All things proceed apace. Louis is traveling, again. Moving constantly between tour venues and galleries, detours into places he once traveled to with Armand to retrieve—Louis isn't sure what. Memories. Pieces of himself that might have been lost.
In some respects, all is well. Louis is making money. Daniel is wrapping up his own book tour. Lestat's tour has been well-received.
But between Daniel and Lestat, they are generating chatter that is making Louis anxious. He doesn't like the swirl of questions around Lestat, likes it even less after the first spate of attacks he has to deal with. Young vampires, yes, but—
Problems. Problems, maybe, for Lestat who has so many humans to attend to. Louis has Rachida, and a whole mess of staff traveling alongside them, but they are all better equipped to defend themselves than Lestat's humans.
Louis is making an effort not to carry these fears with him into the arenas and dressing rooms, the time he spends with Lestat. They talk, like they did once. Or nearly like they did once. There is no pretending that they aren't withholding, though Louis isn't certain with it is Lestat is keeping close to his chest. They're spending time. Lestat makes time for him. They text. It is good.
The night before Louis arrived in Dallas, he beheaded two young vampires and paid an exorbitant sum for the use of a local crematory's incinerator. He is healing still when the plane lands, when he is collected from the airport. Rachida has been texting Christine. They are on schedule. Louis is choosing not to ask after the pinch of worry on her face. Rachida has a very reliable policy, telling Louis when he needs to be concerned about something and withholding when it is something that doesn't require his attention.
Lestat is getting ready, clipboard-wielding Sven reports, but Louis is welcome to say hello before the show if he wishes.
If he hadn't spent the night before fielding attacking vampires, Louis might have left Lestat to his preparations. But he wants to see him, reassure himself.
Raps on the door, sets palm on the handle, and almost immediately realizes that Lestat isn't alone in that room.
Getting dressed, getting ready. His usual ritual abandoned, wooden keyboard left neglected in the corner. No more alcohol, just some amphetamines to hopefully get him through the night, doing his makeup while Noah touches him, says some nonsense about cancelling the show, groping him, kissing his neck. Lestat says he has kept to his commitments for hotter men, and it hurts Noah's feelings.
Which is boring. He'd been hoping for—well, absolutely unfair expectations, but it's easy to make up for. Which is what Lestat is doing when his vampire senses pick up on Louis' presence, unhelpfully, at the same time there is a knock at the door.
There's a thump, a heavy step, mumbled voices.
"A moment," Lestat's voice. Shuffling clothing. Another male voice, a complaint, are you serious?, lilting southern accent.
Outside, in the hallway, Louis is contemplating walking away.
He knows. He doesn't need the door to open. He knows.
But he has announced himself. In the span of a moment, Louis has time to consider what would happen if he simply turned and walked away. Would Lestat go after him? Find him later? Would it matter at all that Louis had stood like a fool outside his door and listened to whatever it is Lestat is doing on the other side of the door with whichever mortal he is keeping company with.
Louis has resigned himself to Cookie, to Alex. Has grown fond of Larry. But he has not fully considered prospects beyond the first two. Has not considered the flush of anger, of hurt, these misplaced things Louis cannot quell regardless of how little right he has to either.
Lestat says a moment, and Louis gives him what feels like a moment. Considers that they might both be using different measurements, and takes a backwards step, rocking on his heels. Gives more serious though to pivoting, walking back the way he came and perhaps out of the venue, all the way back to the car.
Rachida would be very annoyed. This, at least, gives him enough pause that he is still present when the door rattles open.
It isn't Lestat immediately in view, but a tall broad shouldered mortal, sun-blonde and scruffy, his jeans on and belt loose, his shirt closed but open over his waist, frantically tucking in the tails of it as he is seemingly propelled by force out into the hallway. A look at Louis, but no lingering, continuing the momentum of his retreat. The lingering smell of a long night out, of recent sweat and blood, the telltale mark on his neck of a recently closed bite.
Leaving Lestat, who grips the edge of the doorframe. Eyes bloodshot, hair wild, mouth raw from kissing. He is dressed, in that his current stage outfit leaves little to the imagination, a top of white latex that is mostly only sleeves and collar, chest and back exposed, and matching pants that cling to his body. Feet bare. There is the evidence of marks on his chest, blunt human teeth, trace of spit.
