A pause. Lestat looks lost. Louis wants to gather him into his arms again.
"I know," Louis says quietly. "I want to help."
Deliberately choosing to say it this way, rather than any of the other ways Louis could try to coax Lestat into accepting even this small thing. Maybe they'll argue about this too, about what Louis should be doing, what Lestat is capable of.
Whether Louis has any right to offer him more than what he has.
"We should hang that up," is a diversion, of sorts. A tip of his chin towards the sodden house coat. "Get you warm, maybe fed."
"Mm," agreement, and then sets about untying the sash that he'd hastily done up as they'd left the house. Sees, properly, the greyish puddle of water he has created, his shoes just as waterlogged and expensive as the rest of his clothing. He shoulders the heavy garment off. Underneath, nicely tailored slacks and a fashionable silky tank top are undermined by the state of him, dust stains, frayed edges, and of course, hurricane water.
At some point, though, all of these things were nice. His arms show musculature that has taken on a certain lived-in lean quality, and he gathers the robe in front of him and offers it for Louis to take. His claws are grey, dirt living in the texture of his skin and hair.
Holds his breath at the prospect of the other man drawing nearer to do so. He, a little bit, feels like he is going insane, and might think he is, has properly lost it, if not for the way his heart still smarts from the things Louis has told him. Nothing he could have brought himself to indulge in even imagining.
But some of that nervous energy has been left behind. He does not expect Louis to gloat, to snarl, to mock. He just doesn't know what else could possibly happen next.
Yes, Louis does draw close to collect the heavy robe. His eyes move all across Lestat's face, taking him in. Aware of the quality of the quiet between them, aware of wanting to touch him.
Instead, gives them both a little space. Louis steps back, drapes the coat over a hanger and hangs it in the open closet. Straightens it, small touches. Remembering Lestat standing on the staircase in Rue Royale, watching as Louis straightened his tie, collected his hat. How he'd looked, how it had shaken the resolve Louis had made to himself to turn his back on him and walk through the door.
Louis looks at him. He takes in all these little details. The uneven quality of Lestat's breath, the dust, the dirt. The wild state of his hair after running through a hurricane.
Carefully, Louis reaches to take his hand.
"Come on," he invites. "This way."
Into the lavish bathroom. No tub, but a spacious marble shower. Louis hadn't unpacked; the bag containing his preferred products sit alongside the sink. Chooses the low, warm lights, leaves most of the room in shadow as they enter. The mirror is unavoidable. There they are: Lestat, bedraggled. Louis, still soaked, still fully dressed.
Picking up these little clues. Unopened luggage, untouched products by the sink. A warmly lit bathroom, and he assumes Louis is not leading him into it to admire the finish on the grout work. A big shower. Lestat has, fortunately, seen these before. Shabby motel bathrooms and the arrangement of narrow tubs and mounted shower hoses, mostly. They had always struck him as utilitarian, unromantic and cheap until this moment.
Also a mirror. Of course he looks like a half-drowned nightmare, and water clings to Louis like glitter. Lestat, releasing Louis' hand and drifting towards his reflection, tucks some dripping locks behind his ear. There. All better.
He's meant to be getting warm, he thinks. Distracted instead by unzipping the bag, being delicate with his movements, curious about the contents. About Louis.
The contents of the bag are nondescript, but expensive. Oils, creams. Shaving lotion and razor. Familiar and unfamiliar; not unlike what Louis had laid out in their rooms in New Orleans, but modernized perhaps past recognition. Louis watches him in the mirror, watches Lestat's hair dripping water down his back.
"No," Louis confirms. "Got in not long before the storm."
An auspicious homecoming. Blowing into New Orleans just ahead of a hurricane. Finding Lestat's fledgling. Lestat being here still, when he might well have moved on long ago. Louis' heart aches to think on it, Lestat passing time in that cottage.
Doesn't ask the other questions. How long. Alone the whole time, but for the millenial, the music piped out of his speakers.
