Louis shakes his head, and Lestat brings his hand around to cup Louis' cheek, gentle, a stroke of his thumb along his jaw intended to be soothing. Bidding him to say whatever difficult thing is on his tongue, hiding in his throat.
A new familiarity. Louis and his private torments. But not kept quiet, not shut away behind walls of derision and blame. More like the older days, the vulnerable days, when Lestat had been someone he could speak to.
The fond nostalgia retreats to make room for what Louis does say.
The edge of a thumbnail when that touch to Louis' cheek goes still. "He would have you forget it?" Lestat asks. "Your fights."
A swift arithmetic. The things Louis has said already. The promises he has made.
He is still trying to understand this thing, the enormity of it, like a snake who was overambitious about the mammal he is attempting to swallow. Working its way down. But in this one thing, Lestat feels certain.
"You would not. And it does not matter," here, a little more feeling, a little tremble of rising temper. "It doesn't matter because this is not a thing he should do. You aren't some— you aren't a mortal who needs deceiving, and you chose him," little flickers of indignation, clashing, syntactically chaotic as the audacity of these actions from the gremlin all gather together, spark.
Anger with nowhere to go. They are not even in the same dimension as the target of their ire.
But they are here together, in this strange little chapter of their new beginning. A chapter they are not going to erase, that counts towards their future, a strange but important mark. Lestat shifts, less like he is laying against Louis and more a straddle over his legs, the bed creaking.
"You are the most frustrating person to argue with," Lestat says, quiet, warm. "We would go in circles with one another, always returning to the one flaw, like the Lady Macbeth's spot of blood, unscrubbable. And you can stay angry so well, so much better than I can, so perfectly composed in your furies, so purposeful in your departures. The indignities I would endure to back into your good graces."
Hands stroking down Louis' shoulders, back, throat. "But then you would smile at me," he says. "Like the sun rising again after a night that has endured more hours than expected. Perhaps your mood had resolved itself or perhaps I have amused you, I don't mind."
And Armand is an idiot for wishing it all away. Blind and foolish, as usual.
Unexpectedly, Lestat gives him this. Sweet descriptions of what Louis had thought were the ugly parts of himself. Of their marriage. The arguments they had, how stubborn Louis had been, how long they'd drag on.
And Lestat speaks of it all fondly, voice so affectionate. Louis wouldn't have thought he could sound like that while they were talking about all the way they'd argued.
"You make it sound easy," Louis says quietly.
Wasn't it tedious? He knows Armand had made it sound so, when things had snapped during the interview. Not one big snap, but many small fractures leading up to the moment Daniel threw down a collection of pages for Louis to examine.
Armand had thought it tedious, both the arguing and the reconciliation.
Louis doesn't let himself dwell. Asrmand ins't here. Lestat is. They are planning their future, together. It doesn't seem to matter to Lestat that Louis has deep fingerprints in his mind where Armand molded it like so much clay.
"I liked it," Louis tells him. "I liked when you'd let me wind you up and take you to bed."
Because not every argument was deadly serious. Many of their fights in their early years had only been about creating conditions for falling into bed, making it all up to each other until the sun rose.
Not exactly what Louis needed right now, but maybe he'll need this memory of Lestat, in his lap, telling him sweet memories. Louis holds him tighter, kisses his collarbone.
"When did we stop doing that part? The smiling part?"
A quiet little exhale, at easy. No, not easy. But that doesn't make it undesirable. Tedious.
Lestat strokes his hands in circles over Louis' back as his bows his head, kisses him there, and he nuzzles against Louis' temple. Feels a little pang at that question.
"I have wondered about it myself," he says, which feels like an understatement. Obsessed about it, agonised about it, tortured himself with it. When did Louis stop looking at him that way? When did he feel himself become a brittler, more easily injured thing? It wasn't just the fight, although that had seemed to ensure everything broken would stay that way. "And I'm not certain."
He brushes a kiss against Louis' brow. "But you smile at me now."
Two weeks spent with Daniel, unraveling his life, and Louis doesn't have a clear answer either. Was it when he stopped eating? Was it when Lestat brought Antoinette home?
When?
The fight had smashed it all apart, but the cracks had been there. Louis just can't say where they had begun.
