How undoing, the way Lestat smiles in this moment. Louis feels his heartbeat stutter, seeing Lestat smile at him like this, lip catching in his teeth, reading some honest, transparent thing into the expression. Has only a moment to feel the way his chest tightens over the sight of it before Lestat is leaning in close to put a kiss to his cheek, to the corner of his mouth. Louis can taste it after, blood. Blood and the lingering scent and warmth of Lestat, all things in combination interfering with his heartbeat, his breath.
Someone is already calling Lestat. Louis is aware of all people surrounding them, varying levels of impatience and demand in their faces. Louis had expected Lestat to release him, turn towards them, leave him amidst the flurry of movement backstage.
But no.
Lestat is leading him, drawing him along. Louis is as caught up in this as he was in the crowd, drawn along with Lestat's kiss burning still where he pressed bloody lips to Louis' skin.
"I can hear them calling for you," Louis murmurs, even as he loosely laces their fingers together. Could be referring to the audience, to the staff with their clipboards and ear pieces, to the band. A whole glowing ecosystem of people eager for the sunlight of Lestat's attention. "If you got places to be..."
Trails into quiet because Louis can't quite make the offer.
Nevertheless, Lestat pulls him along. No one stops them, and how could they? How could anyone tell him to do anything? Or so it seems in this moment as they move at a clip through the tangled cavern of backstage, down a corridor, and here, a door, which has a name plate reading The Vampire Lestat in crisp printed letters.
In they go. Brightly lit, still, and awash with the smell of fresh flowers and stale cigarette smoke. A hair and makeup station, a rack of clothing that hadn't been selected for tonight's concert, all sheen and glitter. A guitar in its case, bottles of liquor, and, leaning against the wall off to the side, a potentially familiar plank of wood with worn down keys, old dried blood flaking off the surface.
But none of this is important. Once Lestat reels Louis inside, he bats the door closed, and pushes him against it. There is still an overwound energy in him, and it's easy to imagine the state of his blood, zinging in his veins. Easier, maybe, when he says, "Come, drink."
It occurs to Louis in the split second before the door latches closed, that perhaps hey should not be alone together in an enclosed space.
And then Lestat is crowding him, flushed so warm with fresh blood singing in his veins. Behind him Louis can see the board rescued from water-logged cabin, the bottle of liquor. Wonders what was in the mortal blood Lestat had drank tonight onstage, what he might have imbibed elsewhere, or if this is all simply the high of adoration.
"Drink?" Louis questions now, holding his place. A hand finding Lestat's hip out of old habit, instinct that still lives in Louis' body. (Instinct that had guided Louis' decision for distance and space; how easy it is to simply fall into Lestat again, let things be as they were when they both need—
Something else.)
Lestat smells of sweat, of light somehow, of the woman he had drained the fog that had swirled around him on stage and of people, all the people who had been touching, touching, touching him and Louis wants to bite him all over. Louis wants to pin him down until he smells of nothing but them.
He asks this question instead.
"From the bottle?" with a little wrinkle of his nose, as if Louis de Pointe du Lac is too good to swig straight from the source.
Lestat has to be offering the bottle. Can't be offering anything else.
This gets a full laugh, as if Louis had just said some grand joke. Likely the last time Louis has heard this kind of cackle from him, it was imagined.
"Yes, certainly," Lestat says, his hands on Louis' shoulders as if he needs steadying. He does not. Despite the liquor on hand, he doesn't smell or seem drunk, particularly, had performed with precision and great intent despite the way his performances brand themselves as raw and wild. The perfectionist in him, still at large as a matter of instinct.
But who knows. An energy like sunlight under his skin, pupils still large, fangs still barely peaking from beneath his lip.
He is, it seems, offering something else, a toss of his head to flip his hair aside and reveal his throat (which only partially works, as blonde strands cling to the sweat on his skin). "Taste it," he bids again. "I want you to feel it as well."
Hemmed in, presented with Lestat's bare neck, Louis has a split second wondering if Lestat is trying to tease him. Tease, toy with, it's all of a piece. Lestat's skin is luminous in the warm lights of the dressing room and his expression is so devastatingly joyful and Louis has missed him.
Louis probably should not drink from him.
And yet, he reaches up to draw his fingers across Lestat's throat and sweep all those stray locks back over Lestat's shoulders. A grazing touch of fingers along his skin in the process. Can't be helped.
"Not sure that's a good idea."
Is, of course, not a firm no, as it should be.
Louis has been staring at him all night. It's dizzying, watching Lestat. Wanting him and feeling everyone around him wanting Lestat and trying to reconcile his own bitter jealousy with even the smallest shred of good sense.
His fangs are prickling at his gums. Louis is white knuckling his grasp on composure, even as fingers come to rest at the curve of Lestat's neck, the bare skin revealed where his shoulder begins.
