A slight smile. Brat that he is, Louis can only assume that someday, eventually, Lestat will taunt him. It is in his nature. It is in their nature to needle each other. To hurt, and then find their way to some reconciliation.
Easier to consider that now than it had been then. Louis can at least appreciate the gesture, the aspiration.
"I do."
Saying this like handing Lestat a knife. Something transparently clear, an intrinsic fact about Louis, said aloud. Of course he wants Lestat.
"I want you all to myself," Louis tells him. Had Daniel written that into the book? Louis' recollection of the sentiment, delirious with hunger and desire as he looked across a ballroom at Lestat? The slight smile widens as Louis repeats back to him, "I don't like sharing."
It had been infuriating at the time. Galling. Louis remembers how angry he'd been as Lestat told him this, after proposing the very thing himself. Maybe they are far enough from it that Louis can invoke the argument, an eternity ago, without touching on all the rest.
Louis smiles this way as he says these things and so, gets away with it. Lestat mirroring it, a small flex of an expression. Feels a little numb to it, as if he has felt so many feelings over the past forty-eight hours that it is difficult to stir up new ones, receive and internalise the information that Louis does want him—
But all the same, coils around these words. Holds them jealously. They belong to him now.
He tips his head, as if peeking under covers. "Just not yet."
A whisper. Brings Lestat's hand to his mouth, breathes a kiss to his knuckles.
"But I think about you. Been thinking of you every night."
Every night can so easily mean every night of the tour, every night since the party. But Louis means every night, every night since they parted ways in New Orleans. Every night since he left Paris. Claudia had jabbed his chest, accused, and it was true: Louis carried Lestat in his heart, thought of him often, had summoned him as a dream because he couldn't stand their separation.
And now, their fraught reunion. This careful separation, a blurry distance that Louis finds equally hard to tolerate.
The kiss to his hand is accepted, and then, Lestat straightens his fingers so he can gently brush them against Louis' cheek. Relaxes again, holding Louis' hand.
"Then," he says, "when you are ready, I will be here. Waiting for you."
His voice is soft and eyes wet, but he permits himself a little curl of a smile as he considers him across the short distance between them. "And I will fuck who I want," as he traces a line in Louis' palm with a fingertip. "And think of you every night."
And probably continue to go insane. But if he owes Louis anything—and he certainly does—it's sparing him from such burdens. Find better outlets, better insulating barriers. But perhaps it will be better now.
It is not unlike the first time they attempted a similar arrangement. Louis feels a very familiar reticence, the urge to dig heels in and protest despite knowing how unfair it would be to deny Lestat his dalliances.
Still, very quietly, Louis asks, "It'll be just us? When I get myself figured out?"
When Louis can be good for Lestat, when they can be good for each other. The fans won't vanish. The fame won't vanish. There will still be stadiums of people begging for Lestat's attention. What will it mean for them then?
Jumping too far ahead. Presumptive. Louis can't help himself.
It is far ahead. Presumably so. But even beyond distance of time, it feels like the distance is one of possibility. Louis says 'when', and Lestat catches his eye as he considers it more so than the question at hand. It is an easy promise to make when it might amount to nothing.
Instead, he says, "Are you promising in return?" Keeps his focus even, his voice measured. "That you will come back to me?"
Louis emerged from Dubai, and flew across the ocean to New Orleans. Home. The only home he'd ever known because it had been where he and Lestat made a life together, raised Claudia together.
Home, to Lestat.
Louis runs fingers lightly over his cheek, fingers tightening in Lestat's as Louis touches him. Thinks to kiss him again. Thinks of Lestat on their balcony, ornate wig discarded at his feet, the look on his face speaking of New Orleans as he lit Louis' cigarette.
"Give me a little time, baby," Louis says again. Honey-toned in spite of the way his voice strains, fraying around the way they're denying each other. Wanting Lestat running alongside the way Louis wants what he's been asking for, wants the space to find himself on his own. "I'm on my way."
