So they are a happy trio, Louis surmises. Feels some envious, covetous twist in his chest, overshadowed more immediately by Lestat stepping up onto the table.
Louis catches him round the waist. Habit. Years since Louis was grabbing Lestat up by the waist, yes, but Louis knows better than most how a thing can live in the body. How the ways in which he loves Lestat, the ways in which Louis had cared for him once, still exist in him.
"Red ain't the problem," but the point is taken. Louis had dismissed an interior designer with similar inclinations, too much Dracula to understand what the client standing in front of him.
Lestat is gripping his shoulder. Louis looks up into his face, draws some conclusions as to the state of him. Lestat, already indulging. He and his two humans, perhaps by way of his two human companions.
"Gonna have your Christine make sure it's more to your taste next time?" Louis asks, discarding his untouched drink on a passing tray so he might use a light sweep of fingers to brush the hair from Lestat's face. Acknowledge that Lestat will have more parties, more mortals hanging off him, all that he desires and more.
Maybe in due time he will stop inviting Louis, who is so much less fun than the others circulating through Lestat's space.
Lestat finds himself looping his arms over Louis' shoulders, and later, with a clearer mind, might berate himself for instinctively clinging to him at every interaction this night. But who can blame him? Louis is here, so easily summoned after decades and decades of impossible distance, impossible silence.
There is also the clinging scent of some amount of intimacy, which could simply be from lounging around on the couch. His humans, their perfumes, mingled with cigarette smoke, clinging to his skin, his clothing. Not sex, but some other organic thing. Blood drinking, warm with it.
"Christine is easily distracted," by, probably, goalkeeping against the consequences of criminal acts and other infractions, to her credit, but anyway, "and besides, you would do better. You would know what I like."
The scent on him stirs up old, bad habits. The urge to swing Lestat around by his waist, pin him down, bite him, rub all over him. Possessive, even though Louis has no right to it. No right to be irritated about these pretty humans, about Lestat drinking from them and sparing them, keeping them so close.
Distracting, all of this. Distracting, his arm around Lestat's waist, hands steadying him still. (Unnecessary, now that he's descended the table.)
Lestat is speaking. Says this thing and startles a grin out of Louis, a fond little chuckle punched out of him.
"Me? Maybe if you're looking for some pieces to fill out the walls."
Does he still know what Lestat likes? Louis is warmed by the assertion, holds onto the way Lestat says this as fact rather than the flutter of doubt. Lestat is changed. Different than Louis remembers. All the trappings of his life, different. There's every chance what he likes is far from what Louis could even guess at.
"Maybe I am. You would despair at all the blank concrete in this place in Malibu. Alex," and Lestat pitches his voice a little louder, tipping his head back on arched spine to better hook his humans' attention, letting Louis help his balance, "continues to threaten to paint murals in the dining room."
Alex, who has half an idea of the subject at hand, raises the champagne bottle he is drinking directly from, points out that Lestat doesn't even use that room, so what's the harm. Cookie, rolling her eyes and rolling a cigarette.
"So what's the problem?" is to Louis, Lestat's standing back up straight, the hair that Louis had just fixed once again half in his face. Suddenly intent, this focus. "You said it wasn't the red."
Given the opportunity, Louis might say something as simple as: A mural could compliment the space, to this half-known human Lestat provokes with such familiarity.
His grip remains tight around Lestat's waist, a levering point upon which Lestat balances. Louis is looking past him, overly aware of the solid weigh of Lestat in his arms as he observes Alex and Cookie, and then—
Lestat, straightening upwards. Hair in his face. Eyes bright, all his attention narrowed down to Louis who can do nothing but lift fingers back up to sweep from forehead back to tame the mess of gold once more.
"Because it's a party for you," Louis tells him. "And you don't like it."
What other problem is there? So what if Louis liked the red? Lestat doesn't.
"Next time, this should all be what suits you. Purple and gold, maybe."
Louis doesn't remember a particular fondness for purple, but it's a brave new world. Lestat seems fond of it now.
Lestat can imagine Louis draped in purple and gold. Rich iterations of these tones, sparkling with it. His eyes catch on the remaining, barely perceptible smear of his kiss mark on Louis' cheek and knows a desire to plant more of them, all over him, visible on his throat and his knuckles, hidden beneath his clothes.
"Yes," he says, dreamily. Easy to see from across the room, let alone this intimately, the saucer-like dilation of his pupils. "I'd like that."
