It occurs to Louis, seated and provided refreshment, that other vampires may be in attendance. That his acceptance of invitation may cause some trouble for Lestat depending on who arrives.
That maybe some of the trouble that dogs Louis will have found Lestat, given the givens. It's a thing to consider.
The promise of a performance is pleasing. It gives Louis something particular to structure his presence around, a clear way to avoid overstaying his welcome. Lestat will play. Perhaps he will allot some time to Louis after. Once he moves on, so too will Louis. Easy enough.
Sitting here, Louis is privy to all manner of conversation carried along on the air. Mortals, eager and excited. Impressed at the venue, the money involved in its presentation. Thrilled at the presence of the band, of Lestat. Some whose lustful hopes are more than obvious. Some who doubt the gimmick but would like to find out anyway.
Louis lifts his mind away.
He has taken much care with his own preparations. Has had to, each time he attends one of Lestat's invitations to a gathering, likes to look his best despite being relatively out of his element. Tonight he had chosen an artfully oversized suit, high-waisted black trousers cinched by gold buckle, lapels embroidered in similar shade, coat left to hang open to display the filmy sheer tunic beneath. A collection of rings for his fingers, a smear of gold applied to his eyes, his hair done up in the soft twists Louis has favored of late.
He occupies the sofa at a comfortable lean. Feels Lestat in proximity, a tangible sense like a storm gathering. Like the air is heavier. Like the music is made quieter so Louis might strain to hear his heartbeat.
The way his entire body prickles, aching and aware: He's here.
The Vampire Lestat will be informed of his presence. Louis doesn't doubt he already knows.
A little stirring of activity. A music stand, opposite the piano. A mic stand, in the middle of the two things. Coordinated but casual, the stage comes together, and a woman roves over to the piano and sits down—recognisable as the keyboardist of the band, a spindly woman with a shaggy mass of dark hair and dark makeup, taking this spot as opposed to Lestat.
She tinkers with the keys, at the same time a man approaches the other stand—not a core member, but an eagle eyed observer might recognise his profile out of the broader line up of musicians who worked on the album. In hand, a strange looking object, hollow loops of metal that, once he places at his shoulder, indicates itself as an electric violin.
They both begin to play together, a warm up that resolves into romantic melody, a little old fashioned in affect.
The lights above flicker, go out, and glow back on, music uninterrupted—and in that split second of time, Lestat has appeared at the microphone stand, entirely unmoving, a strange time lapse that draws a little flutter of shock through the audience. The two musicians he shares a stage with don't even blink, continuing to play, and without waiting for his audience to cognitively catch up, Lestat begins to sing.
Dressed in what could either be specifically for the sake of performance or the party, there is really no telling. Knee high black leather boots with tall heels, vaguely equestrian in style, inn which soft low slung velvet pants are tucked, belted low around the waist. A corset cinches his waist, black velvet with panels of sheer black lace, and above, a white shirt with voluminous sleeves, exposing his chest. Not unadorned, a necklace that is a series of pearl loops drape down his front, dotted with little red crystals. Overall, a touch of something of the 18th century, and distorted beyond its beginnings.
His hair is blonder than when Louis saw him last, toned with an icier shade, and longer as well, left in long romantic curls. His makeup is simple but bold, face mostly plain with exception to dark eye shadow, and a line of tiny red crystals glued along sharp cat eye lining.
As he sings, he does not look Louis' way—not yet. Croons into his microphone with tender feeling, a deep voice that fills the château.
A stage direction, rendered in elegant red loops in the margin: This is too early for Lestat to acknowledge Louis. Keep the tension—
Louis shakes it away. They are performing for no one. Lestat is here to be admired by a room packed full of eager mortals, awed by his presence. Louis is here at his request, to maintain the tenuous, sometimes difficult, sometimes easy, thread of connection they've established.
His hair has changed. Louis' heart is thudding hard in his chest, admiring. Wanting. No better than the collection of mortals below, their thoughts rising up to him in a flushed-hot swirl.
Yes, Louis knows. He knows how impossibly handsome Lestat is. Knows what it is to long to touch, explore the stretch of exposed skin at his chest, to discover the texture of his hair.
No, they are not doing that.
So Louis forcibly shifts his attention to the music. Lestat's voice, rich with feeling, perfectly complimented by his chosen accompaniment. Louis lets the sound of his voice draw him up to his feet, stepping up to rest elbows along the polished wooden rail of his luxuriously sequestered section. Watch more closely, feel his breath gone shallow, the inevitable, inescapable refrain of He's here, he's here, he looks so good, he looks so—
The arrangement is simple, but advances the bounds of the song anyway. A repetition of chorus, of verse, a key change, a harmony from the woman at the piano, a further flourish of drama.