He smiles brightly. It is a little forced. "Bonsoir. I didn't know—"
A breath leaves him. Still flushed. Still perversely hard, not easy to miss. "Is this a surprise for me?"
Bad manners, the glint of fang that Louis shows to this man. Unfair. Louis has some sense that the mortal has not done anything wrong. This is no Antoinette. There is nothing to transgress upon, because what claim does Louis have?
He has his jealousy. Envy so venomous Louis could spit poison, acid.
He is left with no choice but to swallow it down. To do this even as he looks at Lestat, and all his bare skin like a road map of someone else's mouth and hands on him. Skin flushed. Hard in the skin-tight pants he has chosen. Louis has to avert his eyes, whole body flushing hot in a mingling of jealousy and desire that does not one any good. Certainly does Louis no good at all.
"I promised I'd come," Louis says, a little stiffly. Forces himself to relent and offer: "You can still get him back. He can't have gotten very far."
No one needs to entertain Louis. He has much to occupy himself, if Lestat is entertaining.
As he speaks, Louis folds his sunglasses, hooks them on the collar of the loose-knit black mesh shirt he'd chosen for this outing. Sleeveless, airy, a concession to the weather. Maybe to balance the leather trousers, the bulky boots. Silver rings, several heavy with inset precious stones, gleam from his fingers. A delicate flat-link chain loops across his collarbones. He'd taken some care in dressing, and finds some comfort in that now, satisfied at the comparison between himself and the departing mortal's fashion choices.
Petty. But Louis is allowed, he thinks, given the standard to which he holds himself in all other aspects of this situation.
Mon Dieu. What fucking day is it. What city is it.
Through the haze of zero sleep and too many uppers, Lestat zigzags a look over Louis. He sees bare skin and fashionable layers, he sees mesh and leather and bulky boots. Chains and multiple rings. Has a vision of removing them with his mouth, one finger after the other.
His makeup is at least half yesterday's makeup, shoved back into place with his fingers, replenished with distracted scribbles of an eyeliner pen. The racoon look works better on stage, and has already been slightly smeared since application. Eyes flash bright as he looks back up at Louis' face.
Grins at this suggestion, showing his own fangs. "He reminded me a little of your army boys. Do you still like them broad and stupid?" He gestures off in the direction Noah had stumbled. "Be my guest, mon ami."
Maybe it's only that Louis already feels so tender. Maybe that's why this casual offer slices at him, provokes when it shouldn't. Feels stung further by mon ami, though it is what they are, isn't it?
He reaches out, presses two fingers to a bite mark rising to full color on Lestat's chest. Ignoring all other signs of what had been going on behind closed doors, eyes locked on Lestat's face.
"Wouldn't want to put you out," he says quietly. "Not when it looks like you were having a real nice time before your meal."
If Lestat even intended to eat him. Louis isn't sure anymore, hasn't asked.
Some fretful, worried flutter in his chest wants to ask, Who is making sure you're eating? Who is here to look in on you? Even wrestling with temper and ugly, vicious jealousy, Louis looks at Lestat and doesn't like the frenetic crackle of energy around him. He looks pale beneath the disaster of his make up. Tired, maybe. In thirty years Louis had seen all the ways Lestat acted out and never anything like this, nothing that made him so uneasy to observe.
Louis touches his bare skin where a burgeoning bruise makes the spot tender. Lestat forgets how to breathe for a moment, air shuddering through the necessary pathways instead of doing it normal. Fingernails laying little marks into the soft wood of the doorframe.
And he is trying to work out what this look on his face is. Has he seen it before? Maybe. The many shades of Louis' disapproval. It does not ruin his mood even a little.
"He was an appetiser. No corpses left on site," is said with a playful tipping of his head, to the left, to the right, like he is quoting someone. His lawyer, probably, who is wise in these matters. Sways in a little. Louis with his boots on and Lestat flat footed on the floor makes for a rare dip in the other direction for incremental height differentials.
He also smells nice. Expensive. Friends fuck sometimes, don't they? "You don't begrudge me my little amusements, do you?"