Maybe this would have been a better time to share his blood. They could roll together, see what happens. Maybe Lestat could ask him a second time, and not be refused (because, of course, looking back, he is certain he was rejected, Louis politely waiting him out to save his feelings), but only if he could stand to try again.
"You should come to the place in Malibu," he is saying, and catches up with himself. "I don't know what to do with it. It is built for the sun, you see."
A flicker of awareness as to what he is doing, fingers digging in at the small of Lestat's back, drawing him in closer as Lestat focuses in on him rather than the mortals on the couch behind them. Watching, Louis knows. Tough Cookie, at least, if not Alex.
His fingers linger at Lestat's temple, the shell of his ear. A touch that pretends at an absence of intimacy, despite how intoxicating it is to be touching him. Louis' own awareness winnowing down to Lestat, as if there is a door closed behind them. As if they are alone.
Doesn't think about houses built for sun. About Armand, standing in the light. Louis' windows coated in chemical to afford him the same privilege.
How long until Lestat needn't worry about the sun at all?
"I'd like to see it," Louis says anyway, heart tightening. "I can give you some names of designers. We could let your Alex paint his mural."
Because of course Louis likes the idea of a mural, interested in spite of himself.
Lestat's eyes. Louis wonders if he would remember any of this conversation by dawn.
Cookie is watching, little flicks of a look from beneath her false eyelashes as she finishes off making up her cigarette, setting flame to it with a heavy silver lighter. Alex is half-watching, more interested in finding a comfortable way to slide down, rest the back of his head on Cookie's thigh as well as try to continue to drink from the neck of his champagne bottle.
Lestat is both aware and unaware of them, caught as he is between these points of contact. Easy to slip into a world where they are the only two vampires in the world, the only two beings. Feels them still, his humans. A lifeline from drowning in the ocean of Louis du Lac.
And she's aware, Cookie. Obliged him, when he said he'd needed something, to tolerate the evening.
"Come," Lestat says. And not away, to some private alcove, or a peaceful rooftop. Tugs Louis towards the table. Arms loosening off Louis' shoulders, taking his shirt sleeve in hand to pull him properly over. "You can see some of his work first, then. Alex, your phone."
Some miscellaneous humans, perched on adjacent lounge seating, find themselves shooed away as Lestat makes to usher Louis towards it. Alex, sloth-slow moving to set his champagne bottle down and fish around for his phone, potentially not entirely sure why.
Embarrassing, the way Louis feels his heart seize up in his chest when Lestat says Come, eager for those few moments before realizing they are going no further than the couches in front of them.
Foolish. Foolish to assume Lestat would leave his own party every time Louis appeared.
So he sits where he is bidden, crossing one leg over the other. Old habit. Retreating a little into familiar poise to hide this private embarrassment at misplaced hopes. In this slip of time between settling himself alongside Lestat and Alex's hunt for his phone, Louis resolves to be polite, even if the work is nothing noteworthy.
And reminds himself not to be so handsy, to touch what is no longer his even if his palms itch to catch hold of Lestat again, even in some small way.
"Do you have another of those?" is a polite aside to Cookie, while Alex draws out his phone from one pocket. Nearly drops it.
They are all three of them comfortably altered. Louis observes this and feels some kind of way about it, chest clenching at these humans, Lestat's place among them. A new family, maybe. A happier one. No dreams materializing now to reassure Louis that they too were happy, once.
They're merely mortals, he knows. Maybe one day he will eat them properly when he decides to be done with all of this, vanish from view, retreat into vampiric reclusivity. But it's a little like having cherished pets, ones you can sleep with. He loves them, of course, for what they are to him (and knows deep down that Cookie would kick him out of bed and perhaps the planet if the words 'cherished pet' entered her awareness), and perhaps it would be nice if Louis had a fondness for them as well?
Would it make this whole arrangement more bearable? Lestat doesn't know. He is not, at this moment, thinking very deeply about it. Instructs Alex that Louis wishes to see his paintings. Alex, who perhaps remembers something about Lestat's ex being a big time art dealer, gets on board.
Flushes red a little as he navigates his phone, asks Louis, are you on Insta?
Cookie turns her lit cigarette in hand, and just sort of offers it out. Lestat moves, pushes aside a few errant liquor bottles on the table to kneel onto it. They laugh together at these antics, Lestat retrieving the cigarette from her hand with his mouth, before he resettles on the table, at least physically the centre of attention, takes a drag and offers it back to Louis. Weed and nicotine, sharp and sweet scents winding together.
Alex's paintings are abstractions made of primary colours. A bent towards naked women, such as the first in his gallery being one with a galaxy for a vagina.