A most restrained affair than his latest single, certainly, and its accompanying video. Simply standing and singing, as opposed to, say, rolling around on the top of a piano, stray feathers and fake (?) blood, crawling across a stage, baring fangs and bleeding scratch marks, deranged and exuberant. None of this energy tonight, just romantic French vowels that fill, lift, waver.
And he does look to Louis. Before the last refrain, allows his eyes to track where his senses have already keyed in, and breaks his own performance with a half smile to see that he has stood, has moved closer. Holds the mic stand that little bit tighter. Louis in black, in glimmers of gold, and even from here, the sheen of green eyes.
The last of the song dwindles to a delicate flourish, and the audience eagerly applauds. Lestat rewards this adoration with an easy smile, leaning away from the microphone before telling them, "Enjoy yourselves," with a characteristic, seductive kind of airiness, "It's the meaning of life."
The stage is relinquished, Tough Cookie giving up her place at the piano, another singer coming in to begin their set list. Lestat steps directly into the crowd with a little flutter of his hands to indicate breaking the spell, glancing back as his bandmate moves to join him, as a server comes by to offer champagne to her, and a prepared cocktail of dark amber liquid for him.
Lestat, still inevitably dialed into Louis' presence, looking at him past her as they speak.
Intimate. That's the word that comes to mind, incongruous considering the assembly of people.
There is still the moment where Lestat's eyes lift to him, and Louis looks back, and everything else goes away. The two of them, in a room.
And then the song ends. Louis remembers himself. (His heart still beating it, He's here, he's here, he's here.) Watches from his perch as the crowd applauds, swoons, praises. Watches the silver tray pass to Lestat and the woman standing alongside him, and feels something bitter in the back of his throat.
Swallows it.
Lestat belongs to no one but himself. Louis is an invited guest, old friend welcomed to the beginning of an ambitious tour. He's not entitled to the burn of jealousy.
But holds Lestat's gaze anyway. Feels some measure of caught, caught like he'd been in New Orleans, decades back.
Crowd clamoring for attention, for any moment where Lestat might favor them. Louis presiding over it all from his perch. Working out what would be involved in fighting his way past an entire crowd of mortals.
Lifts his own glass instead, from on high, in a toast as they look at each other. Not descending, not yet.
The toast is met with a glimmer of amusement, and Lestat lifting up his own glass to sip from (vermouth and bourbon) in answer.
Then steals his focus away, laying attention onto the conversation at hand as they drift through to a more central spot in the room. The easy love of fans, the slightly harder won admiration of other musicians, and a natural gravitational pull of vampiric charisma all make for an intoxicating atmosphere for him to take quiet pleasure in. What match is loneliness, against such a potent alchemy?
Maybe there will be a nice, quiet, pre-dawn couple of hours in which he can be miserable, indulgently unhappy, but for now, he is surrounded by people who have come to see him, crossed the earth to do so, burned fossil fuels and money to make it so, and at the heart of it, he only cares about the attendance of one of them, who is watching him so avidly.
But he doesn't go to Louis. Not yet. How good it would be if he could lure him down off his perch, if he waits a moment longer.
Louis, companion enough for himself. Louis, restructuring his lavish suite at the top of a tower to accommodate new tastes, new freedoms.
Louis, moving alone through this world for the first time in his long, long life.
Conversely, it appears that Lestat is anything but alone. Mortals flock to him as Lestat moves through to the room's center. Glows, even in the low light, with the warmth of their admiration. Louis' eyes hang on him, even though maybe he should attempt to divert his attention. Look away, even for a moment.
But he doesn't. Can't.
Watches the ebb and flow of the crowd as he empties his cup. Yields it to a passing server.
And has to consider the likelihood that Lestat does not ascend the stairs into this particular alcove, besieged as he is by admirers. Has to consider whether he wishes to leave without having seen him, spoken to him.
A struggle with both pride and good sense before Louis is, at last, lured down into the crowd. Obliged to make his way, across the dance floor through the throngs of humans, to pay homage to the man himself.
In the crowd, the murmur of voices and minds and hearts, the piano and the singer, Lestat listens only to the sound of Louis descending the stairs. Only concentrates on tracking it, and feels something in him stretch in satisfaction at the sense that Louis is not, say, playing coy, or trying to leave, but making an approach.
Lestat dismisses the person who approached Cookie and himself with a sort of careless mental nudge that sends them quietly turning around and walking away. Cookie, herself, does not seem very surprised by this turn of events, only looking to Lestat for some cue, and tracking his focus as he turns.
Which is to Louis, of course. Lestat stays unmoving, letting the other vampire come to him, but receptive, warm, a smile that grows without his permission.
"Hello," he says first, once they're within respectable earshot. "You came."
