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.
Distracting himself is nothing close to as effective as Louis' hands working through his hair. Slowly, the impulse to cry abates, worked away with gentle fingers. In exchange, he feels a little swoony instead, but at least he is fairly certain he can stay on his feet as he drags the cloth down his body. Over his belly, his abdomen, thighs. The worst of it all washing away.
Closes his eyes when his back is touched, gently scrubbed. Little twitches. Goes still, soaking up this continued sensation, the tickle of soap and water running down his legs.
Opens his eyes again at that question. Swallows. His voice is steady when he speaks, not so thick as it could be, lapsing into hush tones. "Stayed in Paris a little while," he says. "Some months, maybe. I was the only vampire there, for the first time in many centuries. A good opportunity to say my goodbyes without interruption."
Pauses. This feels like admission, even if he feels like Louis already knows. "And then I went back to New Orleans. Keeping a low profile, you know, after everything. But it's home."
And now he has this to think about. Lestat passing time in New Orleans. Maybe almost eighty years for him too. Eighty years in the place that was their home. Was Louis' home. Lestat has seen more of it than Louis now.
The bar of soap comes to rest at the small of Lestat's back. Louis wants to lean into him, put his forehead to the nape of his neck. Just lean close, breathe together. Feel all of this in tandem.
But Lestat is holding enough. He doesn't need to hold Louis up too.
It feels only true for having been found. Before that, New Orleans was simply the closest to Louis he could be. Time trickling on without any sense of the future. He is only half-certain he knows what year it is, only dimly understands that time continues to drag him further and further away from the past.
He feels Louis go still. Lestat turns his head, not quite able to see him without twisting further. Again, that question he doesn't want to ask. Are you back? Have you come home?
Swallows, another darting lick to his lips. Offers, "The buskers still play trumpets on Royal and St. Ann. Horses pull carriages around Jackson Square. Not right now. But sometimes it all sounds like it used to. I think so, anyway."
"I wondered about it," Louis murmurs, voice thicker for the emotion he is holding back. "Wondered what'd be recognizable now."
If Louis was even recognizable anymore. He's been away so long. He's changed. His accent has come back slowly, begun working its way back into his voice from the moment Louis' feet hit the tarmac. A small shift, one that doesn't undo over eighty years away.
His fingers drift, running soap and suds over Lestat's hips, then lower. Practical, economical swipes of hands over skin, chasing away lingering signs of neglect. Louis taps lightly at his side.
"Gotta get your legs," and then, reassures, "Can stay in here till the water runs cold after, if you want."
There is still Louis to attend to, the meditative process of managing his own hair, what the hurricane made of him in their mad dash back from Lestat's cottage. But he'll manage. Lestat can stay, linger under the hot water. Louis isn't asking how long it's been, doesn't need to. He has the sense of the answer already. Long years, more than it should have been.
"A door flies open," Lestat says, as Louis continues to bathe him. The intimacy of it feels far away, and it is true, in this moment, that there are no borders or boundaries between them. Louis could touch him anywhere. It would feel quite natural. "Someone has set the spinet alight with madness, syncopated pattering. Less dancing, maybe, but laughter. The bells on a fishing boat. The dogs barking in the summer. A storm outside."
Soapy water whorling around his feet, and Louis' fingers tapping him. Turns a little in response, glancing down at himself. His legs, yes.
Good days, together in their house. These sounds finding them while they lounged in the drawing room, while Lestat played piano, while Louis spoke of books or the pair of them discussed plays or music or some other inconsequential thing. Their life, together, the sound of this city running in the background of it.
Louis' jaw works, has to wrest back some kind of composure as Lestat turns.
"I like that you do."
Louis has something too: Lestat on that balcony, speaking of New Orleans while they smoked. A last quiet moment, something wavering in Louis that maybe, maybe not—
How different it would be, had he changed his mind. (Claudia would never have forgiven him. She barely forgave him for the way he had failed her then.)
Smoothly, Louis lowers himself. Takes the washcloth from Lestat's hand, uses it to chase the last of the grime from Lestat's body. Methodical in this too, taking so much care in the way he touches him. When was the last time they touched? Louis had cut his throat. Lestat had been gone, he'd thought, when Louis had clutched him desperately up off the floor to his chest.