But Rachida is, and will most likely be obliged to follow Alex on Louis' behalf.
Alex, who presents Louis with a bold opening example. Louis is very practiced at taking in all types of artwork without any trace of reaction, studies these offerings with polite neutrality, casual interest as Alex is obliged to scroll from one to the next. But Lestat knows Louis. Might see something of a familiar reaction in the lines of Louis' expression.
Their fingers catch, Louis' over Lestat's, as Louis takes the cigarette from him. Old days, this. Smoking together. Louis hasn't smoked in years. He inhales deeply, looks past Alex to Lestat as he exhales a stream of smoke.
"There's a market for abstracts," he offers, magnanimous. Absently tips the cigarette towards Lestat, offering. "I imagine it's challenging to keep up your work with the demands of your tour."
Eyes moving from Alex to Lestat, to Cookie. Surreal, engaging in this. Maybe he is a fool.
Unable to parse Louis' microexpressions, Alex is quick to agree, it's all rehearsing and interviews and travelling right now, he's on an art break, but it's like, painting opens up a whole other part of his mind, chills him out, because it doesn't have to be perfect, even though you're literally always forming the finished product, which is weird because music is ephemeral, like, when you're perfmorming, but you know the whole thing collapses if you're not on your game,
and on like that. A chatty individual, maybe, but one that has gotten accustomed to people being deeply interested in what it's like as the lead guitarist of The Vampire Lestat, and happy to provide each time.
The paintings are fine. Here's one of a penguin with sunglasses, rendered in bisexual lighting. Here's another naked woman, lactating rainbows, filling the back wall of a tattoo studio. Occasionally, pictures of the band, mainly Tough Cookie, cute shared selfies. A flash of Lestat, more elusive.
And Lestat watches Louis, because he feels he can get away with it, taking back the cigarette to smoke. A veil of it forming around him, a mild hit of marijuana putting a pleasant calm on his own mood. Wants to touch him. Wants to be on top of him, rub against him like a cat, share this feeling, pour it down his throat.
"How long as you in America for?" rather rudely elbows aside whatever Alex is saying. Lestat, blindly passing the cigarette back to Cookie.
Less interesting than the photographs Alex flicks carelessly past. Louis has some reckless impulse to take the phone from him to make a more thorough study of each one, little glimpses of this life Lestat has made completely independent of Louis. To look more closely at what Alex has captured of Lestat himself.
Lestat diverts him, before Louis can put some serious thought into how he might coax the phone out of Alex's hand.
"A week. Maybe more, if I find something I like at the gallery I been invited to visit."
And there is the tour. The dates Rachida has put into Louis' calendar.
There is a war. Vampires that will eventually realize that Louis has traveled into America, that he is once again orbiting Lestat.
Louis holds out a hand to reclaim the cigarette as Cookie blows a smoke ring.
Lestat remembers their initial reunion in New Orleans like a blur, but not completely. Small, treasured crystal-clear pieces in the midst of it, hoarded, kept safe, admired. The real blur comes when Lestat tries to remember specific things he himself said or was feeling at the time, but he does remember thinking: don't go. Don't leave me here.
Remembers, distinctly, choosing not to say it. How outrageously unfair it would be to ask Louis to do even more for him, how he had to gather up his own pieces himself before he could even contemplate more. He remembers it now because he is trying not to say: don't go. Come with me.
"Los Angeles," Louis admits. "Rachida lined up a few others for me up the coast."
In which the lining up involves all the travel arrangements necessary to shuttle a vampire around the country. (Has ghosts of the past, of how it was when it was him and Armand moving together around America.) There is some flexibility, a concession to the possibility that Louis' whims will require a few days moving in another direction. That a vampire might try to kill him and need to be put down.
He lifts the cigarette to his mouth. Louis takes a drag off it, speaks through a cloud of smoke when he offers a question in return:
"Where do you go from here?" can be misinterpreted as a question for anyone around this table, but Louis is looking only at Lestat.
If it's a misinterpretation that Cookie answers for him, it's one she doesn't mind making as she says, "Three more nights in Vegas, then we show in Phoenix."
"Tucson, El Paso," Alex chimes in.
"Dallas, Houston," Cookie, ticking off on her fingers.
"New Orleans," from Lestat, who feels as if this conversation is rushing away, just as his tour threatens to drag him in the opposite direction of these so-called galleries that are so interesting. Unable to stop watching Louis smoke, because he is in love with him, and also the patterns of the cinders and smoke and gestures of his fingers are particularly entrancing.
