Maybe  Claudia  had  manipulated  him  and  he  had  let  her  emotions  affect  his  own.  He  can't  help  but  to  wonder  if  everything  she  had  said  was  the  truth.  That's  something  to  talk  about  at  another  time,  not  here,  not  now.  He  hates  that  he  even  has  to  question  his  own  daughter's  words.  Was  Claudia  actually  untrustworthy?  Had  she  just  used  him  till  she  found  what  she  truly  wanted?  This  brain  ran  over  that  last  month.  "We  are  both  selfish."

He  can't  help  the  way  he  pulls  back  at  the  mention  of  that  night.  The  one  he  spent  falling.  It  is  something  he  still  relives  some  nights.  The  howling  of  the  wind,  the  feel  of  the  air  around  him.  The  sound  when  his  body  hit  the  floor  and  his  bones  breaking.  His  hand  comes  to  hold  onto  the  edge  of  the  sofa.  This  still  haunts  him  and  a  part  of  him  knows  he  deserved  to  be  hurt  still  from  that  night  and  not  for  his  actions  towards  Lestat  long  before  then.  Who  needs  composure  when  hearing  an  apology  for  that  fall.  He  shakes  his  head  as  he  tries  to  find  the  words  but  he  needs  a  moment.  "It's  a  recurring  nightmare,  I'm  not  telling  you  that  to  hurt  but  to  prepare  you."  He  says  the  words  softly  as  hand  comes  to  wipe  at  tears  that  have  ruined  his  shirt  not  that  he  cared.  "I  will  spend  the  rest  of  my  existence  forgiving  you  for  it."

"We  both  hurt  each  other  in  the  worst  ways  possible,  we're  both  at  fault  and  we  could  list  all  the  ways  we  wronged  each  other  in  those  last  years  but  they  happened  and  we  can't  change  that."  He  stood  for  the  sofa  and  kept  starting  to  carefully  move  toward  Lestat  again  because  he  can't  stand  but  doesn't  move  closer  to  Lestat  yet,  no  he’d  let  Lestat  make  the  first  move.  "We  can  learn  from  it,  how  to  be  better  for  each  other.  It's  not  just  you  who  needs  to  do  better."

"Yes  I'll  let  you  do  better  if  you  let  me  too."  He  offers  a  hand  out  to  Lestat  it  was  up  to  him  if  he  took  it  or  not,  he  was  afraid  of  lestat  he  never  had  been  .  "I  don't  want  to  lose  you  again,  I  should  have  said  this  decades  ago,  I  love  you,  Lestat.  I  always  did,  I  just  was  scared  to  say  it  out  loud."

Lestat closes his eyes when Louis speaks of his nightmares and his teeth clench. It should have been expected, but it didn't make it easier to hear. After a moment, he opens his eyes. Lestat doesn't say so, but Louis is not alone in reliving trauma enacted upon him. The memories of his life before Louis are mostly contained, mostly wrestled into submission; dreams of Nicki, of Magnus, of Gabriella's leaving. All things he has reckoned with and while painful, they are old wounds and he has learned to control his environment enough to lessen the triggers.

The slitting of his throat is a more recent trauma, the feel of Louis' arms around him, the slow descent into what he believed was death, and the knowledge that it had been the man he loved, the ending of everything that mattered. It's not a contest and Louis is right. They have done horrible things to one another, but nothing they could not forgive. Louis has forgiven him. He is here, not with lingering hatred and the desire to harm, but with a yearning to be with him once more, to return to Lestat. Louis moves, and Lestat stills his pacing, frozen like a skittish cat. A thousand things come to mind, more apologies, more pleading.

He isn't looking at him, doesn't want him to see the shame there that is most certainly present on his face. Even as he reassures him, his stomach twists. There is an urgency to Louis' tone he doesn't understand, like he needs him to know, and he wants to say he does, that he understands and then Louis is saying the thing he's wanted to hear for thirty years. I love you. He'd known it, hadn't he? Some part of him. In the beginning, he'd been so sure of it, but over the years, when things got bad, when the silence took over, when they were separated. It was hard to hold onto, hard to believe and then he'd left him, truly left him, and Lestat had thought that maybe he'd never felt it at all.

His expression is surprised, and his brow furrows as he lets out a soft laugh, wiping at his face. Not mocking, but as if he cannot quite be sure he heard it correctly. As he takes his hands from his eyes, he says very quietly, "You love me?" After everything. Any dread he had, any anxiety, it's gone. He moves and meets Louis and does not take just take his hand, but pulls him the rest of the way into another embrace, burying his face into Louis' neck. The tears come, and he's crying now, with relief. He's wanted to hear it, to know it to be true, for so long. The simple affirmation. He pulls back and takes Louis dirty, tear stained face between his palms and without thinking much about it, he kisses him.

He  had  started  to  realise  somewhere  along  the  way  that  all  he  had  been  doing  while  travelling  across  Europe  was  following  Claudia  like  some  desperate  lost  dog  and  maybe  that  was  the  way  she  wanted  it  he  didn’t  know.  She  didn't  mutter  anything  other  than  a  few  words  till  then  got  to  Romania.  That  leaves  you  hardly  alone  with  your  own  thoughts,  his  always  led  back  to  one  place  to  one  being  who  knew  him,  helped  him  to  see  who  he  was  truly.  Never  had  Lestat  made  him  feel  like  he  was  just  standing  in  a  room  screaming  to  be  heard.  How  quick  Claudia  was  to  send  him  back  without  so  much  as  blinking  she  found  what  she  wanted  vampires  worthy  of  her  time.  Maybe  he  shouldn't  contact  her  yet.  She  deserved  to  be  happy.