Louis feels his stomach flip. Feels some deep, kneejerk rush of jealousy that he has to suppress. Cannot give any space to flourish.
But still, it burns somewhere in his chest as Louis returns Lestat's smile.
Selfish, wanting him alone. It's his party. Louis is one guest of many. They are no longer companions, they are only newly renewed friends. Louis has to remind himself of these things.
"Couldn't pass up the invitation," Louis answers, as if it is so simple between them. Simple as crossing into each other's radius, coming away easy after. "I'm glad I did. You sounded good."
A beat, and then, gracious, "You and your accompaniment."
Acknowledgement, however minor, of the lingering presence of Cookie.
Louis is so beautiful. Particularly his smile. The urge to banish everyone, as he had with their soldiers so long ago, to send all these delicate creatures rushing out the doors of the castle, into the dark countryside, stumbling and confused and lost, just so the immediate room can reflect the reality that is the way they are the only two beings who matter on earth.
Lestat suppresses this urge, of course, content to simply toy with the notion as he steps nearer. "Come here," he says. They can embrace, at least.
And if Louis does touch his hair, there is a little stiffness where the generous flex of his curls has been set with spray, and from whatever treatment has changed its tone. For his part, his hands find a possessive configuration along Louis' spine, pressing them close, but lightly.
"This is Cookie," he says, once they withdraw, his hand out to take hers and draw her into the configuration. "Who has had to become used to being called my accompaniment, isn't that so?"
"Hard life," she says, and offers out a hand to shake.
How difficult, curbing the instinct to touch. To dig in claws, hold on.
Louis contents himself with the lightness of their embrace. Of his hand briefly catching in Lestat's curls, just long enough to register the trace evidence of pampering and fuss, all that befits a rising star. An irregular stutter of his heart at their nearness, contained but inevitable.
Separates without lingering, as friends must. And they are. Friends. Bidden divert his attention more fully to—
Cookie?
Unfair. Scathing all the same.
"Louis de Pointe du Lac," he offers in turn, as he clasps her hand. His eyes flick between her and Lestat, smile maintaining. Warm still, polite. Louis can be petty later. "You sounded impressive. Both of you."
A pause, a breath while Louis sets aside the churn of competing emotion to question, "How'd you find your way into his company, Cookie?"
Cookie launches into the story with confident ease, a way of smiling askew as she speaks of her band with brothers Alex and Larry, of their frequent rehearsals in the garage of her ex's house, in the attic studio in Marigny. New Orleans natives, all three, who were not seeing very much success in the south, hadn't ever been beyond it,
and all the while, Lestat watches Louis and takes private amusement in his display of manners, in what is undoubtedly going through his head.
"I heard them from the grave," he adds, curling an arm around Cookie's waist, drawing her in, to land a kiss on her cheek. "Loud enough to wake the dead."
Turns his focus to Louis once more. "Would you like to meet the others?"
Noted, this closeness. This touch, the press of his mouth to her cheek.
Looking between them, a slight tip of the head as Louis makes his study. Maintains his pleasant smile. Reminds himself, they have their friendship. There are many reasons to cultivate it.
"Yes," Louis answers smoothly. "Please, I'd like to meet all your new companions."
Semi-pointed choice in words, a little needling as he observes some aspect of Lestat's amusement.
The change in Lestat's expression is subtle—still a smile, still fixed focus, but a fine tuned adjustment, of eyes shining brighter, everything a little sharper. More teeth than a moment ago. The laugh that follows, familiar too.
A precursor to an argument, perhaps, one of those where it was almost for fun. But there is no argument. Louis has said nothing objectionable.
"Go," Lestat says, a twitch of his head indicating he is speaking to Cookie, even with his eyes set on Louis. "Go be adored. I'll find you later." She slips away without trying to extract further acknowledgment from either of them, and Lestat reaches out to take Louis' hand.
"How long are you intending to linger?" he asks, as he steps back, intent to lead Louis through the space.
Fingers linking, old habit guiding the lacing of their hands as Louis falls into step.
I'll find you later, needling in the back of Louis' mind. A turn of his head to follow her as she vanishes, before his attention is inevitably drawn back to Lestat. Momentarily released from his observation, Louis takes helpless note of the fall of his curls down his shoulders, the impossible cinch of the corset round his waist.
"A bit longer," Louis offers, vague. "Figure it's rude to monopolize your time when you got so many people clamoring for it."
Over his shoulder, back at Louis, as he pulls him along. The crowd around them seem to know better than to interrupt or impose themselves in this moment, but it's a strange thing, to be in a room full of people who are so single-minded in their focus, even scattered as they are into many separate conversations. Lestat can feel their awareness of him like he is wandering through cobwebs, catching glances, thoughts, fluttered hearts.
