[ 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, ]
[ 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. ]
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.
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.
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.
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."
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."
Remembered words, descriptions offered up to Daniel: It was a cold winter that year, and Lestat was my coal fire. Carefully chosen words, Louis remembers, to describe the last winter of his mortal life and Lestat's presence within it.
He murmurs this now as they twirl, Louis' fingers sliding along Lestat's shoulders to link hands, make the motion into a lazy waltz. Brings them closer, so he might put lips to Lestat's cheek as he speaks.
"Make me forget it's storming outside and the whole village crammed in here with us?"
Is it storming outside? Is the whole village crammed in here? Lestat hardly notices when Louis is this near to him, swaying in place. It takes no effort at all to lean in just a little more, turn his head, place a kiss against Louis' mouth.
Chaste, just about, despite the way Lestat echoes, "I'll warm you up," is laid on thicker, tangling their hands together in this quasi-waltz they find themselves in. "You tell me your needs, mon cher, and I will attend them."
Past and present and a dream, it all blurs for a moment. New Orleans. Rubilykskoye.
And then Lestat's fingers lace through his, and anchors Louis fully into this moment. All things Lestat has offered. The blood in his veins. The familiar clutch of his hand at Louis' waist. The ease of their movement, slow swaying, just as they had made such a habit of in their life before.
Louis noses back in, close, catches his mouth. It is not a chaste kiss. Some heat, some hunger. Some of the things Louis has been holding so tightly in check.
What does Louis need? Is it not clear? Is it not in the force of this kiss, deepening as the sway together, as Louis leans into Lestat while his knuckles whiten in Lestat's grip.
Lestat closes his eyes only a split second after Louis returns his kiss with that gentle force, a sound evoked from him as he holds on tighter. As obliging as he has promised to be, he parts his mouth, another low sound from him as Louis deepens it so immediately.
Louis leans in and Lestat meets him, pressing in close for the sake of it, to feel their bodies map together through the muffling layers of knit. He has wondered before, how long he might have lasted, really, if Louis had come back to him after that first night, if they could have shared more time between then and the night of his turning.
An act of love, he had explained once. The little drink. An ultimate test. He understands Louis had practiced, and it is almost sickening how jealous it makes him to think about.
Even as hungry as he is, as tempting as Lestat is, there is still the desire to simply stay here. Hold him. Sway together. Be near, and breathe, and know that it is enough.
How far can Louis' self-control stretch? He's spent long decades denying himself everything, starving himself, exerting control over his hunger and when it would be sated, how it would be sated, if it would be sated at all. But there has never been anything as tempting as Lestat.
It is hard to remember truly what he tastes like. Louis has fragments, from which he spins out memories, conjecture. He has the small mouthful Lestat gave to him after they woke from the dream with Reaver's death still clinging to them.
But these are only small pieces.
They are kissing and Louis crushes Lestat to him, holds him, hears their hearts fall into perfect sync.
"Tell me again," Louis whispers to him. "One more time."
Lestat breathes in deeply, both to take in what little he can of Louis' scent as well as to let his lungs expand, press his ribcage outward, feel even more tightly the hard, unbreakable grip Louis has on him. How welcome it is to be caught.
Louis asks him this and Lestat is not sure there is any language that could convey the severity of the answer. How much he welcomes Louis' bite. How he had not been lying, that there had been a sweetness in the way Louis had held him while he slit his throat, how terrible and good it felt to be embraced by the one he loves most in the world and destroyed.
It is not, he knows, exactly what they are doing, but when he says, "I want you to do it," it is a surface ripple of a statement over the deeper ocean of feeling beneath. He kisses him in between his answers, continuing, "I want your fangs," a lure, inviting in a way a vampire might hope their meal to be, "And you'll know how much when you take from me."
Lestat had dismissed the possibility so easily. But they have been apart for so long, and Louis' appetite has not diminished. The force behind it is as it has always been, too much, too desirous, too desperate.
And he has never wanted anyone the way he wants Lestat.
They are kissing and Lestat is saying these things, and Louis can feel his fangs sliding down without any conscious thought.
His fingers curl in at the nape of Lestat's neck. Touching, letting his fingertips follow the beat of pulse here, the slide of blood beneath the skin in those most vital veins. His thumb lifts, slides along Lestat's jaw, encouraging his head to turn.
"Lestat," is hushed, soft warning before Louis' fangs graze skin. Not piercing, not yet. A tease of touch, while Louis wavers, testing out the edges of his self-control.
