And Lestat is in this one, the coffin room that had been his, and then his and Louis', and then Louis'. A slow pacing around that takes him to his dresser. That he can't locate his slippers had been a possible sign that perhaps all his things had been stored away, or discarded, but no: he opens a drawer, and here they are.
They are talking in the other room about him, and Lestat takes off his clothes. The marks on his body—twinging, angrily red, most interesting patterns—will fade within the confines of a coffin and the crawl of the sun in the sky, but for now they persist. He presses his fingers against a particularly lurid spread of damage across his ribcage, and the slow spread of his smile at nothing shows only blunt teeth, and fades off into something more tense. The fire crackling in the hearth.
The pyjama pants he was looking for have that unused smell, but everything has been kept just so. They are still talking in the other room as he puts them on. Six years. One coffin. A most humble homecoming.
By the time he hears Louis approach, Lestat has turned back to the room, a white undershirt now pulled over his chest, being adjusted by the time he is no longer alone.
"Ça va?"
He isn't waiting for an answer, instead gesturing to indicate the uneven chamber. "If I must fetch the cabin trunk from the salon, you can at least help me get it up the stairs."
They have delivered their demands, Claudia and Louis. Lestat went up the stairs ahead of them, and Claudia had sat for a long moment, tense with anger.
He's going to do it again, she is saying now, straight-backed at her dressing table. He's gonna hurt you. Again. It's his nature.
And she is saying this aloud intentionally, perhaps. Louis doesn't doubt she held her tongue when they all three sat in the parlor, and Claudia laid out her share of their rules. What she says aloud is perhaps what she wished to have argued before, an opportunity Louis robbed her of when he returned with Lestat in tow and a warning whispered between their minds.
Who's gonna hurt me, when I got you? was placation, and they both knew it. But it had been enough to quell her objections. Louis had kissed her head. They'd said good night.
And now he is stood in the doorway of the room that had been Lestat's, and then their together, and then his alone. And now—
"We ain't fetching the cabin trunk."
The bruises have darkened. Louis can see every place he put his hands on Lestat's skin. He could see them on his arm as Lestat had sat across from Claudia and him, the purpling print of Louis' fingers above his elbow, the star-splash of red across the bone. Louis crosses the room to touch him there, put fingers to the darkening splotches.
"Get in," with a tip of his head.
History repeating. Lestat stood in this room, bare-chested. A single coffin.
Louis touches his arm, and Lestat's hand wanders up, fingertips brushing against the other man's elbow, not quite a grip. Studying him, from where he'd stood at the door, and here, right in front of him. It could be a mistake to imagine that the boundaries between them have been properly shattered along with Antoinette's front door (and bed frame), but there is an instinct that knows better than to start making too many demands.
An invitation. Lestat cocks his head, because a man cannot simply do as he's told without making a little show of the alternative, but then the corner of his mouth turns up.
He steps around him, opening the lid of the handsome casket that is Louis' resting place. The black polished wood and the deep green interior. (Where Claudia would have placed him, where Louis would have rested for so long, days and nights, before managing to make it out.) Home. Lestat ducks down to crawl inside amongst the plush velvet, shifting over to make space.
Then, reaches to receive Louis coming in after. Silent, for a rare moment in time.
Like anywhere else let in the world, Paris is a shithole. Daryl hasn't volunteered this opinion aloud, as doing so would be pointless: he isn't ungrateful, and he doesn't actually mind shitholes. The state it's in his familiar to him. The same rot as in America, the same nearly-nothingness as a crumbling trailer in northern Georgia.
Ten years ago he'd probably laugh. He'd look at the remains of what was once luxury, and think See how it feels. Now he thinks very little about it— and that little is permissive. Acknowledging that it's a shame to see things that people cared about destroyed.
He thinks about Alexandria. He thinks about all the skulls in the catacombs, and how each grinning deaths-head is hopeful. She'll survive this, too.
His first cigarette in Europe is handed to him by a painted up girl (maybe) and he accepts it with a light from her (or not-her) match. Far be it from him to turn down hospitality, even when he's suspicious of it. An elbow on a bartop that seems to exist mostly for show; no bartender, no rows of bottles. Some paintings, maybe from museums, maybe just people here did them, he doesn't know. It is and isn't like how it used to be, and it is and it isn't like how it is now, elsewhere. Daryl used to go to bars, and none of them were like this. Daryl used to participate in community events, and none of them were like this. He doesn't know enough about the world to know if this is like it used to be, for some people, or if this is its own creature.
Either way, he knows he is a transient guest. Just until the embers hit his fingers, and the remains of dried blood and dirt stuck there under his nails.
Maybe Monsieur Dixon doesn't recognise his own novelty.
Although there was certainly a time when Paris was crawling with Americans, that is no longer so, and it's been enough years now that the idea of a tourist is a quaint and funny thing. The human race is naturally migratory, compelled to crawl all over the planet, and eventually they will all find their way back to doing so as they rise and die like struggling crops. But, of course, far be it from a respectable Frenchman to ooh and ahh out loud, just because someone is from out of town.
The man that joins him at the empty bar is not so concerned about respectability. Moving through the underground chamber, which gives no sign of any sense of where the sun might be in the sky, or the moon, Lestat's approach is quiet but not stealthy. In amongst all the colour, the feathers and the glitter, tonight he has opted for textures of blacks that are nevertheless as beautiful and eye-catching as everyone else. Broad lapels and the cut of the lower hem have an old fashioned feel to them, even if an undiscerning eye wouldn't be able to pick the era.
But, then, if this era had a fashion, Daryl is currently exemplifying it.
"Ah, barman, une bière pression," as his folded arms come down onto the bar, a leaning as if to seek someone out on the other side. "And another for our guest here."
There is no barman, of course, something of an apology in the smile Lestat sends Daryl's way as he casts a look sidelong. Nevertheless; "C'est cadeau."
A few weeks in France has not improved his French. Started at nothing, now he's here, still with nothing. It flows over him as if it wasn't spoken at all, his attention only alighting on the out of context bubble sandwiched inside. Perhaps the man speaks English; it seems plenty of French nationals do, still, impressively holding onto their disdain for foreigners attempting their language even over a decade into the end of the world. But perhaps the man just knows that phrase. Like Daryl only knows Hasta la vista.
weve got jokes
Smoke goes in and out of his lungs. His elbow remains on the bar. Ice chip eyes flicker, barely any movement, but taking him in anyway. He observes the man, in his perfect clothes, with his relaxed posture, displaying his well-groomed and squeaky-clean odds and ends. The way it doesn't quite grease the lens that pulls his strong frame into focus.