And yes, it all makes him very happy. "Over there," he says, drawing Louis alongside him, gesturing. They, along with Cookie, glimpsed in promotional material, in recordings of performances, in flickers in music videos, two like-looking men in bright colours, makeup, long hair.
Lestat, having abandoned his half-finished cocktail on a drifting server's platter, raises a hand to wave at them across the room, but says to Louis, "And do you really wish to meet them? When you are going to be here for such a short amount of time."
A crooked smile meets Lestat's backwards look. Of course Louis would hate to be rude. Of course.
There are some things they simply can't pretend away. They know each other too well, even near eighty years removed from each others company.
Louis is as aware as Lestat of the room's attention, the way all eyes seem to hang upon him. The way stray thoughts flick over Louis without sticking, dismissing and uninterested, for the moment. Louis doesn't crave their admiration. He does harbor a quiet urge to curl lips back off his fangs, redirect their focus elsewhere.
But no. This is Lestat's party, his design. He will be touring and he will be the object of adoration at each stop. Louis can pick and choose the locales in which he observes this phenomenon.
A moment of scrutiny for the pair of musicians. Perhaps they have similarly absurd names, Louis considers privately, before letting his eyes drift back to Lestat.
"I'd like to know who you're traveling with," is true enough, however: "But I won't complain if you got other subjects to occupy our time."
Unspoken: Louis won't mind having Lestat all to himself.
"Perhaps you can introduce yourself to them when I'm done with you."
Teasing, listing in closer on his way to stepping around Louis, redirecting them both by the drag of their linked hands. It isn't a clean exit, although Lestat could surely make it be one—brief interruptions, a few brave souls slipping into his path to offer congratulations on the upcoming tour, and wishes to speak with him later. It's permitted, rewarded with a touch to the chest or the waist, an air kiss to the cheek, a warm clasp at the elbow, a laugh.
Keeping Louis tethered with his other hand while he mingles warmly with mortals, but all the while leading him away, out of this room, into a hallway. A feeling of backstage, here, a table used for servers to leave and exchange platters, a roll of carpeting leading guests off to where the bathrooms are set up.
They take another corner, and Lestat gives a satisfied, relieved sounding sigh when they find themselves alone beneath stone, medieval archways. He unlinks their hands as he approaches a staircase that has been cordoned off with a velvet rope, undoing it without hesitation.
All noted, because how can it not be noted? It is their last night in New Orleans again, and people are flocking to Lestat, eager for his attention. And Louis is wrestling with the same sensation of jealousy, possessiveness. Of wanting Lestat to himself.
All the separation, the reality that they are no longer companions and only newly renewed friends, hasn't diminished this feeling in him.
Breathes a little easier when they pass out of the crowd's eye. All is quieter, goes quieter still as Lestat leads them past the velvet cordon.
"You get the run of the place?" Louis questions, a smile spreading across his face. Slow, knowing. What velvet rope would really keep Lestat contained if he wished otherwise?
"Why'd you pick it?" Is the more relevant question, perhaps. Some interest, prickling thought that perhaps there is some tangible connection to the past Lestat is honoring.
A look back at Louis as he fusses with the rope that says not quite, but truly, who can stop him. If the authorities that oversee these places find out about an impulsive rockstar snooping around the floors he'd contractually agreed not to tread, then that will be a task for Ms. Clare. Call that enrichment in her enclosure.
"Well, it's quite lovely," Lestat says, as he leads the way up the wide stone spiral staircase. Quickly impossibly dark, if not for their ability to see perfectly well, moonlight struggle through the narrow notches of windows. There are fixtures in the walls where sconces would have been.
He thinks he remembers the air always tasting a little like smoke and flame. Runs his nails along the stone wall as they go, up and up.
"Even if it's not quite like I remembered it," showing his hand, as they ascend. A sturdy wooden door awaits, the top of the tower, the ramparts.
Even now, all this time, Louis feels his chest tighten. Some long held eagerness, wanting to know this man moving alongside him, this man he has shared a bed, a home, a coffin with.
Shares a heart with. Even now.
"It is lovely," Louis agreed. Easy. Louis has always had an eye for beauty, for architecture and promising spaces. But this runs separate from that instinct. Isn't followed by queries about the structure itself, but instead:
"When were you here last?"
An open door. Inviting. Lestat might deflect. Louis will accept if he does. He has even less standing from which to make demands than he once did.
Up and out, onto the castle wall, the chest high crenelations to one side, a lower wall facing inwards to the courtyard. Sounds of people, music, laughter. And beyond, mountains, forest, moonlight shapes and rolling countryside. Lestat steps aside so that they can wander together, folding his hands behind himself.
"1790," he says, a sideways look. Surprise. "I stole away in the night, down that same road that runs to Clermont-Ferrand. Told myself I would never see it again, but look. Here we are."