"Nashville," Cookie adds. "And then we get to go on a fucking plane for once."
"I like the bus," Alex protests. "It's cool."
"I'll check back in with you in a month."
Lestat reaches out a hand to take the cigarette. "Our west coast ventures are towards the end of the tour. I think your assistant has the details."
A flex of emotion in Louis' face, some tender ebb thinking of the place hat had been their home. Cookie and Alex continue speaking and Louis is looking at Lestat, their banter passing him by.
"She does," Louis agrees. "I had her add them into my calendar."
Alongside all the other necessities of running his modest empire, the business of making money that Louis has always taken such pleasure in ticking smoothly along in spite of so much upheaval. It is a point of quiet pride that he has maintained, lost nothing.
Takes a last drag off the cigarette for passing it into Lestat's custody, still defenseless against the lurch of his heart at the slightest brush between their fingers. It's worse now, maybe, after their closeness in his dressing room. After Lestat offered up his throat and Louis hesitated too long.
"Three more shows here?" he questions, before tacking on with some amusement to Lestat directly, "Will you be on the bus as well?"
Yes, three more shows, indicated by the tip of his head, before pursing his lips after this sign of amusement for his bus. "Oui," Lestat says, a slightly defensive shake of his hair. "It is quite luxurious. My compartment is blocked of all sun, with a coffin, aircon, some music. We travel by day mostly, so, I expect to sleep through it all."
"Which is why I've been saying," Alex says, a broad smile at Louis, "we should just toss him in with the gear, not like he's gonna even notice either way—"
Flash of temper noted, Louis' attention sharpening through the stream of smoke he exhales.
And observed too, how Cookie soothes. All the dimensions of the three of them, so much that Louis doesn't see and maybe won't ever see. Lestat with a new life, pieces of it simply out of Louis' reach now.
Louis tips the cigarette to Alex, who perhaps doesn't need any more drugs.
"He would notice," Louis assures Alex, alongside Cookie's placations.
There are other questions Louis could ask, but doesn't want to speak of Lestat's volunteers from the audience in front of these two. What they think of it, if they feel any fear watching Lestat sink fangs into a bared throat—
Maybe he could ask them, someday. Not tonight.
"How will it go, these three nights? All the same? A party after?"
Dragging them all back. Here are these questions. Here is an invitation to speak of the music, the spectacle, the celebration after.
Lestat can feel where Cookie is petting at the back of his shoulder, can feel his own swoop of ill-temper, something about Alex shying back from it making it worse. He watches as Louis passes along the cigarette, as Alex takes it with a quick and thankful smile, an agreeable nod at this assurance. His heart, rabbit quick.
Thumping music up through the floor. Mortals everywhere, drinking and imbibing, money burned into material burned into excess and energy. Louis is trying to smooth the conversation along. Lestat should laugh, and say of course.
But now he feels quite bad. No longer having fun.
"Always," he tells Louis. A faint smile. "All the same. Excuse me."
Gracefully getting to his feet up off the table, forming no reason or excuse for why he must turn and begin moving away.
Maybe Louis should let him go. A part of him petulantly wonders if Cookie is the one who goes after Lestat, if she is the one to right his poor moods.
But Louis cannot bring himself to wait and find out.
He makes no excuses. Simply stands up, steps around the table, Alex's discarded champagne bottle, and follows after Lestat. Says his name, a useless stall against reaching for him, because Louis inevitably snags his arm to slow his passing.
"You leaving?"
Leaving Alex and Cookie, leaving the party? Or leaving Louis?
Lestat is already pondering the prospect of Louis not chasing after him, how delicious that agony will be, how it will be a hideously perfect way to end his night. But then his name is said, and his arm is caught, somewhere at the end of the balcony where he was going to careen through the emergency exit, and this is terrible, because his eyes are stinging.
So he only half-turns, but puts no pressure on the grip to his arm. "I felt I wanted to get some air," he says, even though he is certain his trajectory was his own hotel room, the interior of his coffin, done with partying, this endless evening, the endless tour stretching out in front of him.
"Don't let me drag you away. I'm very fond of them."
Complicated, hearing this. Louis hadn't doubted Lestat felt something for these humans, but can't avoid the way he resents—
Something about it. It's ugly, resenting anything that makes Lestat happy after he's been unhappy for so long. Louis feels shame over it but can't quite cut the feeling out of himself.
Louis had wanted the space. Lestat shouldn't have to endure alone. And still.