Daryl turns away from the man and looks back at the paintings again, and takes another slow pull off the coffin nail. He exhales,
It's the eyes that tend to get people, blazing blue, like there's a light within. They don't normally understand why, of course, and Lestat's focus immediately sharpens, a pause following as he tips his head. A flicking glance up and down, a short inhale (blood, and unwashed clothing, and mud, and the wilderness) and a broader smile that shows human-seeming blunt teeth.
"A man who knows what he is looking at," and the accent does not ring of someone who just knows a handful of French, English words tumbling together the way he would speak his native language. "Is that why our selection of fine art has caught your interest?"
The scent of smoke is stronger than anything else he was picking up, which just makes him envious. Lestat fishes into a pocket for the little metal case he keeps there.
It isn't the one that Daniel began. A mortal with a beating heart, easy to follow, easy to spook into taking a sidestreet. No big thing, just some guy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time when the craving comes. It happens. People die all the time for stupider reasons.
Street lamps, the energy-wasting glow of shop interiors that have been closed for hours, the vague haze of light pollution in the sky, and more sensory information than a young vampire might know how to deal with. Lestat (who is here, too, somewhere) has not been studying him for too long, this new one who has been released into the world, but having read the book—well, Molloy has had a more thorough education than most fledglings can hope for.
Anyway. The meat turns the corner, off the road. It's time.
And before Daniel can begin to consider his options, there's a scream, which cuts off with the sound of something wet. In this little sidestreet, blood is spilled and bone cracks, and when the limp body of the man falls away, his throat torn, the figure that now has blood covering half her face and cat-bright eyes turns her focus on Daniel, and gives him a predator's grin as she takes a step nearer.
Another sound, a creak—two figures, climbing up and over wooden fencing, landing together on the pavement, their fangs already dropped and their hunting stares fixed.
Big cities are easy to eat people in. This is not a surprise, to someone who was (at least once) nearly eaten, and who (more than once) has witnessed mundane horrors. Slumped-over figures in alleys and flophouses, week-long hangovers in shitty motel rooms. He aims for moderation, but tries to give himself leeway— if things go bad, better it be with some weirdo nobody will look for. Right? Right. It's a gamble, but most gamblers give up right before they win big, something like that.
And,
well.
Sometimes it's a bust all the way down.
"Uh," he says, which is not helpful. Uh, because in an instant he knows odds are he's screwed, and he knows why, and knew before he published the book. I'll deal with it, fuck 'em. This looks a lot more like getting fucked than fuck 'em!, so brazen and insistent, and boy, that feels like a long time ago.
"Did you—" his mouth starts working sooner than everything else (as usual), internal organs still all upside down with alarm, "I'm first, right? You're not here after finding Louis?"
Lizardbrain. Panic. Just leave that poor guy alone. It's Daniel's fault, whatever, fine, and hey, you know what, "Normal people these days just leave mean reviews on Goodreads, you should join the modern era before you get made over trying to buy thirty gallons of cow's blood and an antique scarf collection with a paper checkbook."
He's got his coming, one of them says. Something odd about their voice, like an echo, the kind of tone that might make something further down the food chain piss itself.
Colloquial. Maybe not so old. Or maybe just one of them is.
And it doesn't matter. That one makes the first move, the world slowing while he speeds up, and the clash that follows is even faster. With all the reckless abandon of a jungle predator, a fourth shape is simply on him out of nowhere, a blur of fabric and a flash of blonde that shows up brassy beneath an angle of lamplight struggling in from the street.
The scent of immortal blood, gushing as the vampire sprawls on one side, most of his throat gone, hands clawing. The second one just nearby has barely a chance to stand his ground and bare his teeth by the time he is grabbed and flung bodily back against the fence he'd come over, wood smashing into splinters on impact. Something about the motion like a dance, before it isn't.
Lestat finishes his turn on a heel, blood coating one hand as thick as a glove, and spattered across his face, hair wild from the rush. Sets bright blue eyes on Daniel, and the spread of his smile, while also full of fangs, is only as threatening as Daniel might make it.
And on Daniel's other side, the first vampire has hesitated, her heel scraping across the pavement in a step back.
Still adjusting to, a small sample of items: processing things happening so fast, much less being able to move that fast himself. The violence before him moves too quick for human eyes to follow, yet Daniel's eyes do. He remembers—
(He remembers. That's the important part.)
Nothing that helps. He has little experience besides sitting and watching. Not pinned down, now, not held hostage, but potentially just as useless given his inexperience. In his mind's eye, he tries to imagine himself throwing a punch. Going for the throat, the eyes. Comical. Maybe he should more seriously consider giving it a go, though, before that friendly-in-a-Stephen-King-way grin starts looming too much closer.
"Hi."
A cheerful greeting. Everything is fine! And normal. Daniel raises a hand in hello, and then swivels his person to the woman who seems to wishing she hadn't gotten out of bed this evening.
"Can we help you?"
Yeah it's a 'we' now. Get into it. Sharknado Smile over here might also be a problem, but he'll take one single problem over being jumped by a gang of problems.
Was Louis screaming still, when the coffin lid raised?
Claudia is dead. Louis is alive, but only just.
Claudia is dead. That is the only thing left to him now, now that he has run out of hallucination and fantasy, now that all strength and energy has ebbed away. Claudia is dead. Louis does not wish to be alive.
The blood finds him anyway.
Droplets of blood slipping through rocks, down and down and down, to find Louis.
Claudia is dead.
Louis sits up.
His mouth is full of blood and stones. This is animal instinct. A living body which does not wish to die, even if the mind has given over gladly to the thought.
No one asked Louis if he wished to live. Why would he? Claudia is dead.
But he is siting upright among the stones, breath coming heavily, wetly, through a mouthful of blood. Rocks drip from his lips, clatter back down to join the rest. Louis rakes an unsteady hand through them, lifting a second handful back up.
He's alive. Claudia is dead. There is little room for anything else in these first moments, this liminal space half in, half out of the coffin.
There is only the smallest shred of his mind growing aware that the blood Louis is sucking from these rocks belongs to Lestat.
It's dark, here, no fire, no moonlight, just brick and shadow. But nothing will ever be as dark as the inside of the coffin that Louis is still half-buried in.
Because shadows veil very little to them, and once Louis has enough wherewithal to do so, he'll be able to follow the mystery of the taste of Lestat's blood in his mouth to the shape of Lestat several feet away. Kneeling, arms wound around himself—a tight, coiled in posture that speaks less of wanting to be small, of wanting to defend himself, and more of restraint.
