Lestat, standing close to him. Lestat, talking of their love. Lestat, demurring to the past tense.

Six years. Seven years before that.

Past tense, a joke of a thing. If those lean years hadn't killed their love, then nothing would. Louis feels it still. Loves him still. Would take a thousand years of arguing, of the way they hurt each other, than suffer Lestat's absence.

Louis reaches, impulsively, to take Lestat's face in bloody hands and draw him in to a kiss.