The tone, the endearment, the promise itself all suffuse through him as warmth. So much so that Lestat could almost feel resentment for it. Is it possible that he can make Louis feel such a way about him? That he could make Louis promise the world, if he asked?
But he doesn't feel resentment for it. Can't, due to all the aforementioned warmth suffusing and such. It is only familiar, and has been missed. Lestat answers the grip to his hand with a returned hold, drawing his hand in nearer. Tension bleeding from him, slouching a little into the plush side of his coffin.
"I will," he says. "And it will be only us."
Maybe he can extract more promises. Say it won't be eighty years. Say it can be counted in months at most. He opts for an easier pitch.
"If you say you will go to a show while you are in town."
Lestat has already turned down Louis' offer to drink and dance with him. He thinks of that moment often with a sickly regret, as if he had done something profoundly against his own nature, and for no good reason at all. Now, it's the first thing he thinks of, and doesn't say it. A direct violation of the distance being asked for.
And won't he spend the whole time, thinking of it that way? Of violating Louis? Again? His gaze lowers, and finds that he doesn't want to decline the offer either, to extract a promise.
A little bit of comedy now, the two of them chronicled by Daniel.
Louis has been careful not to let himself think too much of what Lestat's interview will be. What shape it will take. What Lestat will tell Daniel, things he has never told Louis.
Jealousy is fast on track to outpace hunger as his constant companion, at this rate. Louis is trying not to think on that too deeply either.
Not a very auspicious beginning, his series of interviews. In the midst of his upset at Louis' silence, impatient, unforthcoming, untrusting. Lestat knows what would make it that little bit more tolerable.
"When you have the inclination," he allows, "I would like you there sometimes."
No inclination towards no only surprise that this is what Lestat chooses to ask.
His fingers sweep along the shell of Lestat's ear. Fusses, tucking a stray lock of hair back, touching his face. Working his way towards a question:
"You gonna be able to say all you need to say with me there?"
Would Lestat stop himself, for fear of hurting Louis with his truth?
And beyond that, Louis doesn't trust his covetous he is of all the pieces of Lestat's story that Lestat has never shared. Long years together where Lestat obscured, kept his past hidden away. Louis wants very badly to hear it. Leans back and away from that desire, worried that it will become an inclination to pry, to disrupt.
Nerves tingle in the wake of glancing fingertips, the subtle rearrangement of golden locks. This time, despite how aware he feels of that touch, Lestat manages not to tip into it like a touch-starved stray. A little dignity. Why not.
"Perhaps it won't work. Perhaps I will ask you to go away from it." A shrug. "Come anyway, and we'll see."
Lestat makes it sound easy. Come, listen while Lestat says all the things he may have never said to Louis. Go, if Lestat decides he does not wish for Louis to hear any of it after all.
Louis' thumb maps across his cheek. Grazes the scar at the corner of his mouth once more.
"Yeah," Louis says. A little helpless in the face of this request, of how he wants to give Lestat anything to make up for the distance Louis is creating between them. "Yeah, okay. I'll come sit with you while you and Daniel talk."
He thinks it's good. Louis' hand at his face is good, the little nudge across his scar, evidence of a history, evidence of a history undiscussed. The things he would like Louis to know. The things he would find difficult just saying to him.
All Lestat would like to do is reach out and grab Louis and pull him down into his plush coffin with him. They can listen to music and cuddle in the low violet lighting. But all of that, he knows, is in the too much category, so he draws in a breath, considers getting a grip for the first time since he lost it a little while ago.
"If you were a fan of me, would you mind very much waiting an hour past doors opening?"
The truth: Louis would like nothing more to join Lestat in his coffin, to fit themselves together, to hear whatever it was that Lestat was listening to. To hold him, and be held, maybe sleep, eventually.
But Lestat does not offer this, and Louis balks at the sense of imposing, contents himself with these minor touches. Lets himself linger, thumb resting there at the corner of Lestat's mouth as Louis tells him, "I would wait as long as you wanted."