Thinks too, of their first hurricanes together. Louis boarding up their windows, Lestat vibrating alongside him, excited over this new thing. It wouldn't be new anymore. Years in New Orleans, there's every chance Lestat might have seen more hurricanes by now than Louis ever did.
Thinking these things, and leaving the quiet between them, Louis shrugs carefully out of his jacket. One shoulder is tender, bruising but not bloodied, and he isn't sure exactly what debris had struck him, only that he'd moved past it and cares little for the injury. The coat is hooked on the doorknob. Louis tears his eyes from Lestat, turns to push open one glass door, begin running the water in the tub.
Lestat presses the cap of a bottle of some form of oil, releasing its scent. Not familiar to him, as far as the products Louis used to use, but he can relearn. Closes it again, pretending against any prickling awareness behind him of Louis taking off a layer, moving around.
Doesn't look up. Doesn't ask, when will you leave? He can't bear to think of it, of time moving forwards beyond this room, of the hurricane, a dull roar far away, ending. The hiss of water draws some focus, a look past his shoulder. Feels his heart beat a little harder than before.
"From where?" he asks, keeping his voice soft toned, gentle. Like a man dying of thirst, and confining himself to neat sips from a chalice.
In New Orleans, Louis had held such a rigid, militant line between himself and menial labor in their home. They played their roles outside of the house. Louis sat in the drivers seat of their car. Louis walking steps behind Lestat. Louis taking his hat and coat, carrying his things. Louis' signature always accompanied by Lestat's, his name granting them entry where Louis' alone would not. Society had its requirements. They moved within them. But their home—
Louis had drawn a line. Pretended that would keep the world out. It hadn't.
Here and now, Louis has taken Lestat's robe. He is here, running the water warm enough to chase the chill of the storm and whatever preceded it from Lestat's skin. A strange contrast, feeling how this moment overlays their past.
"The Middle East," he says, turning his palm beneath the spray. Shoulder twinges. Ignored. "I have a building of my own, in Dubai. A real nice one."
Worlds away. A life so far from where he stands now.
Adds, almost to himself, "But I needed to come home."
Lestat slowly unpacks the toiletries bag, not truly for any purpose except to look at each thing. Maybe it's a favour, setting things out for him. The razor and shaving cream together, brush and toothpaste beside the sink. Pauses over a small travel-sized cologne, twisting the nozzle enough for vampiric senses to get a hint of the scent it contains.
The Middle East. Dubai. Lestat is still trying to imagine where it is in the world exactly when Louis says this next thing, feels a lurch. Reels it back. Of course New Orleans is Louis' home. As it is Lestat's home.
Setting the emptied bag aside, Lestat balances a hand on the sink edge as he sets about taking off his shoes. Now that he's stopped staring at Louis, he finds himself delaying from beginning to again.
"Something happened?"
No more Armand. Why didn't you say? Louis, coming to find him, in the midst of a storm.
Daniel happened. Daniel, palm slamming down on the table. Daniel, tossing a sheaf of papers down onto gleaming wood.
Daniel. Revelation. Unearthing a truth hidden for almost eighty years.
Lestat isn't looking at him, occupied with his shoes. Louis isn't sure what he's doing, if he should linger. But he doesn't know how to pull himself away.
"I found out," Louis tells him quietly. "I found out what happened. That you saved me."
He nudges aside his shoes, straightening back up. Touches his own shirt, hesitates, then goes about peeling it off when he decides being shy is beneath him. Louis can either stay or see himself out. Louis can decide the appropriate thing.
Lestat would like to instinctively know what it is. To strip off his clothes with all the certainty he had moved with that first morning of Louis' turning. There is no preening and strutting here, just going about touching the fastenings of his trousers as he wanders a look over Louis.
He wants to know everything. All at once. Overwhelming, all the things he doesn't know.
What's appropriate? What's the right thing for Lestat? The right thing for Louis?
