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.
Never mind that his heels grant him a few more inches of height that he normally has to work with, marginal in the scheme of things. They know how to dance together, and always have. Lestat curls his fingers between Louis', thumb stroking along his palm as he winds his arm around his shoulders.
Happy. A chemical bliss, maybe, certainly more energy than he had when this night began, but it all mingles with something true, the way his eyes crinkle at the corners with a smile. The song itself, no lyrics recorded, only music, but a composition in line with the rest of his repertoire, high energy and primal with a driving beat and dirty guitar riffs.
He does not often dance to his own music. Too busy performing. Moving. But perhaps this makes for a good proof of concept.
They are not doing the exactly right kind of dancing. Louis is tilting them into a swinging little waltz, an excuse to hold him so very close.
"One more night after this?" Louis questions, spinning Lestat round, reeling him back in against his chest.
Somewhere in this hotel must be Daniel. Louis will seek him out tomorrow at nightfall, speak to him rather than let his presence be a surprise.
Maybe Lestat changes his mind. Maybe he decides Louis shouldn't be present, and Louis will occupy himself some other way. Lestat is capricious. Louis is making himself flexible, while he's here.
The dancing Louis leads them into makes him laugh, and Lestat obeys, feet remembering the appropriate steps and improvisations with the occasional squeak of unbroken leather. Feeling a thrilled thrum when he is drawn back in close.
"This is the businessman in you speaking," he says, as they take a turn about the spacious room. "Exponential growth."
Or the romantic in him. Going to so many shows, imagining their improvement. Still, Lestat did try for something better. Some mysterious heightening, between perfection and wildness. His audience demands perfection just as fervently as they desire to see something bleed. Perhaps the show would be improved if he opened his chest, offered his heart.
"One more night," he says. "And then we go to Tennessee." He turns again beneath Louis' hand. "And then a break before the east coast."
Louis considers this information, beats down the presumption that he might lay claim to the time.
Perhaps Lestat will be disappearing into a recording studio. Perhaps he is already planning some destination, of traveling there with Daniel and his band and attendants to make the most of a few days away from the grind of his tour.
Louis draws him close. They move together, circling, swaying. Lestat smells again of sweat and leather and the strangeness of unknown mortals. Louis lets himself draw Lestat in, cheek to cheek.
"What you gonna do on your break, Lestat?" He invites. Safer than saying immediately: Come to me, let me take you somewhere.
Louis asked for space. Wants it. But he wants Lestat too. Tells himself it's easy as threading a needle, balancing these two things.
Now they are close, closer than before, and Louis can feel him tip his weight in against him, sway in place. More scents, hairspray and cigarettes, little tells of an average evening in the life of Lestat de Lioncourt.
Hums at this question, as if he is unsure of the answer. There is probably an itinerary of promotional appearances awaiting him, but here, all he wants to do is rest his head on Louis' shoulder as they dance, close his eyes, imagine them anywhere, anytime. A few hours ago, he had felt like letting everything he had built slip away between slack fingers.
Turning his head, he proposes, "Dance," just next to Louis' ear, a smile in his voice. Coy.
Suppose they do just that. Meet up, dance. Have a nice old time, the way they did before.
Louis doesn't let himself say this. Not yet, at least. He needs a little time to find the right way to say it, words that won't devastate them both.
"Can find some time for it, I bet, " is what he settles on after a few swaying rotations. Louis is having trouble avoiding bare skin. Trails fingertips up along one strap of the harness, one nail grazing skin as he goes. "No shortage of dance partners around here."
Louis is holding him so closely, touching his skin between the straps of leather, speaking in sweet tones to him. It would be an act of violence to decide he is being cruel, even if some restless thing in Lestat would welcome it, just to bite back about. No shortage of dance partners, and Lestat feels he is meaning all his future paramours, both the real ones and the fictional, and not counting himself among them.
But they are dancing now, aren't they? So Lestat hums his agreement, disentangles a hand only so he can loop both arms around and over Louis' shoulders. "None so talented," he says. "None who keep time so well."
Hm. A fond smile, and a touch of his thumb to Louis' cheek. Gently touching away some transferred smear of glitter. "What will you do?"
"Try to live with the jealousy," is a little flattery, just for Lestat. A true thing wrapped up in teasing, softening the reality that Louis would burn with jealousy over Lestat dancing with anyone else. That he has had time to think on Lestat and the others he might take to bed, and remind himself that this is the trade.
How can he expect Lestat to stay alone through all of Louis' soul-searching?
"Dance with you when I get the chance," Louis promises, softening a little. They can still dance. They can keep that between them. "Let you mark me with that stuff so everyone knows where I've been all night."
This gains a peal of laughter, quiet but ardent, head tipped back and weight hanging off round Louis' shoulders.
"I'm sure they will say," Lestat says as he straightens, a smile clear in his eyes, "that Louis has been doing more with Lestat than just dancing."