Looks away from Louis, nods in a direction past the walls. "That way was once acres of apple orchard. I suppose it is technically still there, tangled up amongst the forest. You know, I think that's the only human food I can recall with any clarity."
Louis falls out of pace, allows Lestat to read slightly ahead. Observes him in his finery, cinched in a lovely corset, draped in gossamer fabric, loose curls falling over his shoulders as he walks along the stone, against this backdrop.
1790. Lestat leaving, alone. The memory of apples, grown nearby.
"Was this home?" Louis asks, softly. A little startled by the possibility that they could be. That the building has been preserved as it was.
Once a little ways ahead, Lestat pivots back to face him, a characteristically smooth twirl of motion. "Yes," simply, and clearly pleased with himself. For startling Louis, perhaps, for surprising him, for luring him. Gifting him, he would like to think. No one else will know this thing. Not even the ones who believe in his being a vampire.
Even for them, there's a certain amount of cognizant dissonance that would need to be overcome. Two and a half centuries ago is a long time, for mortals. He is, personally, older than the legal presence of the United States of America. And you would imagine that castles would have crumbled.
But what's two and a half centuries to a castle that has stood since the 7th century? The stone is sure, the foundations deep. According to this castle, it has been barely any time at all since he left.
"Miserable, isn't it? In all its loveliness. I assure you it was just as dour then as it is now."
He's not mortal, Louis had cautioned Claudia, a mere three decades of vampiric life to his name. You threaten a life which will endure till the end of the world.
On this high wall, watching Lestat spin to face him, Louis considers their respective ages. Lestat, old enough to have walked through this place and called it home. This castle, ancient even then. Time, moving around them, flowing onwards and onwards while they stand still.
"Was it home?" carries a different meaning as Louis closes the distance between them.
Lestat had lived here, yes. But home is bigger than a building. Needs more than four walls, a roof overhead. Needs something Louis suspects might have been absent.
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That maybe some of the trouble that dogs Louis will have found Lestat, given the givens. It's a thing to consider.
The promise of a performance is pleasing. It gives Louis something particular to structure his presence around, a clear way to avoid overstaying his welcome. Lestat will play. Perhaps he will allot some time to Louis after. Once he moves on, so too will Louis. Easy enough.
Sitting here, Louis is privy to all manner of conversation carried along on the air. Mortals, eager and excited. Impressed at the venue, the money involved in its presentation. Thrilled at the presence of the band, of Lestat. Some whose lustful hopes are more than obvious. Some who doubt the gimmick but would like to find out anyway.
Louis lifts his mind away.
He has taken much care with his own preparations. Has had to, each time he attends one of Lestat's invitations to a gathering, likes to look his best despite being relatively out of his element. Tonight he had chosen an artfully oversized suit, high-waisted black trousers cinched by gold buckle, lapels embroidered in similar shade, coat left to hang open to display the filmy sheer tunic beneath. A collection of rings for his fingers, a smear of gold applied to his eyes, his hair done up in the soft twists Louis has favored of late.
He occupies the sofa at a comfortable lean. Feels Lestat in proximity, a tangible sense like a storm gathering. Like the air is heavier. Like the music is made quieter so Louis might strain to hear his heartbeat.
The way his entire body prickles, aching and aware: He's here.
The Vampire Lestat will be informed of his presence. Louis doesn't doubt he already knows.
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She tinkers with the keys, at the same time a man approaches the other stand—not a core member, but an eagle eyed observer might recognise his profile out of the broader line up of musicians who worked on the album. In hand, a strange looking object, hollow loops of metal that, once he places at his shoulder, indicates itself as an electric violin.
They both begin to play together, a warm up that resolves into romantic melody, a little old fashioned in affect.
The lights above flicker, go out, and glow back on, music uninterrupted—and in that split second of time, Lestat has appeared at the microphone stand, entirely unmoving, a strange time lapse that draws a little flutter of shock through the audience. The two musicians he shares a stage with don't even blink, continuing to play, and without waiting for his audience to cognitively catch up, Lestat begins to sing.
Dressed in what could either be specifically for the sake of performance or the party, there is really no telling. Knee high black leather boots with tall heels, vaguely equestrian in style, inn which soft low slung velvet pants are tucked, belted low around the waist. A corset cinches his waist, black velvet with panels of sheer black lace, and above, a white shirt with voluminous sleeves, exposing his chest. Not unadorned, a necklace that is a series of pearl loops drape down his front, dotted with little red crystals. Overall, a touch of something of the 18th century, and distorted beyond its beginnings.
His hair is blonder than when Louis saw him last, toned with an icier shade, and longer as well, left in long romantic curls. His makeup is simple but bold, face mostly plain with exception to dark eye shadow, and a line of tiny red crystals glued along sharp cat eye lining.
