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.
The mug spins slow behind shaded glass, and Lestat watches this while he senses Louis watch him.
"I suppose a multi-million dollar enterprise affords you some trust in your curtains," he says. He twists enough to glance backwards at him, and then the large windows of his suite, calculating the integrity of their furnishings. Ill at ease at the thought. "And the people who might twitch them aside without thought."
Back to the microwave, tugging the door open long before the beeping. Blood doesn't need to be boiling to be tolerable.
"You can stay here, if it suits you." It may not. Louis has expensive taste of a different kind of echelon.
It had never mattered with Armand, had not mattered in their bedroom in Dubai. It is something else now, Louis thinks.
It matters, like any lightly self-destructive thing does.
Lestat makes this offer, and Louis saying nothing immediately. He is aware of how it appeals. How much he wants to remain near, how many worries he carries still. Lestat still strikes him as fragile, unsteady.
And Louis wants him back as he found him, washed clean of make up and stage wear, in soft clothes, familiar.
"With you?" Louis questions, drawing himself up short before the dream runs away with him. Lestat has other admirers. Louis has given him permission to indulge any whim he pleases.
He fishes the mug from out of the microwave, now wandering nearer. Stops short of inviting himself to sit down near him. No, he has things to do if he wishes to achieve the impossible and perform tonight. And, oh yes, speaking of Cookie—
Lestat looks to the ceiling, the wandering look of him reaching out with his mind, delivering a message. Then, bringing his cup up to sip.
"I'm not using my bed," he says. "And I recall your hospitality, during the hurricane."
And of course, he wants Louis near, always, hungers for it, wants to crawl into his arms or pick him up in his own and run away. But borderlands have been reaffirmed. If Louis is to share his room, it will be because it is the most sensible thing. And if there is hunger in the direction of his gaze over his cup as he drinks, well. He is hungry.
What if Lestat flung his cup of blood at Louis' head and resumed having a breakdown?
Louis does not want to stay with him, anywhere he'll have him. Or he does, but can't. Has asked him for time, has all but promised him he would come back to him. And yes, perhaps now they are only talking about this one night, but what does that matter? One night becomes one eternity. He stands stock still to guard against these impulses, watching Louis' hand fondle his coffin, and considers that ketamine would probably help him out right now.
But. He had himself made this offer, and it's insane of him not to be grateful for its acceptance. To notice that Louis is here in the room with him, when Lestat had just been spiralling, convincing himself they would never see each other again. He takes a breath. Don't be insane.
"Of course," he says. Comes nearer, fluttering a touch at Louis' shoulder. "You're most welcome."
There. The sleeping arrangement logistics can be deferred to a later time.
"I'm glad you could make it after all," he adds. Coy, playing at as if Louis had merely shuffled around arrangements at a whim. As if Lestat does not look like he's been in a depressive collapse for the past twelve hours, tear streaked and uncombed.
There is such a fragile quality to Lestat. Louis wishes he could remember if he'd ever seen it before, if it was new. He doesn't know. He only knows it is there. It is there now.
Louis reaches up, catches his hand.
"Come here," he invites. Blurry lines, the intimacy that comes easy running counter to every single thing Louis had asked for just moments ago.
But he draws Lestat down by his hand. Means to hold him, stay close, in these few moments before they part.
Lestat sinks down next to Louis, helpless to do anything else, and there is nothing else he would rather do besides. A hesitation, only to become certain of what is being requested, before he winds his arms around Louis, leans in against him. Considers quite seriously abandoning his request for Louis to witness his interview in favour of proposing they hold each other whenever they like and it doesn't have to mean more than that.
A soft, damp laugh, more felt than heard, for Louis' apology, and Lestat holds him tighter. "It's okay," he says. "I'll always wait for you."
Maybe that waiting will be maddened with impatience, but this hardly disqualifies the sentiment. And he'll do a good show tonight, and it will all be worth it.
Louis has had time to think on the interview. What was anger and misery, unfavorable because Louis could be nothing else when he thought Lestat was the cause of Claudia's death.