Back close, then, a more deliberate brush of his cheek to Louis'. Feather-light, but enough to leave behind a fairy's brush of silver glitter, wispy shadowy smears of eyeshadow. "If only they knew," he murmurs while there. His current get up is, as established, exposing, but also a kind of armor. Snagging little buckles, hard surfaces.
Emboldens him, anyway, to press closely. Or maybe he wouldn't need the emboldening at all. Getting away with something, the warm line of their bodies pressed together like hands in prayer, just for a moment.
Less dancing now than they are swaying. Leaning into each other.
I was afraid for you, Louis doesn't say. Cookie had been concise. She hadn't been meaning to scare anyone. But Louis had come so quickly because he had been frightened. How many times have they parted, and Louis was left with the sense he was abandoning Lestat in a lonesome, unsafe place?
Here, now, he uses the press of fingers on bare skin to encourage Lestat as he presses in close. Keep him near, while they are both bending the rules they'd agreed upon.
"You wanna get out of this?" Louis questions, leaving the murmur alone. Doesn't indulge the curl of satisfaction that is just so pleased by the implication Lestat invokes. Louis shouldn't be laying claims. He can wait. "You wanna let me try to get the glitter off your face so you ain't rising with it for the next month?"
He could say something like he is an expert in removing glitter, in untangling himself from a variety of complicated, clinging costumes, but that would be insane of him. Wild, to refuse when Louis is asking these things so quietly as he holds him so close. He is later going to have to pillow princess with someone while wearing this, who will grab it, and who won't mind that he keeps his eyes closed the whole time.
"If you insist," Lestat says. Look, he is capable of restraint, easing his weight back onto his heels, a dainty step backwards to put space between them, hands lingering. An affectionate touch to Louis' face, thumb to chin.
And then, "Oh," as if coming back to when and where they are. "But you just got here. Would you like—"
He had a bottle of something, didn't he? Lestat lets out a panting breath out when he spots the opened champagne bottle, stepping aside to retrieve it. "I had this sent up," he says. "If you would like some."
A parting, separating by degrees. Lestat slips from his hands. Louis puts his hands into his pockets, hiding away the impulse to draw Lestat back to him.
There is a split second where Louis wondered if Lestat was going to offer him blood. Drugs. But no, champagne. It sparks a small, fond smile, head tilting.
"Yes," Louis agrees. "If you'll join me."
And then, reaching to take the bottle from his hand, proposes, "Let's take it into the bathroom. Clean you up a little."
Lestat gives up the bottle, sways a little like he might go back in to the intimacy they'd just broken, sling himself off Louis' neck as best as his heels will let him. Kept on task instead, Lestat pursing his lips in mock consideration before he offers out his hand. There hadn't been time to put a fresh coat of polish on his nails, so they're the usual shade of milky white, the faintest blush at the quick.
He will take Louis by the hand and lead him through the suite, some of his initial high energy having worked itself out, or become soothed in the progress of their waltz, of pressing in closely, swaying in place. His pace is more languid now, footsteps finding rhythm in the driving bass layer in the track than the high intensity melody over top.
It's a substantial bathroom, a shower fixture over a generous bathtub, wall to wall mirrors, low lights and dark tile.
Lestat lets go of Louis hand to head for the empty tub, climbing into it, letting leather boot-clad feet kick over the side as he gives a contented heave of a sigh at the sensation of being horizontal, as if he hasn't been all day.
From the echo of the tub; "When was the last time you killed someone?"
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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.
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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."
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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.
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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."
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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Never mind that his heels grant him a few more inches of height that he normally has to work with, marginal in the scheme of things. They know how to dance together, and always have. Lestat curls his fingers between Louis', thumb stroking along his palm as he winds his arm around his shoulders.
Happy. A chemical bliss, maybe, certainly more energy than he had when this night began, but it all mingles with something true, the way his eyes crinkle at the corners with a smile. The song itself, no lyrics recorded, only music, but a composition in line with the rest of his repertoire, high energy and primal with a driving beat and dirty guitar riffs.
He does not often dance to his own music. Too busy performing. Moving. But perhaps this makes for a good proof of concept.
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"One more night after this?" Louis questions, spinning Lestat round, reeling him back in against his chest.
Somewhere in this hotel must be Daniel. Louis will seek him out tomorrow at nightfall, speak to him rather than let his presence be a surprise.
Maybe Lestat changes his mind. Maybe he decides Louis shouldn't be present, and Louis will occupy himself some other way. Lestat is capricious. Louis is making himself flexible, while he's here.
"How you gonna top your performance tonight?"
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"This is the businessman in you speaking," he says, as they take a turn about the spacious room. "Exponential growth."
Or the romantic in him. Going to so many shows, imagining their improvement. Still, Lestat did try for something better. Some mysterious heightening, between perfection and wildness. His audience demands perfection just as fervently as they desire to see something bleed. Perhaps the show would be improved if he opened his chest, offered his heart.
"One more night," he says. "And then we go to Tennessee." He turns again beneath Louis' hand. "And then a break before the east coast."
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Louis considers this information, beats down the presumption that he might lay claim to the time.
