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[damnedest]

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lestat de lioncourt, 265

i don't remember you

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[damnedest]

That depends on the six.

[ BUT ANYWAY— ]

What is their response to a beautiful man emerging from beneath the bed every sunset?

[divorcing]

They ain't awake to see me do it.

[ Seventy-seven years is enough to get some tricks of his own, turns out. ]

I been putting them to sleep before I lift the bed back up.

[damnedest]

How restful for them.

[ His tone carries amusement, affection. Pleased. ]

How many are leaving with a lighter head than before?

[divorcing]

None of 'em. They're all drugged up, Lestat. I can't do nothing with them that way.

[ Satisfaction shifts back to frustration.

It's a bad spot to be in. Louis knows this. ]

[damnedest]

Admittedly a little rich for a petit-déjeuner.

[ Not a rejection of the worry he hears so much as an instinct to counter it, gently, lightly.

But, he must ask, ]

How can I help you, chéri? Tell me.

[divorcing]

[ Quiet on the other end of the line.

It is as it ever was, a struggle to receive the offer, to know what to do with it. Louis wants to be self-sufficient. He doesn't want to need help.

A little stalling: ]

You know how to make it stop snowing? Melt what's out there now?

[ Easier to make a joke than say what they both know: he needs a meal. Sooner or later, he will need to eat.

It's an old problem. Doesn't matter the circumstances around it now, they are still on the slippery slope of Lestat cajoling, pleading, yelling for Louis to eat. ]

[damnedest]

Mm.

[ A little pouting psychic hum as if they were in the same room, as if Lestat could reach out and toy with Louis' curls. ]

Perhaps if we make love with enough vigor, we will cause a temporary reprieve.

[divorcing]

Worth a try.

[ Affectionate, a little yielding. A sigh ghosting between their minds, Louis breathing out the impossibility of his predicament.

Familiar tones. A room in New Orleans, Louis' irritations winding down to nothing as he sank down beside Lestat on the long couch before the fire, alongside him on their bed. ]

[damnedest]

Always.

[ A comfortable little lapse, before he says the thing he has thought of saying before, many times. ]

You can take from me, you know. I was quite serious about the dominion you have over my heart and all it produces.

[divorcing]

[ A longer pause. Hesitating.

Perhaps waiting out the immediate pulse of desire this offer invokes. Louis' whole body flushes hot, wanting.

Finally: ]

It ain't the same as we did back in New Orleans.

[ As if Lestat needed reminding that he is human now. ]

[damnedest]

I know.

[ And aren't there quite a few things different, to the way they did back in New Orleans? But Lestat lets that acknowledgment sit, quiet. ]

[divorcing]

[ Long moments of quiet in return. Not an absence, just quiet.

They know each other. Lestat doesn't need to be told Louis is wrestling with the offer.

Softly: ]

I don't want to hurt you.

[ A weighty statement, given their history. Given what Louis left Lestat with, when they parted in Paris. ]

[damnedest]

[ It does have weight. It should be an obvious thing, and it is an obvious thing, but there has been hurt. Great amounts of it.

So Lestat holds it, makes sure it is secure. Says, ]

You won't.

You remember, the first time I took from you.

[divorcing]

I do.

[ Hush.

Of course he remembers. It is impossible to forget. He'd tried, for a time, but the memory is as inextricable, as essential, as a heartbeat. ]

[damnedest]

[ He does not have to ask Louis if it was good, if he liked it, if he felt safe, secure, desired. He knows. There are some unimpeachable facts, unmarred by future entropies.

Maybe one day, Lestat will tell him of the first time a vampire appeared in his window. For now, he says, ]

I would like that.

[divorcing]

[ A thousand excuses. A thousand things Louis might say ti stall.

But he is disarmed.

Lestat wants this. It is enough to sway Louis. Louis, who wants this. Wants him. ]

Alright. Yeah, okay.

[damnedest]

[ Good. And obviously he should allow Louis some time to collect himself, to choose the time and place, because this is about Louis' needs and not— ]

Now?

[divorcing]

[ Almost reflexive— ]

Yeah.