Maybe a little absurd, considering their conversation. Considering it is Louis making Lestat wait and wait and wait.
So Lestat has been told, anyway, of how expensive his tickets are. He brings up a hand to catch Louis', not wishing to dissuade him with a thoughtless dismissal—presses a kiss to his knuckles, for the touch, for the sentiment, for being near enough to do so. Perhaps he shouldn't ask the multi-millionaire immortal who is so beholden to him, his opinion on these things.
Well, he will sing to the janitor if everyone has gone. Lestat gathers himself, knees bending. He will need to get dressed. He will need to do his hair. He will, probably most pressingly, need to eat something.
Stay here, Louis wants to say. The appeal is on the tip of his tongue, so close to being spoken aloud.
Here, in all soft things, in low light, no gleaming costumes or meticulously applied cosmetics. All things feel so much easier without the trappings of Lestat's new life. Stay here, close the coffin, be together.
Would that be enough?
In spite of all that's been said, Louis isn't sure. Doesn't ask that, doesn't ask him to stay. He remains, watching Lestat collect himself, make movements towards rising.
"They'll wait for you," Louis tells him. Certain.
And then, searching, "You want me to wait somewhere else while you get yourself ready?"
Not apathetic, exactly, about where Louis might choose to be, but perhaps more resigned than anything else. As he'd said, every door is open, every room is welcoming, and it isn't up to Lestat to take this back. He doesn't feel like it. But it's a little bit of a mercy as he adds, "But we can arrange something for you, I'm sure. Here or at the venue."
Standing, stepping out of his coffin with a passing flutter of a touch, and moving to the small kitchenette. "It was quite short notice, your being here." Perhaps Louis doesn't even have any reservations yet, although his people seem responsive.
Anyway. Here is the fridge. Here is the polystyrene case inside of it.
Surprising, seeing the case. Understanding what it means.
Louis had thought Lestat was hunting. There was certainly opportunity enough, wasn't there? Crowds upon crowds of people, transient, easily lost in the shuffle. Louis had thought—
Well, he'd been wrong.
Louis rises, straightening gracefully into a turn towards Lestat. There is no masking his relief at seeing Lestat preparing to eat. A good sign, Louis thinks.
"Rachida has my passes," telegraphs some intent. Louis can observe the show from the VIP section, above the crush of people on the arena floor. Beyond that: "The hotel is immovably booked up, but she'll find some arrangement for me."
Or there is always the plane. Annoying, being unable to evict someone from a hotel room on a whim.
Regardless, Louis intends to stay. To be present for this show, for the third. Whatever comes after, Louis will decide after he's certain Lestat is back on track.
He has very little appetite for the cold pouches inside, but still wishes to mind his manners. Tempting to lazily pierce the plastic with his fangs and empty its contents in one swoop. No, he will not be so disgusting while in Louis' company. There must be cups and things in this little kitchen. He goes through the cupboards.
Pauses at that, glancing over, before taking out a ceramic cup. "Well," Lestat says. "I have all this room, if you have your coffin on hand."
That seems fine, doesn't it? That offer? An offer a friend would make, to share the expansive suite. Lestat isn't even using either bedroom. He pivots to the kitchen island, sets about emptying small packets of blood into the cup.
An admission, as good as taking Lestat up on the offer to share. He would have realized it anyway, once dawn came and Louis retreated nowhere but perhaps to the as yet untouched bed.
"Got out of the habit, mostly."
A thorny subject. Louis has been considering it on and off. He has had a lovely new coffin commissioned, one that would strike Lestat as familiar. Maybe by the time it arrives Louis will have achieved some clarity, figured out his own feelings on how he might keep himself during the day.
The blood flows thick and settles heavy in the cup. Immediately, he wishes to summon Larry or Cookie, who will certainly have something he could cut into it to make the evening more bearable, make him feel a little less frayed apart. Odd, maybe, for the way he doesn't wish to do so in front of Louis. He isn't sure what it is, that impulse. Manners, perhaps.
