It had been a few months with him living with Lestat again, he very quickly fell back into the step with his maker. Yes he go off and explore the city in the places he knew Lestat would get broad at like museum and there many for him to spend hours in a few hours or almost a whole a night. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Had been his favourite so far. It wasn't that he didn't want to spend all his time with lestat, just sometimes he liked his own space to recharge. After all he was the less of a people person between the two of them. The best parts of his time away was always knowing who and just what he was coming home to. Lestat waiting with a hot bath for both of them tonight along with a great many stolen kisses.

These moments meant more than anything fancy. Just the simplest of things like getting to share a bath together. Sex was great and something they were both very good at but this meant more to him. Lestat letting him into a normal private moment. He found himself completely relaxed as he had his eyes closed resting his head on the wall behind his head. The water just came to his collar bone; it was easier for him to fit between Lestat's legs since he was slightly short. He rested one hand on the side of the tub close to Lestat's as his other was under the just resting on his chest.

His nose scrunches slightly as he smiles at the question before opening his eyes so he could look at Lestat and get lost in the other eyes as the candle light brought out the violet in them more. "You." It's a simple answer and one that's full of truth.

What goes unsaid is just how much he had missed the level of intimacy or how long he felt starved of the other touch. He was in a lot of ways addicted to Lestat the way he moved the way he touched him with such care was one. He'd spent most of his mortal life starved of affection crying out for it and then here was Lestat with his hands that seemed to bring him back to life.

The candlelight reflecting off his green eyes, like big church windows lit from within, would never not be astonishingly beautiful to Lestat. The lazy reveal as he opens his eyes and gazes at Lestat, his expression coming alive with a nose scrunch and a lazy smile. An intimate smile, just for Lestat. Lestat will endure almost anything Louis asks of him and sometimes he does. Just like he introduced Louis to the opera, Louis has shown him collections of art and sculptures and Lestat has happily followed him around while he soaked it all up. Most nights are spent together at least in part, though more than once Louis has come home late (or is it early?) with tales to tell and Lestat is happy with that.

Tonight, however, he is not regaled with information on the current exhibits, nor even Louis' favorite book at the moment. It's been quiet and once upon a time the silence would have put Lestat on edge, fed his anxiety, made him worry, but tonight, it's pleasant. Just to be together. Lestat could share about his evening, his compositions, his writing, but that can wait, too. Maybe once they're done soaking. He's learned a new piece, from some antique sheet music he'd found in one of the shops he frequented. When Louis replies, Lestat looks coy and playful. "Me? How intriguing." He sits forward, dropping his legs so they bracket Louis'. The water sloshes a bit but he pays no notice.

"And what about me? My stunning good looks? My exquisite taste?" His tilts his head as he speaks, pulling his arms into the water, as he brings one hand from beneath the surface to take the hand on Louis' chest in his own. He examines Louis' hand idly, still smiling, before he brings it to his lips and kisses his palm. Touch is one of his main love languages and though he can not offer it the way he would like in public, when it is just the two of them? He rarely keeps his hands away from Louis. He found Louis responded to it positively and Lestat could only hope he got as much out of it as Lestat did.

Physical affection was one of the main ways he understood the expression of love. Lestat found it grounding and centering. It was reassuring. Speaking of..."All good things I hope," he says conversationally, eyebrows raised slightly awaiting his response. He likes to know Louis' inner world, his thoughts and feelings, and sometimes when he's lucky, Louis will even share what he keeps so guarded. He's better about it than he had been in Rue Royale. He is not withdrawn and aloof, unreachable. He's more open and honest, Lestat thinks, and it means the world, considering Lestat cannot read his mind. He is still Louis, though, so Lestat suspects there will always be some mystery.

He stays quiet and just listens to every word that is said. He never was able to read the other mind, not like Lestat had the opportunity to do with him so fair for him to assume it makes for Lestat to make a good guest at where he mind was going. At the confession he moves so he could wrap his arm around the other's shoulder pulling Lestat lightly into his side more. He looks down at his mug and takes a few sips here and there as hums in agreement sometimes because Lestat doesn't need answers he just needs someone to listen. "I never want to feel like I'm living buried underground again. I know you're teasing but yeah you've just summed up living in Dubai. Painfully boring." He shakes his head because the last being in this world he wants to think about is Armand.

He hides his smirks behind the rim of his mug as he takes another sip of blood. "So you maker and your fledglings? That who you saw?" He asked gently since this was the first time Lestat had spoken about that day. "I think what's important right now is not making any more vampires. There are too many of us now Cher the death rate of mortals is higher than the birth rate. I worry about what it means long term." He shrugs as he looks down at the blood in his mug before he looks back up at Lestat. "I think if you believe you can make up for it then you will and it doesn't matter what I think it's what you believe Les. Everyone has to ability to be cruel and wicked but you aren't always those things there more to you. We aren't just judged on our worst days, it comes down to who you are as a whole or that's what Paul used to say to make me feel better." He frowns lightly but a smile pulls at his lips. "I like to think that the powers that be don't just see things in black and white but they see the shades of grey helps me feel less scared."