Lestat's hand loosens easily, releasing the cloth. Curls both his hands up to his chest as Louis does this last part for him, skin tingling in the wake of each careful stroke. Dirt washes away. Years wash away. There are times when he wakes and he feels like Louis is holding him, and sometimes, if he feels at relative peace, it does not come with the sensation of biting metal in his throat.
Since then: struggling victims, replaced with rats squirming in his mouth and clawing at his cheeks. Coarse wood, damp clothing, smooth glass under his fingertips. The sense memories of decades. And now, an embrace. And this.
"You are hurt," finally, now he can see a proper angle of the bruises lain into Louis' shoulder. His shoulder hurts and he is seeing to him in this way.
Hands going out. Fluttering a little, when it's time for Louis to stand, as if he can't quite bring himself to initiate contact, but wishes to help anyway.
He needs no help to rise, but Louis takes his hands anyway. The thing behind the little motion of fingers, Louis recognizes it. Can't say anything directly, but he can take him by the hands and let Lestat assist in levering him upright again.
Yes, he is hurt. Yes, Lestat deserves some reply.
Louis' thumbs draw down the backs of his hands, looking at him under the spray of water. Washed clean, skin warmer than it was before, Louis feels something in him soothed at th effect of it all.
"It's okay," Louis tells him, the motion of his thumbs continuing. Sweeping back and forth, keeping Lestat's hands caught up in his own. "It'll pass."
—a glimmer of a return to form, coy in delivery, as if he would like Louis to elaborate on whatever physical attributes have caught his eye. But it truly is just him, bare and quiet, and here is Louis, radiant and. He thinks healthy. None of the lean look to him from during his rat catching days.
Lestat shakes his head. "It's like the storm brought you. Like if I'd boarded up the windows, perhaps we would have missed each other."
Holding his hands tightly, which is not very conducive to letting Louis get himself washed.
Warm. Louis said that, and it was a precious thing at the time, even before all the rest. Lestat keeps his hands some more, feeling as if he can properly look at him. Study him. Louis, who is alive, who is here, who is well.
Who came to find him and yet feels like he is here by chance, or like if Lestat were to release his hands, he will find he has hallucinated his way into a fancy hotel room to wait out the hurricane.
Because Lestat doesn't need to say it. Louis knows.
"It's real. I'm here."
How often had he dreamed Lestat? How much had he hated himself for it, before? Hated himself for the ghost of Lestat he carried in his chest. It had felt like the worst betrayal of Claudia to take comfort in even the pale dream of him, but Louis had never been able to close him out of his head.
He'd been wrong. All those years now, he'd carried all that guilt built off a lie.
Despite having turned as instructed for the express purpose of not embarrassing himself, bloody tears well once more. Thicken his voice when he says, "That is just what a dream would say."
Joking, says a fractured little smile, before he takes in a quick breath.
Loosens one hand. Tugs it free of Louis' fingers, lets his now empty hand hover. Then, touches Louis with light fingers, just along the elegant swoop his collarbone. It does not have the intent-laden strokes of old encounters. Just proving it, that this is real, that Louis is here.
Feather light when it approaches bruising, diverting away, lifting. An affectionate 'hm' before he touches with the pad of his finger against Louis' chin, the minor divot there.
He has always imagined Louis beautiful in his memories, and then might think, perhaps he is making too much of him. But no, here he is, even more handsome than the limits of Lestat's imagination could allow. He touches him a little like one would feel the impulse to feel the texture of an old oil painting—terrible and blasphemous to do even that much, to spoil it with selfishness, but keeping the handling light anyway.
"Tell me," and he swallows, determined for his voice to come out normal. "Tell me how to help you now."
Because there is simply no chance of doing so otherwise.
There is some quality in Lestat's voice, his face, even the way he reaches out to touch, that makes Louis want to fold him back into his arms again.
How had he forgotten?
He had been so lost, for so long.
Overwhelming now, to feel so much all at once.
The question catches him off-guard. Uncertain of what he needs, what he would ask of Lestat. Has a memory of them sunk into their claw-footed tub together, a lifetime ago. They are far from those days.