There is no restraint in his regard, gaze fixed and mouth parted, the sign of relief of great torment now (in part) drained away.
Barely voiced, the way he says, "Louis," in more wonderment than a meaningful attempt to draw focus.
It doesn't register, not immediately. Louis coughs, spills saliva and stone back down into the casket. A great shudder of hunger wrenches though his body. Fangs gleam in his mouth.
The taste—
"Lestat," falls out of his mouth before Louis realizes he is speaking. Recognizing the taste, feeling the lurch of want in his gut. (In the middle of everything, in the midst of betrayal and ridicule, Louis had felt it. Love.)
And then, ragged, voice breaking, "Claudia."
Louis wants it to be a question. But he had known, known all the while he was withering to death in this coffin.
Which alleviates Lestat from the burden of answering it. Sets his mouth hard against the immediate and wild snap of emotion he feels, a barely leashed wild dog of a thing. Swallows, and then moves.
The cuff at one sleeve is already open, and the wound that he'd made in his wrist has closed. When he redraws it with a claw, it's only shallowly, only enough to tempt the instinct that's dropped Louis' fangs and guide it to what it wants to do. He could tear open his flesh and allow blood to pour freely, and yet,
his other hand goes out, touching Louis' shoulder, while he offers his wrist, the trace blood smeared there. "Here," he says. "One thing at a time."
In the back of the towncar, back to their hotel, Gwenaëlle attempts to process what has just happened.
A preliminary deal has been reached: a feature, a figure, the yet-to-be-determined tour dates that will make up the limited appearances Emeric will personally make joining him on stage. Agents and lawyers and probably Guilfoyle will hammer out a final agreement and until such time this is a gentleman's handshake and about as reliable... but de Lioncourt has excellent representation. They expect to see a contract next week, to be signed if satisfactory by the end of the next. It is certainly enough to be getting on with, and Emeric beside her is already thinking out loud although if pressed she couldn't be drawn on anything he's said for the last ten minutes.
The vampire, Lestat.
And he was.
Is.
She'd assumed, like so many other people with more excuse for the incredulity, that Molloy's book is a bunch of bullshit. An interesting meditation on grief and memory and monstrousness, lessened by his insistence that it's totally legit— nevermind that she knows vampires are real, what the fuck sort of vampire is going around publishing his life story?
de Lioncourt had seemed an obvious opportunist, either an outright grifter or a talented musician on the come up who'd seen an opening to do something splashy. Her father had taken the meeting, against her advice, because it'd sounded like a lark either way; the inquiry had piqued his curiosity, though he'd had low expectations going in. Now, of course, whoever the fellow really is was his new favourite fucking person, as magnetic as advertised, and he had been advertised because he was a real fucking vampire.
She had known it as soon as they'd walked into the room. She is almost certain he knew, just as quick, her recognition.
If she'd even considered it was a possibility she'd have been better positioned to pivot, to prevent—
“And we're expected at ten,” Emeric says, drawing her back to the present with a squeeze and pat of her knee. “I thought we might go to dinner first, sweetheart.”
Because Lestat would not be joining them for dinner. Because they were going to meet him later. Because he was a fucking vampire.
“Ten,” she repeats back to him, dutifully, “at— where are we meeting them?”
Him.
“That club you like, with the interior stage,” circular, in the center of the multiple balcony levels above and below it, “you remember, you threw me that lovely tour closer there last year.”
“Oh,” she says, “great. Yeah. Sure, dinner, first.”
It had been a good meeting and Lestat had been on his best behaviour, grading on a curve. Dressed in a beautiful three-piece suit, silk tie, business in silhouette and rockstar in colour and material, golden hair down in glorious curls, and moving among mortals with all the confidence of a tiger that's slipped the cage. He has demonstrated himself to be, probably, something of a control freak with exacting standards as far as music is concerned, but the kind ready to put his faith in those who are the same kind of monster as he.
He has gotten accustomed to charming mortals. Surviving the drudgery that launching a brand new music career on the scale he is after requires through exuding a wholly unnatural kind of charisma, drawing people in, allowing them to fall in love.
So he was attuned to the way the two Wynne-Yorks do something like it themselves. Among other things.
They part ways. He also has dinner.
And is flush with it when he arrives at the club, a little past ten, skin warm, showing up human beneath the lights, save for the ways his eyes flash unnatural blue. He has also changed. Sensible shoes have been switched for boots with a four inch heel, as much a nod to 18th century sensibilities as near-contemporary throwback fashion. A suit, still, black and silver pinstripe, but the slouchy shirt beneath exposes more collarbone than is decent, glimmers with metallic thread.
Unlike the meeting, too, he arrives with no entourage. Sure, some of his people will be coming, and are already here, ready to hoist champagne glasses and mingle, but Lestat saunters in through the front door alone, taking a moment to appreciate the noisy clamour through senses both ordinary and not, and then picks out one thread in the noise.
Maybe Gwenaëlle will feel it, the slight psychic tug that, for most, might have the hairs on the back of one's neck stand on end. The sense of a reeling, save that she isn't been drawn anywhere, but someone drawing themself to her.
The Wynne-Yorks have separated, which upon examination appears the usual for them: Emeric holds court wherever he goes, a chaotic riot of enthralling good nature (until it isn't) (but that's later, don't worry about it), and Gwenaëlle—
is not alone, exactly, but no one sitting nearby is important, and when she surveys her immediate surroundings with a moue of faint displeasure and breathes out hard through her nose, the lingering trail of her father's admirers disperse with only the vague, unsettled feeling that they would rather find somewhere else to be. Too quiet, too still, boring, no sense to the lingering on this balcony, although Lestat's appearance upon the stairs nearly derails the last of them descending.
He is dazzling. Gwenaëlle frowns, and then tries not to.
“Mssr de Lioncourt,” she greets him, setting her glass down, her hands tellingly restless in this modern, smoke-free joint. “The man of the hour.”
If he were someone else (who wasn't a fucking vampire) then she might, then she would by habit and inclination divert him to her father, who has found his own diversions for the evening and will be delighted to see monsieur but, equally, may be charmingly convinced during his hangover tomorrow that he certainly did, at some point, probably. He is having a delightful time. A tall, gaunt man who looks as if he has never had a delightful time in all of his life is not far from his side,
but Lestat is a different kind of problem.