Lestat feels a rush as Louis touches him, an incidental brush against his neck that settles in conjunction with that hand at his hip. Wants him, of course, always does.
But that can get lost in the tide of post-performance euphoria he knows now, silver and black makeup streaking aside, blood drying on his face still in a translucent smear. "I think it is," he says, a sway in towards him, back out. "I think it's a tremendous idea. One of my best, I would say."
What is he saying? He wants Louis to share. He wants Louis to bite him. Will he have to beg? Maybe that would be fun too.
"Please," he invites, all self-awareness in the way it is teasing. "Before the moment slips away from us, carried off with the moon."
A moment in which they are both weak, maybe. Where Louis should be more level-headed, unaffected. Should make a good decision for both of them, maintain the boundaries they'd drawn.
Lestat says please with his fingers tightening on Louis' shoulders, and Louis—
Wants him.
Always. Endlessly. (Even when it had been killing him, destroying him, when he hadn't known anything but what Armand explained to him and that understanding hadn't been enough to excise the deep desire, the love he had for Lestat.) Wants him now, even knowing it is a terrible idea.
"Lestat," comes out a little strained, more so than Louis would like, had intended. His fingers are already there at the high point of Lestat's throat. Louis' thumb presses down at the hinge of Lestat's jaw. He feels his own fangs heavy in his mouth, sharpening into sight in spite of himself.
Can't bring himself to say no outright. (Playing their old game, in a way. Letting Lestat coax him into doing something they both want.)
It would be a problem, how hot this might make him, if he wasn't already at an 11.
Still. A unique and long awaited twinge when he feels Louis lay his hand on his throat, apply pressure enough for Lestat to tip his head aside. On a more sober day, he might think this is foolish, perhaps pathetic, stealing scraps. For now, the hunger he tempts in Louis is matched only with his own.
"Louis," he echoes, a broad smile. "Take it. A gift for you. My number one fan."
Perhaps untrue, given the screaming masses, and Louis' reviews of I liked it, but consider the flipside: Louis, the only fan that matters.
That assertion prompts a small smile, amused. Thumb sliding along Lestat's throat, delaying what feels inevitable as Louis reminds him, "Not sure that's me. I got no poster saying so. Didn't make a t-shirt."
All those mortals, screaming so loudly for Lestat. The look Louis had seen on that girl's face, clambering onto the stage, eagerly yielding into Lestat's arms. He understands it all. Felt some similar, complicated thing in his body watching Lestat onstage. Devotion and desire tangling together as Louis had watched Lestat put his teeth into a swooning mortal's throat while the crowd roared, eager and envious.
"Didn't bring you a gift," Louis says, accent thicker as his voice dips lower. As his grip on Lestat's hip tightens.
No poster, no T-shirt, no gift. But this bit of criticism is delivered in a husky tone, with Lestat half-swooning between these points of contact. No better, he thinks, than his mortal girl on the stage, and this thought settles inside of him in a way he may not like, at some point, but for now appeals to him strongly.
And then, interruption in the form of a brisk but polite knock on the door. Mild, but it comes at Louis' back through the wood, seems to pierce the odd isolation they've cultivated in the room, the outside world asserting itself.
Lestat doesn't respond immediately, beyond a twitch of his hands, a shift of his focus.
Reality. The world beyond them. Lestat's fame, fans, the demands of both.
Louis' breath catches, tensing. The drag of his thumb continues, steady strokes up and down Lestat's throat. A flicker of embarrassment at how shallow his breath had gone, how unsteady he feels in his own resolve.
"Mr. Lioncourt?" is similarly brisk, a voice Louis immediately recognizes as his clip-board wielding chaperone.
Louis' eyes lift from his study of Lestat's throat, his mouth, the streaks of blood, drips of red, remnants of his display tempting Louis closer. He watches Lestat's eyes instead. Finds himself unable to quite predict whether Lestat will entertain the interruption, or cast it aside.
Lestat, watching Louis back. Will he accept this invitation, or take the excuse?
The voice on the other side is swift to remind him about his meet-and-greet, and Lestat may ask Christine to fire this person, whoever they are, tipping his gaze up to the ceiling as he gently pushes aside Louis' hands. They were playing a silly game, of course.
"A moment," he says, at volume, and quieter, "Whoever you are," as he pivots away, headed for the dressing table. A huff of a laugh at the sight of himself, stealing up some wipes to blot away the blood on his face.
Not all of it. Where it runs down his throat can be left, can be wondered at. "You can rest in here, if you like," he is saying. "There's a party afterwards, once all is wrapped up. To that, you're also welcome."
Feels gone, even as Lestat moves only across the room and leaves Louis leaned up against the door with his heart thudding hard in his chest. Painful. Louis' fangs are still sharp enough to cut his tongue, his lip, if he isn't careful.
