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.
Lestat has caught up to what feels like a fact that Louis is not going to have sex with him. Perhaps ever.
Maybe this will be more devastating later, and for now feels a little like observing the demolition of a building from a safe or at least indifferent distance. Provocation fails, and Louis asks him if he loses track of time often, touches his face so gently, little soothing strokes.
He wants to fold inwards against his chest. He wants to shove him away.
"Louis," feels and sounds a little helpless. Hands coming up, covering Louis'. Not pushing him away, not yet, can't gather the necessary strength in his arms to do so. "I have a show."
The struggle is so clear on his face. Maybe familiar, maybe not.
Not so long ago, recounting that last night in New Orleans to Daniel, admitting: I wanted him dead. I wanted him all to myself.
The impulse to say to Lestat now, Make them all wait. Make them wait hours for you until I can bear to part with you.
And Louis never would. If he gave himself that permission, he would want to keep Lestat for days, weeks. It would be a disaster. It would harm them both, in the long run. The distance is the healthy thing, Louis is so convinced of it.
Struggles in the long stretch of quiet with the things he wants to say. The creature in his belly that wants to dig in claws and never let go.
"You do," Louis says finally. Slowly. "You need to be alone to finish getting ready?"
Making Lestat tell him to go. It's weakness, unwillingness to stop touching him now that he's given himself permission to start up again.
Lestat can see it, conflict in Louis' face. Helplessly patient in waiting him out, imagining he knows what conclusions will be struggled towards. Is unsurprised by the words that come next.
He brings his hands up, covers Louis', more direct than that nudge of his knee. Pulls them down off his face but doesn't push them away, fingers closing around knuckles, keeping them near. Uses the edge of his thumb to fiddle with one of Louis' rings, giving a little 'hm' of amusement, approval, before looking back up at him.
"I want to get changed," he says, which is on its way to confirming he needs to be alone, but adds instead, "Will you help me choose, before you go?"
A little like New Orleans. Like home, like the life they had. Dressing together to go out. Lestat turning towards him with this suit or that, tutting about what flatters, what compliments. How he'd let Louis choose on those nights, and how pleasant it was when they came home and Louis could strip him out of the night's choice.
Louis' grip tightens on Lestat. He has to put these memories away, leave them for later. If he keeps thinking of them now he won't be any use.
"Show me which ones you been thinking about," Louis invites, without making a single move to let Lestat rise gracefully from his perch.
Lestat stands anyway, and finds them very close to one another. Eye contact feels like scrutiny, even a brief flicker of it. Unbearable. Casts aside his focus while his hands find Louis' hips, turning them both with a gently insistent pressure in his palms, and then they are free of each other. As much as that's possible, Lestat still feeling something like a ghostly sensation of Louis' presence up the insides of his thighs, across his chest, on his face.
Or that's the cocaine, the absence of sleep for the past thirty hours, both. He pads towards the rack of outfits, already half ransacked. Sequins, leather, shimmer, buckles, shine. Jittery, pushing his hands through them, but at least over here he can get a grip.
"This one," Lestat says, pulling free paired items on a hanger. "I don't like the colour as much for the stage, but the silhouette..."
Hooks it up to display, a cropped leather vest and matching pants in a dark purple, fringe cascading neatly off the shoulders, a foot in length. More digging, a soft laugh, pulls out a blue denim playsuit, spangled in rhinestones.
"A desperate CMA nominee on the same year as Taylor Swift's latest album. I am fond, I admit."
This is hung up too. Continues his hunt. Aware of Louis behind him.
Louis, left to roam. (His hips burn where Lestat had touched, seared by even that minor pressure.) He ranges away from the couch, lingers at Lestat's dressing table where he can examine the contents while he watches Lestat in the mirror.
Delicately, Louis draws his fingers across the surface of the mirror to collect what traces are left. He knows, he knows. (He is thinking of 1973, of Daniel bathed in yellow light as he leaned down to the tabletop.) It is better in the blood, like most all things are better in the blood. Louis remembers that too.
"I like you in purple."
Maybe the fringe would be striking, accentuate movement. Louis thinks this, analytical, forcing himself a step back from deep consideration of Lestat in these clothes. He draws his fingertips across his gums. Feels something less than euphoric at the way these little traces spark at him.
He might be biased. Louis had used drugs in all the most destructive ways. Maybe it isn't that for Lestat. Maybe it is a prop as if for a play.