"Help with my back," is what Louis decides on, even as his fingers curl gently around Lestat's arm. Coax him into an adjustment, the two of them side by side under the spray as Louis reaches for the shampoo bottle. "I'll be quick, then we can get out."
Though maybe it'd be simpler to stay in here, where they are separated out from all the conversations that they should have.
A fresh washcloth fetched, soaked in soap and water. Lestat's own movements are slow, careful, letting each second trickle by. Steps a little aside as he goes to touch Louis' back, holding the cloth high at his back and letting gathered water stream. Still in his peripheral view, as if conscious to the way Louis had urged him near.
Eyes down, attention on this task. Perceiving Louis in fragments, the curve of his spine, the expanse of smooth skin that feels warm from their shared shower. Finding forgotten but familiar spots here and there, memories of kissing them on his way down or up. Memories of biting planes of muscle. Of blood running like soapy water does now.
Of other things that Lestat firmly shoves aside, rinsing the cloth, rinsing Louis' back. All tender, careful, more so where bruising leeches down the shoulder. Louis had asked to help with his back, and Lestat instinctively doesn't stray beyond those lines.
Not very characteristic of him. But it's a strange night.
As gentle as Lestat is, the bruises are already tender. The slight pressure makes itself known. Not unbearable, but still a deep ache exacerbated when Louis raises arms overhead to begin the process of washing his hair.
In Dubai, he had indulged. It had been a ritual, as most things were. Louis can remember Armand's hand at the nape of his neck, present, sometimes. (Is Louis thinking of San Francisco? Is he thinking of something he barely knows, but is beginning to remember?) Tonight, there is Lestat, an overwhelming presence at his back. Louis' whole focus is eaten up by him, the complicated leap of feeling each time Lestat speaks, or touches him, or draws a breath. Reminds Louis that he is fully present, and not a dream.
"Do you want to stay here?"
Is this an easy question? Maybe, maybe not. Does Lestat love New Orleans? Louis remembers him describing his affection for it, once, but what is left of that?
But it is a distraction, gives Louis a little room to breath as he rinses his hair. Considers his body, Lestat's hands at his back. How little he wants Lestat tending to him beyond what he is doing now, but cannot abide Lestat doing anything but touching him.
At least in part because the task is done, but also the question, disorienting for its enormity. Stay here? In the shower, the hotel room, the city? The country? And what does this imply for Louis' movements throughout the world? Lestat watches him for a moment, Louis rinsing out his hair.
Winnows it out to the easiest thing. "As you say, the water will get cold," has a little humour to it, like he is, indeed, aware this is not what Louis meant, but answers as such anyway. "Seems like a waste of a good shower to let it."
Wringing out the cloth, turning aside to hang it up.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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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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Closes his eyes when his back is touched, gently scrubbed. Little twitches. Goes still, soaking up this continued sensation, the tickle of soap and water running down his legs.
Opens his eyes again at that question. Swallows. His voice is steady when he speaks, not so thick as it could be, lapsing into hush tones. "Stayed in Paris a little while," he says. "Some months, maybe. I was the only vampire there, for the first time in many centuries. A good opportunity to say my goodbyes without interruption."
Pauses. This feels like admission, even if he feels like Louis already knows. "And then I went back to New Orleans. Keeping a low profile, you know, after everything. But it's home."
Again, a little flicker of defensiveness.
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And now he has this to think about. Lestat passing time in New Orleans. Maybe almost eighty years for him too. Eighty years in the place that was their home. Was Louis' home. Lestat has seen more of it than Louis now.
The bar of soap comes to rest at the small of Lestat's back. Louis wants to lean into him, put his forehead to the nape of his neck. Just lean close, breathe together. Feel all of this in tandem.
But Lestat is holding enough. He doesn't need to hold Louis up too.
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It feels only true for having been found. Before that, New Orleans was simply the closest to Louis he could be. Time trickling on without any sense of the future. He is only half-certain he knows what year it is, only dimly understands that time continues to drag him further and further away from the past.
He feels Louis go still. Lestat turns his head, not quite able to see him without twisting further. Again, that question he doesn't want to ask. Are you back? Have you come home?