Gwenaëlle crosses her knees, sitting slightly forward; a profusion of feathers there at the hem of her scant, sparkling cream slip-dress, the high heels she's wearing enough to likely bring her up to his shoulder if she stood, which she doesn't. Despite the convincing simulacrum of humanity that she wears, there are no hairs on most parts of her body to stand up or otherwise, a predator designed for an entirely different environment, but the sensation lingers, anyway, told in the careful posture, the caution that she regards him with.
It looks alien on her, more ill-fitting than her human-seeming. The call of the void walks in, embodied, and it isn't second nature to her not to leap.
It is numbing, hearing them together. Lestat's frustration, ugly summation of feelings harbored for him, for Claudia. The sound of them, together on the bed.
The inevitability of her. Antoinette. Still alive.
They walk home, Claudia's simmering anger gathering heat. Louis does not join her in her anger. The numbness washes over him, a thick frost sharpening to ice, deadening everything inside of him.
They sit together. Claudia watches him as she draws, and the radio plays, and Louis tries to work out the depth of his own hurt.
It would be easier if anger would come. But it remains trapped, frozen, locked inside his body.
Lestat comes home, eventually. Lestat returns and he does not smell of anything but himself. He's been clever. He's always been clever, when it comes to concealing Antoinette. Laid low time and again by Claudia, inclined to pry where Louis is not.
They go together to coffin. Louis beds down, taking his rejoinders to Claudia with him. His understanding. The inevitability. Antoinette. Louis, and the ways in which he is not enough. (The memory of laughter, Lestat's laughter and absence of answer, the one time Louis had asked—)
Maybe he makes a decision then, that night. Maybe he decides when Lestat folds himself into the coffin alongside him, kisses him as if nothing has changed. (Nothing has changed. That is true.) Louis kisses him back.
Inevitable.
They hunt. Claudia watches Louis. Lestat goes about his business. Louis' hurt calcifies.
Lestat excuses himself from their company one night. Louis gives him an hour head start before he follows. Holds the thought in his head: Lestat said he was hunting alone, perhaps he is hunting alone. But Lestat hunts nothing but Antoinette's doorstep, vanishing inside. Louis stands in the shadow, watching the window for a long stretch. The decision Louis has carried crystalizes, turns from a passing thought to serious intent.
By now, Louis has no business to run. No mortal family to inflict his presence upon. Nothing but Lestat, and Claudia, their company, to occupy his time. Louis is patient. He waits, locked silent and cold in the tundra of his mind. He has a plan. He waits for opportunity. Does not consult Claudia.
Waits. And waits.
Waits for the night when Lestat and Claudia go together to hunt. A show of companionship in the wake of argument. It will pass, Louis knows. But they leave him and his qualms behind, and so Louis walks the well-worn path to Antoinette's home.
She knows, Louis thinks. She knows instantly upon seeing him in her doorway.
She has a slow-healing mark from Lestat's teeth at her throat.
In spite of it all, Louis has some mercy. (Has nothing but cold rage, easier to think through.) It is very quick, her death. He feels no relief, no particular pleasure. She's gone. He remains.
Louis sits. Lights a cigarette. Waits. No need to do anything else, when Louis is certain Lestat will find his way in due time.
He returns to 1132 Rue Royale alongside Claudia, satisfied with the small massacre they achieved together. They take the backstreets, him with two bodies beneath his arms, her with a bundle of her own held at her hip, limp feet dragging behind. There is no conversation shared, and in the courtyard, the bodies dropped on the flagstone, Lestat considers the empty building. Louis has gone. Gone on some melancholy walk, no doubt.
He instructs Claudia to dispose of the bodies, and after changing his blood-spattered clothes, leaves, harbouring dim awareness that she will do it as fuel for her resentment, and Lestat happy to indulge it.
Back out into the evening, and Lestat considers tracking down Louis. Considers it, even as he walks the familiar path to Algiers, crossing the river. Pays attention to his surroundings. If he sees Louis, pacing the river or posted on the bridge, he will of course go to him, and see if there is an evening to be made together.
And if he does not, well. He has one constant he can rely on.
Smokes a cigarette as he goes. Recalls the bottle of bourbon on Antoinette's nightstand. She will sink her (gloved) fingers into his hair and whisper I love you, I love you, I love you into his ear, as she knows he likes it very much. He makes it all the way to her front door before he gets the sense that something is wrong. Fresh death, blood. Lestat touches the door handle, turns it. No locks stop him from swinging the door open.
Fresh death, blood, and Louis. The shock of it sets him outside of himself, voice catching in his throat. Then, heavier footsteps, moving through the house to find—Antoinette, Louis, whoever he finds first, and the front door slamming closed behind him.
A detached twist of hurt for it, Lestat arriving. Louis had planned on it. Louis had hoped he wouldn't arrive.
Familiar footfalls, heeled boots on the floorboards. Louis stubs out his cigarette. Waits.
Antoinette is on the floor. Louis is sitting, an armchair dragged across the room from it's former place in the corner opposite the bed.
They are both of them bloody.
Lestat arrives in the doorway. Louis looks at him, jaw tight. Something detached too in his expression, an absence of satisfaction, of malice. The thing is done. Louis cannot (would not?) take it back.
Rivulets of water running from the sodden coat he wears still, small puddles marking all the places Lestat had stood as he had ghosted along behind Louis through the hotel lobby. The desk clerk' eyes moving from Louis to Lestat and back again, light skimming of his mind turning up curiosity but the same careful absence of true questions Louis very much remembers from his youth.
New Orleans is given to strange things. Two men walking in out of a hurricane is hardly the strangest story folks here will have heard.
In the elevator, Louis watches Lestat's reflection in the gleaming gold doors. Surreal to be standing so close to him. It is as if a limb has been reattached. As if his heart beats again.
Louis has said raw, tender things to him while the wind tore at Lestat's cottage.
They'd argued after, of course. Lestat cannot ride out a hurricane in a ramshackle cottage. Louis didn't trust their chances in a waterlogged coffin.
No, he would not leave Lestat there.
But now that they are here, Louis has considered he doesn't know what he's doing. For the first time in so many years, he is simply operating on instinct. Going home. Going to Lestat. Taking Lestat from his cottage, no real thought to what comes next.
Lestat has dripped a sizeable puddle across the floor of the elevator by the time the doors open. Louis steps out, trusting Lestat to follow as he leads him down the hallway to his room. Swipes it open, sees the lavish furnishings and oversized bed, Louis' travel coffin still closed at the foot of the bed alongside his suitcase. Breathes out. Okay.