As he sings, he does not look Louis' way—not yet. Croons into his microphone with tender feeling, a deep voice that fills the château.
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Louis shakes it away. They are performing for no one. Lestat is here to be admired by a room packed full of eager mortals, awed by his presence. Louis is here at his request, to maintain the tenuous, sometimes difficult, sometimes easy, thread of connection they've established.
His hair has changed. Louis' heart is thudding hard in his chest, admiring. Wanting. No better than the collection of mortals below, their thoughts rising up to him in a flushed-hot swirl.
Yes, Louis knows. He knows how impossibly handsome Lestat is. Knows what it is to long to touch, explore the stretch of exposed skin at his chest, to discover the texture of his hair.
No, they are not doing that.
So Louis forcibly shifts his attention to the music. Lestat's voice, rich with feeling, perfectly complimented by his chosen accompaniment. Louis lets the sound of his voice draw him up to his feet, stepping up to rest elbows along the polished wooden rail of his luxuriously sequestered section. Watch more closely, feel his breath gone shallow, the inevitable, inescapable refrain of He's here, he's here, he looks so good, he looks so—
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A most restrained affair than his latest single, certainly, and its accompanying video. Simply standing and singing, as opposed to, say, rolling around on the top of a piano, stray feathers and fake (?) blood, crawling across a stage, baring fangs and bleeding scratch marks, deranged and exuberant. None of this energy tonight, just romantic French vowels that fill, lift, waver.
And he does look to Louis. Before the last refrain, allows his eyes to track where his senses have already keyed in, and breaks his own performance with a half smile to see that he has stood, has moved closer. Holds the mic stand that little bit tighter. Louis in black, in glimmers of gold, and even from here, the sheen of green eyes.
The last of the song dwindles to a delicate flourish, and the audience eagerly applauds. Lestat rewards this adoration with an easy smile, leaning away from the microphone before telling them, "Enjoy yourselves," with a characteristic, seductive kind of airiness, "It's the meaning of life."
The stage is relinquished, Tough Cookie giving up her place at the piano, another singer coming in to begin their set list. Lestat steps directly into the crowd with a little flutter of his hands to indicate breaking the spell, glancing back as his bandmate moves to join him, as a server comes by to offer champagne to her, and a prepared cocktail of dark amber liquid for him.
Lestat, still inevitably dialed into Louis' presence, looking at him past her as they speak.
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There is still the moment where Lestat's eyes lift to him, and Louis looks back, and everything else goes away. The two of them, in a room.
And then the song ends. Louis remembers himself. (His heart still beating it, He's here, he's here, he's here.) Watches from his perch as the crowd applauds, swoons, praises. Watches the silver tray pass to Lestat and the woman standing alongside him, and feels something bitter in the back of his throat.
Swallows it.
Lestat belongs to no one but himself. Louis is an invited guest, old friend welcomed to the beginning of an ambitious tour. He's not entitled to the burn of jealousy.
But holds Lestat's gaze anyway. Feels some measure of caught, caught like he'd been in New Orleans, decades back.
Crowd clamoring for attention, for any moment where Lestat might favor them. Louis presiding over it all from his perch. Working out what would be involved in fighting his way past an entire crowd of mortals.
Lifts his own glass instead, from on high, in a toast as they look at each other. Not descending, not yet.
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Then steals his focus away, laying attention onto the conversation at hand as they drift through to a more central spot in the room. The easy love of fans, the slightly harder won admiration of other musicians, and a natural gravitational pull of vampiric charisma all make for an intoxicating atmosphere for him to take quiet pleasure in. What match is loneliness, against such a potent alchemy?
Maybe there will be a nice, quiet, pre-dawn couple of hours in which he can be miserable, indulgently unhappy, but for now, he is surrounded by people who have come to see him, crossed the earth to do so, burned fossil fuels and money to make it so, and at the heart of it, he only cares about the attendance of one of them, who is watching him so avidly.
But he doesn't go to Louis. Not yet. How good it would be if he could lure him down off his perch, if he waits a moment longer.
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Louis, moving alone through this world for the first time in his long, long life.
Conversely, it appears that Lestat is anything but alone. Mortals flock to him as Lestat moves through to the room's center. Glows, even in the low light, with the warmth of their admiration. Louis' eyes hang on him, even though maybe he should attempt to divert his attention. Look away, even for a moment.
But he doesn't. Can't.
Watches the ebb and flow of the crowd as he empties his cup. Yields it to a passing server.
And has to consider the likelihood that Lestat does not ascend the stairs into this particular alcove, besieged as he is by admirers. Has to consider whether he wishes to leave without having seen him, spoken to him.