"No," Louis answers, fingers curling inwards as Louis skims knuckles from mark to mark. Audacious. He shouldn't be touching Lestat. It's not even the kind of touch meant to ward off Lestat as he leans in closer. Looking at him, aware of the slight height advantage his boots provide, at least until Lestat laces up whatever he has planned for the evening.
Says again, a little steadier, "No, I don't."
It's not Louis' place to begrudge Lestat anything. Louis can burn up with jealousy, can't help himself, but it has to be held in check. A private failing on his part, when they have resolved—
Well, Louis at least has resolved that they need distance. Need to stand upright on their own before they fall into each other again. It's only that he sees Lestat now, and can't help but fear that there's no certainty to that. Lestat, with all the variety he could wish for after years of isolation.
"Is it safe for you?" is a real question Louis has, but it's not exactly his worry. Is Lestat alright? Is he safe, content?
His senses spark after this wandering touch, blood shifting with willful obedience. Mouth dry, suddenly. Some rational part of his brain busy reeling, Louis touching him in this way, like Lestat belongs to him, which is of course true, only he didn't know if Louis knew this. The rest of him, hypnotised by the prospect of where this light brush of contact will go next.
Pulled up a little short by this tone of voice. You can begrudge me, he should say, if you want.
"What?"
Lestat had been staring at Louis' exposed collarbones, but now looks up at him. "Safe for me?" 'Safe' does not sound very sexy at all. It occurs to him that maybe Louis is not actually about to fuck him, but it will take another moment of processing.
Is it counterproductive to try to have this conversation standing in Lestat's doorway, touching him this way?
Maybe. But Louis has never fully understood the effect he has. Has even less of a sense of it now, knowing that there are diversions. Many diversions. That Louis is changed. That maybe he is not what Lestat wants, not anymore. No, Louis does not know that Lestat belongs to him. It only feels that way, and it burns him, thinking about someone else's mouth on him. Someone else leaving marks on him.
His knuckles run from one mark to the next and back, as if just that touch could erase the handiwork of the now-absent Noah. (Fortunate for Noah, maybe, to be gone.)
"Safe for you," Louis repeats, when he wants to ask: Are you taking care of yourself? Who is taking care of you here? "
Somewhere, Sven is tapping a pen against his clipboard, looking at his watch. Louis is supposed to be saying hello.
"You're being careful, when you pick 'em?"
Because Louis has thought of this too. Of how Claudia spiked Lestat's drink, once upon a time.
Should he be upset at this interest in his personal safety and wellbeing?
Probably not. That would be crazy.
Lestat's smile doesn't vanish, but it does seem to sharpen. "Oh yes," he says. "Premium organic," a breath in, sighed out, "non-GMO free range cowboys with big dicks only. I deserve the best," a coy tip of his head, "I think you'll agree."
He has a concert sometime in the next mumble minutes, but it doesn't seem to enter his mind as important or relevant, wholly focused on Louis, grey eyes bloodshot and fangs still peeking past his lip. Leans backwards now, swaying onto his heels where his hand hooks against the doorframe.
And Louis can feel it, the way Lestat's chest rises and falls as he breathes. Close enough to see the bloodshot quality of Lestat's eyes, think again that he is paler than Louis remembers.
Lestat leans back, and Louis' hand drops. Tightens into a fist, looking briefly away, down the hall, pushing away this image Lestat paints for him. If he gives it too much space in his mind, he'll do something foolish.
And Louis doesn't want to be foolish with Lestat. It matters too much.
"Yes," Louis admits, though he is reconsidering the wisdom of crossing the threshold.
The absence of touches prickles his skin, as if in need of soothing. Craves the flat of Louis' hand against him, where even these minor touches have already replaced the shadow sensation of Noah's handling. Lestat tips his head in the other direction as if getting a better angle of Louis' expression will offer insight into what he is thinking.
Or wanting. Lestat's hand falls off the doorframe, and he catches himself on his heel in step backwards into the slightly chaotic dressing room. A low table, a mirror, the trace evidence of white powder, an abandoned cowboy hat on the setee. A guitar, a ravaged costume rack, the messy spill of hair products and makeup along the long surface under a wide mirror. And flowers, as per his rider, flowers everywhere.
Maybe Louis comes in. Lestat says, "You need none," as he wanders backwards. "All my doors are open to you."
