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?"
And Louis contains his reaction, keeps whatever expression his surprise manifests off his face as he perches on the edge of the tub. Asks no permission to hook Lestat's knee over his thigh, begin working the buckle of these ostentatious boots loose.
"On purpose or on accident?"
A question in return, a little bit stalling. Talking around the state of Louis' professed twenty or so year streak of sterilized feeding. Skirting towards a sore spot for them both, difficult terrain on an already emotionally fraught night.
Lestat seems more settled in himself. Less miserable. Louis knows that in a day's time he will be just as reluctant to leave him oncemore.
Lestat is easily manipulable and only marginally more helpful about it than a mannequin. Finds a comfortable way to set spine against the interior curve, watching Louis under painted eyelids, a feline smile. The boots are decorated in zippers and buckles, but easy enough to tell which ones actually do anything.
Beneath, pale legs decorated in fishnet stockings, unshaven and a little marked with dirt past the edge of leather. Lots of rolling about on the stage, towards the end of the show.
One boot, removed. Louis' fingers working the zipper, knuckles running along stocking-clad calf, easing the leather off and away. Louis sets it down, turns his attention to the other leg.
"Some twenty-two years back. 2000."
A heavy marker, even if Lestat doesn't fully realize the gravity of that passage of time. Two decades or so, vanished. Louis still hasn't teased out the full scope of what it means. If he knows the entirety of that last kill and what had followed after, or if it had been impressed upon him by Armand after.
But no. No space for that here, with Lestat slouching loose and smiling in the tub.
His fingers run along the top of the boot. Resists the urge to watch Lestat's face as he admits, "I ain't tried. Not yet."
Beneath the haze of alcohol, the chemical cocktail that has gotten through his night, he can feel his body respond to these touches. Lestat feels resigned to it. His blood will always churn after Louis' touch, his attention, his presence. He will always want him, want him, want him. He has been asked to be patient, but he can hardly help the affect Louis has on him.
Can hardly say no when the attentions are offered. Fortunately, he is also quite exhausted beneath the surface brimming of energy, which has started to fizzle. He angles his leg helpfully as Louis attends to the second boot.
Twenty-two years.
"Quite the dry spell," he says. "You are going to try, though?"
Relieved of his boots, Lestat's legs remain hooked over Louis' thigh. He settles his hands over Lestat's knee, his calf. Lifts his eyes back to Lestat's face, trying to glean what he can from Lestat's expression.
Finds no judgement there, none of the impatience or exasperation that had marked their earlier conversations. All those years ago in New Orleans, all those fights, Louis sees no sign of temper in Lestat's face.
"Yes," Louis answers quietly. "Gonna try to find my way."
And maybe he should try, sooner rather than later. It has been easy to put off for a number of reasons.
The offer is there. He had been heading towards it already, the offer that perhaps they might hunt together during his break.
But Louis says it like that. Finding his way. His own way.
It withers immediately, this notion, and swallowing it back feels bitter. Nodding into the silence, and Lestat then fills it with, "Good," hush. Fond, despite himself. Warmed to the knowledge of his not-so-fledgling taking this step. Nudges him with his leg, playful, and goes to slide them from Louis' lap, to shift around for whatever must come next.
He pulls his hair back and around from where he is buckled into his harness at two different points at his back. Shifts to his knees to find a helpful angle, leaning past Louis' knee. And if this is flirting, it is just as much because there is no other action he could imagine taking.
The sense of an absence, something held back, prompts a moment of scrutiny. Trying to decide whether or not to reach after it, what might be withheld.
But Lestat is moving, and Louis reaches for him, hands guiding Lestat closer. Encouraging the lean of his body, inviting him to set his weight into Louis. He runs a palm down Lestat's back, over the leather and metal fastenings, the buckles that need undoing. Thumbs over cool metal, before setting to work divesting him of the harness.
Lets the quiet settle, before asking, "Heard you ain't been eating."
So invited, Lestat rests there against Louis' lap, eyes shutting for this little moment in time. If this were another place and time, he would luxuriate in the way little manipulations of the harness tug at each point of connection, how it feels like Louis' hands are all over him.
He might tell Louis this too, a habit of old, wishing Louis to know exactly the effect he has on him, how unashamed they should be of it.
Relaxes instead. Gives a quiet rumble of sound at this mention.
"We're very busy," he murmurs. "High profile."
He could also just say he wasn't hungry tonight, but doesn't think to. He has been hungry. Life is hunger. "Who has been monitoring my little blood baggies and tattling on me, now?" And should he drain them?
It's very fine, this harness. Supple leather, gleaming buckles. Louis takes his time in the handling, rubbing fingertips over the red marks left here and there in the wake of each strap. It comes away in pieces, something Louis suspects wasn't strictly necessary but keeps Lestat where he has settled.
And Louis encourages him there, keeps Lestat draped close while Louis touches fading red marks on pale, sweat-cooled skin and drags his fingers through Lestat's hair. Thinks on what he says now. Lestat has denied nothing. Not eating, not properly. Not enough.
A number of things plucked up and cast aside. Louis, starving himself and starving himself and starving himself. Lestat's confusion, and frustration, and anger. It would serve no one to invoke those days.