He watches Lestat's fingers at his belt, reminds himself to lift his eyes up, back to Lestat's face. Louis keeps trying to remember if he's seen this exact expression on Lestat before. If he's simply forgotten, or if it was something taken. Something lost in the stories Louis told himself, the stories Armand helped to tell him—
"Yes," Louis answers quietly. Seeks a little lightness when he couches this agreement with: "Maybe after we wash all those leaves out of your hair."
This much, Louis owes him. The truth of how Louis misunderstood, the lie that opened between them like a great chasm, impossible to cross for almost eighty years.
Lightness meets lightness, a little vocal protest that he does not have leaves in his hair (does he?) but nothing more. Lestat undoes his pants, gathers it and the layer beneath to push down, to step out of, leave his wet things discarded on the floor. Not so conscious of himself in the moment to wonder at how he has changed, decades of rat eating, but he will later, maybe.
Maybe much later. For now, he paces towards the shower, cold skin prickling in the growing warmth of the bathroom. The water is coming down very fast and hard, and Lestat reaches out a hand to test the sensation. Wonders at that, the way he can feel each needle of water. How quickly it has heated up.
Steps in. The shock of warmth, the harshness of water pressure, more direct than the wildness of hurricane rain. He feels, suddenly, he has been living in soft nothingness for a long time. He leans into the stream like it's a caress, where barely perceptible dirt shows itself where the water gathers it in streaks.
Lestat steps in, and Louis is left standing on the other side of the open shower door. Looking at him, watching Lestat acclimate to this minor luxury. His heart aches to look at him, rivulets of water slicing through the dirt on his skin. He's thinner than Louis remembers. Almost gaunt.
How long has it been rats? How long has Lestat been denying himself?
(Is it a mirror of Louis, denying himself? Eating only as a ritual, sustenance made into a punishment?)
It's a conscious decision. Louis is honest with himself about the choice he makes to strip out of his own sodden things, let trousers puddle to the floor, drop his shirt on top of them. It is a choice to step in alongside Lestat.
When he'd arrived, Louis had showered off his journey. There is a bar of fresh-scented soap. Shampoo, conditioner, untouched but set on the shelf alongside the soap, the washcloth. Louis' eyes sweep over them before he questions, "Is this okay?" before pulling the glass door closed behind him.
Once, Lestat had made the mistake of telling Louis that as a human, as a vampire thereafter, he'd only enjoyed a handful of baths throughout his life. Well, not a mistake, because Louis' expression had been very endearing and thus worth it, but a rare admission of a long life in a time he has sought to feel closer, not further away.
He'd been happy to change the habit, for the record.
Lestat draws back from the hypnotising quality of the water as he senses Louis' movement, his drawing nearer. No tensing up, just a sort of surface, prickling awareness, and he glances back, moves around to make more space around the broad spray of water, hands still held into it. "Yes," he says. He can be forgiven, hopefully, for a sweep of a look up and down Louis' body.
Just once. The benefits of a paltry rat diet—his blood is slow to summon, his interest less physical and intrusive than it could be. All the same: it's Louis. His eyes catch on—
"Something hit me," Louis admits. "It doesn't matter."
Dismissive. Louis is glad whatever it was hit him and not Lestat. He had been dragging Lestat, white-knuckled grip on him as they moved through the wind, relentless as their daughter had once been in his forward momentum. Remembers the impact but not with any special attention. He'll drink, he'll heal.
He's survived worse. (Louis doesn't volunteer this. Not to Lestat.)
The glass door whispers closed. It is the two of them in this enclosed space, steam rising around them.
Is he different? Louis must be. They are both changed, but Lestat looks at him and it feels the same. Makes his heart seize up in his chest just like it always has.
Wrestles it down so he can ask, "You gonna let me help you?" and sound something resembling steady.
A doubtful look, a closer look at the shoulder. No blood. He would have known already. No swelling, no look to it like the bone is broken or knocked out of place. Only the absence of obvious signs of serious injury keep Lestat where he is, his protests down.