Anyway: Louis didn't bring a coffin, and calls it a habit. Lestat hesitates over his cup before turning to put it into the microwave, a careless closing of the door and a thoughtless couple minutes dialed into the timer. Something about this information makes him want to freak out, he thinks. Why, he also can't identify in the moment.
"In a bed, most days. Rafters ain't always comfortable."
Ha, ha.
Louis straightening, casting his eyes around the room. It's not truly a home, only a temporary place in which Lestat has landed. He will leave in a few days. How much can truly be gleaned from this space?
Attention drawn to the microwave, to Lestat. Louis circles around the opulence of Lestat's coffin to perch at the edge of the mattress. Observe him in his preparations.
Maybe glean his reaction. Louis has lived over a century, much of it apart from Lestat, but still, part of him seeks Lestat's opinion.
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Easier to consider that now than it had been then. Louis can at least appreciate the gesture, the aspiration.
"I do."
Saying this like handing Lestat a knife. Something transparently clear, an intrinsic fact about Louis, said aloud. Of course he wants Lestat.
"I want you all to myself," Louis tells him. Had Daniel written that into the book? Louis' recollection of the sentiment, delirious with hunger and desire as he looked across a ballroom at Lestat? The slight smile widens as Louis repeats back to him, "I don't like sharing."
It had been infuriating at the time. Galling. Louis remembers how angry he'd been as Lestat told him this, after proposing the very thing himself. Maybe they are far enough from it that Louis can invoke the argument, an eternity ago, without touching on all the rest.
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Louis smiles this way as he says these things and so, gets away with it. Lestat mirroring it, a small flex of an expression. Feels a little numb to it, as if he has felt so many feelings over the past forty-eight hours that it is difficult to stir up new ones, receive and internalise the information that Louis does want him—
But all the same, coils around these words. Holds them jealously. They belong to him now.
He tips his head, as if peeking under covers. "Just not yet."
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A whisper. Brings Lestat's hand to his mouth, breathes a kiss to his knuckles.
"But I think about you. Been thinking of you every night."
Every night can so easily mean every night of the tour, every night since the party. But Louis means every night, every night since they parted ways in New Orleans. Every night since he left Paris. Claudia had jabbed his chest, accused, and it was true: Louis carried Lestat in his heart, thought of him often, had summoned him as a dream because he couldn't stand their separation.
And now, their fraught reunion. This careful separation, a blurry distance that Louis finds equally hard to tolerate.
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"Then," he says, "when you are ready, I will be here. Waiting for you."
His voice is soft and eyes wet, but he permits himself a little curl of a smile as he considers him across the short distance between them. "And I will fuck who I want," as he traces a line in Louis' palm with a fingertip. "And think of you every night."
And probably continue to go insane. But if he owes Louis anything—and he certainly does—it's sparing him from such burdens. Find better outlets, better insulating barriers. But perhaps it will be better now.
Stranger things have happened.
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It is not unlike the first time they attempted a similar arrangement. Louis feels a very familiar reticence, the urge to dig heels in and protest despite knowing how unfair it would be to deny Lestat his dalliances.
Still, very quietly, Louis asks, "It'll be just us? When I get myself figured out?"
When Louis can be good for Lestat, when they can be good for each other. The fans won't vanish. The fame won't vanish. There will still be stadiums of people begging for Lestat's attention. What will it mean for them then?
Jumping too far ahead. Presumptive. Louis can't help himself.
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Instead, he says, "Are you promising in return?" Keeps his focus even, his voice measured. "That you will come back to me?"
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Louis emerged from Dubai, and flew across the ocean to New Orleans. Home. The only home he'd ever known because it had been where he and Lestat made a life together, raised Claudia together.
Home, to Lestat.
Louis runs fingers lightly over his cheek, fingers tightening in Lestat's as Louis touches him. Thinks to kiss him again. Thinks of Lestat on their balcony, ornate wig discarded at his feet, the look on his face speaking of New Orleans as he lit Louis' cigarette.