But there had been truth too. Things Louis had felt. Things that had been there, that had undone them before.
He lets the sentiment sit now. Allows it to glow like a coal in the center of his chest as he runs a palm up and down Lestat's back. Thinner. He's thinner than Louis remembers.
"I ain't gonna be far away."
The world can be so much smaller now. Planes to deliver Louis wherever Lestat has gone. Phones to carry voices, faces to each other.
It is still a separation. It's still what Louis needs.
"Thank you," murmured into Lestat's hair. Louis' lips at the crown of his head.
A gift. Another gift, time, to set alongside the blood Lestat gave to him.
Edited (returns to squeak a spelling correction in under the wire) 2025-02-13 22:55 (UTC)
Tempting to stay. Tempting to stay in this little peaceful space they've created for one another while the chaos Lestat has triggered beyond his walls is about to crash in. Closes his eyes under the sense of that kiss, and then lets out a long sigh as he hears the distinct clip-clop of Christine's heels coming down the hallway outside.
It is fast paced from there. Lestat throws on a jacket and a pair of shining violet sunglasses, invites Louis to share a car. There will be no crowds to wade through, the windows tinted to obscure them from the fans gathered around the venue's parking entrance. From there, Louis is led to the balcony area while Lestat is shepherded in an opposite direction. The hall is packed, still, the audience restless, hungrier for waiting.
(Backstage is a choreographed storm of activity. Lestat lets stylists touch him, do his makeup and hair, choose his outfit. He harangues Larry for the amphetamines he stirs into a second helping of blood, which he drinks in two steady gulps. He goes on stage an hour and a half later than he'd originally been scheduled to. There are two encore performances.)
There's no after, Louis informed that the Vampire Lestat has returned to the hotel before any question of backstage rendezvous can be asked. This time when he arrives back where they started, the door is opened. There is music coming out of the room, but no sense of more heartbeats than the familiar one he expects to find.
The track itself is the same configuration of the band, a driving, high energy thing. A scuff of feet. Movement.
They part, and Louis is delivered to the balcony. Very Important Person, Louis de Pointe du Lac, and then those who have paid a significant amount of money to share the label.
Louis is noted, as the delay is noted. Mortal minds murmuring and murmuring, alight with possibility and potential. (A score of posts gaining steam in the late hours of the evening, speculating on what or who might have created a delay.) They are left to themselves. Louis leans elbows on the balcony rail, looks down over the crowd. (A flurry of blurry pictures exist for only moments on the internet before swiftly vanishing under takedown notices from Mr du Lac's legal team.) Louis isn't joining the mortals on the floor tonight. He is here for Lestat. Watches every moment, worry wavering in his chest. Worry that he has not done enough, not really.
But they both make it through. Separate cars back. Rachida and Louis in the backseat, Louie dictating this and that decision as Rachida taps on her tablet screen.
Louis arrived with a single suitcase. It appeared in Lestat's room before Louis does. Louis spots it as he crosses the threshold back into the room they'd so recently vacated.
"Lestat?"
As Louis closes the door. Flips the heavy lock. No further distraction tonight.
Lestat's legal team is not in the business of banishing blurry balcony pictures. These ones are of the suite's balcony, Lestat playing to some gathered fans below, a leg kicked over the railing and a big smile. He has since retreated, put on his music, is in the midst of a dance about the room when Louis steps in.
A contrast to the Lestat he found first, collapsed in his coffin, no makeup, no hair product, dressed only in pyjamas and tears. This one is on his feet, which clad in thigh-high black heels leaving little indents in the carpet. Black fishnet stockings show up pale skin beneath, as do the straps of shining black leather and silver buckles that make up the rest of what can generously be called an outfit.
He has yet to clean off his stage makeup either, which has begun to smear a little from his exertions. His eyes are ringed in black liner and shadow, and star-smears of silver glitter trail across his cheekbones. His eyes themselves are bright chips of ice, bloodshot, and focus in on Louis with familiar intensity. In one hand is an opened champagne bottle, and he leads himself nearer with his other hand outstretched, to reel Louis into a hug.