Lestat turns his head, blurry vision sharpening now that his gaze is directed aside. Lamplight, curtains, raw wooden walls. Paying no attention to any of it, just what he can feel of Louis' mouth opening against his throat, and the graze of sharp fangs, this barest touch making his heart jump in his chest, a shot of adrenaline.
"That's it," whispered. An old encouragement.
He could usher him along with more poetry. Speak of how jealous he is of the blood in Louis' veins now, how it should be his, how only then he can touch him as deeply as he would like to, swimming through veins, gathering in his heart. But here, Lestat is sure that his anatomy and all that Louis' vampiric senses can gather from it is doing all the talking required.
So he just holds on closely, hands clenching in woolen layers.
Louis' arm slips around Lestat's waist, crushing him close. Shivering to hear the familiar words in Lestat's mouth, encouraging and coaxing, guiding Louis in those early days of his transformation and then later, when they had fallen into each other in bed and in coffin and on hardwood floors and Lestat had coaxed Louis' fangs out and given him his throat then too.
Everything is different. Lestat is mortal. It has been almost a century of separation. Louis thought they would never do this again.
Hitching breaths, unsteady, as his fingers slide into Lestat's hair. Maybe steeling himself, maybe trying to scrape together enough restraint to cement his own self-control.
Louis is trembling still, arm tightening around Lestat's waist as he gently, gently pierces his skin. It takes everything in him to move slowly, great effort not to bite down as eagerly as he feels.
Blood wells up. Louis moans, soft. Begins to drink.
How painful it is, at first. Sweat slicks Lestat's palms, a human response to injury while he allows himself, happily, to lean his weight against Louis, in his arms, chin tipping further aside. Eyes open, still, watching the patterns in the wooden boards of the wall, and—
Ah, there. Louis begins to drink. Lestat can feel it, heart fluttering when it no longer possesses control of the rhythmic flow of his own blood, even as Louis begins so gently. No, he did not think this would happen again either. That Louis would ever choose to allow it.
Armand had spoken of vermouth. If so, if true, then Lestat's blood and the love it contains recalls the sweet variety, caramel and cherry and clove, cloying and insistent. A ballroom that is remembered as thick and redolent with plantlife, although it was not; a rundown shack, water streaking down the humid, dirty glass like sweat beneath closed shutters, the overgrown vines snaking up the side walls as though their admirer did not move from one spot for some time; a desperate heart beat, something like panic and excitement and fierce love while trying not to let his voice shake so much as he tells a frightened Louis of a promised home while fire thickens the air with smoke.
Sensory, frantic, a familiar clamour that is perhaps all the more vibrant for the way the maker-fledgling divide is gone. Lestat, anyway, is not trying to convey anything, he is only bleeding.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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[ 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. ]
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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. ]
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So Lestat holds it, makes sure it is secure. Says, ]
You won't.
You remember, the first time I took from you.
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[ 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. ]
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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.
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But he is disarmed.
Lestat wants this. It is enough to sway Louis. Louis, who wants this. Wants him. ]
Alright. Yeah, okay.
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Now?
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Yeah.
[ As if now that Louis has fixed it in his mind, no delay can be tolerated.
But, tacked on: ]
When you're ready.
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[ 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
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.
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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.
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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."
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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."
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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?"
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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."
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Remembered words, descriptions offered up to Daniel: It was a cold winter that year, and Lestat was my coal fire. Carefully chosen words, Louis remembers, to describe the last winter of his mortal life and Lestat's presence within it.
He murmurs this now as they twirl, Louis' fingers sliding along Lestat's shoulders to link hands, make the motion into a lazy waltz. Brings them closer, so he might put lips to Lestat's cheek as he speaks.
"Make me forget it's storming outside and the whole village crammed in here with us?"
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Is it storming outside? Is the whole village crammed in here? Lestat hardly notices when Louis is this near to him, swaying in place. It takes no effort at all to lean in just a little more, turn his head, place a kiss against Louis' mouth.
Chaste, just about, despite the way Lestat echoes, "I'll warm you up," is laid on thicker, tangling their hands together in this quasi-waltz they find themselves in. "You tell me your needs, mon cher, and I will attend them."
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And then Lestat's fingers lace through his, and anchors Louis fully into this moment. All things Lestat has offered. The blood in his veins. The familiar clutch of his hand at Louis' waist. The ease of their movement, slow swaying, just as they had made such a habit of in their life before.