And he is embarrassed, maybe. Embarrassed at his teetering. Embarrassed at what he feels now, frustrated, rejected. A game they were playing that felt very real, and now feels as if something has been lost. His fingers had dug in at Lestat's hip, a tell, though Lestat is generously pretending otherwise. Moment slipped away, just as Lestat had cautioned, and Louis can tell himself it is for the best, but there is no diverting the wretched feeling left in its wake.
Louis might eat this person, this interruption. Perhaps it will help.
In this moment, he levers himself up off the door to follow along after. Pleased to find himself steady, despite his palms stinging at the recent loss of Lestat. Indulges himself by laying a hand onto Lestat's back, centered between his shoulders, as Louis seeks his eyes in the mirror.
"Not invited to your meet and greet," has the tenor of a joke. "Makes sense, without the shirt. Sure I should be at the party?"
Fishing, a little bit. Wanting to be asked now, wrong-footed by the way Lestat drew away so easy, as if he had not just bared his throat for Louis.
Maybe it's for the best. Maybe Louis will find something steadying in that thought, once he's had a little time to clear his head.
It's a petty move, tempting at Louis' ever-raging hunger. At any vampire's hunger. Lestat can tell himself it's for the best, perhaps he can enjoy a rare moment of self-respect while the going is good, and pretend he does not feel the ache from where Louis' fingers had dug into his hip.
His hands are fast and practiced in front of a mirror, moving with skills cultivated over two hundred years ago, even if the tools have changed, the product at hand. Laughs meanwhile, and says, "You can come to the meet and greet," obviously, "if you think you can tolerate it."
Blood and streaky makeup wiped away. His skin burning beneath Louis' hand on his back, and there is both warmth and appraisal in the mirror where he catches his eye.
"And I don't know anything about what you should be doing. But I would like it."
Can Louis tolerate the inevitable fawning of mortals a meet and greet most definitely entails?
He can feel Lestat's laugh beneath his fingers. Has to wrestle with the urge to drape along his back, put his face into Lestat's throat. (Thinks of New Orleans, those last weeks, how he would distract Lestat at his mirror, from his fittings, desire unchecked.) Instead, Louis contents himself with this: his palm on Lestat's back, fingers just grazing bare skin, the loose fall of his hair over his shoulders.
"I'll come to your party," Louis decides. "But I'll be generous, and leave you to your adoring public. I've already had the pleasure of meeting you."
Begrudging generosity. It's Louis' impulse to push some heavy furniture up against the door and simply stay here.
But no. Louis didn't come here to be selfish with Lestat.
"And to tell you that I thought it was incredible," Louis volunteers quietly. Does not invoke his own complicated feelings, the questions he has about the finale, about why. Presses on to tell him, "You were incredible."
No hardship to admit. Of course Lestat was incredible. It's no surprise he paralleled his musical ability into something that might captivate modern audiences. He brought no gift other than himself, offers this compliment to Lestat over his shoulder, looking at him in the mirror. A small truth, before Lestat is summoned away again.
A small truth, a quietly said thing, and it hooks somewhere low and vital in Lestat, an unguarded glance up from his own face to Louis' reflection. There is simply no chance that Louis would say such a thing with any irony, and so reading him for truth is more of an indulgence than a necessary thing.
"Mm," stands in for a response, words otherwise lost to him in the moment. A glance aside, trying to moderate the way pleasure fills him to the brim. A lot of mortals say nice things about his music, of course. About his performing of it. It all fades to a vague fog in light of Louis telling him his show, himself, was incredible.
Fidgets with an eyeliner pen. Looks back at him, attempting to give him a smile that isn't completely unhinged and foolish, and probably failing. "Thank you," he says. A little hint of humour as he says, "You were a wonderful audience."
But really, the only one that mattered. An empty theatre save for Louis would have been just fine.
Temptation to lean in, drape across Lestat's back, pull the hair away from his throat and take what had been offered. What he'd hesitated over not so ong ago.
But no. Louis limits himself to this point of contact: his palm on Lestat's back, his fingers teasing between the edge of fabric and bare skin beneath it.
Lestat smiles at him, and Louis can't help but smile back. Helplessly fond.
"Even without the posters and the t-shirt?" he teases, watching Lestat in the mirror. Beautiful, beautiful. Beautiful even with traces of smeared make up and blood splattered on his skin. Murmurs to him, "I missed hearing you sing."
Even songs that are seemingly designed to needle Louis.
Refreshing his makeup is hastily done, filling out where eyeliner has been smeared away, a patting in of foundation where cleaning his mouth of blood had removed it. And he is obliged to do it all with Louis observing him, touching him, which is a thrill in several different senses of the word. More intimate, nearly, than offering his throat. More familiar. As if they were together, as if this were routine.