For the moment, anyway. He flicks his focus back to Louis' face at this question, pausing over it. Caught between wanting to refuse, to keep his claws settled in his own sense of pride, and wanting very much to be helped in this particular fashion. Knows he isn't going to say no, so much as he must decide how to say yes.
The low, warm lights do Louis some favors. Ugly, livid bruising masked, further obscured as steam rises around them.
Louis' pride, the lines he'd drawn around their life here, it is not far from his mind. Seems closer, maybe, because of the interview. How long spent talking through those months, all the difficulty of those thirty years together. Maybe it would have been easier if they'd moved away, but Louis could never—
He shakes himself. Puts the memories away. Focuses back on Lestat's face.
"I do," is the right place to start.
And Louis puts careful fingers on Lestat's chest, nudges him back a few steps under the showerhead.
"Tip your face up," Louis murmurs, reaching past him for the bar of soap.
A soft protest for the feeling, hands coming up to direct the flow of his hair, back off of his face. Settling into it. Settling into the prospect of this, of Louis attending him. Yes, unfamiliar, for so many reasons. Not the least of which being Lestat's own desire to be some force in Louis' life that did not need attendance, save for the recreational kind.
Except for sometimes. Times spent in the darkness of a shared coffin. Mutual comfort against a noisy, violent world beyond, all its complication, its history.
He says, if you like, and Louis says he does, and Lestat chooses to believe him.
While Lestat is occupied, Louis snags the soft washcloth. Works the bar of soap to a lather before setting the sodden cloth into Lestat's hand. They are standing close, water streaming down over them both.
"Look at me," Louis directs, raising hands to touch him, cup his face. Use his fingers to sweep away traces of grime, discover what was dirt and was simply the shape of Lestat's face, gaunter than Louis remembered. He is very gentle, sweeping his thumbs across the planes of Lestat's face.
Lestat still feels cool to the touch. He hasn't eaten. Another sore spot between them, something that had always been a battle. Louis isn't sure what it will be now.
Well, this is nice. Following soft instruction, doing as he is gestured or asked. Simplifies what had begun to feel overwhelming, even if that thing is merely a shower.
Lestat holds the dripping cloth, a twitch to begin to use it that then pauses as Louis touches his face. Holds still. Maybe a minor change: in this lighting, at least, bright blue eyes seem duller, greyer, if no less striking for it. Unsettling glacial tones all the same. He studies Louis' face in return.
A small press of a smile after a moment. "What's the verdict?" he asks, a little play at humour. "Not so bad."
Looking at him, Louis can't help but feel like he's dreaming. Like this is a miracle. (It is a miracle, one Daniel gifted to him.) Louis puts his thumb gently over the scar at the corner of Lestat's mouth, visible again without shadow or smudging to obscure it.
"It's so good to see you, Lestat," is maybe an absurd thing to say, while they're standing in a shower together, naked. While Lestat is covered in grime and Louis is only days out from the end of the interview. But he feels it.
All the different ways Louis has dreamed him, and it doesn't compare to this moment. To standing here with him again, after all these years.
It catches him, this simple and earnest sentiment. The precise brushing of Louis' thumb near his mouth, evoking old memories, old sensations that are half-forgotten. Even the absurdity of it, the noise of the water inside, the obscuring steam, and background roar of a storm beyond. Lestat's eyes are quick to sting.
He nods, giving Louis a tight smile, and says, "I've missed you," as if this could possibly be new information. A secret between them.
Realises he has not yet touched Louis without it being a result of being touched. Fitful hands grabbing at his jacket, uncertain when the embrace was going to end, afraid of clinging when he should not be. Finds he still cannot, hands bundled into the soapy cloth held at his chest, locked there.
He could never have done that before. He had never been able to resist touching Louis. It does not feel like resistance now, exactly.
And it had been killing him. He had felt such deep guilt for it, before, the way he couldn't stop himself missing Lestat. Couldn't cut out the part of him that loves Lestat still.