Louis noses back in, close, catches his mouth. It is not a chaste kiss. Some heat, some hunger. Some of the things Louis has been holding so tightly in check.
What does Louis need? Is it not clear? Is it not in the force of this kiss, deepening as the sway together, as Louis leans into Lestat while his knuckles whiten in Lestat's grip.
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Louis leans in and Lestat meets him, pressing in close for the sake of it, to feel their bodies map together through the muffling layers of knit. He has wondered before, how long he might have lasted, really, if Louis had come back to him after that first night, if they could have shared more time between then and the night of his turning.
An act of love, he had explained once. The little drink. An ultimate test. He understands Louis had practiced, and it is almost sickening how jealous it makes him to think about.
cw disordered eating
How far can Louis' self-control stretch? He's spent long decades denying himself everything, starving himself, exerting control over his hunger and when it would be sated, how it would be sated, if it would be sated at all. But there has never been anything as tempting as Lestat.
It is hard to remember truly what he tastes like. Louis has fragments, from which he spins out memories, conjecture. He has the small mouthful Lestat gave to him after they woke from the dream with Reaver's death still clinging to them.
But these are only small pieces.
They are kissing and Louis crushes Lestat to him, holds him, hears their hearts fall into perfect sync.
"Tell me again," Louis whispers to him. "One more time."
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Louis asks him this and Lestat is not sure there is any language that could convey the severity of the answer. How much he welcomes Louis' bite. How he had not been lying, that there had been a sweetness in the way Louis had held him while he slit his throat, how terrible and good it felt to be embraced by the one he loves most in the world and destroyed.
It is not, he knows, exactly what they are doing, but when he says, "I want you to do it," it is a surface ripple of a statement over the deeper ocean of feeling beneath. He kisses him in between his answers, continuing, "I want your fangs," a lure, inviting in a way a vampire might hope their meal to be, "And you'll know how much when you take from me."
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It's still true.
Lestat had dismissed the possibility so easily. But they have been apart for so long, and Louis' appetite has not diminished. The force behind it is as it has always been, too much, too desirous, too desperate.
And he has never wanted anyone the way he wants Lestat.
They are kissing and Lestat is saying these things, and Louis can feel his fangs sliding down without any conscious thought.
His fingers curl in at the nape of Lestat's neck. Touching, letting his fingertips follow the beat of pulse here, the slide of blood beneath the skin in those most vital veins. His thumb lifts, slides along Lestat's jaw, encouraging his head to turn.
"Lestat," is hushed, soft warning before Louis' fangs graze skin. Not piercing, not yet. A tease of touch, while Louis wavers, testing out the edges of his self-control.
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"That's it," whispered. An old encouragement.
He could usher him along with more poetry. Speak of how jealous he is of the blood in Louis' veins now, how it should be his, how only then he can touch him as deeply as he would like to, swimming through veins, gathering in his heart. But here, Lestat is sure that his anatomy and all that Louis' vampiric senses can gather from it is doing all the talking required.
So he just holds on closely, hands clenching in woolen layers.
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Everything is different. Lestat is mortal. It has been almost a century of separation. Louis thought they would never do this again.
Hitching breaths, unsteady, as his fingers slide into Lestat's hair. Maybe steeling himself, maybe trying to scrape together enough restraint to cement his own self-control.
Louis is trembling still, arm tightening around Lestat's waist as he gently, gently pierces his skin. It takes everything in him to move slowly, great effort not to bite down as eagerly as he feels.
Blood wells up. Louis moans, soft. Begins to drink.
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Ah, there. Louis begins to drink. Lestat can feel it, heart fluttering when it no longer possesses control of the rhythmic flow of his own blood, even as Louis begins so gently. No, he did not think this would happen again either. That Louis would ever choose to allow it.
Armand had spoken of vermouth. If so, if true, then Lestat's blood and the love it contains recalls the sweet variety, caramel and cherry and clove, cloying and insistent. A ballroom that is remembered as thick and redolent with plantlife, although it was not; a rundown shack, water streaking down the humid, dirty glass like sweat beneath closed shutters, the overgrown vines snaking up the side walls as though their admirer did not move from one spot for some time; a desperate heart beat, something like panic and excitement and fierce love while trying not to let his voice shake so much as he tells a frightened Louis of a promised home while fire thickens the air with smoke.
Sensory, frantic, a familiar clamour that is perhaps all the more vibrant for the way the maker-fledgling divide is gone. Lestat, anyway, is not trying to convey anything, he is only bleeding.
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cw non-con flashbacks
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is this how territory