"I'm sure you will be tired of it by the time the tour is out," light, as he picks up up a stick of red-purple lip gloss. Unnecessary. Maybe he is lingering, now, despite the brisk way he goes about it all. Who could blame him?
The high of the concert, leaving him. He will need something to replace it. (Not Louis' fangs. Not Louis' blood. Sober enough to remember, those don't belong to him anymore. They barely had while they were together, after a time.)
"But I will accept adulations until then," a sigh. A glance back at the mirror. Hm. The lip colour is a lot.
It is not as if Louis needs any prompting to consider Lestat's mouth, his gaze catching there and moved onwards and catching again all through the process of the painting. His eyes stay there now, letting himself lean a little closer, a little nearer. Inhale him, his scent familiar beneath the distraction of all the trappings that come along with rock stardom.
"Impossible," Louis dismisses. "You've been so many things, but never boring."
Tender terrain, perhaps. A lot. Imperfect.
He'd meant them so fondly, even then.
"And never boring when you're making music," moves briskly onwards. Louis' thumb tracks the wing of one shoulder blade. "You're going to keep knocking your audience flat. Me included."
Apology in this, maybe. Things said that didn't make it into the book, but were still said aloud, once.
Louis speaking to him so fondly, and Lestat tries to remember if it was always like this. He thinks, it was sometimes like this, but he hasn't been certain if he remembered it, still remembers it, as being so much more. He has read the book, of course, Louis knows this, little jabs or less precise comments that tell him as such.
Does he know how much Lestat has read it? Did he imagine the anguish that came over him, the first time he did so, tearing Alex's copy to pieces and leaving the room by way of thoughtlessly broken window. Everyone in the world would read this book and say, of course Louis loved Lestat, and likely still does.
It is not his interpretation, not when years he recalls as being full of love and life are rendered in such miserly summary, leaping from one bad thing to the next.
None of this he thinks in great detail, but explains the slight twist of misgiving as Louis says kind things, warm things, having been greedy in pawing after praise and now finding it sours on the tongue, some. Lestat has been so many things. Never boring. Perhaps, had he been a little more boring—
He tosses aside the lip gloss, shifting to face Louis.
"Exhausting," he proposes. "Overwhelming. There are many ways to tire of something."
Minor shifts, putting them face to face. Louis' hand falls back to Lestat's hip, a forcibly loose hold. Manners. Louis is meant to be minding his manners.
He is looking at Lestat's mouth. Has a wild impulse to drag his thumb across Lestat's lips and smear the newly-applied cosmetic.
"Maybe," gives a little ground, only to counter stubbornly, "But unlikely."
Unlikely like a nudge, playful and unyielding both.
"Check back with me next year, we can see how it's played out."
Lestat's hands find places to catch onto Louis' shirt, resting against his chest as he banters back. Smiles, laughs, a sunny break of good cheer that shows blunt human teeth, barely blood flecked anymore.
"A whole year," he says, "of guaranteed grace."
'Manners' is probably not how Lestat would frame his own behaviour, not when in this next moment, he gets a hand hooked around the back of Louis' neck, a hasty grapple that is more intrusively horseplay-adjacent than romantic so that he can impose himself, taller in these boots, and press a hard kiss to Louis' cheek. Mwah.
Not lingering. He does not want to smear too much the print left behind, which he will admire before tossing a look back to the mirror, tilting that way to confirm that, yes, the colour looks better now that half of it's been kissed away.
Louis feels it like a match touched to bone dry kindling. All these sensations in tandem: Lestat's height advantage, the clutch of his fingers, the force of his kiss. It punches the breath out of him, leaves him reeling once released.
A whole year, Louis promises him. Surely after a year they'll have a better grasp on what they are to each other.
Louis does not pretend to himself that a year will diminish anything he feels for Lestat. Eighty years had not done that.
"Go," Louis tells him, though he still has hold of Lestat's hip. Clinging on. "Go see your adoring public. I'm sure your people will get me where I need to be."
They part. Lestat, content to let Louis shoo him away, because something about that also feels near and familiar, just as much as a hand lingering on his body as he sees about himself in the mirror.
And without him—
It's fine, of course. The Vampire Lestat is known to be prickly, including with regards to his fans. A celebrity kind of aloofness, absence of eye contact, scrawled autographs and a disinterest in how far they flew to be here, how much they loved this or that song. But then, something else, a snaring moment of eye contact that these humans, flush with love and blood, might feel like a cold wind through them. A sharp smile, suddenly, a fond touch. Disorienting, always.
They might leave the meet and greet thinking, he really isn't human, while they attempt to shake that sense of fight or flight that had trickled into their nervous system.
Christine had been clear: no drinking from these ones. It's too high profile. Then what's the fucking point, he had said, of any of this?