It  wasn't  the  first  time  he  had  felt  alone  while  being  with  someone  he  loved,  he  deserved  what  Claudia  did.  He  really  was  a  selfish  bastard,  he  made  promises  he  never  intended  to  keep.  Me  and  you  he  had  said  over  and  over  and  now  here  he  was  with  Lestat.  God  he  can't  lie  and  say  that  this  wasn’t  right  where  he  wanted  to  be.  He  might  not  know  who  he  is  but  he  knew  staying  here  with  Lestat  he'd  be  able  to  find  out  and  maybe  then  he  could  answer  Claudia  when  she  asked  one  day  in  the  future.  He  just  nods  along  to  what  Lestat  says  because  what  else  does  he  say  to  that?

"Claudia  happy  there  Lestat,  she  found  what  she  told  you  she  wanted."  Green  gaze  lingering  on  Lestat's  face  he  hadn't  missed  the  way  he  changed  his  expression  at  the  mention  of  Armand,  so  his  own  feeling  about  him  had  been  correct.  He  is  not  someone  to  be  trusted.  He  bites  his  lip  as  he  dares  to  lean  forward  to  meet  Lestat  half  way  as  he  listens  to  everything  had  to  say  about  Paris  the  theatre.  His  own  hand  hesitates  for  a  moment  before  he  settles  it  softly  onto  Lestat's  cheek.  "I'm  sorry  for  making  you  talk  about  your  maker.  I  should  have  stopped  it  and  I  didn't  and  that  was  wrong."  He  should  have  said  that  years  ago  after  the  fact  but  he  had  been  angry  and  wanted  Lestat  to  hurt  like  he  had  after  the  fall.  "You  deserve  better  than  who  I  was  then."  He  nods  his  head  taking  a  deep  breath  letting  his  thumb  brush  along  the  other  chin  before  he  pulls  his  own  hand  away.

The  softly  in  Lestat  tone  breaks  his  last  bit  of  will  not  to  let  his  tears  fall  again.  Even  if  his  eyes  stings  from  the  blood  in  the  concern  of  them  he  nods  as  his  bottom  lip  twitches.  "I  saw  and  felt  you  with  me  everywhere."  He  swallows  the  lump  in  his  throat  as  he  lets  his  tears  go.  "It  was  a  hallucination,  I  know  that  and  it  came  from  my  guilt."  He  closes  his  eyes  for  a  second  as  he  takes  breath  to  steady  himself.  "I  came  back  to  you  for  you  to  be  with  you."  He   closes  the  distance  between  them  by  resting  his  forehead  against  Lestat's  as  he  finds  its  way  to  Lestat's  forearm.  “I  don’t  know  who  I  am  without  you  in  my  life.” 

Lestat is disarmed by his words, words he never expected to hear and did not think to hope for - an apology for the interrogation he had suffered, accused of hiding and withholding in anchor his power over them, a power he had never wanted in place of their love. He would have told them everything if he had thought his hurricane of a daughter might have heard a single word. It had been decided between them even before he had dropped him from the sky, that Lestat could not be trusted. That he was manipulative and untrustworthy. How much of that had been Claudia's poison and how much had belonged to Louis, deep in his heart?

And yet if Lestat had been resentful, it was quickly forgotten. The trade off had been Louis, and Claudia, allowing him back into their lives and he would have bled a thousand times for that. Louis' words are in earnest. He means them. Lestat's eyes shine with unshed tears. On another day, he would have been better at composing himself, but in this moment, he is raw and exposed. What did Lestat deserve? Not this. He never had and yet here Louis was, returned to him and in the moment, he realized Louis didn't know. He had bought him gifts and written him songs, begged to be forgiven, but Lestat had never really said it all out loud. "I deserved nothing, Louis." His voice trembled.

"And if I were a better man I would have left you and Claudia to your lives together, and sought nothing from you ever again. But I was selfish. I am selfish." His mind goes to the same place Louis' does. "I think of that day...often. I relive those moments over and over when I close my eyes. I see you falling, reaching, screaming." His voice breaks and he looks away, turning from Louis' touch. He stands, pushing off the chair, shaking his head. He paces on the other side of the coffee table, hugging himself. "There are no....there are no words for my regret, for how deeply ashamed I feel, for how...for how wrong it was. I hurt you. I...I hurt our family.

"What I did to you, Louis, there is no excuse or explanation. I knew what I was doing. I knew what would happen to you, how it would break your body and leave you crippled. I wanted you to hurt because you had hurt me. I asked for your forgiveness but I did not deserve it. You allowed me to return home but I was unworthy. You let me back in and still, I hurt you. Again and again. And you're here now, and I told myself if you came back, I would be different. For you. Will you let me try, Louis?" He turns back to him, red tears down his cheeks. The distance between them, purposeful, as if he is afraid he might hurt him. "You have never needed me to tell you who you are, but I'm afraid I am less than nothing without you."