No protest. The rawness of it doesn't abate. Long nights alone. Long nights sealed together in this house, where Louis punished Lestat year after year before he sank too deep into his own misery for the practice to hold his attention. Lestat had gone, and Louis had felt no pleasure in it then, just as he feels no particular pleasure in what he has done now.

Could be. Were.

The way it was before they came all apart.

"I want it to be," Louis offers. The simplest answer; it's finding their way back that's complicated. "I been missing you too."

And even when Lestat had returned to Rue Royale, the tenderness of their love had not rekindled. Louis was changed. They were changed.