The door clicks closed. A deafening sound. Feels like it taps into his blood stream, drains straight down to his cock, Lestat pacing backwards and stopping when his thighs find the arm of the setee.
He is pretty sure they're not supposed to be doing anything. They are friends. Talk of distance, of healing.
"They can wait," he says, and shows his teeth again in a smile. Perching, half-sitting, watching Louis with unnerving focus. An invisible crackle of energy, at least, one Lestat can feel, between their bodies. Poised to close it, to receive its closure. "Would that please you to know? If they were all waiting on me because I wished to see you."
His hands brace on the arm of the setee, painted fingernails digging into the weave of upholstery.
Here he is again, some unimportant voice in the back of his mind is saying. Making shameless offerings. Someone will knock on the door, and maybe it won't matter, or it will. Maybe someone knock, and the same questions apply.
The rest of him says, here is Louis, who said he had to go, and who keeps coming back around. He feels his skin has burned where Louis has touched him, like the fans think crosses would.
"Do you want to know what he was doing to me when you arrived?" Lestat asks.
Nothing right away. He looks at Lestat. The marks on his body stand out. Or maybe Louis is just hyperaware of them. In New Orleans, Lestat had never come home with any marks from Antoinette after a time. The lingering traces had vanished. He had been careful. Not careful enough, but careful.
Louis lets himself think back to the mortal opening the door. Broad, so broad. Big hands. He might have tasted like earth, rich as soil. Lestat had chosen him, brought him back here, and he had bitten those marks into him.
In Vegas, Lestat had brought Louis into his dressing room, and offered him his throat. It feels like an unflattering comparison.
Slowly, Louis asks, "Are you playing a game with me, Lestat?"
Not a no. Not a yes. Only an attempt to steady himself. Find their footing.
He is just saying things. Provocation. But why not. Perhaps he knew Louis was coming after all. Perhaps he picked the kind of mortal that Louis might have favoured, once, or perhaps still does. Perhaps he timed it all perfectly. At least at one time in his life, Louis thought Lestat to be quite the schemer.
Also, he is enjoying himself, in some odd, reckless way. That's game enough.
"But there are not many rules," he says. "None, I admit."
Louis had touched him. The prickle of sensation has yet to leave his fingers.
He could touch Lestat again. Louis has observed the fabric of what Lestat is presently passing off as a top. It would apart easy, Louis is reasonably certain. They could just—
They could be reckless.
Louis is still trying to decide just how reckless he is prepared to be when he tells Lestat, "I already know what you were doing."
Tacit admission: Louis has given it some thought. Perhaps he was thinking on it when he was touching Lestat's chest, knuckling over each mark in turn.
"Do you think I need you to explain yourself to me?"
A flinch, nearly, if not against what Louis says, against Lestat's own reaction to it.
"Certainly not," gentle, taking on a familiar ash-soft tone of voice, the kind still capable of carrying a touch of stinging venom. "But I thought you might like to know the details, the configurations. That you might have use for such knowledge."
He is not sure what is expression his face is doing any longer, feeling a shade out of body as blood zaps around his veins, nervous system alight. He, a professional, can appreciate a little humiliation in the preamble—
Louis has a sudden awareness of this. Maybe it's not a certainty. Maybe it's only the sense of treading across familiar territory. Maybe it's Louis, eaten up with jealousy. The old habit, to punish, to lash out.
He is aware too, of the white powder. Of what Lestat has access to. Was that part of it? It had been one of the tricks Louis used, back when he was careening through San Francisco, alive and trying to dull himself to it.
Slowly, Louis steps forward. Crosses the room. Takes Lestat's face in his hands. Since they're crossing lines, Louis will cross this one too.
"Tell me," Louis invites. "Tell me how you're keeping time here."
Bites down on without me. Unfair. Louis can flirt but he won't instigate a real fight, if he can help it.
The part of him that wants to claw and bite, that wants to be clawed and bit, finds itself held still between Louis' hands. Some of the aroused state he had opened the door with has lessened, but not all of it, not enough of it. Louis' scent, a closer thing. Heart beat. Warmth, emanating.
Shifts where he perches, a knee angling in that touches his thigh. His body anticipates while his brain dissolves into question marks. This gentle handling of their conversation. Lestat can do nothing but answer him.