Swallows, another darting lick to his lips. Offers, "The buskers still play trumpets on Royal and St. Ann. Horses pull carriages around Jackson Square. Not right now. But sometimes it all sounds like it used to. I think so, anyway."
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If Louis was even recognizable anymore. He's been away so long. He's changed. His accent has come back slowly, begun working its way back into his voice from the moment Louis' feet hit the tarmac. A small shift, one that doesn't undo over eighty years away.
His fingers drift, running soap and suds over Lestat's hips, then lower. Practical, economical swipes of hands over skin, chasing away lingering signs of neglect. Louis taps lightly at his side.
"Gotta get your legs," and then, reassures, "Can stay in here till the water runs cold after, if you want."
There is still Louis to attend to, the meditative process of managing his own hair, what the hurricane made of him in their mad dash back from Lestat's cottage. But he'll manage. Lestat can stay, linger under the hot water. Louis isn't asking how long it's been, doesn't need to. He has the sense of the answer already. Long years, more than it should have been.
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Soapy water whorling around his feet, and Louis' fingers tapping him. Turns a little in response, glancing down at himself. His legs, yes.
Nodding. "I have it," he assures.
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Good days, together in their house. These sounds finding them while they lounged in the drawing room, while Lestat played piano, while Louis spoke of books or the pair of them discussed plays or music or some other inconsequential thing. Their life, together, the sound of this city running in the background of it.
Louis' jaw works, has to wrest back some kind of composure as Lestat turns.
"I like that you do."
Louis has something too: Lestat on that balcony, speaking of New Orleans while they smoked. A last quiet moment, something wavering in Louis that maybe, maybe not—
How different it would be, had he changed his mind. (Claudia would never have forgiven him. She barely forgave him for the way he had failed her then.)
Smoothly, Louis lowers himself. Takes the washcloth from Lestat's hand, uses it to chase the last of the grime from Lestat's body. Methodical in this too, taking so much care in the way he touches him. When was the last time they touched? Louis had cut his throat. Lestat had been gone, he'd thought, when Louis had clutched him desperately up off the floor to his chest.
And now, this. This care.
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Since then: struggling victims, replaced with rats squirming in his mouth and clawing at his cheeks. Coarse wood, damp clothing, smooth glass under his fingertips. The sense memories of decades. And now, an embrace. And this.
"You are hurt," finally, now he can see a proper angle of the bruises lain into Louis' shoulder. His shoulder hurts and he is seeing to him in this way.
Hands going out. Fluttering a little, when it's time for Louis to stand, as if he can't quite bring himself to initiate contact, but wishes to help anyway.
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Yes, he is hurt. Yes, Lestat deserves some reply.
Louis' thumbs draw down the backs of his hands, looking at him under the spray of water. Washed clean, skin warmer than it was before, Louis feels something in him soothed at th effect of it all.
"It's okay," Louis tells him, the motion of his thumbs continuing. Sweeping back and forth, keeping Lestat's hands caught up in his own. "It'll pass."
And then, a smile. A soft, "Look at you."
Marveling, a little. It feels surreal. A dream.
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—a glimmer of a return to form, coy in delivery, as if he would like Louis to elaborate on whatever physical attributes have caught his eye. But it truly is just him, bare and quiet, and here is Louis, radiant and. He thinks healthy. None of the lean look to him from during his rat catching days.
Lestat shakes his head. "It's like the storm brought you. Like if I'd boarded up the windows, perhaps we would have missed each other."
Holding his hands tightly, which is not very conducive to letting Louis get himself washed.
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Home. Louis had wanted to come home.
It was New Orleans, but it was Lestat too. Inextricably linked together. Complicated, yes, but true even after all these years.
The bruises don't matter. The storm doesn't matter. All that matters is this. Them. Speaking again, seeing each other again.
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Warm. Louis said that, and it was a precious thing at the time, even before all the rest. Lestat keeps his hands some more, feeling as if he can properly look at him. Study him. Louis, who is alive, who is here, who is well.
Who came to find him and yet feels like he is here by chance, or like if Lestat were to release his hands, he will find he has hallucinated his way into a fancy hotel room to wait out the hurricane.
"It just doesn't feel—"
His voice catches.