Hungry, by the time it's time to go. There is a white limousine waiting for them, Lestat, his band, other auxiliary performers and dancers, a cluster of hangers-on. One of his assistants is hastily arranging more transport, and fortunately, there is no absence of quickly hireable limousines in Las Vegas, and this is not a task with which he is personally concerned with save for—
Rachida has been shown back to Lestat's dressing room, where Louis remains. The mark from Lestat's kiss has proved durable, faded only slightly by Louis' ministrations. She tsks over this, over the limousine they've been offered, the absence of information about the venue other than Its been managed on your behalf. It is her job to be aggrieved, so Louis can be a little lost, involved with his own thoughts. Dismissive of security risk, dipping lightly into the flow of conversation among the Many to test the temperature and finding no frenzy.
Maybe tomorrow there will be an uproar.
For the moment, there is only the immediate problem of transportation and venue and Louis' eventual disentangling from both when the night draws from a close. Louis is hungry, but this is not Rachida's problem at this exact moment. (He is always hungry. It was not urgent until Lestat offered his throat.)
Eventually, they go. A lavish car, a flask of cool, fresh poured blood, and soft music through speakers while Rachida flips her tablet to Louis so he might look at this and that, odds and ends of business that might be completed in the short journey from venue to party.
Louis can leave whenever he pleases. He is reminded of this. Reminds himself of this, as the limousine door is opened for him.
Even before he steps out, he is aware of Lestat. A humming thrill running up his spine, stealing his breath. He's here, punching through Louis' chest, a shivery awareness that Louis can only temper, not extinguish, as he moves down the red carpet towards the party.
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Someone is already calling Lestat. Louis is aware of all people surrounding them, varying levels of impatience and demand in their faces. Louis had expected Lestat to release him, turn towards them, leave him amidst the flurry of movement backstage.
But no.
Lestat is leading him, drawing him along. Louis is as caught up in this as he was in the crowd, drawn along with Lestat's kiss burning still where he pressed bloody lips to Louis' skin.
"I can hear them calling for you," Louis murmurs, even as he loosely laces their fingers together. Could be referring to the audience, to the staff with their clipboards and ear pieces, to the band. A whole glowing ecosystem of people eager for the sunlight of Lestat's attention. "If you got places to be..."
Trails into quiet because Louis can't quite make the offer.
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A glance backwards, a blood-flecked smile.
Nevertheless, Lestat pulls him along. No one stops them, and how could they? How could anyone tell him to do anything? Or so it seems in this moment as they move at a clip through the tangled cavern of backstage, down a corridor, and here, a door, which has a name plate reading The Vampire Lestat in crisp printed letters.
In they go. Brightly lit, still, and awash with the smell of fresh flowers and stale cigarette smoke. A hair and makeup station, a rack of clothing that hadn't been selected for tonight's concert, all sheen and glitter. A guitar in its case, bottles of liquor, and, leaning against the wall off to the side, a potentially familiar plank of wood with worn down keys, old dried blood flaking off the surface.
But none of this is important. Once Lestat reels Louis inside, he bats the door closed, and pushes him against it. There is still an overwound energy in him, and it's easy to imagine the state of his blood, zinging in his veins. Easier, maybe, when he says, "Come, drink."
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And then Lestat is crowding him, flushed so warm with fresh blood singing in his veins. Behind him Louis can see the board rescued from water-logged cabin, the bottle of liquor. Wonders what was in the mortal blood Lestat had drank tonight onstage, what he might have imbibed elsewhere, or if this is all simply the high of adoration.
"Drink?" Louis questions now, holding his place. A hand finding Lestat's hip out of old habit, instinct that still lives in Louis' body. (Instinct that had guided Louis' decision for distance and space; how easy it is to simply fall into Lestat again, let things be as they were when they both need—
Something else.)
Lestat smells of sweat, of light somehow, of the woman he had drained the fog that had swirled around him on stage and of people, all the people who had been touching, touching, touching him and Louis wants to bite him all over. Louis wants to pin him down until he smells of nothing but them.
He asks this question instead.
"From the bottle?" with a little wrinkle of his nose, as if Louis de Pointe du Lac is too good to swig straight from the source.
Lestat has to be offering the bottle. Can't be offering anything else.
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"Yes, certainly," Lestat says, his hands on Louis' shoulders as if he needs steadying. He does not. Despite the liquor on hand, he doesn't smell or seem drunk, particularly, had performed with precision and great intent despite the way his performances brand themselves as raw and wild. The perfectionist in him, still at large as a matter of instinct.
But who knows. An energy like sunlight under his skin, pupils still large, fangs still barely peaking from beneath his lip.
