damnedest: (Default)
lestat de lioncourt. ([personal profile] damnedest) wrote2034-06-28 12:42 pm
divorcing: (Default)

[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-09 05:56 pm (UTC)(link)
Novelty mugs, warm to the touch. Louis crosses the room with them, offers one to Lestat before sliding into the space he'd vacated. Joins Lestat against the headboard and feels an ache in his chest for the domesticity of it. Shared cups, shared bed, soft conversation.

"She's very thorough," Louis reassures. "And she's been made to understand it's importance."

Important to Lestat. Important to Louis.

"It'll clean up nice."

A slanting look sideways at Lestat, who has also cleaned up very nicely.
divorcing: (Default)

[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-10 01:30 am (UTC)(link)
"Does it?"

How little Louis has actually seen of it.

More than Lestat, but all at a great distance. Comfort with it, yes, but very little of it has touched him in any meaningful way.

He sips. Awareness rising in him of a missed meal. Disregulation in his meal schedule after so many years is a novelty. Not unpleasant

"It'll suit you too," he offers. "If you want it to."

If Lestat cares to mire himself in time again. Louis isn't sure he does.
divorcing: (Default)

[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-10 03:02 am (UTC)(link)
"I know."

Easy agreement. Yes, Lestat is adaptable. A gift for surviving, to weather the worst.

Louis watches him. Feels warmth curling in his chest at the sight of the wrinkled nose, some familiar sign of the old discerning taste.

"Will you let me buy you a cell phone?" is a little abrupt. Giving in to that flutter of warmth, of wanting to hold fast to Lestat even if he chooses to spend another hundred years hidden away while Louis walks into the world.

A belated question: Does Lestat know what a cell phone is?
divorcing: (Default)

[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-10 03:42 am (UTC)(link)
"Most of the time."

Louis is not going to start picking at the intricacies of cellular reception at this exact moment. His ankle nudges Lestat's as he turns just that much further into him, intent on his reactions.

"It'd be yours," Louis promises. "Could put music on it, take pictures."

Is he coaxing? He's uncertain.

He just wants something, a thread of something, to connect them. To be certain Lestat doesn't slip away.
divorcing: (Default)

[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-10 05:36 am (UTC)(link)
"Yes."

Is this the deciding factor?

"Can change the voice on it, if you want. It'll speak French and all."

Maybe this has been offered already. But would the millenial know to offer French? Hadn't known to press Lestat into leaving that waterlogged cottage, or not in any way that might work properly to coax Lestat out of harm's way.

There are other virtues of a cell phone. Louis chooses to let this one simmer while he sips quietly from his mug.
divorcing: (Default)

[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-10 05:26 pm (UTC)(link)
There's no reason it should catch Louis off-guard, hearing Louisiana in Lestat's voice in even minor measures, but it does.

Complicated, how he feels about it. How much he likes it. How the sound of it carries a muted pain along with it. New Orleans making its mark on Lestat, and Louis miles and miles away, losing his own accent for long decades. A sorrowful kind of symmetry.

"I know you have money," Louis tells him, setting aside his empty cup. Admits, quiet: "Lived off it for a couple months when we first got to Paris."

And he'd felt deep guilt about it, how they'd taken from him after what they'd done. What Louis had done. Claudia's anger simmering, remorseless, and Louis haunted, grief-stricken and guilty, using Lestat's money for that apartment, for clothes, for furnishings—

It had felt wrong.

But this, it's not only about the money they'd taken, not about repayment. Louis still likes to pick out things for Lestat. A phone is only the most acceptable avenue, utilitarian rather than the opulent whirl of goods they'd swept up when Lestat had first arrived in New Orleans.
divorcing: (Default)

[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-11 11:55 pm (UTC)(link)
"It would."

Maybe will have to say later, once a phone is procured, that it would please him also if Lestat were to use it.

But not now.

The far door opens once more. Rachida bears in a crisp brown paper bag, sets it by the window. A brief exchange between her and Louis, logistics only. A few lingering pieces of business, things that could not accommodate being upended just because Louis' life had been entirely upended.

And then she is gone. And it is the two of them, alone in a room again.

"I made guesses," Louis says. "What you might like to wear."

