourt. ([personal profile] damnedest) wrote2024-10-19 07:25 pm
divorcing: (Default)

[personal profile] divorcing 2025-08-12 02:29 am (UTC)(link)
Closer, hooked in by Lestat's bare arms. Close enough for Louis to run eyes over Lestat's wounds, breathe out some relief that he can detect no new marks joining them.

"I liked the parts of it I saw," Louis tells him. "Always do."

Fingers flex tighter at his hip, finding the slip of bare skin between waistband and corset, where the latter has ridden up just enough. Louis' finger digs in there, holding harder, urging Lestat in a step even as Lestat handles him. Even as Louis reminds himself: there are just so many reasons they shouldn't be touching each other at all.

And yet, Louis promised. After.

"You think they'll ask you back after they rebuild?"

A joke.
divorcing: (Default)

[personal profile] divorcing 2025-08-12 03:03 am (UTC)(link)
"Can't fit a million people in here."

Dry practicality, even as Louis nudges a thumb up beneath the taut fabric of Lestat's corset.

A tip of his head, watching Lestat's face. Feeling out the edges of his own emotions, trying to suss out the play of reaction on Lestat's face, identify what he's feeling. What's there beneath the surface.

"But maybe I help you smooth it over anyway."

Maybe.

Maybe like an olive branch, extended.
divorcing: (Default)

[personal profile] divorcing 2025-08-12 03:20 am (UTC)(link)
Yes, they are Louis' friends.

But he isn't so sure they were here for him.

Louis' breath stalls, held, as Lestat tips his head. As Louis realizes how easy it would be to kiss him. To kiss him the way he'd like to, the way they'd tipped into kissing in the back of Lestat's outrageous limousine.

Instead, carefully: "Seems like you been getting familiar with all of 'em without me."

Not asking, not really. Some room in which Lestat can side step, just as he'd circled around the topic with Louis.

Well, circled until he'd lost his temper. But Lestat had tried.
divorcing: (Default)

[personal profile] divorcing 2025-08-12 03:56 am (UTC)(link)
"Enough of 'em do."

Something about ancients and technology. They could be flippant about it if they like.

Thumb running along skin beneath the seal of the corset. Watching Lestat, who cannot hear anything Louis says into the cacophony of the many. Lestat, who has been making threats of his own. Louis is sure they're threats, regardless of how Lestat chooses to frame whatever it is he's been saying.

"You don't need introduction," is equal parts fond and exasperated.

What can Louis do? He can't put the words back into a bottle. He can only provide a more pressing distraction.

And Louis is capable of that. Of being a bigger and bigger problem, of being an insult to their fellow vampires.

Nothing said for a long moment. The fire is smoldering. Louis has considered that they might like to leave. He has also considered they might want to take separate cars.

"I didn't want you to do this," is what Louis says. "Interrupt your tour."

As if the interruption is the most pressing thing. Maybe it is.
divorcing: (Default)

[personal profile] divorcing 2025-08-12 11:31 am (UTC)(link)
It is very difficult to put away his teeth when Lestat offers him such a clear opening.

A struggle, to swallow the petty urge that wants to say well, yeah. To argue, because why not argue. Louis' anger is so near, so easily kindled.

He keeps touching Lestat, thumb slipped up beneath fabric, a ribbon falling down the back of his wrist. Lestat's breath ghosting along his cheek. Louis could steal him. Take him from here. Lestat would let him, he is sure of it.

"I ain't gonna make any guesses," is what Louis says. Some admission. They have been out of sync. "You wanna tell me, I'll listen."

He has objections. Of course he has objections. But those are for another moments. The fire is catching. Maybe Lestat returns to his adoring public. Maybe Louis leaves out the back door. Maybe they quit while they're ahead instead of arguing again.
divorcing: (Default)

[personal profile] divorcing 2025-08-13 02:38 am (UTC)(link)
"You don't think we need to?"

Conflating the two. What they need to do as opposed what they want to do.

Louis doesn't necessarily want to speak about it. But what Lestat has invited cannot be erased. The wounds on his body can't be ignored. Louis finds them profane. Even when he had cut open Lestat's throat, it had felt unreal. An impossibility. Lingering wounds carry that same feeling, that same sense of something precious defiled.
divorcing: (Default)

[personal profile] divorcing 2025-08-13 04:40 am (UTC)(link)
Outside into the clear, cool air. No smoke, the alarm muted. Louis inhales a deep breath, face tipping briefly up to the sky.

His grip on Lestat's hip dislodged, caught only by the hand.

"We should go."

Before there is a messy entanglement with either fans or authorities.

But where?