There is so much else Louis should tell him. The answer to the question Lestat had already posed. About his life. About Daniel. And then all the questions. The things he knows he should ask Lestat.
And Louis looks at him, studying Lestat's eyes, his face. Smiles a little, before murmuring, "Turn around. I'll wash your hair."
Maybe give them both a few minutes to compose themselves.
Lestat turns before he can consider whether he should allow Louis to wash his hair or not, caught in the relief of breaking each others' scrutiny for the moment. Catching his breath, trying not to think about—Louis had missed him. Louis had missed Lestat, his presence, his company. Louis had slit his throat and left him in the city tip, left him in his maker's tower in Paris because he let their daughter die, said nothing to him in 1973, and he missed him.
And Lestat is so glad to hear it.
Some dark red tears spill, easily diffused in the ambient shower moisture as well as direct spray. The crumbling would have been more difficult to hide, feeling his mouth twinge, brow tense, but he can spend some time distracting himself. Running the cloth down his arms, over his torso, focusing on breathing normal.
Distracts himself by trying not to think about, instead, the last time he washed himself properly like this. Surely, when he last had hot water, which was sometime ago. There had been some problem. He doesn't remember. He had been busy.
Louis' hands so gentle in Lestat's hair, working sweet smelling shampoo into his scalp. He takes such care, detangling and rinsing, until the gold he remembers shines through again. Spends more time than he needs to, rinsing suds, drawing fingers slowly through soaked hair. Working conditioner down to the very ends of Lestat's hair, taking care that it is all rinsed away after.
A luxury, to be able to touch him.
When he is content with Lestat's hair, clean once more, Louis sweeps it all to one side and uses the bar of soap on Lestat's shoulders, his back. Meditative, sweeping suds across his skin. Seeing the muscles jump beneath the graze of fingers.
"Have you been here the whole time?"
At least since 1973, Louis thinks. It is a long time, even if it were only since then.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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"I know," Louis says quietly. "I want to help."
Deliberately choosing to say it this way, rather than any of the other ways Louis could try to coax Lestat into accepting even this small thing. Maybe they'll argue about this too, about what Louis should be doing, what Lestat is capable of.
Whether Louis has any right to offer him more than what he has.
"We should hang that up," is a diversion, of sorts. A tip of his chin towards the sodden house coat. "Get you warm, maybe fed."
Small steps.
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At some point, though, all of these things were nice. His arms show musculature that has taken on a certain lived-in lean quality, and he gathers the robe in front of him and offers it for Louis to take. His claws are grey, dirt living in the texture of his skin and hair.
Holds his breath at the prospect of the other man drawing nearer to do so. He, a little bit, feels like he is going insane, and might think he is, has properly lost it, if not for the way his heart still smarts from the things Louis has told him. Nothing he could have brought himself to indulge in even imagining.
But some of that nervous energy has been left behind. He does not expect Louis to gloat, to snarl, to mock. He just doesn't know what else could possibly happen next.
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Instead, gives them both a little space. Louis steps back, drapes the coat over a hanger and hangs it in the open closet. Straightens it, small touches. Remembering Lestat standing on the staircase in Rue Royale, watching as Louis straightened his tie, collected his hat. How he'd looked, how it had shaken the resolve Louis had made to himself to turn his back on him and walk through the door.
Louis looks at him. He takes in all these little details. The uneven quality of Lestat's breath, the dust, the dirt. The wild state of his hair after running through a hurricane.
Carefully, Louis reaches to take his hand.
"Come on," he invites. "This way."
Into the lavish bathroom. No tub, but a spacious marble shower. Louis hadn't unpacked; the bag containing his preferred products sit alongside the sink. Chooses the low, warm lights, leaves most of the room in shadow as they enter. The mirror is unavoidable. There they are: Lestat, bedraggled. Louis, still soaked, still fully dressed.
