( Louis' heart leaps at the kiss, and it's his turn to glance briefly down at Lestat's lips with a fluttering, romantic sense that Lestat knows his thoughts without reading them. )

I very well might. Please promise to hold me together if I start to look structurally unsound.

( Louis lets out a single huff of a laugh, embarrassed of that joke, but too in love to actually care. Lestat sounds so hesitant and so hopeful, and Louis feels a sudden, powerful urge to protect that fragile part of him, to make certain that no one ever hurts him again. He'd been the one to wound him far too many times, both purposeful and unknowing. That bitter exterior he'd known in New Orleans was scar tissue, to some extent — Louis understands that now. His book had been a revelation, albeit a bittersweet one, and he could see too many of his own mistakes in the shadows of the tale. )

I know I haven't said such things often. To tell the truth, I haven't always recognized my own happiness... not until long after the moment was gone. I want to learn to live in the present, and notice these things when they come.

Thank you for taking me furniture shopping.