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Louis readjusted his jacket, deft hands tugging slightly at the collar as he flexed his shoulders and sauntered down the sidewalk. Lemuel was saying something next to him, but Louis wasn’t listening. He was replaying Lestat’s words over again in his mind, lingering too much on the tone of his voice and the look in his eyes. The look Louis could see when Lestat didn’t have those fuckass sunglasses on, that is. The level of concern Louis expressed in the meeting was only partially a front. He could feel it—Lestat’s struggle. The pain. Louis knew him well enough, still, to know that there was something dark and stormy roiling just underneath Lestat’s costumed surface.
Louis would also be lying if he said he wasn’t irked about Lestat bringing Armand into conversation, but he immediately buried that pit in his stomach in a way he’d gotten very good at doing recently.
They approached the shining black SUV waiting for them at the curb. Lemuel popped open the back door and ducked in, sliding to the far side. Louis was about to step in himself until he sensed it. The pull. The oh so familiar, selfsame rhythm...
“I’m actually gonna walk,” he said into the dark interior, Lemuel’s amber eyes glinting at him over the top of his black lenses. “Don’t wait for me.”
Not bothering to hear a response, Louis slung the door shut and turned back towards the office building, sticking his hands in his pockets as if he was simply going for a casual stroll. He let the beating in his chest guide him around and behind the building where Lestat was leaning against the back wall, tucked between an employee entrance door and buzzing electrical box. His head was bowed, a curtain of hair and those fuckass sunglasses hiding his face from Louis’ intense stare.
Designer shoes clicking sharply on the pavement, Louis stepped closer, Lestat’s heartbeat like a magnet, drawing him helplessly in. His scent, underneath all the product and tour bus and others who had touched him recently, still invoking a deep sense of comfort and warmth in Louis’ chest whether he wanted to admit it or not. He was worried for Lestat, but couldn’t fully articulate why and this meeting had only confirmed his concerns. What he was going to do about that, exactly, was still unclear.
Finally by Lestat’s side, Louis too leaned back against the wall so they were shoulder to shoulder.
“Where is tall, dark, and loathsome?” Lestat murmured before shifting his body towards Louis, flipping his hair back and over his shoulder.
Louis bit back a smile. “On the way back to the hotel. Where’s your...what’d you say? Metropolitan draining—”
“Ms. Claire?” Lestat made a lazy motion towards the wall with one large hand. “Still inside. More phone calls to make, I hear. That appears to be what happens when one is forced into bullshit litigation regarding negligible—”
“Negligible? You mean the entire trashed hallway of un-bookable suites now?”
“—minor repairs that I’m sure the—”
“And the full length glass fuckin’ window you jumped out of?”
“—ever economically savvy Mr. de Pointe du Lac has no problem paying for—”
“You know how expensive that shit is? Not to mention the staff I have to—”
“—out of pocket thanks to his many varied business interests.”
Louis let out a long breath of bitter laughter. He didn’t really give a shit about the damages, obviously, but it was too easy to get into it with Lestat. And that feeling, the bickering, the yelling, the anger, was a lot safer than all the things they hadn’t been saying to each other in the last two years. All the things Louis felt tugging in his heart whenever they were in the same room together, as infrequently as that was nowadays.
Lestat glared at Louis, prickling with annoyance and Louis couldn’t help but get one last jab in.
“And I know you’re not fuckin’ her.”
He honestly wasn’t sure either way, but as Louis expected, Lestat bristled. Scoffed. He crossed his arms tightly across his chest and tilted his head to the side, mocking. “Is that what you want, Louis? To catch me in yet another one of my seemingly so common lies?”
Louis shrugged and pushed aside all his layers of irritation. “You don’t have to lie about it, is all. I’m sure you’re getting all kinds of ass these days.”
Lestat stiffened and his mouth pressed into a tight line. Louis couldn’t see the look in his eyes but he felt Lestat’s heartbeat quicken slightly and the uncomfortable energy suddenly radiating off him caught Louis off guard.
Louis saw the hint of a ruby red tear rolling down from behind Lestat’s dark lenses before Lestat abruptly turned his head. He made a sweeping motion with his hand against his cheek and back through his hair, playing it off as dramatically flipping the waves out of his face.