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Picking up these little clues. Unopened luggage, untouched products by the sink. A warmly lit bathroom, and he assumes Louis is not leading him into it to admire the finish on the grout work. A big shower. Lestat has, fortunately, seen these before. Shabby motel bathrooms and the arrangement of narrow tubs and mounted shower hoses, mostly. They had always struck him as utilitarian, unromantic and cheap until this moment.
Also a mirror. Of course he looks like a half-drowned nightmare, and water clings to Louis like glitter. Lestat, releasing Louis' hand and drifting towards his reflection, tucks some dripping locks behind his ear. There. All better.
He's meant to be getting warm, he thinks. Distracted instead by unzipping the bag, being delicate with his movements, curious about the contents. About Louis.
"You haven't been in town very long."
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"No," Louis confirms. "Got in not long before the storm."
An auspicious homecoming. Blowing into New Orleans just ahead of a hurricane. Finding Lestat's fledgling. Lestat being here still, when he might well have moved on long ago. Louis' heart aches to think on it, Lestat passing time in that cottage.
Doesn't ask the other questions. How long. Alone the whole time, but for the millenial, the music piped out of his speakers.
Thinks too, of their first hurricanes together. Louis boarding up their windows, Lestat vibrating alongside him, excited over this new thing. It wouldn't be new anymore. Years in New Orleans, there's every chance Lestat might have seen more hurricanes by now than Louis ever did.
Thinking these things, and leaving the quiet between them, Louis shrugs carefully out of his jacket. One shoulder is tender, bruising but not bloodied, and he isn't sure exactly what debris had struck him, only that he'd moved past it and cares little for the injury. The coat is hooked on the doorknob. Louis tears his eyes from Lestat, turns to push open one glass door, begin running the water in the tub.
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Doesn't look up. Doesn't ask, when will you leave? He can't bear to think of it, of time moving forwards beyond this room, of the hurricane, a dull roar far away, ending. The hiss of water draws some focus, a look past his shoulder. Feels his heart beat a little harder than before.
"From where?" he asks, keeping his voice soft toned, gentle. Like a man dying of thirst, and confining himself to neat sips from a chalice.
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Louis had drawn a line. Pretended that would keep the world out. It hadn't.
Here and now, Louis has taken Lestat's robe. He is here, running the water warm enough to chase the chill of the storm and whatever preceded it from Lestat's skin. A strange contrast, feeling how this moment overlays their past.
"The Middle East," he says, turning his palm beneath the spray. Shoulder twinges. Ignored. "I have a building of my own, in Dubai. A real nice one."
Worlds away. A life so far from where he stands now.
Adds, almost to himself, "But I needed to come home."
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The Middle East. Dubai. Lestat is still trying to imagine where it is in the world exactly when Louis says this next thing, feels a lurch. Reels it back. Of course New Orleans is Louis' home. As it is Lestat's home.
Setting the emptied bag aside, Lestat balances a hand on the sink edge as he sets about taking off his shoes. Now that he's stopped staring at Louis, he finds himself delaying from beginning to again.
"Something happened?"
No more Armand. Why didn't you say? Louis, coming to find him, in the midst of a storm.
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Daniel happened. Daniel, palm slamming down on the table. Daniel, tossing a sheaf of papers down onto gleaming wood.
Daniel. Revelation. Unearthing a truth hidden for almost eighty years.
Lestat isn't looking at him, occupied with his shoes. Louis isn't sure what he's doing, if he should linger. But he doesn't know how to pull himself away.
"I found out," Louis tells him quietly. "I found out what happened. That you saved me."
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Lestat would like to instinctively know what it is. To strip off his clothes with all the certainty he had moved with that first morning of Louis' turning. There is no preening and strutting here, just going about touching the fastenings of his trousers as he wanders a look over Louis.
He wants to know everything. All at once. Overwhelming, all the things he doesn't know.
"Will you tell me about it?"
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He watches Lestat's fingers at his belt, reminds himself to lift his eyes up, back to Lestat's face. Louis keeps trying to remember if he's seen this exact expression on Lestat before. If he's simply forgotten, or if it was something taken. Something lost in the stories Louis told himself, the stories Armand helped to tell him—
"Yes," Louis answers quietly. Seeks a little lightness when he couches this agreement with: "Maybe after we wash all those leaves out of your hair."