"We'll go back tomorrow," he promises. "Sort your place out. The storm'll be past by then."
In lieu of, What now?
Now that they are here, together, in this quiet room.
But, okay, yes, the housecoat he had first purchased over a century ago does not take well to a dousing, hanging off him heavily and still running with water. Improper, to wear one outside the house, but it had been expressed to Lestat that there was a bad storm, that they needed to leave, and so, here he is. Here they are. A wild chase through the rain, and then moving through the hotel where mortals knew to keep their distance.
His face it still burning from the kisses peppered down one side of it. Lestat feels off-balanced, as if he's never known steadiness before Louis had put his arms around him. Lightheaded. His dinner, the poor rats in their cage probably drowned. He knows he is staring, but can't help it.
Louis, here. Or rather: Lestat, here. An out of place element.
Breaks his focus off Louis, takes in the room. The bed, the coffin, the kitchen area with its coffee maker, the humming fridge, the wall mounted television, the panel with its temperature settings. An odd collection of familiar and alien. He had left his tablet behind. He thinks of it now, and his speakers, probably trashed. No matter.
Tomorrow, he will go back.
"It's fine," he says, and clears his throat when his voice comes out like a whisper. "I can take care of it."
A pause. Lestat looks lost. Louis wants to gather him into his arms again.
"I know," Louis says quietly. "I want to help."
Deliberately choosing to say it this way, rather than any of the other ways Louis could try to coax Lestat into accepting even this small thing. Maybe they'll argue about this too, about what Louis should be doing, what Lestat is capable of.
Whether Louis has any right to offer him more than what he has.
"We should hang that up," is a diversion, of sorts. A tip of his chin towards the sodden house coat. "Get you warm, maybe fed."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
it's me i'm first.
no subject
And Lestat is in this one, the coffin room that had been his, and then his and Louis', and then Louis'. A slow pacing around that takes him to his dresser. That he can't locate his slippers had been a possible sign that perhaps all his things had been stored away, or discarded, but no: he opens a drawer, and here they are.
They are talking in the other room about him, and Lestat takes off his clothes. The marks on his body—twinging, angrily red, most interesting patterns—will fade within the confines of a coffin and the crawl of the sun in the sky, but for now they persist. He presses his fingers against a particularly lurid spread of damage across his ribcage, and the slow spread of his smile at nothing shows only blunt teeth, and fades off into something more tense. The fire crackling in the hearth.
The pyjama pants he was looking for have that unused smell, but everything has been kept just so. They are still talking in the other room as he puts them on. Six years. One coffin. A most humble homecoming.
By the time he hears Louis approach, Lestat has turned back to the room, a white undershirt now pulled over his chest, being adjusted by the time he is no longer alone.
"Ça va?"
He isn't waiting for an answer, instead gesturing to indicate the uneven chamber. "If I must fetch the cabin trunk from the salon, you can at least help me get it up the stairs."
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He's going to do it again, she is saying now, straight-backed at her dressing table. He's gonna hurt you. Again. It's his nature.
And she is saying this aloud intentionally, perhaps. Louis doesn't doubt she held her tongue when they all three sat in the parlor, and Claudia laid out her share of their rules. What she says aloud is perhaps what she wished to have argued before, an opportunity Louis robbed her of when he returned with Lestat in tow and a warning whispered between their minds.
Who's gonna hurt me, when I got you? was placation, and they both knew it. But it had been enough to quell her objections. Louis had kissed her head. They'd said good night.
And now he is stood in the doorway of the room that had been Lestat's, and then their together, and then his alone. And now—
"We ain't fetching the cabin trunk."
The bruises have darkened. Louis can see every place he put his hands on Lestat's skin. He could see them on his arm as Lestat had sat across from Claudia and him, the purpling print of Louis' fingers above his elbow, the star-splash of red across the bone. Louis crosses the room to touch him there, put fingers to the darkening splotches.
"Get in," with a tip of his head.
History repeating. Lestat stood in this room, bare-chested. A single coffin.
This time, Louis is making the invitation.
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An invitation. Lestat cocks his head, because a man cannot simply do as he's told without making a little show of the alternative, but then the corner of his mouth turns up.
He steps around him, opening the lid of the handsome casket that is Louis' resting place. The black polished wood and the deep green interior. (Where Claudia would have placed him, where Louis would have rested for so long, days and nights, before managing to make it out.) Home. Lestat ducks down to crawl inside amongst the plush velvet, shifting over to make space.
Then, reaches to receive Louis coming in after. Silent, for a rare moment in time.
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dans paris.
Ten years ago he'd probably laugh. He'd look at the remains of what was once luxury, and think See how it feels. Now he thinks very little about it— and that little is permissive. Acknowledging that it's a shame to see things that people cared about destroyed.
He thinks about Alexandria. He thinks about all the skulls in the catacombs, and how each grinning deaths-head is hopeful. She'll survive this, too.
His first cigarette in Europe is handed to him by a painted up girl (maybe) and he accepts it with a light from her (or not-her) match. Far be it from him to turn down hospitality, even when he's suspicious of it. An elbow on a bartop that seems to exist mostly for show; no bartender, no rows of bottles. Some paintings, maybe from museums, maybe just people here did them, he doesn't know. It is and isn't like how it used to be, and it is and it isn't like how it is now, elsewhere. Daryl used to go to bars, and none of them were like this. Daryl used to participate in community events, and none of them were like this. He doesn't know enough about the world to know if this is like it used to be, for some people, or if this is its own creature.
Either way, he knows he is a transient guest. Just until the embers hit his fingers, and the remains of dried blood and dirt stuck there under his nails.
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Although there was certainly a time when Paris was crawling with Americans, that is no longer so, and it's been enough years now that the idea of a tourist is a quaint and funny thing. The human race is naturally migratory, compelled to crawl all over the planet, and eventually they will all find their way back to doing so as they rise and die like struggling crops. But, of course, far be it from a respectable Frenchman to ooh and ahh out loud, just because someone is from out of town.
The man that joins him at the empty bar is not so concerned about respectability. Moving through the underground chamber, which gives no sign of any sense of where the sun might be in the sky, or the moon, Lestat's approach is quiet but not stealthy. In amongst all the colour, the feathers and the glitter, tonight he has opted for textures of blacks that are nevertheless as beautiful and eye-catching as everyone else. Broad lapels and the cut of the lower hem have an old fashioned feel to them, even if an undiscerning eye wouldn't be able to pick the era.
But, then, if this era had a fashion, Daryl is currently exemplifying it.