"I do," Louis agrees, because they have this much. "I plan on doing some more of that."
They'll fight, Louis knows. They've fought here. They've made it through all of that.
"Tell me you wanna be with me," he prompts. "Remind me you still wanna do all of that."
All of that.
The house. The intertwining of their lives. All the baggage Louis would drag into it with him. Does Lestat still want that?
As long as he does, Louis thinks they can manage the rest. Fit Wrench in between them. Realign the wreckage of Louis' life into something good.
Do you wish to dine on caviar and shipwrecked champagne for all eternity? To wear the Koh-i-Noor on your finger? The question Louis asks—
Well. Lestat can understand it. The desire to hear it.
Still. The corners of his eyes crease in affection, hands drifting up to cup Louis' face tenderly. "I want to be with you," he tells him. "I want everything. All of it. I want to do it, I want it done to me. I want you," this most of all, says the light pressure of his fingertips. "All parts of you. Every little piece."
A hesitation, and his hands fall, rest on Louis' shoulders. "This must be true when we make someone," he tells him. "When you preserve a soul for eternity, it is all facets of them. You cannot hope they change. You cannot make them different. You cannot wish it, or decide it is tolerable. You must love them for everything they are."
Spoken with experience of making Louis, yes, but also his mistakes.
This sentiment, whispered fiercely, causes Lestat's eyes to blur, sting. Nodding, leaning back in, kissing him, clumsy but sweet.
Well, Louis knows what he's doing. Louis is not that much younger than Lestat was when Lestat made him, and has had harder lessons ever since. So no more words on this, just kisses, gaining a little urgency, teeth, the graze of blunt human teeth against Louis' lip before he presses forehead to forehead.
"I still do," he tells him. "I know you."
A stubborn refusal to acknowledge Armand making his mark, maybe, but he believes it. Louis is here, recognisable to him.
Lestat wants to hear three words from Louis. He's offered them to Louis before, spoken them freely. Louis been greedy for them too, greedy to hear Lestat profess his love.
But Lestat says something else in this moment, and Louis feels the words catch him square in the chest. Feels tears prick at his eyes.
It is, maybe unintentionally, what Louis has wanted most to hear.
"Say that again," he asks, finger curling over Lestat's heart. Nails scrape, small lines over the skin, as if Louis could touch his heart. Possess it.
Louis could ask Lestat to bark like a dog and he would, with willing and enthusiasm. It is no chore to repeat himself, which he does,
"I know you,"
with a subtle application of emphasis, fingers splayed across the back of Louis' neck, tipping his head so he can kiss him again. "I wanted to," he tells him, "ever since one violent summer evening, everyone hot blooded and hungry, but none so much as you. I have made it my work and my pleasure, knowing you. And I know you now."
A rueful little twist to his mouth as he adds, "And you know me." For better or worse.
After almost a century. After what Armand had done. What lost memories and lost time and passing years had made of Louis.
Lestat knows him. Recognizes him.
It steals Louis' breath to hear him say it. To repeat it.
"I do," Louis tells him. "I know you now."
Sees Lestat clearer now than he did then, maybe. The benefit of passing time. Of Daniel. Of sifting through his life and recognizing what had been done, what had been lost.
Louis leans in. Kisses that little rueful flex of Lestat's mouth. Stays there, close, kissing him softly as he does.
It is kissed away as Lestat returns this affection, soft and lingering. Body shifting to settle closer where he straddles Louis' lap, arms sliding around him. Less like he is clinging and more like he is keeping Louis, locking him inside the circle of his embrace, for all that Lestat is currently a frailer creature.
It invokes a twinge of feeling in him, the idea of decades passing and Louis having some new perspective of Lestat. Decides that he likes this feeling, that it's welcome.
Maybe this is love. Knowing someone this way, and wanting them. Maybe it's the same. And if he still wants the thing said out loud, well. He's a romantic, what can be said?
"And I wish to know the years we have been apart," he says, between kisses. "Whenever you are ready to tell me them, Louis."
"Not tonight," Louis says softly. "But yeah. We gonna talk about what's gone out while we been away from each other."
A promise.
They shouldn't keep secrets. And it isn't a secret, not really, it's only that Louis doesn't know how to say it all the right way. The way that won't have Lestat looking at him with pity.