His nose scrunches as he frowns and looks away toward the window moving from around Lestat so he fiddles with the mug in his hands. "Speaking of what happened when we were headless. It's all fuzzy, remember certain things." He bites at his bottom lips before he leans back into the sofa. "They live streamed it. Regina was there and Armand planned it all out where she was working how we met everything." He starts to tap his nails on the mug as he turns his head to look at Lestat. "He wanted me to apologise to him. He had me facing my body and writing things down. I did apologise to him in the end. I can't remember what I said to him and then I woke up on the bus. " He brought his finger to neck to brush the scars that were healing nicely so it wouldn't leave a permanent scar.

" I know the whole time all I could think about was you. I didn't care about anyone or anything else. I told him you were always the love of my life, that was always the truth.” He nods his head slowly as if only just releasing what he said out loud before he trunks to gaze at least with a softness to his eyes he sure Lestat never has seen before. “I know you want to hear me say those three words, they are here.” He moves to put his hand on his heart. “I’ve just the words still feel foreign and too risky to say out loud. Give me a little more time, yeah?”

Well, it wasn't a rousing denial of the possibility. Louis wasn't dismissing that he may have a chance at redemption, even if his reply indicated it was more of an internal process than external. Perhaps those he had wronged would not forgive him, but was that reason enough not to try? If the reason for doing better was wanting to be better and not simply to feel like you'd been given absolution, perhaps more than guilt and suffering, it was about change. And he could do that. He had done that. Yes, he'd done the penance and the self flaggulation, he had wallowed in misery and self pity. It had been about him and his feelings. Guilt alone would not make him a new man, a better man.

He could never undo the things he had done but it was reassuring that Louis believed it was not so black and white. He believed there was more to Lestat than the blood shed and the cruelty and he always had. Why else had he forgiven him? For the drop, for everything else. And why else had Lestat forgiven Louis? And in his reply was something else, an expression of vulnerability. An admittance of discomfort, of anxiety, of fear. Lestat is not alone in his ponderings about good and evil, life and death. Louis understands the struggle, perhaps better than most. "I can do it if you're with me. I can do better, if you'll help me."

What is vampirism and immortality if not an invitation to reinvent? Today he is The Vampire Lestat but that Lestat is different from the ones before him. The son, the brother, the almost priest. The wolf killer, the wanna be actor. Nobody from Auvergne, the fledgling, the maker. A man living in New Orleans with his brother and their strange daughter. And now a rockstar, stripped bare, laid out raw, all the ugly and painful parts of himself on display asking people to love him. This Lestat can die and another will be born. A decade or two, when everyone begins to notice he doesn't change. Who will he be?

It feels like there are so many possibilities, and it's because of the man sitting beside him. Louis' love, it gives meaning to his life. He knows be can live without him but he doesn't want to. And he doesn't have to. They have no discussed what they are. What labels fit? Lovers, companions. Boyfriends? Friends with benefits? But they're not fucking, not currently, though Lestat does not desire him any less than he has a hundred years ago. Taking it slow. Boundaries. Communication. As Louis tells him of the happenings while his head was removed from his body, Lestat finishes his mug and sets it down. He doesn't interrupt. He gives Louis time to speak, to find the words. He finishes the blood in his mug and sets it down.

When he does reply, it's only when Louis pauses to give him room. "I'm sorry that happened, Louis. Everything, with the girl. I would have come sooner. I know we weren't speaking but, if you'd told me," he looks down at his hands, picking his cuticles. "She was our daughter. You didn't need to do that alone." Because no one else will ever understand Claudia the way they do. Because no one will miss her the way they do, no one loved her like they did, no one understands the empty, gaping wound left behind that will never really heal. "Armand is...well. You know, hm?" Then, Lestat scoffs. "Apologize? For what? I won't pretend to know what went on in your relationship, Louis, but there are better ways to ask for an apology than beheadings."

And then suddenly Armand doesn't matter. Louis is speaking and it's words he still can hardly imagine coming from his lips, no matter how much time has passed or how Louis has grown. His chest feels tight, his breathe catches in his throat and he looks at him again, from under dark lashes, tentative. His words are hurried, trying to head Louis off. "Louis, you don't have to-" And Louis is right, there is a warmth and deep love in his gaze, a softness, the echo of a tenderness shared in a closed coffin, side by side, so many years ago. The truth of it. "All the time you need. I...I understand. You mentioned Paul and I saw him, too."

Lestat smiles softly, his expression gentle as he reaches out and lays a hand on Louis' thigh, hoping the weight of it is reassuring. He wets his lips and continues. "We talked and he...he explained some things to me. Things that my fear kept me from understanding. Not because of you, but because of me. But I know now. I know you love me. The words are nice but I can do without them, until you're ready." He reaches out and his finger tips brush the line of his jaw. "I just need you. I just want you." Whatever it looks like. However Louis will have him. "I love you, Louis. I never stopped. I never wanted to. I couldn't. I don't know how to be any other way, to feel any other thing."

"Tis a fearful thing to love what death can touch."

something that fucks me up to think about is that after two seasons of iwtv, the first time we ever *actually* see lestat is in the last scene of the finale of the series.