"Is it because you'd rather hunt for yourself?" sidesteps the question; Louis has yet to decide if it would be productive to explain Cookie's text messages. Instead, a guess. Feeling out the causes, uncertain. Worried.
An agreeable sound. He doesn't enjoy the little blood bags, dead-tasting, entirely removed from the vein, the life it came from. It's easier to eschew them than a bare throat.
"And I have not been receiving visitors," Lestat says, letting his weight settle heavy over Louis' thighs, letting some of his energy burn itself out as Louis' fingers work through his hair, the familiar and comforting tug at his scalp. "Not since our disagreement."
He doesn't mind saying so. It is no secret, that he's been unhappy, but a specific kind of unhappy. Easily irritable, throwing guests out before anything could come of it, or simply shutting himself away, preferring hunger and self-pity than distraction and satiation.
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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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And Louis contains his reaction, keeps whatever expression his surprise manifests off his face as he perches on the edge of the tub. Asks no permission to hook Lestat's knee over his thigh, begin working the buckle of these ostentatious boots loose.
"On purpose or on accident?"
A question in return, a little bit stalling. Talking around the state of Louis' professed twenty or so year streak of sterilized feeding. Skirting towards a sore spot for them both, difficult terrain on an already emotionally fraught night.
Lestat seems more settled in himself. Less miserable. Louis knows that in a day's time he will be just as reluctant to leave him oncemore.
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Beneath, pale legs decorated in fishnet stockings, unshaven and a little marked with dirt past the edge of leather. Lots of rolling about on the stage, towards the end of the show.
"Purpose," he says.
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"Some twenty-two years back. 2000."
A heavy marker, even if Lestat doesn't fully realize the gravity of that passage of time. Two decades or so, vanished. Louis still hasn't teased out the full scope of what it means. If he knows the entirety of that last kill and what had followed after, or if it had been impressed upon him by Armand after.
But no. No space for that here, with Lestat slouching loose and smiling in the tub.
His fingers run along the top of the boot. Resists the urge to watch Lestat's face as he admits, "I ain't tried. Not yet."
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Can hardly say no when the attentions are offered. Fortunately, he is also quite exhausted beneath the surface brimming of energy, which has started to fizzle. He angles his leg helpfully as Louis attends to the second boot.
Twenty-two years.
"Quite the dry spell," he says. "You are going to try, though?"
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Finds no judgement there, none of the impatience or exasperation that had marked their earlier conversations. All those years ago in New Orleans, all those fights, Louis sees no sign of temper in Lestat's face.
"Yes," Louis answers quietly. "Gonna try to find my way."
And maybe he should try, sooner rather than later. It has been easy to put off for a number of reasons.
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But Louis says it like that. Finding his way. His own way.
It withers immediately, this notion, and swallowing it back feels bitter. Nodding into the silence, and Lestat then fills it with, "Good," hush. Fond, despite himself. Warmed to the knowledge of his not-so-fledgling taking this step. Nudges him with his leg, playful, and goes to slide them from Louis' lap, to shift around for whatever must come next.
He pulls his hair back and around from where he is buckled into his harness at two different points at his back. Shifts to his knees to find a helpful angle, leaning past Louis' knee. And if this is flirting, it is just as much because there is no other action he could imagine taking.
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But Lestat is moving, and Louis reaches for him, hands guiding Lestat closer. Encouraging the lean of his body, inviting him to set his weight into Louis. He runs a palm down Lestat's back, over the leather and metal fastenings, the buckles that need undoing. Thumbs over cool metal, before setting to work divesting him of the harness.
Lets the quiet settle, before asking, "Heard you ain't been eating."
Speaking of.
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He might tell Louis this too, a habit of old, wishing Louis to know exactly the effect he has on him, how unashamed they should be of it.
Relaxes instead. Gives a quiet rumble of sound at this mention.
"We're very busy," he murmurs. "High profile."
He could also just say he wasn't hungry tonight, but doesn't think to. He has been hungry. Life is hunger. "Who has been monitoring my little blood baggies and tattling on me, now?" And should he drain them?
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And Louis encourages him there, keeps Lestat draped close while Louis touches fading red marks on pale, sweat-cooled skin and drags his fingers through Lestat's hair. Thinks on what he says now. Lestat has denied nothing. Not eating, not properly. Not enough.
A number of things plucked up and cast aside. Louis, starving himself and starving himself and starving himself. Lestat's confusion, and frustration, and anger. It would serve no one to invoke those days.
"Is it because you'd rather hunt for yourself?" sidesteps the question; Louis has yet to decide if it would be productive to explain Cookie's text messages. Instead, a guess. Feeling out the causes, uncertain. Worried.
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An agreeable sound. He doesn't enjoy the little blood bags, dead-tasting, entirely removed from the vein, the life it came from. It's easier to eschew them than a bare throat.
"And I have not been receiving visitors," Lestat says, letting his weight settle heavy over Louis' thighs, letting some of his energy burn itself out as Louis' fingers work through his hair, the familiar and comforting tug at his scalp. "Not since our disagreement."
He doesn't mind saying so. It is no secret, that he's been unhappy, but a specific kind of unhappy. Easily irritable, throwing guests out before anything could come of it, or simply shutting himself away, preferring hunger and self-pity than distraction and satiation.
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