This much, Louis owes him. The truth of how Louis misunderstood, the lie that opened between them like a great chasm, impossible to cross for almost eighty years.
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Maybe much later. For now, he paces towards the shower, cold skin prickling in the growing warmth of the bathroom. The water is coming down very fast and hard, and Lestat reaches out a hand to test the sensation. Wonders at that, the way he can feel each needle of water. How quickly it has heated up.
Steps in. The shock of warmth, the harshness of water pressure, more direct than the wildness of hurricane rain. He feels, suddenly, he has been living in soft nothingness for a long time. He leans into the stream like it's a caress, where barely perceptible dirt shows itself where the water gathers it in streaks.
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How long has it been rats? How long has Lestat been denying himself?
(Is it a mirror of Louis, denying himself? Eating only as a ritual, sustenance made into a punishment?)
It's a conscious decision. Louis is honest with himself about the choice he makes to strip out of his own sodden things, let trousers puddle to the floor, drop his shirt on top of them. It is a choice to step in alongside Lestat.
When he'd arrived, Louis had showered off his journey. There is a bar of fresh-scented soap. Shampoo, conditioner, untouched but set on the shelf alongside the soap, the washcloth. Louis' eyes sweep over them before he questions, "Is this okay?" before pulling the glass door closed behind him.
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He'd been happy to change the habit, for the record.
Lestat draws back from the hypnotising quality of the water as he senses Louis' movement, his drawing nearer. No tensing up, just a sort of surface, prickling awareness, and he glances back, moves around to make more space around the broad spray of water, hands still held into it. "Yes," he says. He can be forgiven, hopefully, for a sweep of a look up and down Louis' body.
Just once. The benefits of a paltry rat diet—his blood is slow to summon, his interest less physical and intrusive than it could be. All the same: it's Louis. His eyes catch on—
"Are you hurt?" A nod. His shoulder.
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Dismissive. Louis is glad whatever it was hit him and not Lestat. He had been dragging Lestat, white-knuckled grip on him as they moved through the wind, relentless as their daughter had once been in his forward momentum. Remembers the impact but not with any special attention. He'll drink, he'll heal.
He's survived worse. (Louis doesn't volunteer this. Not to Lestat.)
The glass door whispers closed. It is the two of them in this enclosed space, steam rising around them.
Is he different? Louis must be. They are both changed, but Lestat looks at him and it feels the same. Makes his heart seize up in his chest just like it always has.
Wrestles it down so he can ask, "You gonna let me help you?" and sound something resembling steady.
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For the moment, anyway. He flicks his focus back to Louis' face at this question, pausing over it. Caught between wanting to refuse, to keep his claws settled in his own sense of pride, and wanting very much to be helped in this particular fashion. Knows he isn't going to say no, so much as he must decide how to say yes.
"If you like," is where he settles.
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Louis' pride, the lines he'd drawn around their life here, it is not far from his mind. Seems closer, maybe, because of the interview. How long spent talking through those months, all the difficulty of those thirty years together. Maybe it would have been easier if they'd moved away, but Louis could never—
He shakes himself. Puts the memories away. Focuses back on Lestat's face.
"I do," is the right place to start.
And Louis puts careful fingers on Lestat's chest, nudges him back a few steps under the showerhead.
"Tip your face up," Louis murmurs, reaching past him for the bar of soap.
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A soft protest for the feeling, hands coming up to direct the flow of his hair, back off of his face. Settling into it. Settling into the prospect of this, of Louis attending him. Yes, unfamiliar, for so many reasons. Not the least of which being Lestat's own desire to be some force in Louis' life that did not need attendance, save for the recreational kind.
Except for sometimes. Times spent in the darkness of a shared coffin. Mutual comfort against a noisy, violent world beyond, all its complication, its history.