Perhaps Lestat will be disappearing into a recording studio. Perhaps he is already planning some destination, of traveling there with Daniel and his band and attendants to make the most of a few days away from the grind of his tour.
Louis draws him close. They move together, circling, swaying. Lestat smells again of sweat and leather and the strangeness of unknown mortals. Louis lets himself draw Lestat in, cheek to cheek.
"What you gonna do on your break, Lestat?" He invites. Safer than saying immediately: Come to me, let me take you somewhere.
Louis asked for space. Wants it. But he wants Lestat too. Tells himself it's easy as threading a needle, balancing these two things.
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Hums at this question, as if he is unsure of the answer. There is probably an itinerary of promotional appearances awaiting him, but here, all he wants to do is rest his head on Louis' shoulder as they dance, close his eyes, imagine them anywhere, anytime. A few hours ago, he had felt like letting everything he had built slip away between slack fingers.
Turning his head, he proposes, "Dance," just next to Louis' ear, a smile in his voice. Coy.
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Louis doesn't let himself say this. Not yet, at least. He needs a little time to find the right way to say it, words that won't devastate them both.
"Can find some time for it, I bet, " is what he settles on after a few swaying rotations. Louis is having trouble avoiding bare skin. Trails fingertips up along one strap of the harness, one nail grazing skin as he goes. "No shortage of dance partners around here."
A number in which Louis is included.
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Louis is holding him so closely, touching his skin between the straps of leather, speaking in sweet tones to him. It would be an act of violence to decide he is being cruel, even if some restless thing in Lestat would welcome it, just to bite back about. No shortage of dance partners, and Lestat feels he is meaning all his future paramours, both the real ones and the fictional, and not counting himself among them.
But they are dancing now, aren't they? So Lestat hums his agreement, disentangles a hand only so he can loop both arms around and over Louis' shoulders. "None so talented," he says. "None who keep time so well."
Hm. A fond smile, and a touch of his thumb to Louis' cheek. Gently touching away some transferred smear of glitter. "What will you do?"
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How can he expect Lestat to stay alone through all of Louis' soul-searching?
"Dance with you when I get the chance," Louis promises, softening a little. They can still dance. They can keep that between them. "Let you mark me with that stuff so everyone knows where I've been all night."
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"I'm sure they will say," Lestat says as he straightens, a smile clear in his eyes, "that Louis has been doing more with Lestat than just dancing."
Back close, then, a more deliberate brush of his cheek to Louis'. Feather-light, but enough to leave behind a fairy's brush of silver glitter, wispy shadowy smears of eyeshadow. "If only they knew," he murmurs while there. His current get up is, as established, exposing, but also a kind of armor. Snagging little buckles, hard surfaces.
Emboldens him, anyway, to press closely. Or maybe he wouldn't need the emboldening at all. Getting away with something, the warm line of their bodies pressed together like hands in prayer, just for a moment.
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I was afraid for you, Louis doesn't say. Cookie had been concise. She hadn't been meaning to scare anyone. But Louis had come so quickly because he had been frightened. How many times have they parted, and Louis was left with the sense he was abandoning Lestat in a lonesome, unsafe place?
Here, now, he uses the press of fingers on bare skin to encourage Lestat as he presses in close. Keep him near, while they are both bending the rules they'd agreed upon.
"You wanna get out of this?" Louis questions, leaving the murmur alone. Doesn't indulge the curl of satisfaction that is just so pleased by the implication Lestat invokes. Louis shouldn't be laying claims. He can wait. "You wanna let me try to get the glitter off your face so you ain't rising with it for the next month?"
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"If you insist," Lestat says. Look, he is capable of restraint, easing his weight back onto his heels, a dainty step backwards to put space between them, hands lingering. An affectionate touch to Louis' face, thumb to chin.
And then, "Oh," as if coming back to when and where they are. "But you just got here. Would you like—"
He had a bottle of something, didn't he? Lestat lets out a panting breath out when he spots the opened champagne bottle, stepping aside to retrieve it. "I had this sent up," he says. "If you would like some."
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There is a split second where Louis wondered if Lestat was going to offer him blood. Drugs. But no, champagne. It sparks a small, fond smile, head tilting.
"Yes," Louis agrees. "If you'll join me."
And then, reaching to take the bottle from his hand, proposes, "Let's take it into the bathroom. Clean you up a little."
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He will take Louis by the hand and lead him through the suite, some of his initial high energy having worked itself out, or become soothed in the progress of their waltz, of pressing in closely, swaying in place. His pace is more languid now, footsteps finding rhythm in the driving bass layer in the track than the high intensity melody over top.
It's a substantial bathroom, a shower fixture over a generous bathtub, wall to wall mirrors, low lights and dark tile.
Lestat lets go of Louis hand to head for the empty tub, climbing into it, letting leather boot-clad feet kick over the side as he gives a contented heave of a sigh at the sensation of being horizontal, as if he hasn't been all day.
From the echo of the tub; "When was the last time you killed someone?"
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