A struggle with both pride and good sense before Louis is, at last, lured down into the crowd. Obliged to make his way, across the dance floor through the throngs of humans, to pay homage to the man himself.
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Lestat dismisses the person who approached Cookie and himself with a sort of careless mental nudge that sends them quietly turning around and walking away. Cookie, herself, does not seem very surprised by this turn of events, only looking to Lestat for some cue, and tracking his focus as he turns.
Which is to Louis, of course. Lestat stays unmoving, letting the other vampire come to him, but receptive, warm, a smile that grows without his permission.
"Hello," he says first, once they're within respectable earshot. "You came."
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Louis feels his stomach flip. Feels some deep, kneejerk rush of jealousy that he has to suppress. Cannot give any space to flourish.
But still, it burns somewhere in his chest as Louis returns Lestat's smile.
Selfish, wanting him alone. It's his party. Louis is one guest of many. They are no longer companions, they are only newly renewed friends. Louis has to remind himself of these things.
"Couldn't pass up the invitation," Louis answers, as if it is so simple between them. Simple as crossing into each other's radius, coming away easy after. "I'm glad I did. You sounded good."
A beat, and then, gracious, "You and your accompaniment."
Acknowledgement, however minor, of the lingering presence of Cookie.
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Lestat suppresses this urge, of course, content to simply toy with the notion as he steps nearer. "Come here," he says. They can embrace, at least.
And if Louis does touch his hair, there is a little stiffness where the generous flex of his curls has been set with spray, and from whatever treatment has changed its tone. For his part, his hands find a possessive configuration along Louis' spine, pressing them close, but lightly.
"This is Cookie," he says, once they withdraw, his hand out to take hers and draw her into the configuration. "Who has had to become used to being called my accompaniment, isn't that so?"
"Hard life," she says, and offers out a hand to shake.
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Louis contents himself with the lightness of their embrace. Of his hand briefly catching in Lestat's curls, just long enough to register the trace evidence of pampering and fuss, all that befits a rising star. An irregular stutter of his heart at their nearness, contained but inevitable.
Separates without lingering, as friends must. And they are. Friends. Bidden divert his attention more fully to—
Cookie?
Unfair. Scathing all the same.
"Louis de Pointe du Lac," he offers in turn, as he clasps her hand. His eyes flick between her and Lestat, smile maintaining. Warm still, polite. Louis can be petty later. "You sounded impressive. Both of you."
A pause, a breath while Louis sets aside the churn of competing emotion to question, "How'd you find your way into his company, Cookie?"
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and all the while, Lestat watches Louis and takes private amusement in his display of manners, in what is undoubtedly going through his head.
"I heard them from the grave," he adds, curling an arm around Cookie's waist, drawing her in, to land a kiss on her cheek. "Loud enough to wake the dead."
Turns his focus to Louis once more. "Would you like to meet the others?"
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Looking between them, a slight tip of the head as Louis makes his study. Maintains his pleasant smile. Reminds himself, they have their friendship. There are many reasons to cultivate it.
"Yes," Louis answers smoothly. "Please, I'd like to meet all your new companions."
Semi-pointed choice in words, a little needling as he observes some aspect of Lestat's amusement.
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A precursor to an argument, perhaps, one of those where it was almost for fun. But there is no argument. Louis has said nothing objectionable.
"Go," Lestat says, a twitch of his head indicating he is speaking to Cookie, even with his eyes set on Louis. "Go be adored. I'll find you later." She slips away without trying to extract further acknowledgment from either of them, and Lestat reaches out to take Louis' hand.
"How long are you intending to linger?" he asks, as he steps back, intent to lead Louis through the space.
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I'll find you later, needling in the back of Louis' mind. A turn of his head to follow her as she vanishes, before his attention is inevitably drawn back to Lestat. Momentarily released from his observation, Louis takes helpless note of the fall of his curls down his shoulders, the impossible cinch of the corset round his waist.
"A bit longer," Louis offers, vague. "Figure it's rude to monopolize your time when you got so many people clamoring for it."
A reminder to himself, really.
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Over his shoulder, back at Louis, as he pulls him along. The crowd around them seem to know better than to interrupt or impose themselves in this moment, but it's a strange thing, to be in a room full of people who are so single-minded in their focus, even scattered as they are into many separate conversations. Lestat can feel their awareness of him like he is wandering through cobwebs, catching glances, thoughts, fluttered hearts.
And yes, it all makes him very happy. "Over there," he says, drawing Louis alongside him, gesturing. They, along with Cookie, glimpsed in promotional material, in recordings of performances, in flickers in music videos, two like-looking men in bright colours, makeup, long hair.