He says, if you like, and Louis says he does, and Lestat chooses to believe him.
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"Look at me," Louis directs, raising hands to touch him, cup his face. Use his fingers to sweep away traces of grime, discover what was dirt and was simply the shape of Lestat's face, gaunter than Louis remembered. He is very gentle, sweeping his thumbs across the planes of Lestat's face.
Lestat still feels cool to the touch. He hasn't eaten. Another sore spot between them, something that had always been a battle. Louis isn't sure what it will be now.
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Lestat holds the dripping cloth, a twitch to begin to use it that then pauses as Louis touches his face. Holds still. Maybe a minor change: in this lighting, at least, bright blue eyes seem duller, greyer, if no less striking for it. Unsettling glacial tones all the same. He studies Louis' face in return.
A small press of a smile after a moment. "What's the verdict?" he asks, a little play at humour. "Not so bad."
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Looking at him, Louis can't help but feel like he's dreaming. Like this is a miracle. (It is a miracle, one Daniel gifted to him.) Louis puts his thumb gently over the scar at the corner of Lestat's mouth, visible again without shadow or smudging to obscure it.
"It's so good to see you, Lestat," is maybe an absurd thing to say, while they're standing in a shower together, naked. While Lestat is covered in grime and Louis is only days out from the end of the interview. But he feels it.
All the different ways Louis has dreamed him, and it doesn't compare to this moment. To standing here with him again, after all these years.
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He nods, giving Louis a tight smile, and says, "I've missed you," as if this could possibly be new information. A secret between them.
Realises he has not yet touched Louis without it being a result of being touched. Fitful hands grabbing at his jacket, uncertain when the embrace was going to end, afraid of clinging when he should not be. Finds he still cannot, hands bundled into the soapy cloth held at his chest, locked there.
He could never have done that before. He had never been able to resist touching Louis. It does not feel like resistance now, exactly.
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And it had been killing him. He had felt such deep guilt for it, before, the way he couldn't stop himself missing Lestat. Couldn't cut out the part of him that loves Lestat still.
There is so much else Louis should tell him. The answer to the question Lestat had already posed. About his life. About Daniel. And then all the questions. The things he knows he should ask Lestat.
And Louis looks at him, studying Lestat's eyes, his face. Smiles a little, before murmuring, "Turn around. I'll wash your hair."
Maybe give them both a few minutes to compose themselves.
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Lestat turns before he can consider whether he should allow Louis to wash his hair or not, caught in the relief of breaking each others' scrutiny for the moment. Catching his breath, trying not to think about—Louis had missed him. Louis had missed Lestat, his presence, his company. Louis had slit his throat and left him in the city tip, left him in his maker's tower in Paris because he let their daughter die, said nothing to him in 1973, and he missed him.
And Lestat is so glad to hear it.
Some dark red tears spill, easily diffused in the ambient shower moisture as well as direct spray. The crumbling would have been more difficult to hide, feeling his mouth twinge, brow tense, but he can spend some time distracting himself. Running the cloth down his arms, over his torso, focusing on breathing normal.
Distracts himself by trying not to think about, instead, the last time he washed himself properly like this. Surely, when he last had hot water, which was sometime ago. There had been some problem. He doesn't remember. He had been busy.
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Louis' hands so gentle in Lestat's hair, working sweet smelling shampoo into his scalp. He takes such care, detangling and rinsing, until the gold he remembers shines through again. Spends more time than he needs to, rinsing suds, drawing fingers slowly through soaked hair. Working conditioner down to the very ends of Lestat's hair, taking care that it is all rinsed away after.
A luxury, to be able to touch him.
When he is content with Lestat's hair, clean once more, Louis sweeps it all to one side and uses the bar of soap on Lestat's shoulders, his back. Meditative, sweeping suds across his skin. Seeing the muscles jump beneath the graze of fingers.
"Have you been here the whole time?"
At least since 1973, Louis thinks. It is a long time, even if it were only since then.
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be strong eppy
sweats
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we did it
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