Still, he is here. Chasing after Lestat. Holding on to him as he assures, "You ain't dragging me."
If anything, Louis is dragging him.
"We could get some air," is maybe a little desperate, a little intrusive. Louis says it anyway. "Could stick around, buy me a drink. Dance, before I go."
It's perfect, these offerings. Everything he thought he wanted when he asked if Louis would like to come to his party.
And Lestat, instead, can feel something like panic rising in him. The desperate, wanting thing that would, if it could, launch him back into Louis' arms, that snaps after these offerings with slavering desire. He's so stupid, he knows. Knows because Cookie did call him this, after the time in France, after getting a little drunk and sad. Uncalled for.
And true. Also, if he stands here in indecisive, wanting silence any longer, he's going to burst into tears and embarrass himself properly.
"No," slips out of his mouth, and then cannot recall it back when regret seizes fast and cold in him. Pupils still large, eyes red rimmed, as he looks back at Louis properly. Regret, all the sharper upon looking into his face. "I think I am tired. I'm sorry."
Absurd, but Louis can't talk himself out of how stung he feels by Lestat's refusal. Chasing after him, hanging on his arm, and Lestat—
Lestat's eyes are red and Louis wavers between the idea that Lestat is upset and the idea that Lestat is only tired and has smoked quite a bit, clearly imbibed something before Louis arrived, and is tired. Done with the party he already expressed dislike for.
Louis lets go of his arm. Stiff-backed, braced against his own hurt. Misplaced hurt.
"You're allowed to be tired."
Did Lestat have to wake very early to prepare? Louis hadn't asked. He should have.
"I shouldn't keep you," Louis admits. Rests his hand on the balcony railing to keep from reaching back, shoves the other in a pocket. He can behave. "Just wanna make sure you're alright."
And the reality is: say good-bye.
Louis shouldn't linger, shouldn't remain to be an imposition on Lestat's good time. Rachida is somewhere in this place dancing. Louis can collect her, and then go. He is not afraid of being transparent about what's drawn him here to the party, and it has never been Lestat's band mates.
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Louis catches him round the waist. Habit. Years since Louis was grabbing Lestat up by the waist, yes, but Louis knows better than most how a thing can live in the body. How the ways in which he loves Lestat, the ways in which Louis had cared for him once, still exist in him.
"Red ain't the problem," but the point is taken. Louis had dismissed an interior designer with similar inclinations, too much Dracula to understand what the client standing in front of him.
Lestat is gripping his shoulder. Louis looks up into his face, draws some conclusions as to the state of him. Lestat, already indulging. He and his two humans, perhaps by way of his two human companions.
"Gonna have your Christine make sure it's more to your taste next time?" Louis asks, discarding his untouched drink on a passing tray so he might use a light sweep of fingers to brush the hair from Lestat's face. Acknowledge that Lestat will have more parties, more mortals hanging off him, all that he desires and more.
Maybe in due time he will stop inviting Louis, who is so much less fun than the others circulating through Lestat's space.
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There is also the clinging scent of some amount of intimacy, which could simply be from lounging around on the couch. His humans, their perfumes, mingled with cigarette smoke, clinging to his skin, his clothing. Not sex, but some other organic thing. Blood drinking, warm with it.
"Christine is easily distracted," by, probably, goalkeeping against the consequences of criminal acts and other infractions, to her credit, but anyway, "and besides, you would do better. You would know what I like."
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Distracting, all of this. Distracting, his arm around Lestat's waist, hands steadying him still. (Unnecessary, now that he's descended the table.)
Lestat is speaking. Says this thing and startles a grin out of Louis, a fond little chuckle punched out of him.
"Me? Maybe if you're looking for some pieces to fill out the walls."
Does he still know what Lestat likes? Louis is warmed by the assertion, holds onto the way Lestat says this as fact rather than the flutter of doubt. Lestat is changed. Different than Louis remembers. All the trappings of his life, different. There's every chance what he likes is far from what Louis could even guess at.
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Alex, who has half an idea of the subject at hand, raises the champagne bottle he is drinking directly from, points out that Lestat doesn't even use that room, so what's the harm. Cookie, rolling her eyes and rolling a cigarette.
"So what's the problem?" is to Louis, Lestat's standing back up straight, the hair that Louis had just fixed once again half in his face. Suddenly intent, this focus. "You said it wasn't the red."