And may well be far off base. They have been apart for a long time. Lestat had been wearing expensive things, in spite of the obvious neglect. Louis has chosen some similar items. Draping shirts, gleaming black buttons for fastening. Soft, clinging undershirts. Loose trousers, waists nipped in. And Lestat's own boots returned, polished, repaired.

A humble offering. A start.
divorcing: (Default)

[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-12 03:34 am (UTC)(link)
"You'll do for yourself, I bet."

Louis had guided him into the present day, but Lestat had found his footing eventually.

(A fond memory of the ways their wardrobes had complimented. Subtle matching between colors, small mirrors in their chosen accessories. Louis had enjoyed those things, minor ways to link them, if easy to overlook.)

"This is just for starters," Louis reminds, the curling pleasure in his chest rising as he watches Lestat handling his choices kept in careful check. "You can send Rachida out if you want. If there's more you think you need."

While he's here. While they're together. A offer guided by the anxious urge to get Lestat set up, well-stocked and safe, guiding the offer.
divorcing: (Default)

[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-12 08:18 am (UTC)(link)
It's a real question, one Louis should think on with some seriousness. They've already been naked with each other, laid completely bare in the hours since they'd reunited and Louis had brought him here. But maybe there should be a point where some boundaries are reintroduced.

Maybe.

"You change where you want," Louis tells him, an easy shrug of acceptance as he leaves Lestat in custody of the bag and considers his own suitcase. "I won't mind."

A choice laid out for Lestat as Louis strips to the waist. His suitcase is neatly opened on its stand, waiting for Louis to make some selections of his own.
divorcing: (Default)

[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-12 05:50 pm (UTC)(link)
The twirl yields a glimpse of bare back, the flex of muscle as Louis' arms lift to guide down a polo, lightweight and textured. Regrettably, Louis had pulled on his trousers first. Utilitarian today, maybe in anticipation of excavating Lestat's cottage, worn canvas fabric artfully distressed.

It is a marked deviation. Louis is experimenting, not yet sure he is interested but willing to give himself the day.

"Come here," Louis beckons, reaching out with one hand while the other tugs clinging knit fabric into place over his chest and stomach.

An excuse to take Lestat by the wrist, run his thumb over the delicate tracery of veins there at the inside of his arm before fastening the button.

"Feel okay?"
divorcing: (Default)

[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-13 12:24 am (UTC)(link)
"Rachida is very good at her work."

And due for a raise, perhaps, if Louis is going to spend more time stateside.

Louis looks him over, smiling a little at the small gesture of Lestat pushing his hair back. Remembering too the life they had together.

In the present, admiring the graceful drape of the sleeves, the fall of fabric around Lestat's still-narrow hips. Louis likes it very much. He is still handsome, even thinner, even marked by years of neglect.

"It's only a beginning," Louis offers. "I was thinking of what you wore before."

Maybe no longer relevant. Or maybe only a touchstone from which Lestat will build something else from when (if?) he continues updating his wardrobe.

"Are you still hungry?"
divorcing: (Default)

[personal profile] divorcing 2025-01-13 05:43 pm (UTC)(link)
"You wouldn't be."

Dismissive. It is not a problem. Louis has endless reserves. It has been made very certain, established in the beginning and never one had the supply lapsed.

Louis has lifted his coat from where he had laid it the night before. Tests the fabric to find it still sodden and sighs. Seeks an alternative in his suitcase.

"We can go hunting," Louis offers, voice steadier than he feels. "For whatever you are in the mood for."

Rats, if Lestat wishes. Louis certainly has no standing to object.

And he is trying. Live honestly, he had said. Whatever form that takes.
Edited 2025-01-14 02:31 (UTC)

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-01-16 03:15 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-01-17 05:11 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-01-18 02:21 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-01-19 06:09 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-01-30 17:53 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-02-08 06:00 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-02-08 07:05 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-02-08 21:30 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-02-08 21:45 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-02-08 23:40 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-02-08 23:58 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-02-09 00:20 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-02-09 02:02 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-02-09 03:36 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-02-09 05:29 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-02-09 11:18 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-02-09 23:34 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-02-10 02:16 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-02-10 22:10 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] divorcing - 2025-02-11 21:45 (UTC) - Expand