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.

This time, Louis is making the invitation.