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His grip remains tight around Lestat's waist, a levering point upon which Lestat balances. Louis is looking past him, overly aware of the solid weigh of Lestat in his arms as he observes Alex and Cookie, and then—
Lestat, straightening upwards. Hair in his face. Eyes bright, all his attention narrowed down to Louis who can do nothing but lift fingers back up to sweep from forehead back to tame the mess of gold once more.
"Because it's a party for you," Louis tells him. "And you don't like it."
What other problem is there? So what if Louis liked the red? Lestat doesn't.
"Next time, this should all be what suits you. Purple and gold, maybe."
Louis doesn't remember a particular fondness for purple, but it's a brave new world. Lestat seems fond of it now.
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"Yes," he says, dreamily. Easy to see from across the room, let alone this intimately, the saucer-like dilation of his pupils. "I'd like that."
Maybe this would have been a better time to share his blood. They could roll together, see what happens. Maybe Lestat could ask him a second time, and not be refused (because, of course, looking back, he is certain he was rejected, Louis politely waiting him out to save his feelings), but only if he could stand to try again.
"You should come to the place in Malibu," he is saying, and catches up with himself. "I don't know what to do with it. It is built for the sun, you see."
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His fingers linger at Lestat's temple, the shell of his ear. A touch that pretends at an absence of intimacy, despite how intoxicating it is to be touching him. Louis' own awareness winnowing down to Lestat, as if there is a door closed behind them. As if they are alone.
Doesn't think about houses built for sun. About Armand, standing in the light. Louis' windows coated in chemical to afford him the same privilege.
How long until Lestat needn't worry about the sun at all?
"I'd like to see it," Louis says anyway, heart tightening. "I can give you some names of designers. We could let your Alex paint his mural."
Because of course Louis likes the idea of a mural, interested in spite of himself.
Lestat's eyes. Louis wonders if he would remember any of this conversation by dawn.
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Lestat is both aware and unaware of them, caught as he is between these points of contact. Easy to slip into a world where they are the only two vampires in the world, the only two beings. Feels them still, his humans. A lifeline from drowning in the ocean of Louis du Lac.
And she's aware, Cookie. Obliged him, when he said he'd needed something, to tolerate the evening.
"Come," Lestat says. And not away, to some private alcove, or a peaceful rooftop. Tugs Louis towards the table. Arms loosening off Louis' shoulders, taking his shirt sleeve in hand to pull him properly over. "You can see some of his work first, then. Alex, your phone."
Some miscellaneous humans, perched on adjacent lounge seating, find themselves shooed away as Lestat makes to usher Louis towards it. Alex, sloth-slow moving to set his champagne bottle down and fish around for his phone, potentially not entirely sure why.
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Foolish. Foolish to assume Lestat would leave his own party every time Louis appeared.
So he sits where he is bidden, crossing one leg over the other. Old habit. Retreating a little into familiar poise to hide this private embarrassment at misplaced hopes. In this slip of time between settling himself alongside Lestat and Alex's hunt for his phone, Louis resolves to be polite, even if the work is nothing noteworthy.
And reminds himself not to be so handsy, to touch what is no longer his even if his palms itch to catch hold of Lestat again, even in some small way.
"Do you have another of those?" is a polite aside to Cookie, while Alex draws out his phone from one pocket. Nearly drops it.
They are all three of them comfortably altered. Louis observes this and feels some kind of way about it, chest clenching at these humans, Lestat's place among them. A new family, maybe. A happier one. No dreams materializing now to reassure Louis that they too were happy, once.
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Would it make this whole arrangement more bearable? Lestat doesn't know. He is not, at this moment, thinking very deeply about it. Instructs Alex that Louis wishes to see his paintings. Alex, who perhaps remembers something about Lestat's ex being a big time art dealer, gets on board.
Flushes red a little as he navigates his phone, asks Louis, are you on Insta?
Cookie turns her lit cigarette in hand, and just sort of offers it out. Lestat moves, pushes aside a few errant liquor bottles on the table to kneel onto it. They laugh together at these antics, Lestat retrieving the cigarette from her hand with his mouth, before he resettles on the table, at least physically the centre of attention, takes a drag and offers it back to Louis. Weed and nicotine, sharp and sweet scents winding together.
Alex's paintings are abstractions made of primary colours. A bent towards naked women, such as the first in his gallery being one with a galaxy for a vagina.
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No.
But Rachida is, and will most likely be obliged to follow Alex on Louis' behalf.
Alex, who presents Louis with a bold opening example. Louis is very practiced at taking in all types of artwork without any trace of reaction, studies these offerings with polite neutrality, casual interest as Alex is obliged to scroll from one to the next. But Lestat knows Louis. Might see something of a familiar reaction in the lines of Louis' expression.
