deathoftheauthor | the city

( Two is enough, Louis thinks, feeling terribly sentimental about all of this, their little home, the sincere happiness in Lestat's eyes when he had decided to play along with this. His voice is soft and full of feeling when he answers: )

I can't live without it.

( Read between the lines.

There's a sharp tug in his chest; his eyes sting, and he blinks against the artificial lights overhead, though he knows they aren't the reason. He starts to sit up, instinctively reaching toward Lestat for a hand that he doesn't need in the slightest but wants desperately. )

[ Lestat's eyes snap back to Louis like a magnet recentring, and then it's like he never had to force himself to look away. Louis is so handsome as he rises to meet him... and it's like Lestat's body moves of its own accord; his feet bring him around the couch to sit beside Louis, to take that hand and bring it to his mouth for a soft kiss over his knuckles.

I can't live without it. Lestat can hear it reverberating around the inside of his skull, and he feels with a drop of something black and bile-like in his stomach that he isn't sure if he believes him. How much easier it would be if he could dip into Louis' mind, if he'd known him better when he'd taken his life.. but would it have turned out like it had when he'd taken the life of the other he'd loved and seen only darkness in return?

Feeling his thoughts starting to crumble, and that horrible twinge of desperate loneliness and the need to be held crawling claw-first back up his throat, he throws his own caution to the wind and presses in close to Louis; chin on his shoulder, lips against the hair curling under his ear, hands still clasped tight around one of his and pressing it securely over his own heart. ]

( Louis lets out a quick half a breath, a short surprised sound that ruffles Lestat's hair. He shivers at the touch of Lestat's lips; his neck is so sensitive that it's almost ticklish.

He doesn't know what he expects to happen, but when Lestat lingers there, Louis lifts his hand to comb his fingers through golden curls, nails dragging gently from the crown of his head down to the nape of his neck and back again. It's an almost instinctive gesture of comfort, but Louis finds himself soothed by it as well, and he wonders if some night Lestat would just allow him to stroke his hair like this for no reason at all. )

It's all right...

( Louis' voice is tentative, a wondering lilt at the end inviting Lestat to tell him whatever might be on his mind. He leans his cheek against him and presses his hand more firmly to Lestat's chest, and it almost feels as if his own pulse slows to try to match Lestat's heartbeat. )

[ Lestat wants more than anything in this moment, for things to just be still; he doesn't want easy, he's never wanted easy, and he doesn't want things to change because he doesn't want to be beaten, but for things to be still for just a while... If things were still he could find his footing, he could take his time with Louis instead of trying to undo and mend centuries of mistakes in a matter of days, he could try to articulate what is happening to him without shutting himself away in some room somewhere with a typewriter.

Louis starts to pet at his hair, and Lestat makes a strange hiccuping noise in response, pressed into Louis' skin. The relief is instantaneous even as his body prickles with tension, trying to become accustomed to the sensation. He screws his eyes tightly shut. ]

I hope so.

[ It falls out of his mouth before he can stop it. And immediately he has to fight the urge to retract and recoil from it like it burns to be out in the open. Instead, he forces himself to focus on the feeling of Louis' hand in his, the chill of his skin, the beat of his pulse. Just like the first night they were reunited in this place, Louis is the anchor that brings him back from tumbling thoughts that make his heart feel too small and weak to survive the crush of his chest. ]

Ah, Louis.. [ He gives a resigned sigh before turning his face a little and softly doofing his head on Louis' shoulder. Slowly, his shoulders shake in laughter. ] Ignore me. You know what a fool I can be.

( The solid weight of Lestat's head on his shoulder makes an unfamiliar feeling spread slow and warm in his chest. He's sure it isn't contentment, but it's very close. He'd wanted to touch Lestat so badly just moments ago, but now his only thought is for how dear this moment is. )

I do. ( He turns just enough to kiss whatever part of Lestat's head he can reach. ) But you haven't been a fool yet tonight.

( He says it matter-of-factly, sweet but sincere. He's never been one to spare Lestat's feelings with lies, and he isn't about to start now. His fingers bury themselves in Lestat's hair, more firmly than before, and the fond scalp scratch Louis gives him feels almost like petting a dog.

He takes a breath, but hesitates, trying to summon the courage to be honest about something much more difficult. It shouldn't be so hard to say, but it had always prefaced the most terrible periods of loneliness during those years in New Orleans, when any overt sign of Louis' happiness might send Lestat away for months. It's different now, he thinks — he hopes — and yet...

His fingers tighten in Lestat's hair by the smallest fraction, and he says the thing that so terrifies him: )

This is lovely, Lestat. I'm having a wonderful time.

[ This moment is so pure that Lestat is sure he could close his eyes and slip into a dull early morning nap if he were given the opportunity. Just tucked up here against Louis' shoulder, perhaps turn to press his nose into his clavicle, bring a hand up to his shirt to keep purchase there as though he might slip away without it. Listen to him breathe, listen to the footsteps of his heart instep with his own. Such a human fantasy to have.

It's maddening to feel like he's been given such an opportunity - the one who loves him, here in this place when so many others have been ripped from their families and are braving this world alone - and to feel so undeserving of it, to be so uncertain despite wanting so badly to just be content with what he has. But then he has always been a selfish creature, hasn't he? Constantly wanting more than what he's given, pushing the limits and breaking boundaries, and--

He feels Louis' affection burn through him like a brand from the way he playfully scrubs through his hair, and it's so freeing that it actually makes him laugh. Then those words, and Lestat carefully retracts from the hold just enough to be able to look at his face with an expression of wonder as if he's not convinced Louis actually said them. ]

You are? [ He murmurs, eyes very obviously flicking down to his mouth for just a moment before fixing on those emerald jewels he could so easily get lost in. He smiles, strangely tentative. ] I don't think I've ever heard you say something like that.