"I took him and some others back to my room after the show last night," he says. "But he was my favourite one. We all drank and spoke and fucked around. Then it was time to come back here again. He kept his blood warm for me. Sulked about something so I let him fuck me. Right here. Then you arrived and I threw him out."
This all rattles out, lacking some of that precise lancing that he might have applied to it. He adds, "I didn't know what night it was," which is halfway to apology.
Such a minor thing, the brush of Lestat's knee at his thigh. But Louis feels it like a spark of electricity.
They've touched each other before. But it would be a lie to say before was anything like now. Lestat's face held in his hands, skin bitten, so much bare skin, and what's covered is hardly concealed and Louis wants him. Louis always wants him. Spent eighty years wanting him, and hating himself.
And now, here, Louis just wants.
Louis wants to do everything right.
Louis wants to bite him everywhere.
He asked, so he listens to Lestat tell him these things that Louis had guessed at. Feels the twisting jealousy in his chest at some mortal, at Lestat letting him—
"Do you lose track often?" Louis murmurs, thumbs soothing at Lestat's cheeks. Burns still with his envy, chooses not to indulge it.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
In some respects, all is well. Louis is making money. Daniel is wrapping up his own book tour. Lestat's tour has been well-received.
But between Daniel and Lestat, they are generating chatter that is making Louis anxious. He doesn't like the swirl of questions around Lestat, likes it even less after the first spate of attacks he has to deal with. Young vampires, yes, but—
Problems. Problems, maybe, for Lestat who has so many humans to attend to. Louis has Rachida, and a whole mess of staff traveling alongside them, but they are all better equipped to defend themselves than Lestat's humans.
Louis is making an effort not to carry these fears with him into the arenas and dressing rooms, the time he spends with Lestat. They talk, like they did once. Or nearly like they did once. There is no pretending that they aren't withholding, though Louis isn't certain with it is Lestat is keeping close to his chest. They're spending time. Lestat makes time for him. They text. It is good.
The night before Louis arrived in Dallas, he beheaded two young vampires and paid an exorbitant sum for the use of a local crematory's incinerator. He is healing still when the plane lands, when he is collected from the airport. Rachida has been texting Christine. They are on schedule. Louis is choosing not to ask after the pinch of worry on her face. Rachida has a very reliable policy, telling Louis when he needs to be concerned about something and withholding when it is something that doesn't require his attention.
Lestat is getting ready, clipboard-wielding Sven reports, but Louis is welcome to say hello before the show if he wishes.
If he hadn't spent the night before fielding attacking vampires, Louis might have left Lestat to his preparations. But he wants to see him, reassure himself.
Raps on the door, sets palm on the handle, and almost immediately realizes that Lestat isn't alone in that room.
no subject
Getting dressed, getting ready. His usual ritual abandoned, wooden keyboard left neglected in the corner. No more alcohol, just some amphetamines to hopefully get him through the night, doing his makeup while Noah touches him, says some nonsense about cancelling the show, groping him, kissing his neck. Lestat says he has kept to his commitments for hotter men, and it hurts Noah's feelings.
Which is boring. He'd been hoping for—well, absolutely unfair expectations, but it's easy to make up for. Which is what Lestat is doing when his vampire senses pick up on Louis' presence, unhelpfully, at the same time there is a knock at the door.
There's a thump, a heavy step, mumbled voices.
"A moment," Lestat's voice. Shuffling clothing. Another male voice, a complaint, are you serious?, lilting southern accent.
no subject
He knows. He doesn't need the door to open. He knows.
But he has announced himself. In the span of a moment, Louis has time to consider what would happen if he simply turned and walked away. Would Lestat go after him? Find him later? Would it matter at all that Louis had stood like a fool outside his door and listened to whatever it is Lestat is doing on the other side of the door with whichever mortal he is keeping company with.
Louis has resigned himself to Cookie, to Alex. Has grown fond of Larry. But he has not fully considered prospects beyond the first two. Has not considered the flush of anger, of hurt, these misplaced things Louis cannot quell regardless of how little right he has to either.