They'll find their way. Louis trusts that much at least. They'll find their way forward, together.
He slides both arms around Lestat's waist, draws him more securely into his lap. Lets Lestat hold him in return, takes comfort in this. They fit together, just as they always have.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
A new familiarity. Louis and his private torments. But not kept quiet, not shut away behind walls of derision and blame. More like the older days, the vulnerable days, when Lestat had been someone he could speak to.
The fond nostalgia retreats to make room for what Louis does say.
The edge of a thumbnail when that touch to Louis' cheek goes still. "He would have you forget it?" Lestat asks. "Your fights."
A swift arithmetic. The things Louis has said already. The promises he has made.
no subject
Seventy-seven years. How much did Louis lose in that stretch? Was it just the fights? Were there other things taken away?
He doesn't know. He might never know.
"Yeah," is what he says now. "Armand told me I asked, once. Not sure if it's true."
Did he ask, in Sausalito? Did Louis say, Take all of that away?
He doesn't know. Maybe he did.
no subject
He is still trying to understand this thing, the enormity of it, like a snake who was overambitious about the mammal he is attempting to swallow. Working its way down. But in this one thing, Lestat feels certain.
"You would not. And it does not matter," here, a little more feeling, a little tremble of rising temper. "It doesn't matter because this is not a thing he should do. You aren't some— you aren't a mortal who needs deceiving, and you chose him," little flickers of indignation, clashing, syntactically chaotic as the audacity of these actions from the gremlin all gather together, spark.
no subject
Yes. Louis had chosen Armand.
Maybe he had chosen other things.
(We leave the damage, so we don't forget the damage, Claudia had said. Would Louis have failed her in this too?)
"No," Louis agrees. "He shouldn't have done it. But he did."
Tight, angry. Contained, quiet, because he can hear Lestat's anger. They don't need to fuel each other, not in this.
"And I been trying to figure out who am I now. After eighty years with him."
no subject
But they are here together, in this strange little chapter of their new beginning. A chapter they are not going to erase, that counts towards their future, a strange but important mark. Lestat shifts, less like he is laying against Louis and more a straddle over his legs, the bed creaking.
"You are the most frustrating person to argue with," Lestat says, quiet, warm. "We would go in circles with one another, always returning to the one flaw, like the Lady Macbeth's spot of blood, unscrubbable. And you can stay angry so well, so much better than I can, so perfectly composed in your furies, so purposeful in your departures. The indignities I would endure to back into your good graces."
Hands stroking down Louis' shoulders, back, throat. "But then you would smile at me," he says. "Like the sun rising again after a night that has endured more hours than expected. Perhaps your mood had resolved itself or perhaps I have amused you, I don't mind."
And Armand is an idiot for wishing it all away. Blind and foolish, as usual.
no subject
And Lestat speaks of it all fondly, voice so affectionate. Louis wouldn't have thought he could sound like that while they were talking about all the way they'd argued.
"You make it sound easy," Louis says quietly.
Wasn't it tedious? He knows Armand had made it sound so, when things had snapped during the interview. Not one big snap, but many small fractures leading up to the moment Daniel threw down a collection of pages for Louis to examine.
Armand had thought it tedious, both the arguing and the reconciliation.
Louis doesn't let himself dwell. Asrmand ins't here. Lestat is. They are planning their future, together. It doesn't seem to matter to Lestat that Louis has deep fingerprints in his mind where Armand molded it like so much clay.
"I liked it," Louis tells him. "I liked when you'd let me wind you up and take you to bed."
Because not every argument was deadly serious. Many of their fights in their early years had only been about creating conditions for falling into bed, making it all up to each other until the sun rose.
Not exactly what Louis needed right now, but maybe he'll need this memory of Lestat, in his lap, telling him sweet memories. Louis holds him tighter, kisses his collarbone.
"When did we stop doing that part? The smiling part?"
no subject
Lestat strokes his hands in circles over Louis' back as his bows his head, kisses him there, and he nuzzles against Louis' temple. Feels a little pang at that question.
"I have wondered about it myself," he says, which feels like an understatement. Obsessed about it, agonised about it, tortured himself with it. When did Louis stop looking at him that way? When did he feel himself become a brittler, more easily injured thing? It wasn't just the fight, although that had seemed to ensure everything broken would stay that way. "And I'm not certain."