"They brought your things," he tells him. The scent of hairspray, blood-sweat. "Did you like it?"
Lestat is, as always, stunning. Stunning as a hurricane must be, a force of nature, barely contained. Louis has only a few moments to watch him before Lestat is drawing him in. Louis goes, wraps Lestat up in his arms tightly.
"Yeah," murmured into Lestat's ear. "You and your musicians put on a damn good show."
This is barely an outfit. Louis runs fingers up and down his back, finds nothing but bare skin, briefly interrupted by leather straps.
"Gets better every time."
And maybe some of this is just relief at seeing Lestat feed. Louis still feels some kind of way about Lestat's Blood Sabbath, tangled up conflict in his body that tips one way or the other depending on the day. But it had scared him, hearing from Cookie that Lestat hadn't been eating. Louis is glad to see any progress made.
"You ready for bed?" Louis asks, separating only far enough to look him over. Does not leave their embrace to do so. "Or you wanna dance a little more?"
They have a few hours. (It might take a few hours to clean Lestat up.)
It's simple praise, and he feels he could collapse with it, and partially does so into Louis embrace, an elated sound leaving him from deep in his chest. All he had wanted, of course, was to show up well in New Orleans, in his home, and—maybe it is all a blur, maybe it lacks the weight he had envisioned, had anticipated, but here Louis is, telling him he was good, and isn't that all he wanted?
Lestat allows for space without letting Louis go either, feeling as though he sparkles beneath Louis' look up and down.
"You wanna dance with me?" he asks, sweetly, pulling Louis deeper into the room. Blindly setting the champagne bottle down onto the nearest flat surface. "I made it so you might."
This room is not their home, but they are in New Orleans, they are together, and Lestat is warm in his arms. Louis has missed him so desperately.
"Gonna let me lead?" Louis teases.
But he observes the discarded champagne. The glossy quality to Lestat's eyes.
Understands, maybe, what they all mean. Louis had spun out, had indulged his own addictions. Still feels the urge towards them, an undercurrent running beneath his hunger. Worries what it means for Lestat, alone, indulging.
Louis adjusts his hold as Lestat pulls him further into the room. Links their fingers. Happy to have him, yield to him, in this calm they've found between themselves. Happy to be near him, hold onto him and anchor Lestat in whichever way he can.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
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."
no subject
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?"
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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?"
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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?"
no subject
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.
no subject
"I suppose a multi-million dollar enterprise affords you some trust in your curtains," he says. He twists enough to glance backwards at him, and then the large windows of his suite, calculating the integrity of their furnishings. Ill at ease at the thought. "And the people who might twitch them aside without thought."
Back to the microwave, tugging the door open long before the beeping. Blood doesn't need to be boiling to be tolerable.
"You can stay here, if it suits you." It may not. Louis has expensive taste of a different kind of echelon.
no subject
It had never mattered with Armand, had not mattered in their bedroom in Dubai. It is something else now, Louis thinks.
It matters, like any lightly self-destructive thing does.
Lestat makes this offer, and Louis saying nothing immediately. He is aware of how it appeals. How much he wants to remain near, how many worries he carries still. Lestat still strikes him as fragile, unsteady.
And Louis wants him back as he found him, washed clean of make up and stage wear, in soft clothes, familiar.
"With you?" Louis questions, drawing himself up short before the dream runs away with him. Lestat has other admirers. Louis has given him permission to indulge any whim he pleases.
no subject
He fishes the mug from out of the microwave, now wandering nearer. Stops short of inviting himself to sit down near him. No, he has things to do if he wishes to achieve the impossible and perform tonight. And, oh yes, speaking of Cookie—
Lestat looks to the ceiling, the wandering look of him reaching out with his mind, delivering a message. Then, bringing his cup up to sip.
"I'm not using my bed," he says. "And I recall your hospitality, during the hurricane."