Lestat says a moment, and Louis gives him what feels like a moment. Considers that they might both be using different measurements, and takes a backwards step, rocking on his heels. Gives more serious though to pivoting, walking back the way he came and perhaps out of the venue, all the way back to the car.
Rachida would be very annoyed. This, at least, gives him enough pause that he is still present when the door rattles open.
no subject
Leaving Lestat, who grips the edge of the doorframe. Eyes bloodshot, hair wild, mouth raw from kissing. He is dressed, in that his current stage outfit leaves little to the imagination, a top of white latex that is mostly only sleeves and collar, chest and back exposed, and matching pants that cling to his body. Feet bare. There is the evidence of marks on his chest, blunt human teeth, trace of spit.
He smiles brightly. It is a little forced. "Bonsoir. I didn't know—"
A breath leaves him. Still flushed. Still perversely hard, not easy to miss. "Is this a surprise for me?"
pivots to fashion
He has his jealousy. Envy so venomous Louis could spit poison, acid.
He is left with no choice but to swallow it down. To do this even as he looks at Lestat, and all his bare skin like a road map of someone else's mouth and hands on him. Skin flushed. Hard in the skin-tight pants he has chosen. Louis has to avert his eyes, whole body flushing hot in a mingling of jealousy and desire that does not one any good. Certainly does Louis no good at all.
"I promised I'd come," Louis says, a little stiffly. Forces himself to relent and offer: "You can still get him back. He can't have gotten very far."
No one needs to entertain Louis. He has much to occupy himself, if Lestat is entertaining.
As he speaks, Louis folds his sunglasses, hooks them on the collar of the loose-knit black mesh shirt he'd chosen for this outing. Sleeveless, airy, a concession to the weather. Maybe to balance the leather trousers, the bulky boots. Silver rings, several heavy with inset precious stones, gleam from his fingers. A delicate flat-link chain loops across his collarbones. He'd taken some care in dressing, and finds some comfort in that now, satisfied at the comparison between himself and the departing mortal's fashion choices.
Petty. But Louis is allowed, he thinks, given the standard to which he holds himself in all other aspects of this situation.
no subject
Through the haze of zero sleep and too many uppers, Lestat zigzags a look over Louis. He sees bare skin and fashionable layers, he sees mesh and leather and bulky boots. Chains and multiple rings. Has a vision of removing them with his mouth, one finger after the other.
His makeup is at least half yesterday's makeup, shoved back into place with his fingers, replenished with distracted scribbles of an eyeliner pen. The racoon look works better on stage, and has already been slightly smeared since application. Eyes flash bright as he looks back up at Louis' face.
Grins at this suggestion, showing his own fangs. "He reminded me a little of your army boys. Do you still like them broad and stupid?" He gestures off in the direction Noah had stumbled. "Be my guest, mon ami."
no subject
He reaches out, presses two fingers to a bite mark rising to full color on Lestat's chest. Ignoring all other signs of what had been going on behind closed doors, eyes locked on Lestat's face.
"Wouldn't want to put you out," he says quietly. "Not when it looks like you were having a real nice time before your meal."
If Lestat even intended to eat him. Louis isn't sure anymore, hasn't asked.
Some fretful, worried flutter in his chest wants to ask, Who is making sure you're eating? Who is here to look in on you? Even wrestling with temper and ugly, vicious jealousy, Louis looks at Lestat and doesn't like the frenetic crackle of energy around him. He looks pale beneath the disaster of his make up. Tired, maybe. In thirty years Louis had seen all the ways Lestat acted out and never anything like this, nothing that made him so uneasy to observe.
no subject
And he is trying to work out what this look on his face is. Has he seen it before? Maybe. The many shades of Louis' disapproval. It does not ruin his mood even a little.
"He was an appetiser. No corpses left on site," is said with a playful tipping of his head, to the left, to the right, like he is quoting someone. His lawyer, probably, who is wise in these matters. Sways in a little. Louis with his boots on and Lestat flat footed on the floor makes for a rare dip in the other direction for incremental height differentials.
He also smells nice. Expensive. Friends fuck sometimes, don't they? "You don't begrudge me my little amusements, do you?"
no subject
Says again, a little steadier, "No, I don't."