“Yes, well. Such is the life of a rock star.”
“Lestat—”
“Especially one as irresistible as The Vampire L—” He cut himself off, swallowing hard. Taking a deep breath, Lestat shook out his hair. He squared his shoulders, trying to look cool and aloof and unbothered, but his head was still turned away, unable to look directly at Louis.
Louis watched him silently for a moment. Lestat’s jaw was tensely set. He held out an arm and glanced down at his nails just to have something else to do. Was his hand shaking? Louis thought he saw his chin tremble.
Taking a slow step forward, Louis reached up with one hand, resting the tips of his cool fingers against the side of Lestat’s chin, and gently turned his head so they were face to face.
“Les…”
Lestat’s face screwed up and this time he didn’t try to hide the tears. Reaching up with both hands, Louis carefully removed Lestat’s sunglasses, folding them shut and slipping them into his coat pocket so both hands were free to cup Lestat’s pink-streaked face. He half expected Lestat to bat his hands away, but he didn’t, just stared back at Louis with old and exhausted, red-rimmed eyes. As Louis’ thumbs brushed the flowing tears aside, Lestat closed his eyes and let out a trembling sigh, melting into Louis’ touch.
“What can I do?” Louis whispered, leaning forward until their foreheads were resting against one another.
Lestat started to answer, but the words wouldn’t form. He cleared his throat, sniffled a bit, and started again, nearly silent. “Will you just hold me, mon cher?”
The endearment nearly sent Louis spiraling back decades. He wanted to say something, about how they weren’t there yet, Louis didn’t want to hear it, it was too much, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead, Louis slid his hands around, one settling between Lestat’s shoulder blades, the other cradling his head as he gathered Lestat close to him, just holding.
He could feel the shaking of Lestat’s hands as he slid them up Louis’ torso and underneath his jacket. He pawed at the denim of Louis’ shirt before pulling them even closer together, nuzzling his face into the side of Louis’ neck before letting out an absolutely gut-wrenching sob.
Louis had been on the comforting end of many Lestat breakdowns before, but never quite like this. Never so public, so distraught, so...wrecked. He let Lestat cry into him, hot breaths and warm tears rolling along his skin, settling and staining into the white of his tank top. Settling and staining into his aching chest. He stroked Lestat’s hair, rubbed a hand up and down his back, squeezed tighter.
Swallowing hard and closing his eyes, Louis tried to think of something—anything—comforting to say, but he couldn’t piece together the right words. He didn’t really know what was wrong. So many thoughts were wrestling around in his head, so many questions, but he also knew Lestat didn’t necessarily need words right now. Just Louis, holding him. So Louis held.
Some minutes passed before Lestat began to settle, sobs dissolving into long, shuddering breaths. He was letting out a shaky sigh, grip finally loosening on Louis’ shirt, when he suddenly stepped back, pushing Louis’ arms off him. Before he could ask what happened, Louis too picked up on Christine’s rapidly approaching scent.
Lestat quickly rubbed at his face and cleared his throat. He was reaching into Louis’ coat pocket for his sunglasses when he noticed the dark tear stains on Louis’ undershirt.
“Oh," he said.
Louis glanced down and shrugged. “’s’okay.”
He only caught a glimpse of Lestat’s pained and embarrassed expression before he slipped the shades back on, steeled himself, and took another step away from Louis just as the back door of the building slammed open.
“Alright,” Christine snapped, not phased at all seeing Louis still lingering. “Let’s go.” She didn’t even look at Lestat before briskly walking away towards the far side of the building.
Lestat straightened himself up, adjusted his shirt, and patted at his hair. He sniffed once. “Mr. Pitt,” The mask was back on. “I do hope you honor the complimentary ticket tomorrow night.”
Louis forced a mirthless smile and shrugged again. “I can probably make it, yeah.”
As Lestat swerved around him to follow in Christine’s wake, he quickly squeezed Louis’ shoulder, hard enough that to the outside observer, it might look like an assertion of dominance—a power move. But Louis could feel the “thank you” in it. The “I’m sorry.” And though he tried to ignore and bury it, the “I love you” too.