"Give me a little time, baby," Louis says again. Honey-toned in spite of the way his voice strains, fraying around the way they're denying each other. Wanting Lestat running alongside the way Louis wants what he's been asking for, wants the space to find himself on his own. "I'm on my way."
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But he doesn't feel resentment for it. Can't, due to all the aforementioned warmth suffusing and such. It is only familiar, and has been missed. Lestat answers the grip to his hand with a returned hold, drawing his hand in nearer. Tension bleeding from him, slouching a little into the plush side of his coffin.
"I will," he says. "And it will be only us."
Maybe he can extract more promises. Say it won't be eighty years. Say it can be counted in months at most. He opts for an easier pitch.
"If you say you will go to a show while you are in town."
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Maybe it'll be painful, watching Lestat from within a crowd or a private box. Maybe.
But Lestat needs him there. Louis needs to be there. He twitches a smile, head tipping a little as he watches Lestat relax.
"Could ask for something else, while you're trying to twist my arm. I'm here. I'll come."
A small offering.
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And won't he spend the whole time, thinking of it that way? Of violating Louis? Again? His gaze lowers, and finds that he doesn't want to decline the offer either, to extract a promise.
"The interview, then," he says.
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A little bit of comedy now, the two of them chronicled by Daniel.
Louis has been careful not to let himself think too much of what Lestat's interview will be. What shape it will take. What Lestat will tell Daniel, things he has never told Louis.
Jealousy is fast on track to outpace hunger as his constant companion, at this rate. Louis is trying not to think on that too deeply either.
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Not a very auspicious beginning, his series of interviews. In the midst of his upset at Louis' silence, impatient, unforthcoming, untrusting. Lestat knows what would make it that little bit more tolerable.
"When you have the inclination," he allows, "I would like you there sometimes."
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His fingers sweep along the shell of Lestat's ear. Fusses, tucking a stray lock of hair back, touching his face. Working his way towards a question:
"You gonna be able to say all you need to say with me there?"
Would Lestat stop himself, for fear of hurting Louis with his truth?
And beyond that, Louis doesn't trust his covetous he is of all the pieces of Lestat's story that Lestat has never shared. Long years together where Lestat obscured, kept his past hidden away. Louis wants very badly to hear it. Leans back and away from that desire, worried that it will become an inclination to pry, to disrupt.
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Nerves tingle in the wake of glancing fingertips, the subtle rearrangement of golden locks. This time, despite how aware he feels of that touch, Lestat manages not to tip into it like a touch-starved stray. A little dignity. Why not.
"Perhaps it won't work. Perhaps I will ask you to go away from it." A shrug. "Come anyway, and we'll see."
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Louis' thumb maps across his cheek. Grazes the scar at the corner of his mouth once more.
"Yeah," Louis says. A little helpless in the face of this request, of how he wants to give Lestat anything to make up for the distance Louis is creating between them. "Yeah, okay. I'll come sit with you while you and Daniel talk."
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He thinks it's good. Louis' hand at his face is good, the little nudge across his scar, evidence of a history, evidence of a history undiscussed. The things he would like Louis to know. The things he would find difficult just saying to him.
All Lestat would like to do is reach out and grab Louis and pull him down into his plush coffin with him. They can listen to music and cuddle in the low violet lighting. But all of that, he knows, is in the too much category, so he draws in a breath, considers getting a grip for the first time since he lost it a little while ago.
"If you were a fan of me, would you mind very much waiting an hour past doors opening?"
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But Lestat does not offer this, and Louis balks at the sense of imposing, contents himself with these minor touches. Lets himself linger, thumb resting there at the corner of Lestat's mouth as Louis tells him, "I would wait as long as you wanted."
Maybe a little absurd, considering their conversation. Considering it is Louis making Lestat wait and wait and wait.
But he says it. Means it.