[ Another shift, and Lestat brings the hand he still has over his heart up to his mouth again, pressing his lips to his fingers because if he were to kiss him now, he's not sure he could stop. ]

And to feel such happiness before we've even got the couch home. You might burst with joy.

( 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.

[ Lestat feels his expression soften, unable to control how his eyes go a little wide, his eyebrows pinching, his lips falling to a soft petal-like part. Gods above, it's like Louis has been saving up a reserve of words to make him weak and is now utilizing them against him with ruthless abandon. He feels feather-light, weightless and fixed entirely in place by the contact between their hands, where their knees and legs press together, and by the gaze Louis' holds his attention in.

He remembers, rather absently, of the idle stories Marius had told him about how their vampiric gifts can so easily lead to enamoured distraction, of obsession with creation or detail so implicit that it overwhelms all else. He thinks that if it were possible to find that addiction in another of their kind, he would be a willing contender. ]

Then, I will make it my goal to give you as many opportunities as I can.

[ He revels in this opportunity to be romantic; he kisses his fingers again; his index, the knuckle of his ring finger, the smooth texture of the back of his hand. His voice is a murmur against pale skin. ]

I want to make you happy, Louis. Even if that means taking you shopping every day, dragging you down alley ways, whisking you into municipal buildings, to restaurants where we can't eat a thing and have to resort to insulting the decor... [ The kiss he presses to the inside of Louis' palm now is more a smile than anything. ] I'll do it gladly.

( It's so romantic that Louis can hardly believe it's happening to him and not someone more deserving — and of course Lestat would admonish him for even thinking such a thing, and oh, how Louis loves him for that now. Not even the too-bright fluorescent lights or the distant, droning music on the store speakers can spoil the moment. )

Good. I hope you will. I truly do. You know the way I am, and all the things that drove you mad about me before, and none of that has really changed... but I want you here with me, to pull me out of the shadows when I linger too long in the darkness. And when the hour comes for you to wander in that darkness for a while, I want to walk beside you, and help you find your way along those paths I know too well.

( Louis tugs their joined hands gently downward, just far enough that he can lean in and kiss Lestat properly, soft and sweet and lingering, the hand in his hair holding him close. He draws back slowly, letting the moment stretch between them, committing every last atom of it to his perfect eternal memory. )

It's wonderful just to want things again.

[ Lestat feels that dull, satisfying ache of peace surround his heart again as he lets this moment with Louis breathe. It's so staggering to feel on such even ground with someone, and not only that but to feel strangely at east with it. It's always been so much easier to pretend that his bruised little heart craves control, the dominance of any situation in order to withstand the fear of feeling too much, to not risk the heartbreak of rejection, that a shackle is better than an open door.

But here Louis is, the one who has broken his heart a thousand times in so many small little ways and who he has punished for it tenfold, and somehow Louis still wants to be at his side. It isn't perfect, he would be an idiot to assume such a thing because Lestat's ego still feels wounded, and his heart is still on guard and desperate to cling despite it all... but at the very least he has this, and isn't it what he's always wanted? ]

It is. [ He agrees, because he remembers going into the ground just as vividly as he recalls waking up from it. ] That desire is what keeps us connected to the world, to.. [ To being human? He isn't sure he's willing to say something like that out loud just now, because he'd rather not weep in the middle of a furniture store. ] To who we are.

[ He presses his forehead to Louis' then, with a soft hum of comfortable thought. ]

Oh, I don't want to move. [ His voice is a gentle whine, his eyes shut. He basks in the feeling of Louis' hand in his hair, shifting his head just slightly this way and that as he reminisces over the feeling of it petting through his locks, and nuzzling his nose with Louis' in the process. ] Perhaps we should just move in here. Think of it, a new couch every day, plenty of drawers to squirrel away your scribblings, there's even an imitation fireplace toward the back of the store.

( It's always a lovely surprise for Louis when Lestat says something so insightful. Thought-provoking as his novel had been, Louis had rarely seen that side of his companion in all their years together, only brief glimpses here and there, tantalizing in their possibility and maddening for being utterly out of reach. Louis makes a soft sound of agreement, thinking how remarkable it is that they should finally be so aligned on something after all this time—

And then Lestat says that. Louis lets out a scoff that's really a laugh, and he tips his chin forward so that their lips touch, even if he's smiling too much for it to be a proper kiss. Somehow he recognizes the subtle side-to-side wiggle of Lestat's head for what it is, and he scratches his hair again obediently. It's a slower and more deliberate action this time, Louis testing his own movements to see what Lestat seems to enjoy. All of this is so new to him, not just with Lestat, but anyone at all... but he's willing to learn, even if it means taking each step with methodical care. )

We would have to dim the lights and ransack the candle store.

[ As Louis seems to read his mind and do exactly as he wishes, Lestat lets out a pleased hum, tipping his chin just slightly so that the path of Louis' soft fingertips press into a spot that makes his spine tingle.

His eyes still shut, Lestat snakes his arms (in a way that isn't remotely subtle but almost seems like it's trying to be) around Louis' waist to pull him a fraction closer, as though he's considering their new life haunting the furniture store quite seriously. ]

And why shouldn't we? [ He says, tone indignant though he's clearly joking. ] We have more right to candles than any other person here does, I think. It's part of our look - you've seen the posters. What is a vampire without a dripping candlestick in hand?

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