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lestat de lioncourt. ([personal profile] damnedest) wrote2034-06-28 12:42 pm
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-06-30 02:45 am (UTC)(link)
A rippling of tension, wholly separate from the flush of heat that comes from the pressure of fingertips over tender skin.

"I'll hear 'em."

Better Louis than Claudia, who would hear no amendments, who would give no quarter.

Louis can be the fool, listen to how Lestat would nudge and bend their demands. And acquiesce, perhaps. His armor is in tatters, washed away in the river. Lestat is touching him, inviting him closer. Louis feels it, the way he wants to meet him there. The way he wants things to go back to the way they were. To have him, again.
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-06-30 05:56 am (UTC)(link)
So Claudia needn't be in the room for this after all. This is an amendment for Louis alone, a stipulation spoken into the warm slip of space between them.

It should be easy to give. It should be. But Louis is still quiet, meeting Lestat's eyes without straying. (Thinking of an altar, Lestat's hand on his chest. The first time he'd tasted blood in Lestat's mouth as they'd kissed.)

"I never wanna smell her on you again," Louis tells him. "I want you to take care of it before the week is out."

Does this fix everything? It feels as if it might, in the moment. It's easier to think of Antoinette's mingling with Lestat's on that record than it is to think of the rest. The imprint of a head on the glossy wood of his own casket. Lestat's fingers hooked into his jaw, dragging his body along the pavement stones. The long years of simmering resentment and ever widening distance between them.

Even in the scant light, Lestat's eyes are so very blue. His skin is warming under Louis' fingers, and if Louis pressed down, he know Lestat would wince, or tense. Some sign of reaction that Louis doesn't know whether or not he wants again.

"Tell me she's nothing to you."
Edited 2024-06-30 06:06 (UTC)
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-06-30 06:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Not unnoticed, that frisson of temper. The careful breath come after.

See, he's trying, Louis remarks to no one at all. Claudia wouldn't welcome it. There is no one else to hear it, this thing Louis takes as a positive sign.

"Go on," comes after a moment, a long breath of study. The tap of finger to chest reverberates, sensation lingering. But Louis makes this invitation. He'll hear the rest. What comes after this first amendment.
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-06-30 11:28 pm (UTC)(link)
These are not unfair requests, Louis knows.

And he is no unaware that the reluctance that seizes around his chest is in no small part born of his own hurt. His own wounds, still stinging after years of separation, that drown out Louis' more charitable instincts.

But Louis is equally aware that a fight now would devastate them. Lestat had come so willingly up out of that bed, yielded gleefully as Louis had flung him about the room. He wore those bruises now, without complaint. Perhaps that too had been a kind of demonstration. See, is he not trustworthy? Is he not capable of yielding the upper hand?

There is a part of him that feels these requests, however reasonable, as imposition. As an exertion of influence.

This is an uncharitable musing, Louis knows.

Lestat has tilted his chin up and so Louis simply takes advantage of it. Kisses him, teeth catching his lower lip.

"I'll talk to Claudia," and make himself a bridge, the conduit through which this latter request might flow. His lips brush Lestat's, the suggestion of a kiss, the mingling of breath. "I will."

This is not all that's been requested. (Louis does not think of the open sky, of Lestat growing smaller against the clouds.)

"And eternity's promise. I swear."
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-07-01 12:10 am (UTC)(link)
"Good," has real bite behind it, tone darkening even as the sickening twist of guilt tangles behind his ribs.

Kill Antoinette, and he had protested. Louis has been thinking on it, over and over. How they had asked. How Lestat had demurred, at first.

Louis has to stop, has to leave it, and take this promise offered. By this time next week, she'll be gone. And Louis can measure out how guilty he feels for it, demanding this.

"Don't care about the gifts," Louis murmurs against Lestat's mouth. "Just keep your word."

And then they can (try) to forget the rest.
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-07-01 01:43 am (UTC)(link)
The record is shattered, all in pieces across Antoinette's bedroom floor. (Along with the splinters of her bed, the shattered planks of her door. All the other detritus left behind after their reunion.) Louis hadn't had a moment to think fully about what he was doing, only furious impulse. Of knowing the record contained the mingling of their voices and wanting to break it apart.

But now, it is easier to soften to the idea. Acquiesce, lean closer to kiss the corner of Lestat's mouth.

"Alright," Louis says. "Tomorrow."

As he lays another kiss to Lestat's mouth.

"Or you could sing it now. Without the piano. Just us."
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-07-01 05:15 am (UTC)(link)
How easy it is to soften to Lestat.