Their fingers catch, Louis' over Lestat's, as Louis takes the cigarette from him. Old days, this. Smoking together. Louis hasn't smoked in years. He inhales deeply, looks past Alex to Lestat as he exhales a stream of smoke.
"There's a market for abstracts," he offers, magnanimous. Absently tips the cigarette towards Lestat, offering. "I imagine it's challenging to keep up your work with the demands of your tour."
Eyes moving from Alex to Lestat, to Cookie. Surreal, engaging in this. Maybe he is a fool.
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and on like that. A chatty individual, maybe, but one that has gotten accustomed to people being deeply interested in what it's like as the lead guitarist of The Vampire Lestat, and happy to provide each time.
The paintings are fine. Here's one of a penguin with sunglasses, rendered in bisexual lighting. Here's another naked woman, lactating rainbows, filling the back wall of a tattoo studio. Occasionally, pictures of the band, mainly Tough Cookie, cute shared selfies. A flash of Lestat, more elusive.
And Lestat watches Louis, because he feels he can get away with it, taking back the cigarette to smoke. A veil of it forming around him, a mild hit of marijuana putting a pleasant calm on his own mood. Wants to touch him. Wants to be on top of him, rub against him like a cat, share this feeling, pour it down his throat.
"How long as you in America for?" rather rudely elbows aside whatever Alex is saying. Lestat, blindly passing the cigarette back to Cookie.
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Less interesting than the photographs Alex flicks carelessly past. Louis has some reckless impulse to take the phone from him to make a more thorough study of each one, little glimpses of this life Lestat has made completely independent of Louis. To look more closely at what Alex has captured of Lestat himself.
Lestat diverts him, before Louis can put some serious thought into how he might coax the phone out of Alex's hand.
"A week. Maybe more, if I find something I like at the gallery I been invited to visit."
And there is the tour. The dates Rachida has put into Louis' calendar.
There is a war. Vampires that will eventually realize that Louis has traveled into America, that he is once again orbiting Lestat.
Louis holds out a hand to reclaim the cigarette as Cookie blows a smoke ring.
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Remembers, distinctly, choosing not to say it. How outrageously unfair it would be to ask Louis to do even more for him, how he had to gather up his own pieces himself before he could even contemplate more. He remembers it now because he is trying not to say: don't go. Come with me.
A week. Maybe more.
"In Vegas?" he asks, of this gallery.
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In which the lining up involves all the travel arrangements necessary to shuttle a vampire around the country. (Has ghosts of the past, of how it was when it was him and Armand moving together around America.) There is some flexibility, a concession to the possibility that Louis' whims will require a few days moving in another direction. That a vampire might try to kill him and need to be put down.
He lifts the cigarette to his mouth. Louis takes a drag off it, speaks through a cloud of smoke when he offers a question in return:
"Where do you go from here?" can be misinterpreted as a question for anyone around this table, but Louis is looking only at Lestat.
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"Tucson, El Paso," Alex chimes in.
"Dallas, Houston," Cookie, ticking off on her fingers.
"New Orleans," from Lestat, who feels as if this conversation is rushing away, just as his tour threatens to drag him in the opposite direction of these so-called galleries that are so interesting. Unable to stop watching Louis smoke, because he is in love with him, and also the patterns of the cinders and smoke and gestures of his fingers are particularly entrancing.
"Nashville," Cookie adds. "And then we get to go on a fucking plane for once."
"I like the bus," Alex protests. "It's cool."
"I'll check back in with you in a month."
Lestat reaches out a hand to take the cigarette. "Our west coast ventures are towards the end of the tour. I think your assistant has the details."
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A flex of emotion in Louis' face, some tender ebb thinking of the place hat had been their home. Cookie and Alex continue speaking and Louis is looking at Lestat, their banter passing him by.
"She does," Louis agrees. "I had her add them into my calendar."
Alongside all the other necessities of running his modest empire, the business of making money that Louis has always taken such pleasure in ticking smoothly along in spite of so much upheaval. It is a point of quiet pride that he has maintained, lost nothing.
Takes a last drag off the cigarette for passing it into Lestat's custody, still defenseless against the lurch of his heart at the slightest brush between their fingers. It's worse now, maybe, after their closeness in his dressing room. After Lestat offered up his throat and Louis hesitated too long.
"Three more shows here?" he questions, before tacking on with some amusement to Lestat directly, "Will you be on the bus as well?"