He is, it seems, offering something else, a toss of his head to flip his hair aside and reveal his throat (which only partially works, as blonde strands cling to the sweat on his skin). "Taste it," he bids again. "I want you to feel it as well."
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Louis probably should not drink from him.
And yet, he reaches up to draw his fingers across Lestat's throat and sweep all those stray locks back over Lestat's shoulders. A grazing touch of fingers along his skin in the process. Can't be helped.
"Not sure that's a good idea."
Is, of course, not a firm no, as it should be.
Louis has been staring at him all night. It's dizzying, watching Lestat. Wanting him and feeling everyone around him wanting Lestat and trying to reconcile his own bitter jealousy with even the smallest shred of good sense.
His fangs are prickling at his gums. Louis is white knuckling his grasp on composure, even as fingers come to rest at the curve of Lestat's neck, the bare skin revealed where his shoulder begins.
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But that can get lost in the tide of post-performance euphoria he knows now, silver and black makeup streaking aside, blood drying on his face still in a translucent smear. "I think it is," he says, a sway in towards him, back out. "I think it's a tremendous idea. One of my best, I would say."
What is he saying? He wants Louis to share. He wants Louis to bite him. Will he have to beg? Maybe that would be fun too.
"Please," he invites, all self-awareness in the way it is teasing. "Before the moment slips away from us, carried off with the moon."
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Lestat says please with his fingers tightening on Louis' shoulders, and Louis—
Wants him.
Always. Endlessly. (Even when it had been killing him, destroying him, when he hadn't known anything but what Armand explained to him and that understanding hadn't been enough to excise the deep desire, the love he had for Lestat.) Wants him now, even knowing it is a terrible idea.
"Lestat," comes out a little strained, more so than Louis would like, had intended. His fingers are already there at the high point of Lestat's throat. Louis' thumb presses down at the hinge of Lestat's jaw. He feels his own fangs heavy in his mouth, sharpening into sight in spite of himself.
Can't bring himself to say no outright. (Playing their old game, in a way. Letting Lestat coax him into doing something they both want.)
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Still. A unique and long awaited twinge when he feels Louis lay his hand on his throat, apply pressure enough for Lestat to tip his head aside. On a more sober day, he might think this is foolish, perhaps pathetic, stealing scraps. For now, the hunger he tempts in Louis is matched only with his own.
"Louis," he echoes, a broad smile. "Take it. A gift for you. My number one fan."
Perhaps untrue, given the screaming masses, and Louis' reviews of I liked it, but consider the flipside: Louis, the only fan that matters.
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All those mortals, screaming so loudly for Lestat. The look Louis had seen on that girl's face, clambering onto the stage, eagerly yielding into Lestat's arms. He understands it all. Felt some similar, complicated thing in his body watching Lestat onstage. Devotion and desire tangling together as Louis had watched Lestat put his teeth into a swooning mortal's throat while the crowd roared, eager and envious.
"Didn't bring you a gift," Louis says, accent thicker as his voice dips lower. As his grip on Lestat's hip tightens.
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No poster, no T-shirt, no gift. But this bit of criticism is delivered in a husky tone, with Lestat half-swooning between these points of contact. No better, he thinks, than his mortal girl on the stage, and this thought settles inside of him in a way he may not like, at some point, but for now appeals to him strongly.
And then, interruption in the form of a brisk but polite knock on the door. Mild, but it comes at Louis' back through the wood, seems to pierce the odd isolation they've cultivated in the room, the outside world asserting itself.
Lestat doesn't respond immediately, beyond a twitch of his hands, a shift of his focus.
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Louis' breath catches, tensing. The drag of his thumb continues, steady strokes up and down Lestat's throat. A flicker of embarrassment at how shallow his breath had gone, how unsteady he feels in his own resolve.
"Mr. Lioncourt?" is similarly brisk, a voice Louis immediately recognizes as his clip-board wielding chaperone.
Louis' eyes lift from his study of Lestat's throat, his mouth, the streaks of blood, drips of red, remnants of his display tempting Louis closer. He watches Lestat's eyes instead. Finds himself unable to quite predict whether Lestat will entertain the interruption, or cast it aside.
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The voice on the other side is swift to remind him about his meet-and-greet, and Lestat may ask Christine to fire this person, whoever they are, tipping his gaze up to the ceiling as he gently pushes aside Louis' hands. They were playing a silly game, of course.
"A moment," he says, at volume, and quieter, "Whoever you are," as he pivots away, headed for the dressing table. A huff of a laugh at the sight of himself, stealing up some wipes to blot away the blood on his face.
Not all of it. Where it runs down his throat can be left, can be wondered at. "You can rest in here, if you like," he is saying. "There's a party afterwards, once all is wrapped up. To that, you're also welcome."
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Feels gone, even as Lestat moves only across the room and leaves Louis leaned up against the door with his heart thudding hard in his chest. Painful. Louis' fangs are still sharp enough to cut his tongue, his lip, if he isn't careful.