He brushes a kiss against Louis' brow. "But you smile at me now."
no subject
When?
The fight had smashed it all apart, but the cracks had been there. Louis just can't say where they had begun.
"I do," Louis agrees, because they have this much. "I plan on doing some more of that."
They'll fight, Louis knows. They've fought here. They've made it through all of that.
"Tell me you wanna be with me," he prompts. "Remind me you still wanna do all of that."
All of that.
The house. The intertwining of their lives. All the baggage Louis would drag into it with him. Does Lestat still want that?
As long as he does, Louis thinks they can manage the rest. Fit Wrench in between them. Realign the wreckage of Louis' life into something good.
no subject
Well. Lestat can understand it. The desire to hear it.
Still. The corners of his eyes crease in affection, hands drifting up to cup Louis' face tenderly. "I want to be with you," he tells him. "I want everything. All of it. I want to do it, I want it done to me. I want you," this most of all, says the light pressure of his fingertips. "All parts of you. Every little piece."
A hesitation, and his hands fall, rest on Louis' shoulders. "This must be true when we make someone," he tells him. "When you preserve a soul for eternity, it is all facets of them. You cannot hope they change. You cannot make them different. You cannot wish it, or decide it is tolerable. You must love them for everything they are."
Spoken with experience of making Louis, yes, but also his mistakes.
no subject
Louis sets a hand to Lestat's chest, over where his heart beats. His thumb strokes back and forth, steady, while Louis looks into Lestat's face.
Explains, soft, "I don't want to change him. I just wanna give him what you gave me."
A gift.
It had taken Louis such a long time to understand that.
"You saved me," Louis whispers. Then, fiercely, "You saw me. I was lost, and you saw me."
no subject
Well, Louis knows what he's doing. Louis is not that much younger than Lestat was when Lestat made him, and has had harder lessons ever since. So no more words on this, just kisses, gaining a little urgency, teeth, the graze of blunt human teeth against Louis' lip before he presses forehead to forehead.
"I still do," he tells him. "I know you."
A stubborn refusal to acknowledge Armand making his mark, maybe, but he believes it. Louis is here, recognisable to him.
no subject
But Lestat says something else in this moment, and Louis feels the words catch him square in the chest. Feels tears prick at his eyes.
It is, maybe unintentionally, what Louis has wanted most to hear.
"Say that again," he asks, finger curling over Lestat's heart. Nails scrape, small lines over the skin, as if Louis could touch his heart. Possess it.
no subject
"I know you,"
with a subtle application of emphasis, fingers splayed across the back of Louis' neck, tipping his head so he can kiss him again. "I wanted to," he tells him, "ever since one violent summer evening, everyone hot blooded and hungry, but none so much as you. I have made it my work and my pleasure, knowing you. And I know you now."
A rueful little twist to his mouth as he adds, "And you know me." For better or worse.
no subject
Lestat knows him. Recognizes him.
It steals Louis' breath to hear him say it. To repeat it.
"I do," Louis tells him. "I know you now."
Sees Lestat clearer now than he did then, maybe. The benefit of passing time. Of Daniel. Of sifting through his life and recognizing what had been done, what had been lost.
Louis leans in. Kisses that little rueful flex of Lestat's mouth. Stays there, close, kissing him softly as he does.
no subject
It invokes a twinge of feeling in him, the idea of decades passing and Louis having some new perspective of Lestat. Decides that he likes this feeling, that it's welcome.
Maybe this is love. Knowing someone this way, and wanting them. Maybe it's the same. And if he still wants the thing said out loud, well. He's a romantic, what can be said?
"And I wish to know the years we have been apart," he says, between kisses. "Whenever you are ready to tell me them, Louis."
are we approaching bow territory
A promise.
They shouldn't keep secrets. And it isn't a secret, not really, it's only that Louis doesn't know how to say it all the right way. The way that won't have Lestat looking at him with pity.
They'll find their way. Louis trusts that much at least. They'll find their way forward, together.
He slides both arms around Lestat's waist, draws him more securely into his lap. Lets Lestat hold him in return, takes comfort in this. They fit together, just as they always have.