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"Which is why I've been saying," Alex says, a broad smile at Louis, "we should just toss him in with the gear, not like he's gonna even notice either way—"
"Ça suffit," Lestat snaps, dreamy bliss suddenly throw aside with whipcrack speed, teeth bared.
Alex goes redder, smile vanishing. "Sorry, sorry, I was just—"
"Being disrespectful," Lestat hisses, while Cookie leans over, placing a hand on his arm, peacekeeping noises and fluttery assurance.
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And observed too, how Cookie soothes. All the dimensions of the three of them, so much that Louis doesn't see and maybe won't ever see. Lestat with a new life, pieces of it simply out of Louis' reach now.
Louis tips the cigarette to Alex, who perhaps doesn't need any more drugs.
"He would notice," Louis assures Alex, alongside Cookie's placations.
There are other questions Louis could ask, but doesn't want to speak of Lestat's volunteers from the audience in front of these two. What they think of it, if they feel any fear watching Lestat sink fangs into a bared throat—
Maybe he could ask them, someday. Not tonight.
"How will it go, these three nights? All the same? A party after?"
Dragging them all back. Here are these questions. Here is an invitation to speak of the music, the spectacle, the celebration after.
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Thumping music up through the floor. Mortals everywhere, drinking and imbibing, money burned into material burned into excess and energy. Louis is trying to smooth the conversation along. Lestat should laugh, and say of course.
But now he feels quite bad. No longer having fun.
"Always," he tells Louis. A faint smile. "All the same. Excuse me."
Gracefully getting to his feet up off the table, forming no reason or excuse for why he must turn and begin moving away.
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But Louis cannot bring himself to wait and find out.
He makes no excuses. Simply stands up, steps around the table, Alex's discarded champagne bottle, and follows after Lestat. Says his name, a useless stall against reaching for him, because Louis inevitably snags his arm to slow his passing.
"You leaving?"
Leaving Alex and Cookie, leaving the party? Or leaving Louis?
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So he only half-turns, but puts no pressure on the grip to his arm. "I felt I wanted to get some air," he says, even though he is certain his trajectory was his own hotel room, the interior of his coffin, done with partying, this endless evening, the endless tour stretching out in front of him.
"Don't let me drag you away. I'm very fond of them."
In case this little moment should say otherwise.
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Something about it. It's ugly, resenting anything that makes Lestat happy after he's been unhappy for so long. Louis feels shame over it but can't quite cut the feeling out of himself.
Louis had wanted the space. Lestat shouldn't have to endure alone. And still.
Still, he is here. Chasing after Lestat. Holding on to him as he assures, "You ain't dragging me."
If anything, Louis is dragging him.
"We could get some air," is maybe a little desperate, a little intrusive. Louis says it anyway. "Could stick around, buy me a drink. Dance, before I go."
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And Lestat, instead, can feel something like panic rising in him. The desperate, wanting thing that would, if it could, launch him back into Louis' arms, that snaps after these offerings with slavering desire. He's so stupid, he knows. Knows because Cookie did call him this, after the time in France, after getting a little drunk and sad. Uncalled for.
And true. Also, if he stands here in indecisive, wanting silence any longer, he's going to burst into tears and embarrass himself properly.
"No," slips out of his mouth, and then cannot recall it back when regret seizes fast and cold in him. Pupils still large, eyes red rimmed, as he looks back at Louis properly. Regret, all the sharper upon looking into his face. "I think I am tired. I'm sorry."
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Absurd, but Louis can't talk himself out of how stung he feels by Lestat's refusal. Chasing after him, hanging on his arm, and Lestat—
Lestat's eyes are red and Louis wavers between the idea that Lestat is upset and the idea that Lestat is only tired and has smoked quite a bit, clearly imbibed something before Louis arrived, and is tired. Done with the party he already expressed dislike for.
Louis lets go of his arm. Stiff-backed, braced against his own hurt. Misplaced hurt.
"You're allowed to be tired."
Did Lestat have to wake very early to prepare? Louis hadn't asked. He should have.
"I shouldn't keep you," Louis admits. Rests his hand on the balcony railing to keep from reaching back, shoves the other in a pocket. He can behave. "Just wanna make sure you're alright."
And the reality is: say good-bye.
Louis shouldn't linger, shouldn't remain to be an imposition on Lestat's good time. Rachida is somewhere in this place dancing. Louis can collect her, and then go. He is not afraid of being transparent about what's drawn him here to the party, and it has never been Lestat's band mates.
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lil bow