[ As if now that Louis has fixed it in his mind, no delay can be tolerated.

But, tacked on: ]

When you're ready.

[damnedest]

In a moment.

[ A quick assurance. He would hate for Louis to become distracted by something else. Someone else.

Lestat does allow a minute to pass, however. Mostly to intrude on a different room, step over and through conversations, check himself in a mirror. Oh, he hasn't had much of a chance to shave as closely and as often as he would like, and after running his hand along his throat, another minute is stolen before he retreats to find his things, bullies his way to where he might find a mirror, soap, water.

So it's with a clean chin and freshly brushed hair and the scent of nondescript cleaning agents that Lestat appears at Louis' door, shirt and waistcoat of deep, ornate colours, boots on as if he had come from outside rather than the other end of the boarding house.

A polite knock, a less polite testing of the doorknob. ]

traps u into prose

[divorcing]

Some time for Louis to gather discarded items, leave them in a pile in the hallway to be reclaimed. To consider his little room and despair over the absence of plush furniture, of ways in which he might make Lestat comfortable. It will be different when Louis procures some property. He will make certain he has more to offer then.

Things to muse over while Louis attends to his own hair, his own garments. Plain white tunic, oversized knit layers meant for a larger man than Louis but satisfactory guard against the chill of winter. His hair is growing longer, soft curls shaped carefully so different than the styles he's worn in New Orleans.

The knock calls Louis away from contemplation of his own long history. The rattle of the door knob prompts a grin.

It's open, nudges into Lestat's mind, invitation beckoning him inward. As the door opens, Louis says aloud, "But we gonna make sure it stays locked tonight."

No interruptions. Louis can tolerate only so much.

[damnedest]

A little theatrical, the way Lestat opens the door and cranes his neck past the edge as if to evaluate the interior, check that the coast is clear. But there, just Louis, dressed in layers as if they were standing outside in the snow itself instead of inside what Lestat feels is the warm-enough interior of an overcrowded boarding house.

He enters, coming closer, reaching out to touch the layered hems at Louis' chest. "And the windows closed," he adds. "Or I'll never get beneath these."

Is this nervousness? Anticipation? Some secret, third thing he feels, as if a primal instinct in him that knows what he is getting himself into is confused at why they would stand so near to one so dangerous, while the rest of him can't get close enough.

[divorcing]

Behind Lestat, the lock clicks into place. Louis has a chair he will wedge into place, taken from another room, to act as insurance against the possibility of intrusion. Share and share alike was all well and good when Louis was only asleep beneath the bedframe. But he can't have any interruptions tonight.

But he can grouse, "Drafty fucking shutters," even as his hands lift to cup Lestat's face.

Still novel, that Louis can simply do this. Touch him. He'd dreamed the desire for decades, and now it is simply possible.

"It's too cold in this place."

[damnedest]

To Louis' credit, it is literally blizzarding, trapping them all inside with icy snow, compelling Lestat to force people to put up with eight dogs in close company. Objectively, it is too cold.

But it sounds so much like the kind of complaints that would come Lestat's way if a Louisiana Christmastime was unseasonably cold that year, enough to necessitate even a scarf, that amusement and affection both make his eyes crinkle as he smooths his hands up Louis' chest, fingertips finding bare throat.

"Ours will be warmer," he promises. "Stone walls, and a hearth in the bedroom."

[divorcing]

A humming consideration, as if Louis needs think at all about this proposition. As if it doesn't immediately appeal.

As if he doesn't commit it to memory, as a requirement for whatever place he makes for them.

"And you'll make me a fire," Louis solicits, fingers gentle at Lestat's jaw. "Make our room warm as summer?"

[damnedest]

"As you wish."

He wanders a hand to Louis', gently flattening it against his own cleanly shaven cheek, his throat, tipping his head into this touch. He would like to ask if it is very warm in Dubai. If Louis favours a dry desert heat over the sticky, clinging New Orleans summers. But they are speaking of Rubilykskoye and the life being made there.

It all feels new, delicate, like freshly birthed eggshell. Left alone, for now, as he slides his arm around Louis' waist, turns them both around in purposeless circle. "But I think we can manage without, for now."