A different sort of vow they're making, this time. Very direct, not much poetry. But that's what they've needed, since they came back to each other. Since they've been here.
"My companion," as a reminder, hooking back to that altar anyway. What they'd promised each other. What they'd found so difficult to manage, as the years went on. Louis draws his knuckles gently down Lestat's cheek, watching his eyes. Delicately, carefully, Louis asks, "You say it too."
Yes, it feels particularly artless. Simple trades. Honest ones. Endearing.
The promise of companionship had felt so easy, once. They had spent a year this way, sharing evenings, talking for hours, learning one another, creating a shared language of references, little affections, hidden flatteries. And even then, Lestat withholding what he felt he could not share, and Louis denying what he felt he could not express.
It doesn't feel difficult now, only much harder won than he ever would have imagined when he had finally lured Louis into friendship. Into romance. Now, he raises a hand to press Louis' to his cheek, turning his head to kiss into his palm. Something that says, yours, before the other thing is said.
"And you are mine, Louis," he says. "My companion."
He kisses him, a kiss that wanders a little ways to his cheek, jaw, where Lestat can whisper, "And I love you."
Lestat gives him more than he asked for. Gives him this declaration. He's been sparing with confessions of love, maybe a concession to Louis' tight rope walk, balancing distance with the demands of this place, pushing them together over and over.
Hearing it now, Louis is quiet. He takes Lestat's face in his hands, brings him back up to kiss.
Can't say it back. Still frozen, still locked away inside his body. But he kisses Lestat so, so softly.
"You and me," Louis repeats. "Ain't nothing going to change it."
Nothing had. All those long years apart, Louis had done nothing but love him. It is woven so deeply into his body, nothing could change it.
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A different sort of vow they're making, this time. Very direct, not much poetry. But that's what they've needed, since they came back to each other. Since they've been here.
"My companion," as a reminder, hooking back to that altar anyway. What they'd promised each other. What they'd found so difficult to manage, as the years went on. Louis draws his knuckles gently down Lestat's cheek, watching his eyes. Delicately, carefully, Louis asks, "You say it too."
no subject
The promise of companionship had felt so easy, once. They had spent a year this way, sharing evenings, talking for hours, learning one another, creating a shared language of references, little affections, hidden flatteries. And even then, Lestat withholding what he felt he could not share, and Louis denying what he felt he could not express.
It doesn't feel difficult now, only much harder won than he ever would have imagined when he had finally lured Louis into friendship. Into romance. Now, he raises a hand to press Louis' to his cheek, turning his head to kiss into his palm. Something that says, yours, before the other thing is said.
"And you are mine, Louis," he says. "My companion."
He kisses him, a kiss that wanders a little ways to his cheek, jaw, where Lestat can whisper, "And I love you."
no subject
Hearing it now, Louis is quiet. He takes Lestat's face in his hands, brings him back up to kiss.
Can't say it back. Still frozen, still locked away inside his body. But he kisses Lestat so, so softly.
"You and me," Louis repeats. "Ain't nothing going to change it."
Nothing had. All those long years apart, Louis had done nothing but love him. It is woven so deeply into his body, nothing could change it.