And he is embarrassed, maybe. Embarrassed at his teetering. Embarrassed at what he feels now, frustrated, rejected. A game they were playing that felt very real, and now feels as if something has been lost. His fingers had dug in at Lestat's hip, a tell, though Lestat is generously pretending otherwise. Moment slipped away, just as Lestat had cautioned, and Louis can tell himself it is for the best, but there is no diverting the wretched feeling left in its wake.
Louis might eat this person, this interruption. Perhaps it will help.
In this moment, he levers himself up off the door to follow along after. Pleased to find himself steady, despite his palms stinging at the recent loss of Lestat. Indulges himself by laying a hand onto Lestat's back, centered between his shoulders, as Louis seeks his eyes in the mirror.
"Not invited to your meet and greet," has the tenor of a joke. "Makes sense, without the shirt. Sure I should be at the party?"
Fishing, a little bit. Wanting to be asked now, wrong-footed by the way Lestat drew away so easy, as if he had not just bared his throat for Louis.
Maybe it's for the best. Maybe Louis will find something steadying in that thought, once he's had a little time to clear his head.
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His hands are fast and practiced in front of a mirror, moving with skills cultivated over two hundred years ago, even if the tools have changed, the product at hand. Laughs meanwhile, and says, "You can come to the meet and greet," obviously, "if you think you can tolerate it."
Blood and streaky makeup wiped away. His skin burning beneath Louis' hand on his back, and there is both warmth and appraisal in the mirror where he catches his eye.
"And I don't know anything about what you should be doing. But I would like it."
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He can feel Lestat's laugh beneath his fingers. Has to wrestle with the urge to drape along his back, put his face into Lestat's throat. (Thinks of New Orleans, those last weeks, how he would distract Lestat at his mirror, from his fittings, desire unchecked.) Instead, Louis contents himself with this: his palm on Lestat's back, fingers just grazing bare skin, the loose fall of his hair over his shoulders.
"I'll come to your party," Louis decides. "But I'll be generous, and leave you to your adoring public. I've already had the pleasure of meeting you."
Begrudging generosity. It's Louis' impulse to push some heavy furniture up against the door and simply stay here.
But no. Louis didn't come here to be selfish with Lestat.
"And to tell you that I thought it was incredible," Louis volunteers quietly. Does not invoke his own complicated feelings, the questions he has about the finale, about why. Presses on to tell him, "You were incredible."
No hardship to admit. Of course Lestat was incredible. It's no surprise he paralleled his musical ability into something that might captivate modern audiences. He brought no gift other than himself, offers this compliment to Lestat over his shoulder, looking at him in the mirror. A small truth, before Lestat is summoned away again.
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"Mm," stands in for a response, words otherwise lost to him in the moment. A glance aside, trying to moderate the way pleasure fills him to the brim. A lot of mortals say nice things about his music, of course. About his performing of it. It all fades to a vague fog in light of Louis telling him his show, himself, was incredible.
Fidgets with an eyeliner pen. Looks back at him, attempting to give him a smile that isn't completely unhinged and foolish, and probably failing. "Thank you," he says. A little hint of humour as he says, "You were a wonderful audience."
But really, the only one that mattered. An empty theatre save for Louis would have been just fine.
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But no. Louis limits himself to this point of contact: his palm on Lestat's back, his fingers teasing between the edge of fabric and bare skin beneath it.
Lestat smiles at him, and Louis can't help but smile back. Helplessly fond.
"Even without the posters and the t-shirt?" he teases, watching Lestat in the mirror. Beautiful, beautiful. Beautiful even with traces of smeared make up and blood splattered on his skin. Murmurs to him, "I missed hearing you sing."
Even songs that are seemingly designed to needle Louis.
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"I'm sure you will be tired of it by the time the tour is out," light, as he picks up up a stick of red-purple lip gloss. Unnecessary. Maybe he is lingering, now, despite the brisk way he goes about it all. Who could blame him?
The high of the concert, leaving him. He will need something to replace it. (Not Louis' fangs. Not Louis' blood. Sober enough to remember, those don't belong to him anymore. They barely had while they were together, after a time.)
"But I will accept adulations until then," a sigh. A glance back at the mirror. Hm. The lip colour is a lot.
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It is not as if Louis needs any prompting to consider Lestat's mouth, his gaze catching there and moved onwards and catching again all through the process of the painting. His eyes stay there now, letting himself lean a little closer, a little nearer. Inhale him, his scent familiar beneath the distraction of all the trappings that come along with rock stardom.
"Impossible," Louis dismisses. "You've been so many things, but never boring."
Tender terrain, perhaps. A lot. Imperfect.
He'd meant them so fondly, even then.