Lestat, having abandoned his half-finished cocktail on a drifting server's platter, raises a hand to wave at them across the room, but says to Louis, "And do you really wish to meet them? When you are going to be here for such a short amount of time."
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There are some things they simply can't pretend away. They know each other too well, even near eighty years removed from each others company.
Louis is as aware as Lestat of the room's attention, the way all eyes seem to hang upon him. The way stray thoughts flick over Louis without sticking, dismissing and uninterested, for the moment. Louis doesn't crave their admiration. He does harbor a quiet urge to curl lips back off his fangs, redirect their focus elsewhere.
But no. This is Lestat's party, his design. He will be touring and he will be the object of adoration at each stop. Louis can pick and choose the locales in which he observes this phenomenon.
A moment of scrutiny for the pair of musicians. Perhaps they have similarly absurd names, Louis considers privately, before letting his eyes drift back to Lestat.
"I'd like to know who you're traveling with," is true enough, however: "But I won't complain if you got other subjects to occupy our time."
Unspoken: Louis won't mind having Lestat all to himself.
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Teasing, listing in closer on his way to stepping around Louis, redirecting them both by the drag of their linked hands. It isn't a clean exit, although Lestat could surely make it be one—brief interruptions, a few brave souls slipping into his path to offer congratulations on the upcoming tour, and wishes to speak with him later. It's permitted, rewarded with a touch to the chest or the waist, an air kiss to the cheek, a warm clasp at the elbow, a laugh.
Keeping Louis tethered with his other hand while he mingles warmly with mortals, but all the while leading him away, out of this room, into a hallway. A feeling of backstage, here, a table used for servers to leave and exchange platters, a roll of carpeting leading guests off to where the bathrooms are set up.
They take another corner, and Lestat gives a satisfied, relieved sounding sigh when they find themselves alone beneath stone, medieval archways. He unlinks their hands as he approaches a staircase that has been cordoned off with a velvet rope, undoing it without hesitation.
"Come, I wanted to show you around at least."
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All the separation, the reality that they are no longer companions and only newly renewed friends, hasn't diminished this feeling in him.
Breathes a little easier when they pass out of the crowd's eye. All is quieter, goes quieter still as Lestat leads them past the velvet cordon.
"You get the run of the place?" Louis questions, a smile spreading across his face. Slow, knowing. What velvet rope would really keep Lestat contained if he wished otherwise?
"Why'd you pick it?" Is the more relevant question, perhaps. Some interest, prickling thought that perhaps there is some tangible connection to the past Lestat is honoring.
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"Well, it's quite lovely," Lestat says, as he leads the way up the wide stone spiral staircase. Quickly impossibly dark, if not for their ability to see perfectly well, moonlight struggle through the narrow notches of windows. There are fixtures in the walls where sconces would have been.
He thinks he remembers the air always tasting a little like smoke and flame. Runs his nails along the stone wall as they go, up and up.
"Even if it's not quite like I remembered it," showing his hand, as they ascend. A sturdy wooden door awaits, the top of the tower, the ramparts.
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Shares a heart with. Even now.
"It is lovely," Louis agreed. Easy. Louis has always had an eye for beauty, for architecture and promising spaces. But this runs separate from that instinct. Isn't followed by queries about the structure itself, but instead:
"When were you here last?"
An open door. Inviting. Lestat might deflect. Louis will accept if he does. He has even less standing from which to make demands than he once did.
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"1790," he says, a sideways look. Surprise. "I stole away in the night, down that same road that runs to Clermont-Ferrand. Told myself I would never see it again, but look. Here we are."
Looks away from Louis, nods in a direction past the walls. "That way was once acres of apple orchard. I suppose it is technically still there, tangled up amongst the forest. You know, I think that's the only human food I can recall with any clarity."
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1790. Lestat leaving, alone. The memory of apples, grown nearby.
"Was this home?" Louis asks, softly. A little startled by the possibility that they could be. That the building has been preserved as it was.
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Even for them, there's a certain amount of cognizant dissonance that would need to be overcome. Two and a half centuries ago is a long time, for mortals. He is, personally, older than the legal presence of the United States of America. And you would imagine that castles would have crumbled.
But what's two and a half centuries to a castle that has stood since the 7th century? The stone is sure, the foundations deep. According to this castle, it has been barely any time at all since he left.
"Miserable, isn't it? In all its loveliness. I assure you it was just as dour then as it is now."
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On this high wall, watching Lestat spin to face him, Louis considers their respective ages. Lestat, old enough to have walked through this place and called it home. This castle, ancient even then. Time, moving around them, flowing onwards and onwards while they stand still.
"Was it home?" carries a different meaning as Louis closes the distance between them.
Lestat had lived here, yes. But home is bigger than a building. Needs more than four walls, a roof overhead. Needs something Louis suspects might have been absent.
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