Maybe it is a miracle to have held out so many years, to have maintained stony silence while Lestat's barrage of gifts and appeals sought cracks and weak points.

This composition, it does make Louis weak.

Lestat sings to him, and Louis closes that last, judiciously preserved slip of space between them, until they are laid flush from knee to hip, hip to chest. Louis' hand comes to rest at Lestat's waist, listening, until the song winds to a close.

"It's better with just your voice," Louis tells him. "Forget the other one."

This too, a kind of banishment. The record is in pieces. What else need there be, but the version Lestat offers up to him in the absolute privacy of this shared casket?
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-07-01 02:53 pm (UTC)(link)
Whatever you say prickles some suspicion, a little fretful spark of worry.

But it doesn't outlast the way Lestat kisses him, doesn't survive past the grazing suggestion of Lestat's thigh. Louis touches his cheek, skims a thumb along the corner of his mouth.

"Is that a complaint?" Louis questions, light as if they hadn't gone years hardly touching each other. As if Louis hadn't vanished into the confines of this very coffin, silent and remote. As if the force of their reunion hadn't been a kind of revelation. This. Louis has been so very absent from this.

"I can change," he offers, following the crinkle of Lestat's smile with his thumb. "I still got those silk pajamas you gave me a while back."
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-07-02 12:37 am (UTC)(link)
Kissing Lestat is good. It is always good, near to an intoxicant. There will always be some part of him that yields the way he once had, downstairs, Lily asleep on the sofa and Lestat's hands straining in his grip. Lestat kisses him, and Louis softens into it, hand at his cheek, encouraging.

The break, the hitched breath, comes as Lestat's weight settles. The coffin is not closed. For a moment, only a moment, Louis' memories tilt away from him. (Lestat's eyes cold with rage, his fingers digging in hard, the cold slice of wind and the useless, flailing kick of his legs.) His fingers tighten at Lestat's shoulders; no passion, just a flex of instinct, the jerk of movement belonging to a falling man.

It passes.

Louis tips his head breathlessly up to him, insistent, pushing past the hiccup of memory. Nips his lower lip, sinks fingers into his hair. They are alright. They are going to be alright.
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-07-02 05:46 am (UTC)(link)
And it does. It does drag something out of Louis' head, a thudding hitch of apprehension that is entirely at odds with the warmth in Lestat's voice. Irrational. Uncontrollable, this thing that cannot be shaken, cannot be buried. Cannot be sat outside of the coffin, will not respect the confines of this intimate space.

But it can be pushed aside. It ebbs, as Louis' thighs shift accommodatingly to bracket Lestat's hips. If Louis allows, the world will reorient itself around Lestat, and the way they touch each other. The way their hearts fall into sync, the way they draw breath in time. The bond between them has survived, grows all the stronger in proximity.

"How long do you figure, until you're satisfied?" Louis asks, mock serious in the face of Lestat's mischief. "A couple hours?"

Is this not akin to muscle memory? Is this not familiar, and easy to fall into?

Louis twines a lock of his hair around his finger, questions, "A couple days?"
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-07-02 02:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Easier to shake the flutter of fear when they are laid so close. Easier to think of nothing but this moment when Lestat is easy and charming, when they are play-acting something out of the very beginning of their affections.

Even if Louis remembers the old days too. Struggling to keep his hunger in check. Lestat's exasperation, the clear sense that Louis was vexing him each time they had to consider a meal.

Louis puts that away too, as Lestat makes use of what little space can be afforded to them. Squirms downwards, puts his mouth to Louis' chest. Louis hums a low note, encouraging. Interested.

"Till you get bored," has the same teasing lilt, but it brings some little hurt with it. Some small pain.

A misstep. (A misstep?)
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-07-03 12:44 am (UTC)(link)
And yet.

A misstep.

A misstep in the way Louis missteps, accidentally on purpose. Needling quietly, so quietly.

They have done their negotiating. Louis has been unable to keep away from him, unable to shut Lestat out. Algiers had been too far and too close all at once. Was there anywhere far enough to keep Lestat from him? Louis might have swam the Atlantic, after listening to the voices on that record.

Kill Antoinette, they'd said. But some small part of Louis is still stood in their courtyard, asking: Aren't I enough?

They won't survive the argument. (And Louis is laid out beneath him, at a disadvantage, if they ever—) Louis knows this, and it mitigates his answer, only just.

"We just ain't talked about whether or not you're still going to want for that variety. That's all."

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