"And never boring when you're making music," moves briskly onwards. Louis' thumb tracks the wing of one shoulder blade. "You're going to keep knocking your audience flat. Me included."
Apology in this, maybe. Things said that didn't make it into the book, but were still said aloud, once.
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Does he know how much Lestat has read it? Did he imagine the anguish that came over him, the first time he did so, tearing Alex's copy to pieces and leaving the room by way of thoughtlessly broken window. Everyone in the world would read this book and say, of course Louis loved Lestat, and likely still does.
It is not his interpretation, not when years he recalls as being full of love and life are rendered in such miserly summary, leaping from one bad thing to the next.
None of this he thinks in great detail, but explains the slight twist of misgiving as Louis says kind things, warm things, having been greedy in pawing after praise and now finding it sours on the tongue, some. Lestat has been so many things. Never boring. Perhaps, had he been a little more boring—
He tosses aside the lip gloss, shifting to face Louis.
"Exhausting," he proposes. "Overwhelming. There are many ways to tire of something."
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He is looking at Lestat's mouth. Has a wild impulse to drag his thumb across Lestat's lips and smear the newly-applied cosmetic.
"Maybe," gives a little ground, only to counter stubbornly, "But unlikely."
Unlikely like a nudge, playful and unyielding both.
"Check back with me next year, we can see how it's played out."
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"A whole year," he says, "of guaranteed grace."
'Manners' is probably not how Lestat would frame his own behaviour, not when in this next moment, he gets a hand hooked around the back of Louis' neck, a hasty grapple that is more intrusively horseplay-adjacent than romantic so that he can impose himself, taller in these boots, and press a hard kiss to Louis' cheek. Mwah.
Not lingering. He does not want to smear too much the print left behind, which he will admire before tossing a look back to the mirror, tilting that way to confirm that, yes, the colour looks better now that half of it's been kissed away.
"Merveilleux, I'll take it."
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Louis feels it like a match touched to bone dry kindling. All these sensations in tandem: Lestat's height advantage, the clutch of his fingers, the force of his kiss. It punches the breath out of him, leaves him reeling once released.
A whole year, Louis promises him. Surely after a year they'll have a better grasp on what they are to each other.
Louis does not pretend to himself that a year will diminish anything he feels for Lestat. Eighty years had not done that.
"Go," Louis tells him, though he still has hold of Lestat's hip. Clinging on. "Go see your adoring public. I'm sure your people will get me where I need to be."
He has been efficiently herded thus far.
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And without him—
It's fine, of course. The Vampire Lestat is known to be prickly, including with regards to his fans. A celebrity kind of aloofness, absence of eye contact, scrawled autographs and a disinterest in how far they flew to be here, how much they loved this or that song. But then, something else, a snaring moment of eye contact that these humans, flush with love and blood, might feel like a cold wind through them. A sharp smile, suddenly, a fond touch. Disorienting, always.
They might leave the meet and greet thinking, he really isn't human, while they attempt to shake that sense of fight or flight that had trickled into their nervous system.
Christine had been clear: no drinking from these ones. It's too high profile. Then what's the fucking point, he had said, of any of this?
Hungry, by the time it's time to go. There is a white limousine waiting for them, Lestat, his band, other auxiliary performers and dancers, a cluster of hangers-on. One of his assistants is hastily arranging more transport, and fortunately, there is no absence of quickly hireable limousines in Las Vegas, and this is not a task with which he is personally concerned with save for—
Louis is coming, yes?
give me party decor pls
Rachida has been shown back to Lestat's dressing room, where Louis remains. The mark from Lestat's kiss has proved durable, faded only slightly by Louis' ministrations. She tsks over this, over the limousine they've been offered, the absence of information about the venue other than Its been managed on your behalf. It is her job to be aggrieved, so Louis can be a little lost, involved with his own thoughts. Dismissive of security risk, dipping lightly into the flow of conversation among the Many to test the temperature and finding no frenzy.
Maybe tomorrow there will be an uproar.
For the moment, there is only the immediate problem of transportation and venue and Louis' eventual disentangling from both when the night draws from a close. Louis is hungry, but this is not Rachida's problem at this exact moment. (He is always hungry. It was not urgent until Lestat offered his throat.)
Eventually, they go. A lavish car, a flask of cool, fresh poured blood, and soft music through speakers while Rachida flips her tablet to Louis so he might look at this and that, odds and ends of business that might be completed in the short journey from venue to party.
Louis can leave whenever he pleases. He is reminded of this. Reminds himself of this, as the limousine door is opened for him.
Even before he steps out, he is aware of Lestat. A humming thrill running up his spine, stealing his breath. He's here, punching through Louis' chest, a shivery awareness that Louis can only temper, not extinguish, as he moves down the red carpet towards the party.
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lil bow