It's not Louis' place to begrudge Lestat anything. Louis can burn up with jealousy, can't help himself, but it has to be held in check. A private failing on his part, when they have resolved—
Well, Louis at least has resolved that they need distance. Need to stand upright on their own before they fall into each other again. It's only that he sees Lestat now, and can't help but fear that there's no certainty to that. Lestat, with all the variety he could wish for after years of isolation.
"Is it safe for you?" is a real question Louis has, but it's not exactly his worry. Is Lestat alright? Is he safe, content?
no subject
Pulled up a little short by this tone of voice. You can begrudge me, he should say, if you want.
"What?"
Lestat had been staring at Louis' exposed collarbones, but now looks up at him. "Safe for me?" 'Safe' does not sound very sexy at all. It occurs to him that maybe Louis is not actually about to fuck him, but it will take another moment of processing.
no subject
Maybe. But Louis has never fully understood the effect he has. Has even less of a sense of it now, knowing that there are diversions. Many diversions. That Louis is changed. That maybe he is not what Lestat wants, not anymore. No, Louis does not know that Lestat belongs to him. It only feels that way, and it burns him, thinking about someone else's mouth on him. Someone else leaving marks on him.
His knuckles run from one mark to the next and back, as if just that touch could erase the handiwork of the now-absent Noah. (Fortunate for Noah, maybe, to be gone.)
"Safe for you," Louis repeats, when he wants to ask: Are you taking care of yourself? Who is taking care of you here? "
Somewhere, Sven is tapping a pen against his clipboard, looking at his watch. Louis is supposed to be saying hello.
"You're being careful, when you pick 'em?"
Because Louis has thought of this too. Of how Claudia spiked Lestat's drink, once upon a time.
no subject
Probably not. That would be crazy.
Lestat's smile doesn't vanish, but it does seem to sharpen. "Oh yes," he says. "Premium organic," a breath in, sighed out, "non-GMO free range cowboys with big dicks only. I deserve the best," a coy tip of his head, "I think you'll agree."
He has a concert sometime in the next mumble minutes, but it doesn't seem to enter his mind as important or relevant, wholly focused on Louis, grey eyes bloodshot and fangs still peeking past his lip. Leans backwards now, swaying onto his heels where his hand hooks against the doorframe.
"Are you awaiting an invitation?"
no subject
Lestat leans back, and Louis' hand drops. Tightens into a fist, looking briefly away, down the hall, pushing away this image Lestat paints for him. If he gives it too much space in his mind, he'll do something foolish.
And Louis doesn't want to be foolish with Lestat. It matters too much.
"Yes," Louis admits, though he is reconsidering the wisdom of crossing the threshold.
no subject
Or wanting. Lestat's hand falls off the doorframe, and he catches himself on his heel in step backwards into the slightly chaotic dressing room. A low table, a mirror, the trace evidence of white powder, an abandoned cowboy hat on the setee. A guitar, a ravaged costume rack, the messy spill of hair products and makeup along the long surface under a wide mirror. And flowers, as per his rider, flowers everywhere.
Maybe Louis comes in. Lestat says, "You need none," as he wanders backwards. "All my doors are open to you."
no subject
But Lestat is a lure. Louis hasn't seen him in almost a week. He was attacked and he has had too much time to think on what might come in the future.
And he is worried for Lestat.
So Louis comes in. He closes the door behind them.
"How much time do you have?"
A little amusement finally making its way onto Louis' face. Yes, he is aware that this is a foolish thing to ask Lestat of all people.
no subject
He is pretty sure they're not supposed to be doing anything. They are friends. Talk of distance, of healing.
"They can wait," he says, and shows his teeth again in a smile. Perching, half-sitting, watching Louis with unnerving focus. An invisible crackle of energy, at least, one Lestat can feel, between their bodies. Poised to close it, to receive its closure. "Would that please you to know? If they were all waiting on me because I wished to see you."
no subject
It had been Louis. Louis who said, I gotta go. Louis who said, I need to figure myself out.
And here he is. Looking at Lestat perched just so, and admitting, "Yes. It would."
But Lestat says if. A dream of a question. Louis holds this thought close, an anchor against the tension in the air between them.
no subject
Here he is again, some unimportant voice in the back of his mind is saying. Making shameless offerings. Someone will knock on the door, and maybe it won't matter, or it will. Maybe someone knock, and the same questions apply.