And of course, he wants Louis near, always, hungers for it, wants to crawl into his arms or pick him up in his own and run away. But borderlands have been reaffirmed. If Louis is to share his room, it will be because it is the most sensible thing. And if there is hunger in the direction of his gaze over his cup as he drinks, well. He is hungry.
no subject
Waking up the morning after the storm with Lestat. Everything that had felt easy, until it simply wasn't anymore.
Louis draws fingertips along the open coffin lid. Struggles with the urge to say, Let me share it with you.
"I want to stay with you."
A clear preference. Not a last resort.
"Anywhere you'll have me."
no subject
Louis does not want to stay with him, anywhere he'll have him. Or he does, but can't. Has asked him for time, has all but promised him he would come back to him. And yes, perhaps now they are only talking about this one night, but what does that matter? One night becomes one eternity. He stands stock still to guard against these impulses, watching Louis' hand fondle his coffin, and considers that ketamine would probably help him out right now.
But. He had himself made this offer, and it's insane of him not to be grateful for its acceptance. To notice that Louis is here in the room with him, when Lestat had just been spiralling, convincing himself they would never see each other again. He takes a breath. Don't be insane.
"Of course," he says. Comes nearer, fluttering a touch at Louis' shoulder. "You're most welcome."
There. The sleeping arrangement logistics can be deferred to a later time.
"I'm glad you could make it after all," he adds. Coy, playing at as if Louis had merely shuffled around arrangements at a whim. As if Lestat does not look like he's been in a depressive collapse for the past twelve hours, tear streaked and uncombed.
What he means: it is nice to be rescued.
no subject
Louis reaches up, catches his hand.
"Come here," he invites. Blurry lines, the intimacy that comes easy running counter to every single thing Louis had asked for just moments ago.
But he draws Lestat down by his hand. Means to hold him, stay close, in these few moments before they part.
"I'm sorry I was late."
no subject
A soft, damp laugh, more felt than heard, for Louis' apology, and Lestat holds him tighter. "It's okay," he says. "I'll always wait for you."
Maybe that waiting will be maddened with impatience, but this hardly disqualifies the sentiment. And he'll do a good show tonight, and it will all be worth it.
no subject
Louis has had time to think on the interview. What was anger and misery, unfavorable because Louis could be nothing else when he thought Lestat was the cause of Claudia's death.
But there had been truth too. Things Louis had felt. Things that had been there, that had undone them before.
He lets the sentiment sit now. Allows it to glow like a coal in the center of his chest as he runs a palm up and down Lestat's back. Thinner. He's thinner than Louis remembers.
"I ain't gonna be far away."
The world can be so much smaller now. Planes to deliver Louis wherever Lestat has gone. Phones to carry voices, faces to each other.
It is still a separation. It's still what Louis needs.
"Thank you," murmured into Lestat's hair. Louis' lips at the crown of his head.
A gift. Another gift, time, to set alongside the blood Lestat gave to him.
no subject
Tempting to stay. Tempting to stay in this little peaceful space they've created for one another while the chaos Lestat has triggered beyond his walls is about to crash in. Closes his eyes under the sense of that kiss, and then lets out a long sigh as he hears the distinct clip-clop of Christine's heels coming down the hallway outside.
It is fast paced from there. Lestat throws on a jacket and a pair of shining violet sunglasses, invites Louis to share a car. There will be no crowds to wade through, the windows tinted to obscure them from the fans gathered around the venue's parking entrance. From there, Louis is led to the balcony area while Lestat is shepherded in an opposite direction. The hall is packed, still, the audience restless, hungrier for waiting.
(Backstage is a choreographed storm of activity. Lestat lets stylists touch him, do his makeup and hair, choose his outfit. He harangues Larry for the amphetamines he stirs into a second helping of blood, which he drinks in two steady gulps. He goes on stage an hour and a half later than he'd originally been scheduled to. There are two encore performances.)