Maybe some of that uncertainty shows in Louis' face. Where do they go? What is neutral ground for them now? They've fucked and argued and Louis has come back to him, what is even ground?
divorcing: (Default)

[personal profile] divorcing 2025-08-13 02:39 pm (UTC)(link)
A scorch of contact, Louis' knuckles smarting as Lestat moves away from him. Wanting to drag him back. Wanting to bite him again.

Lestat could simply vanish. He can fly. He could leave Louis behind.

But the mode of travel is invitation in and of itself. Louis can make these jumps with ease, and so he does, moving in Lestat's wake. Ascending up to rooftops, farther from the cacophony of the alarm, the chatter of confused mortals who cannot understand why they just left

Disregarded.

Louis turns, eyes skimming the horizon. He sees no one and nothing hanging in the air. Whoever stood upon that balcony, they are gone. Did not linger.

"Where?" is what he asks as he pivots back to Lestat. Hotel room? Another backseat of another car, somewhere Louis can be banished from again should they argue?
divorcing: (Default)

[personal profile] divorcing 2025-08-14 02:46 am (UTC)(link)
Louis' room.

Reckless, this proposition.

Louis watches him for a long moment. Considering. Measuring, to some degree, Lestat's sobriety. The likelihood of them tearing into each other, whether or not it is diminished or heightened by the absence of a high.

And then, relenting: "Yeah, okay."

Flinging himself into this, what conversation comes, what they make of the night together, as he flung himself towards the newness of his life and all the freedoms and violence that waited for them.

Turns, and this time it's Louis' task to lead them from rooftop to rooftop, assuming Lestat will follow.
divorcing: (Default)

[personal profile] divorcing 2025-08-14 04:14 am (UTC)(link)
Difficult, being so fashionable.

Louis is not suffering in such a way. His tunic is slouching down off one shoulder still when he lands on the appropriate roof, harness twitched back into place with two fingers as Louis strides towards the rooftop door. The handle breaks with very little effort applied.

There's still time to reroute, but no. Louis leads Lestat down a single flight of stairs to the penthouse suite booked under Rachida's alias, layers on layers of discretion insulating Louis from enthusiastic book readers. One wall comprised entirely of windows, curtains tied neatly back. French doors opening onto a balcony. Vintage furniture arranged stylishly around this living room. There is a door ajar, revealing a slice of a bed, the edge of a coffin. Louis sees it, leaves it. Lestat has been invited in.

"Come here," is what he says instead, having kicked off his own shoes beside the door before treading deeper into the room.
divorcing: (Default)

[personal profile] divorcing 2025-08-14 04:54 am (UTC)(link)
How close.

Louis turns the question aside, leaves it unanswered in favor of reaching out and snagging Lestat by the corset ribbons. Draws him in.

How close? This close.

And then light pressure at his hip, fingers suggesting a turn, reaching for lacing.

"You done being mad?"

More teasing than needling, but only just.

divorcing: (Default)

[personal profile] divorcing 2025-08-14 10:23 am (UTC)(link)
Louis would love to say this. He'd like it better if he could convince Lestat of it.

But it's late for it now, considering what Lestat has been up to. Louis isn't sure he can walk any of it back.

"I'm still deciding what I'm going to tell you."

Leave it to me, isn't off the table.

"Turn for me," he instructs quietly, palming the fabric.

Indulgent, wanting Lestat out of these clothes, these outfits. He had liked it so much when he'd come to Lestat and found him in all soft things, washed clean of glitter and eye liner. He is beautiful in these garments, yes. Louis simply wants to see him without the performance.
divorcing: (Default)

[personal profile] divorcing 2025-08-14 02:37 pm (UTC)(link)
A humming acknowledgement. Lestat has said this thing. Louis is weighing it, deciding what he will do with it.

They hid themselves, once. Louis remembers. Louis might not have understood to what extent they were hiding, how the ways in which Lestat was keeping him and Claudia a secret. But they had hidden from mortals, once.

It was a different era.

Daniel hadn't done what he'd done with the book.

Louis' sweeps Lestat's hair to one side, over his shoulder. Fingers trail skin, an indulgence that stalls against the desire to drag his fingers through Lestat's curls, ruin the styling and the product.

"Why aren't these healing?"

Fingertips mapping bruises, skimming evidence of claws digging after Lestat's spine, the vital organs beneath.

Lestat is older than Louis. (An inescapable truth.) The marks shouldn't linger on him the way they sometimes do on Louis.

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-08-14 23:31 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-08-15 00:14 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-08-15 11:47 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-08-15 13:07 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-08-15 23:22 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-08-16 01:08 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-08-16 01:49 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-08-16 04:17 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-08-16 11:10 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-08-16 11:43 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-08-16 14:48 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-08-17 01:48 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-08-18 04:46 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-08-18 12:22 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-08-19 03:12 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-08-29 22:20 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-08-31 12:26 (UTC) - Expand