"What else?" Louis questions into the mirror. Touches the assortment of scattered brushes and feels his chest tightens. Remembers Claudia, practicing, practicing, practicing in her mirror in their shared apartment.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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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.
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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?"
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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?"
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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.
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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."
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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.
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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."
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?"
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"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.
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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.
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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.
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Maybe this will be more devastating later, and for now feels a little like observing the demolition of a building from a safe or at least indifferent distance. Provocation fails, and Louis asks him if he loses track of time often, touches his face so gently, little soothing strokes.
He wants to fold inwards against his chest. He wants to shove him away.
"Louis," feels and sounds a little helpless. Hands coming up, covering Louis'. Not pushing him away, not yet, can't gather the necessary strength in his arms to do so. "I have a show."
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Not so long ago, recounting that last night in New Orleans to Daniel, admitting: I wanted him dead. I wanted him all to myself.
The impulse to say to Lestat now, Make them all wait. Make them wait hours for you until I can bear to part with you.
And Louis never would. If he gave himself that permission, he would want to keep Lestat for days, weeks. It would be a disaster. It would harm them both, in the long run. The distance is the healthy thing, Louis is so convinced of it.
Struggles in the long stretch of quiet with the things he wants to say. The creature in his belly that wants to dig in claws and never let go.
"You do," Louis says finally. Slowly. "You need to be alone to finish getting ready?"
Making Lestat tell him to go. It's weakness, unwillingness to stop touching him now that he's given himself permission to start up again.
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He brings his hands up, covers Louis', more direct than that nudge of his knee. Pulls them down off his face but doesn't push them away, fingers closing around knuckles, keeping them near. Uses the edge of his thumb to fiddle with one of Louis' rings, giving a little 'hm' of amusement, approval, before looking back up at him.
"I want to get changed," he says, which is on its way to confirming he needs to be alone, but adds instead, "Will you help me choose, before you go?"
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A little like New Orleans. Like home, like the life they had. Dressing together to go out. Lestat turning towards him with this suit or that, tutting about what flatters, what compliments. How he'd let Louis choose on those nights, and how pleasant it was when they came home and Louis could strip him out of the night's choice.
Louis' grip tightens on Lestat. He has to put these memories away, leave them for later. If he keeps thinking of them now he won't be any use.
"Show me which ones you been thinking about," Louis invites, without making a single move to let Lestat rise gracefully from his perch.
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Lestat stands anyway, and finds them very close to one another. Eye contact feels like scrutiny, even a brief flicker of it. Unbearable. Casts aside his focus while his hands find Louis' hips, turning them both with a gently insistent pressure in his palms, and then they are free of each other. As much as that's possible, Lestat still feeling something like a ghostly sensation of Louis' presence up the insides of his thighs, across his chest, on his face.
Or that's the cocaine, the absence of sleep for the past thirty hours, both. He pads towards the rack of outfits, already half ransacked. Sequins, leather, shimmer, buckles, shine. Jittery, pushing his hands through them, but at least over here he can get a grip.
"This one," Lestat says, pulling free paired items on a hanger. "I don't like the colour as much for the stage, but the silhouette..."
Hooks it up to display, a cropped leather vest and matching pants in a dark purple, fringe cascading neatly off the shoulders, a foot in length. More digging, a soft laugh, pulls out a blue denim playsuit, spangled in rhinestones.
"A desperate CMA nominee on the same year as Taylor Swift's latest album. I am fond, I admit."
This is hung up too. Continues his hunt. Aware of Louis behind him.
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Delicately, Louis draws his fingers across the surface of the mirror to collect what traces are left. He knows, he knows. (He is thinking of 1973, of Daniel bathed in yellow light as he leaned down to the tabletop.) It is better in the blood, like most all things are better in the blood. Louis remembers that too.
"I like you in purple."
Maybe the fringe would be striking, accentuate movement. Louis thinks this, analytical, forcing himself a step back from deep consideration of Lestat in these clothes. He draws his fingertips across his gums. Feels something less than euphoric at the way these little traces spark at him.
He might be biased. Louis had used drugs in all the most destructive ways. Maybe it isn't that for Lestat. Maybe it is a prop as if for a play.
"What else?" Louis questions into the mirror. Touches the assortment of scattered brushes and feels his chest tightens. Remembers Claudia, practicing, practicing, practicing in her mirror in their shared apartment.
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