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So Lestat has been told, anyway, of how expensive his tickets are. He brings up a hand to catch Louis', not wishing to dissuade him with a thoughtless dismissal—presses a kiss to his knuckles, for the touch, for the sentiment, for being near enough to do so. Perhaps he shouldn't ask the multi-millionaire immortal who is so beholden to him, his opinion on these things.
Well, he will sing to the janitor if everyone has gone. Lestat gathers himself, knees bending. He will need to get dressed. He will need to do his hair. He will, probably most pressingly, need to eat something.
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Here, in all soft things, in low light, no gleaming costumes or meticulously applied cosmetics. All things feel so much easier without the trappings of Lestat's new life. Stay here, close the coffin, be together.
Would that be enough?
In spite of all that's been said, Louis isn't sure. Doesn't ask that, doesn't ask him to stay. He remains, watching Lestat collect himself, make movements towards rising.
"They'll wait for you," Louis tells him. Certain.
And then, searching, "You want me to wait somewhere else while you get yourself ready?"
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Not apathetic, exactly, about where Louis might choose to be, but perhaps more resigned than anything else. As he'd said, every door is open, every room is welcoming, and it isn't up to Lestat to take this back. He doesn't feel like it. But it's a little bit of a mercy as he adds, "But we can arrange something for you, I'm sure. Here or at the venue."
Standing, stepping out of his coffin with a passing flutter of a touch, and moving to the small kitchenette. "It was quite short notice, your being here." Perhaps Louis doesn't even have any reservations yet, although his people seem responsive.
Anyway. Here is the fridge. Here is the polystyrene case inside of it.
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Louis had thought Lestat was hunting. There was certainly opportunity enough, wasn't there? Crowds upon crowds of people, transient, easily lost in the shuffle. Louis had thought—
Well, he'd been wrong.
Louis rises, straightening gracefully into a turn towards Lestat. There is no masking his relief at seeing Lestat preparing to eat. A good sign, Louis thinks.
"Rachida has my passes," telegraphs some intent. Louis can observe the show from the VIP section, above the crush of people on the arena floor. Beyond that: "The hotel is immovably booked up, but she'll find some arrangement for me."
Or there is always the plane. Annoying, being unable to evict someone from a hotel room on a whim.
Regardless, Louis intends to stay. To be present for this show, for the third. Whatever comes after, Louis will decide after he's certain Lestat is back on track.
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Pauses at that, glancing over, before taking out a ceramic cup. "Well," Lestat says. "I have all this room, if you have your coffin on hand."
That seems fine, doesn't it? That offer? An offer a friend would make, to share the expansive suite. Lestat isn't even using either bedroom. He pivots to the kitchen island, sets about emptying small packets of blood into the cup.
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An admission, as good as taking Lestat up on the offer to share. He would have realized it anyway, once dawn came and Louis retreated nowhere but perhaps to the as yet untouched bed.
"Got out of the habit, mostly."
A thorny subject. Louis has been considering it on and off. He has had a lovely new coffin commissioned, one that would strike Lestat as familiar. Maybe by the time it arrives Louis will have achieved some clarity, figured out his own feelings on how he might keep himself during the day.
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Anyway: Louis didn't bring a coffin, and calls it a habit. Lestat hesitates over his cup before turning to put it into the microwave, a careless closing of the door and a thoughtless couple minutes dialed into the timer. Something about this information makes him want to freak out, he thinks. Why, he also can't identify in the moment.
"You sleep upside down from the rafters instead?"
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Ha, ha.
Louis straightening, casting his eyes around the room. It's not truly a home, only a temporary place in which Lestat has landed. He will leave in a few days. How much can truly be gleaned from this space?
Attention drawn to the microwave, to Lestat. Louis circles around the opulence of Lestat's coffin to perch at the edge of the mattress. Observe him in his preparations.
Maybe glean his reaction. Louis has lived over a century, much of it apart from Lestat, but still, part of him seeks Lestat's opinion.
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