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Because Lestat doesn't need to say it. Louis knows.
"It's real. I'm here."
How often had he dreamed Lestat? How much had he hated himself for it, before? Hated himself for the ghost of Lestat he carried in his chest. It had felt like the worst betrayal of Claudia to take comfort in even the pale dream of him, but Louis had never been able to close him out of his head.
He'd been wrong. All those years now, he'd carried all that guilt built off a lie.
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Joking, says a fractured little smile, before he takes in a quick breath.
Loosens one hand. Tugs it free of Louis' fingers, lets his now empty hand hover. Then, touches Louis with light fingers, just along the elegant swoop his collarbone. It does not have the intent-laden strokes of old encounters. Just proving it, that this is real, that Louis is here.
Feather light when it approaches bruising, diverting away, lifting. An affectionate 'hm' before he touches with the pad of his finger against Louis' chin, the minor divot there.
He has always imagined Louis beautiful in his memories, and then might think, perhaps he is making too much of him. But no, here he is, even more handsome than the limits of Lestat's imagination could allow. He touches him a little like one would feel the impulse to feel the texture of an old oil painting—terrible and blasphemous to do even that much, to spoil it with selfishness, but keeping the handling light anyway.
"Tell me," and he swallows, determined for his voice to come out normal. "Tell me how to help you now."
Because there is simply no chance of doing so otherwise.
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How had he forgotten?
He had been so lost, for so long.
Overwhelming now, to feel so much all at once.
The question catches him off-guard. Uncertain of what he needs, what he would ask of Lestat. Has a memory of them sunk into their claw-footed tub together, a lifetime ago. They are far from those days.
"Help with my back," is what Louis decides on, even as his fingers curl gently around Lestat's arm. Coax him into an adjustment, the two of them side by side under the spray as Louis reaches for the shampoo bottle. "I'll be quick, then we can get out."
Though maybe it'd be simpler to stay in here, where they are separated out from all the conversations that they should have.
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A fresh washcloth fetched, soaked in soap and water. Lestat's own movements are slow, careful, letting each second trickle by. Steps a little aside as he goes to touch Louis' back, holding the cloth high at his back and letting gathered water stream. Still in his peripheral view, as if conscious to the way Louis had urged him near.
Eyes down, attention on this task. Perceiving Louis in fragments, the curve of his spine, the expanse of smooth skin that feels warm from their shared shower. Finding forgotten but familiar spots here and there, memories of kissing them on his way down or up. Memories of biting planes of muscle. Of blood running like soapy water does now.
Of other things that Lestat firmly shoves aside, rinsing the cloth, rinsing Louis' back. All tender, careful, more so where bruising leeches down the shoulder. Louis had asked to help with his back, and Lestat instinctively doesn't stray beyond those lines.
Not very characteristic of him. But it's a strange night.
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In Dubai, he had indulged. It had been a ritual, as most things were. Louis can remember Armand's hand at the nape of his neck, present, sometimes. (Is Louis thinking of San Francisco? Is he thinking of something he barely knows, but is beginning to remember?) Tonight, there is Lestat, an overwhelming presence at his back. Louis' whole focus is eaten up by him, the complicated leap of feeling each time Lestat speaks, or touches him, or draws a breath. Reminds Louis that he is fully present, and not a dream.
"Do you want to stay here?"
Is this an easy question? Maybe, maybe not. Does Lestat love New Orleans? Louis remembers him describing his affection for it, once, but what is left of that?
But it is a distraction, gives Louis a little room to breath as he rinses his hair. Considers his body, Lestat's hands at his back. How little he wants Lestat tending to him beyond what he is doing now, but cannot abide Lestat doing anything but touching him.
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At least in part because the task is done, but also the question, disorienting for its enormity. Stay here? In the shower, the hotel room, the city? The country? And what does this imply for Louis' movements throughout the world? Lestat watches him for a moment, Louis rinsing out his hair.
Winnows it out to the easiest thing. "As you say, the water will get cold," has a little humour to it, like he is, indeed, aware this is not what Louis meant, but answers as such anyway. "Seems like a waste of a good shower to let it."
Wringing out the cloth, turning aside to hang it up.
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be strong eppy
sweats
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we did it
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