A simple assurance, the kind you might make to a child reluctant to go to bed for fear of nightmares, but it tangles up in him anyway. That Louis will be here when he wakes, a guaranteed thing.

Lestat thinks he has been rather good at not letting emotions get the best of him tonight, but his eyes prickle, world turning rosy. He wants to say some tender thing now, but each potential word feels impossibly heavy and impossibly delicate, like it will collapse under the weight of meaning, sincerity. He is glad Louis is here. That Louis found him again. That he inhabits a world where he will wake and see him.

Just presses a smile at him, I know, touching his hip in answer. Hoping this conveys something of it, without forcing him to say it and shatter all apart.