The rest of him says, here is Louis, who said he had to go, and who keeps coming back around. He feels his skin has burned where Louis has touched him, like the fans think crosses would.
"Do you want to know what he was doing to me when you arrived?" Lestat asks.
no subject
Nothing right away. He looks at Lestat. The marks on his body stand out. Or maybe Louis is just hyperaware of them. In New Orleans, Lestat had never come home with any marks from Antoinette after a time. The lingering traces had vanished. He had been careful. Not careful enough, but careful.
Louis lets himself think back to the mortal opening the door. Broad, so broad. Big hands. He might have tasted like earth, rich as soil. Lestat had chosen him, brought him back here, and he had bitten those marks into him.
In Vegas, Lestat had brought Louis into his dressing room, and offered him his throat. It feels like an unflattering comparison.
Slowly, Louis asks, "Are you playing a game with me, Lestat?"
Not a no. Not a yes. Only an attempt to steady himself. Find their footing.
no subject
He is just saying things. Provocation. But why not. Perhaps he knew Louis was coming after all. Perhaps he picked the kind of mortal that Louis might have favoured, once, or perhaps still does. Perhaps he timed it all perfectly. At least at one time in his life, Louis thought Lestat to be quite the schemer.
Also, he is enjoying himself, in some odd, reckless way. That's game enough.
"But there are not many rules," he says. "None, I admit."
Louis touched him. He should know.
no subject
He could touch Lestat again. Louis has observed the fabric of what Lestat is presently passing off as a top. It would apart easy, Louis is reasonably certain. They could just—
They could be reckless.
Louis is still trying to decide just how reckless he is prepared to be when he tells Lestat, "I already know what you were doing."
Tacit admission: Louis has given it some thought. Perhaps he was thinking on it when he was touching Lestat's chest, knuckling over each mark in turn.
"Do you think I need you to explain yourself to me?"
no subject
"Certainly not," gentle, taking on a familiar ash-soft tone of voice, the kind still capable of carrying a touch of stinging venom. "But I thought you might like to know the details, the configurations. That you might have use for such knowledge."
He is not sure what is expression his face is doing any longer, feeling a shade out of body as blood zaps around his veins, nervous system alight. He, a professional, can appreciate a little humiliation in the preamble—
But this requires, you know. Amble.
no subject
Louis has a sudden awareness of this. Maybe it's not a certainty. Maybe it's only the sense of treading across familiar territory. Maybe it's Louis, eaten up with jealousy. The old habit, to punish, to lash out.
He is aware too, of the white powder. Of what Lestat has access to. Was that part of it? It had been one of the tricks Louis used, back when he was careening through San Francisco, alive and trying to dull himself to it.
Slowly, Louis steps forward. Crosses the room. Takes Lestat's face in his hands. Since they're crossing lines, Louis will cross this one too.
"Tell me," Louis invites. "Tell me how you're keeping time here."
Bites down on without me. Unfair. Louis can flirt but he won't instigate a real fight, if he can help it.
no subject
Shifts where he perches, a knee angling in that touches his thigh. His body anticipates while his brain dissolves into question marks. This gentle handling of their conversation. Lestat can do nothing but answer him.
"I took him and some others back to my room after the show last night," he says. "But he was my favourite one. We all drank and spoke and fucked around. Then it was time to come back here again. He kept his blood warm for me. Sulked about something so I let him fuck me. Right here. Then you arrived and I threw him out."
This all rattles out, lacking some of that precise lancing that he might have applied to it. He adds, "I didn't know what night it was," which is halfway to apology.
no subject
They've touched each other before. But it would be a lie to say before was anything like now. Lestat's face held in his hands, skin bitten, so much bare skin, and what's covered is hardly concealed and Louis wants him. Louis always wants him. Spent eighty years wanting him, and hating himself.
And now, here, Louis just wants.
Louis wants to do everything right.
Louis wants to bite him everywhere.
He asked, so he listens to Lestat tell him these things that Louis had guessed at. Feels the twisting jealousy in his chest at some mortal, at Lestat letting him—
"Do you lose track often?" Louis murmurs, thumbs soothing at Lestat's cheeks. Burns still with his envy, chooses not to indulge it.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)