"Ah, barman, une bière pression," as his folded arms come down onto the bar, a leaning as if to seek someone out on the other side. "And another for our guest here."
There is no barman, of course, something of an apology in the smile Lestat sends Daryl's way as he casts a look sidelong. Nevertheless; "C'est cadeau."
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weve got jokes
Smoke goes in and out of his lungs. His elbow remains on the bar. Ice chip eyes flicker, barely any movement, but taking him in anyway. He observes the man, in his perfect clothes, with his relaxed posture, displaying his well-groomed and squeaky-clean odds and ends. The way it doesn't quite grease the lens that pulls his strong frame into focus.
Daryl turns away from the man and looks back at the paintings again, and takes another slow pull off the coffin nail. He exhales,
"Weird ghillie suit."
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"A man who knows what he is looking at," and the accent does not ring of someone who just knows a handful of French, English words tumbling together the way he would speak his native language. "Is that why our selection of fine art has caught your interest?"
The scent of smoke is stronger than anything else he was picking up, which just makes him envious. Lestat fishes into a pocket for the little metal case he keeps there.
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new kid on the block.
It isn't the one that Daniel began. A mortal with a beating heart, easy to follow, easy to spook into taking a sidestreet. No big thing, just some guy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time when the craving comes. It happens. People die all the time for stupider reasons.
Street lamps, the energy-wasting glow of shop interiors that have been closed for hours, the vague haze of light pollution in the sky, and more sensory information than a young vampire might know how to deal with. Lestat (who is here, too, somewhere) has not been studying him for too long, this new one who has been released into the world, but having read the book—well, Molloy has had a more thorough education than most fledglings can hope for.
Anyway. The meat turns the corner, off the road. It's time.
And before Daniel can begin to consider his options, there's a scream, which cuts off with the sound of something wet. In this little sidestreet, blood is spilled and bone cracks, and when the limp body of the man falls away, his throat torn, the figure that now has blood covering half her face and cat-bright eyes turns her focus on Daniel, and gives him a predator's grin as she takes a step nearer.
Another sound, a creak—two figures, climbing up and over wooden fencing, landing together on the pavement, their fangs already dropped and their hunting stares fixed.
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And,
well.
Sometimes it's a bust all the way down.
"Uh," he says, which is not helpful. Uh, because in an instant he knows odds are he's screwed, and he knows why, and knew before he published the book. I'll deal with it, fuck 'em. This looks a lot more like getting fucked than fuck 'em!, so brazen and insistent, and boy, that feels like a long time ago.
"Did you—" his mouth starts working sooner than everything else (as usual), internal organs still all upside down with alarm, "I'm first, right? You're not here after finding Louis?"
Lizardbrain. Panic. Just leave that poor guy alone. It's Daniel's fault, whatever, fine, and hey, you know what, "Normal people these days just leave mean reviews on Goodreads, you should join the modern era before you get made over trying to buy thirty gallons of cow's blood and an antique scarf collection with a paper checkbook."
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Colloquial. Maybe not so old. Or maybe just one of them is.
And it doesn't matter. That one makes the first move, the world slowing while he speeds up, and the clash that follows is even faster. With all the reckless abandon of a jungle predator, a fourth shape is simply on him out of nowhere, a blur of fabric and a flash of blonde that shows up brassy beneath an angle of lamplight struggling in from the street.
The scent of immortal blood, gushing as the vampire sprawls on one side, most of his throat gone, hands clawing. The second one just nearby has barely a chance to stand his ground and bare his teeth by the time he is grabbed and flung bodily back against the fence he'd come over, wood smashing into splinters on impact. Something about the motion like a dance, before it isn't.
Lestat finishes his turn on a heel, blood coating one hand as thick as a glove, and spattered across his face, hair wild from the rush. Sets bright blue eyes on Daniel, and the spread of his smile, while also full of fangs, is only as threatening as Daniel might make it.
And on Daniel's other side, the first vampire has hesitated, her heel scraping across the pavement in a step back.
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(He remembers. That's the important part.)
Nothing that helps. He has little experience besides sitting and watching. Not pinned down, now, not held hostage, but potentially just as useless given his inexperience. In his mind's eye, he tries to imagine himself throwing a punch. Going for the throat, the eyes. Comical. Maybe he should more seriously consider giving it a go, though, before that friendly-in-a-Stephen-King-way grin starts looming too much closer.
"Hi."
A cheerful greeting. Everything is fine! And normal. Daniel raises a hand in hello, and then swivels his person to the woman who seems to wishing she hadn't gotten out of bed this evening.
"Can we help you?"
Yeah it's a 'we' now. Get into it. Sharknado Smile over here might also be a problem, but he'll take one single problem over being jumped by a gang of problems.
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Was Louis screaming still, when the coffin lid raised?
Claudia is dead. Louis is alive, but only just.
Claudia is dead. That is the only thing left to him now, now that he has run out of hallucination and fantasy, now that all strength and energy has ebbed away. Claudia is dead. Louis does not wish to be alive.
The blood finds him anyway.
Droplets of blood slipping through rocks, down and down and down, to find Louis.
Claudia is dead.
Louis sits up.
His mouth is full of blood and stones. This is animal instinct. A living body which does not wish to die, even if the mind has given over gladly to the thought.
No one asked Louis if he wished to live. Why would he? Claudia is dead.
But he is siting upright among the stones, breath coming heavily, wetly, through a mouthful of blood. Rocks drip from his lips, clatter back down to join the rest. Louis rakes an unsteady hand through them, lifting a second handful back up.
He's alive. Claudia is dead. There is little room for anything else in these first moments, this liminal space half in, half out of the coffin.
There is only the smallest shred of his mind growing aware that the blood Louis is sucking from these rocks belongs to Lestat.
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Because shadows veil very little to them, and once Louis has enough wherewithal to do so, he'll be able to follow the mystery of the taste of Lestat's blood in his mouth to the shape of Lestat several feet away. Kneeling, arms wound around himself—a tight, coiled in posture that speaks less of wanting to be small, of wanting to defend himself, and more of restraint.
There is no restraint in his regard, gaze fixed and mouth parted, the sign of relief of great torment now (in part) drained away.
Barely voiced, the way he says, "Louis," in more wonderment than a meaningful attempt to draw focus.
Louis is alive.
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It doesn't register, not immediately. Louis coughs, spills saliva and stone back down into the casket. A great shudder of hunger wrenches though his body. Fangs gleam in his mouth.