There's no after, Louis informed that the Vampire Lestat has returned to the hotel before any question of backstage rendezvous can be asked. This time when he arrives back where they started, the door is opened. There is music coming out of the room, but no sense of more heartbeats than the familiar one he expects to find.
The track itself is the same configuration of the band, a driving, high energy thing. A scuff of feet. Movement.
no subject
Louis is noted, as the delay is noted. Mortal minds murmuring and murmuring, alight with possibility and potential. (A score of posts gaining steam in the late hours of the evening, speculating on what or who might have created a delay.) They are left to themselves. Louis leans elbows on the balcony rail, looks down over the crowd. (A flurry of blurry pictures exist for only moments on the internet before swiftly vanishing under takedown notices from Mr du Lac's legal team.) Louis isn't joining the mortals on the floor tonight. He is here for Lestat. Watches every moment, worry wavering in his chest. Worry that he has not done enough, not really.
But they both make it through. Separate cars back. Rachida and Louis in the backseat, Louie dictating this and that decision as Rachida taps on her tablet screen.
Louis arrived with a single suitcase. It appeared in Lestat's room before Louis does. Louis spots it as he crosses the threshold back into the room they'd so recently vacated.
"Lestat?"
As Louis closes the door. Flips the heavy lock. No further distraction tonight.
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Lestat's legal team is not in the business of banishing blurry balcony pictures. These ones are of the suite's balcony, Lestat playing to some gathered fans below, a leg kicked over the railing and a big smile. He has since retreated, put on his music, is in the midst of a dance about the room when Louis steps in.
A contrast to the Lestat he found first, collapsed in his coffin, no makeup, no hair product, dressed only in pyjamas and tears. This one is on his feet, which clad in thigh-high black heels leaving little indents in the carpet. Black fishnet stockings show up pale skin beneath, as do the straps of shining black leather and silver buckles that make up the rest of what can generously be called an outfit.
He has yet to clean off his stage makeup either, which has begun to smear a little from his exertions. His eyes are ringed in black liner and shadow, and star-smears of silver glitter trail across his cheekbones. His eyes themselves are bright chips of ice, bloodshot, and focus in on Louis with familiar intensity. In one hand is an opened champagne bottle, and he leads himself nearer with his other hand outstretched, to reel Louis into a hug.
"They brought your things," he tells him. The scent of hairspray, blood-sweat. "Did you like it?"
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"Yeah," murmured into Lestat's ear. "You and your musicians put on a damn good show."
This is barely an outfit. Louis runs fingers up and down his back, finds nothing but bare skin, briefly interrupted by leather straps.
"Gets better every time."
And maybe some of this is just relief at seeing Lestat feed. Louis still feels some kind of way about Lestat's Blood Sabbath, tangled up conflict in his body that tips one way or the other depending on the day. But it had scared him, hearing from Cookie that Lestat hadn't been eating. Louis is glad to see any progress made.
"You ready for bed?" Louis asks, separating only far enough to look him over. Does not leave their embrace to do so. "Or you wanna dance a little more?"
They have a few hours. (It might take a few hours to clean Lestat up.)
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Lestat allows for space without letting Louis go either, feeling as though he sparkles beneath Louis' look up and down.
"You wanna dance with me?" he asks, sweetly, pulling Louis deeper into the room. Blindly setting the champagne bottle down onto the nearest flat surface. "I made it so you might."
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This room is not their home, but they are in New Orleans, they are together, and Lestat is warm in his arms. Louis has missed him so desperately.
"Gonna let me lead?" Louis teases.
But he observes the discarded champagne. The glossy quality to Lestat's eyes.
Understands, maybe, what they all mean. Louis had spun out, had indulged his own addictions. Still feels the urge towards them, an undercurrent running beneath his hunger. Worries what it means for Lestat, alone, indulging.
Louis adjusts his hold as Lestat pulls him further into the room. Links their fingers. Happy to have him, yield to him, in this calm they've found between themselves. Happy to be near him, hold onto him and anchor Lestat in whichever way he can.
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