The taste—
"Lestat," falls out of his mouth before Louis realizes he is speaking. Recognizing the taste, feeling the lurch of want in his gut. (In the middle of everything, in the midst of betrayal and ridicule, Louis had felt it. Love.)
And then, ragged, voice breaking, "Claudia."
Louis wants it to be a question. But he had known, known all the while he was withering to death in this coffin.
Claudia is dead.
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Which alleviates Lestat from the burden of answering it. Sets his mouth hard against the immediate and wild snap of emotion he feels, a barely leashed wild dog of a thing. Swallows, and then moves.
The cuff at one sleeve is already open, and the wound that he'd made in his wrist has closed. When he redraws it with a claw, it's only shallowly, only enough to tempt the instinct that's dropped Louis' fangs and guide it to what it wants to do. He could tear open his flesh and allow blood to pour freely, and yet,
his other hand goes out, touching Louis' shoulder, while he offers his wrist, the trace blood smeared there. "Here," he says. "One thing at a time."
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inappropriate icon moment
hearty lol
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A preliminary deal has been reached: a feature, a figure, the yet-to-be-determined tour dates that will make up the limited appearances Emeric will personally make joining him on stage. Agents and lawyers and probably Guilfoyle will hammer out a final agreement and until such time this is a gentleman's handshake and about as reliable... but de Lioncourt has excellent representation. They expect to see a contract next week, to be signed if satisfactory by the end of the next. It is certainly enough to be getting on with, and Emeric beside her is already thinking out loud although if pressed she couldn't be drawn on anything he's said for the last ten minutes.
The vampire, Lestat.
And he was.
Is.
She'd assumed, like so many other people with more excuse for the incredulity, that Molloy's book is a bunch of bullshit. An interesting meditation on grief and memory and monstrousness, lessened by his insistence that it's totally legit— nevermind that she knows vampires are real, what the fuck sort of vampire is going around publishing his life story?
de Lioncourt had seemed an obvious opportunist, either an outright grifter or a talented musician on the come up who'd seen an opening to do something splashy. Her father had taken the meeting, against her advice, because it'd sounded like a lark either way; the inquiry had piqued his curiosity, though he'd had low expectations going in. Now, of course, whoever the fellow really is was his new favourite fucking person, as magnetic as advertised, and he had been advertised because he was a real fucking vampire.
She had known it as soon as they'd walked into the room. She is almost certain he knew, just as quick, her recognition.
If she'd even considered it was a possibility she'd have been better positioned to pivot, to prevent—
“And we're expected at ten,” Emeric says, drawing her back to the present with a squeeze and pat of her knee. “I thought we might go to dinner first, sweetheart.”
Because Lestat would not be joining them for dinner. Because they were going to meet him later. Because he was a fucking vampire.
“Ten,” she repeats back to him, dutifully, “at— where are we meeting them?”
Him.
“That club you like, with the interior stage,” circular, in the center of the multiple balcony levels above and below it, “you remember, you threw me that lovely tour closer there last year.”
“Oh,” she says, “great. Yeah. Sure, dinner, first.”
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He has gotten accustomed to charming mortals. Surviving the drudgery that launching a brand new music career on the scale he is after requires through exuding a wholly unnatural kind of charisma, drawing people in, allowing them to fall in love.
So he was attuned to the way the two Wynne-Yorks do something like it themselves. Among other things.
They part ways. He also has dinner.
And is flush with it when he arrives at the club, a little past ten, skin warm, showing up human beneath the lights, save for the ways his eyes flash unnatural blue. He has also changed. Sensible shoes have been switched for boots with a four inch heel, as much a nod to 18th century sensibilities as near-contemporary throwback fashion. A suit, still, black and silver pinstripe, but the slouchy shirt beneath exposes more collarbone than is decent, glimmers with metallic thread.
Unlike the meeting, too, he arrives with no entourage. Sure, some of his people will be coming, and are already here, ready to hoist champagne glasses and mingle, but Lestat saunters in through the front door alone, taking a moment to appreciate the noisy clamour through senses both ordinary and not, and then picks out one thread in the noise.
Maybe Gwenaëlle will feel it, the slight psychic tug that, for most, might have the hairs on the back of one's neck stand on end. The sense of a reeling, save that she isn't been drawn anywhere, but someone drawing themself to her.
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is not alone, exactly, but no one sitting nearby is important, and when she surveys her immediate surroundings with a moue of faint displeasure and breathes out hard through her nose, the lingering trail of her father's admirers disperse with only the vague, unsettled feeling that they would rather find somewhere else to be. Too quiet, too still, boring, no sense to the lingering on this balcony, although Lestat's appearance upon the stairs nearly derails the last of them descending.
He is dazzling. Gwenaëlle frowns, and then tries not to.
“Mssr de Lioncourt,” she greets him, setting her glass down, her hands tellingly restless in this modern, smoke-free joint. “The man of the hour.”
If he were someone else (who wasn't a fucking vampire) then she might, then she would by habit and inclination divert him to her father, who has found his own diversions for the evening and will be delighted to see monsieur but, equally, may be charmingly convinced during his hangover tomorrow that he certainly did, at some point, probably. He is having a delightful time. A tall, gaunt man who looks as if he has never had a delightful time in all of his life is not far from his side,
but Lestat is a different kind of problem.
Gwenaëlle crosses her knees, sitting slightly forward; a profusion of feathers there at the hem of her scant, sparkling cream slip-dress, the high heels she's wearing enough to likely bring her up to his shoulder if she stood, which she doesn't. Despite the convincing simulacrum of humanity that she wears, there are no hairs on most parts of her body to stand up or otherwise, a predator designed for an entirely different environment, but the sensation lingers, anyway, told in the careful posture, the caution that she regards him with.
It looks alien on her, more ill-fitting than her human-seeming. The call of the void walks in, embodied, and it isn't second nature to her not to leap.
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It is numbing, hearing them together. Lestat's frustration, ugly summation of feelings harbored for him, for Claudia. The sound of them, together on the bed.
The inevitability of her. Antoinette. Still alive.
They walk home, Claudia's simmering anger gathering heat. Louis does not join her in her anger. The numbness washes over him, a thick frost sharpening to ice, deadening everything inside of him.
They sit together. Claudia watches him as she draws, and the radio plays, and Louis tries to work out the depth of his own hurt.
It would be easier if anger would come. But it remains trapped, frozen, locked inside his body.
Lestat comes home, eventually. Lestat returns and he does not smell of anything but himself. He's been clever. He's always been clever, when it comes to concealing Antoinette. Laid low time and again by Claudia, inclined to pry where Louis is not.
They go together to coffin. Louis beds down, taking his rejoinders to Claudia with him. His understanding. The inevitability. Antoinette. Louis, and the ways in which he is not enough. (The memory of laughter, Lestat's laughter and absence of answer, the one time Louis had asked—)
Maybe he makes a decision then, that night. Maybe he decides when Lestat folds himself into the coffin alongside him, kisses him as if nothing has changed. (Nothing has changed. That is true.) Louis kisses him back.
Inevitable.
They hunt. Claudia watches Louis. Lestat goes about his business. Louis' hurt calcifies.
Lestat excuses himself from their company one night. Louis gives him an hour head start before he follows. Holds the thought in his head: Lestat said he was hunting alone, perhaps he is hunting alone. But Lestat hunts nothing but Antoinette's doorstep, vanishing inside. Louis stands in the shadow, watching the window for a long stretch. The decision Louis has carried crystalizes, turns from a passing thought to serious intent.
By now, Louis has no business to run. No mortal family to inflict his presence upon. Nothing but Lestat, and Claudia, their company, to occupy his time. Louis is patient. He waits, locked silent and cold in the tundra of his mind. He has a plan. He waits for opportunity. Does not consult Claudia.
Waits. And waits.
Waits for the night when Lestat and Claudia go together to hunt. A show of companionship in the wake of argument. It will pass, Louis knows. But they leave him and his qualms behind, and so Louis walks the well-worn path to Antoinette's home.
She knows, Louis thinks. She knows instantly upon seeing him in her doorway.
She has a slow-healing mark from Lestat's teeth at her throat.
In spite of it all, Louis has some mercy. (Has nothing but cold rage, easier to think through.) It is very quick, her death. He feels no relief, no particular pleasure. She's gone. He remains.
Louis sits. Lights a cigarette. Waits. No need to do anything else, when Louis is certain Lestat will find his way in due time.
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He instructs Claudia to dispose of the bodies, and after changing his blood-spattered clothes, leaves, harbouring dim awareness that she will do it as fuel for her resentment, and Lestat happy to indulge it.
Back out into the evening, and Lestat considers tracking down Louis. Considers it, even as he walks the familiar path to Algiers, crossing the river. Pays attention to his surroundings. If he sees Louis, pacing the river or posted on the bridge, he will of course go to him, and see if there is an evening to be made together.
And if he does not, well. He has one constant he can rely on.
Smokes a cigarette as he goes. Recalls the bottle of bourbon on Antoinette's nightstand. She will sink her (gloved) fingers into his hair and whisper I love you, I love you, I love you into his ear, as she knows he likes it very much. He makes it all the way to her front door before he gets the sense that something is wrong. Fresh death, blood. Lestat touches the door handle, turns it. No locks stop him from swinging the door open.
Fresh death, blood, and Louis. The shock of it sets him outside of himself, voice catching in his throat. Then, heavier footsteps, moving through the house to find—Antoinette, Louis, whoever he finds first, and the front door slamming closed behind him.
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A detached twist of hurt for it, Lestat arriving. Louis had planned on it. Louis had hoped he wouldn't arrive.
Familiar footfalls, heeled boots on the floorboards. Louis stubs out his cigarette. Waits.
Antoinette is on the floor. Louis is sitting, an armchair dragged across the room from it's former place in the corner opposite the bed.
They are both of them bloody.
Lestat arrives in the doorway. Louis looks at him, jaw tight. Something detached too in his expression, an absence of satisfaction, of malice. The thing is done. Louis cannot (would not?) take it back.
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Rivulets of water running from the sodden coat he wears still, small puddles marking all the places Lestat had stood as he had ghosted along behind Louis through the hotel lobby. The desk clerk' eyes moving from Louis to Lestat and back again, light skimming of his mind turning up curiosity but the same careful absence of true questions Louis very much remembers from his youth.
New Orleans is given to strange things. Two men walking in out of a hurricane is hardly the strangest story folks here will have heard.
In the elevator, Louis watches Lestat's reflection in the gleaming gold doors. Surreal to be standing so close to him. It is as if a limb has been reattached. As if his heart beats again.
Louis has said raw, tender things to him while the wind tore at Lestat's cottage.
They'd argued after, of course. Lestat cannot ride out a hurricane in a ramshackle cottage. Louis didn't trust their chances in a waterlogged coffin.
No, he would not leave Lestat there.
But now that they are here, Louis has considered he doesn't know what he's doing. For the first time in so many years, he is simply operating on instinct. Going home. Going to Lestat. Taking Lestat from his cottage, no real thought to what comes next.
Lestat has dripped a sizeable puddle across the floor of the elevator by the time the doors open. Louis steps out, trusting Lestat to follow as he leads him down the hallway to his room. Swipes it open, sees the lavish furnishings and oversized bed, Louis' travel coffin still closed at the foot of the bed alongside his suitcase. Breathes out. Okay.
"We'll go back tomorrow," he promises. "Sort your place out. The storm'll be past by then."
In lieu of, What now?
Now that they are here, together, in this quiet room.
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But, okay, yes, the housecoat he had first purchased over a century ago does not take well to a dousing, hanging off him heavily and still running with water. Improper, to wear one outside the house, but it had been expressed to Lestat that there was a bad storm, that they needed to leave, and so, here he is. Here they are. A wild chase through the rain, and then moving through the hotel where mortals knew to keep their distance.
His face it still burning from the kisses peppered down one side of it. Lestat feels off-balanced, as if he's never known steadiness before Louis had put his arms around him. Lightheaded. His dinner, the poor rats in their cage probably drowned. He knows he is staring, but can't help it.
Louis, here. Or rather: Lestat, here. An out of place element.
Breaks his focus off Louis, takes in the room. The bed, the coffin, the kitchen area with its coffee maker, the humming fridge, the wall mounted television, the panel with its temperature settings. An odd collection of familiar and alien. He had left his tablet behind. He thinks of it now, and his speakers, probably trashed. No matter.
Tomorrow, he will go back.
"It's fine," he says, and clears his throat when his voice comes out like a whisper. "I can take care of it."
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"I know," Louis says quietly. "I want to help."
Deliberately choosing to say it this way, rather than any of the other ways Louis could try to coax Lestat into accepting even this small thing. Maybe they'll argue about this too, about what Louis should be doing, what Lestat is capable of.
Whether Louis has any right to offer him more than what he has.
"We should hang that up," is a diversion, of sorts. A tip of his chin towards the sodden house coat. "Get you warm, maybe fed."
Small steps.
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