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Lestat cannot answer.

 

Not immediately.

The words Louis has given him are too immense to fit inside language.

He has spoken before kings.

Before priests.

Before covens that wished him dead.

He has talked his way out of executions, seduced strangers with poetry, turned grief into theater and love into symphonies.

Yet now...

Standing a single breath away from Louis...

He cannot find one sentence.

His lips part.

Nothing comes.

A laugh escapes instead.

Small.

Disbelieving.

He bows his head, closing his eyes as though the weight of happiness is somehow heavier than sorrow.

"Oh..."

The sound is barely audible.

"My beautiful Louis."

His voice breaks on the name.

"I had forgotten..."

Another helpless laugh.

"...how mercilessly kind you can be."

Louis's thumb is still resting over the back of Lestat's hand.

Lestat stares at it as though it is the most miraculous thing he has ever seen.

"You say I was always trying to convince you I was extraordinary."

A tiny smile touches his mouth.

"I suppose I was."

His shoulders rise in a quiet shrug.

"It was easier than admitting I was terrified."

He lifts his eyes again.

"I learned very young that people applaud brilliance."

His smile fades.

"They endure power."

A pause.

"But they abandon fear."

The last word nearly disappears.

"So I buried mine beneath silk and laughter."

Another breath.

"Behind music."

His fingers tighten ever so slightly around Louis's shoulder.

"Behind arrogance."

He lets out a weary sigh.

"And after enough years..."

His gaze grows distant.

"...I forgot there was anything underneath."

Louis says nothing.

He doesn't interrupt.

Lestat has spent lifetimes filling silence because he feared what it might contain.

Tonight...

Louis lets him have it.

Lets him discover that silence can be gentle.

"I thought love was something won."

Lestat continues quietly.

"A prize."

"A performance."

"If I dazzled enough..."

His smile turns painfully self-aware.

"...if I desired hard enough..."

"...if I gave enough..."

"...if I became enough..."

His eyes meet Louis's again.

"...then perhaps no one would leave."

The confession hangs between them.

Raw.

Undressed.

"I never imagined..."

His voice trembles.

"...that someone might love the frightened boy instead."

Louis's eyes glisten.

Lestat reaches up slowly.

Not to hold Louis.

Not yet.

Only to brush a loose curl away from his forehead.

His fingertips barely graze him.

The touch is almost reverent.

"You always looked at me," Lestat whispers.

"I spent years believing you saw a monster."

A sad smile.

"Then I believed you saw a fool."

His thumb lingers near Louis's temple.

"But all this time..."

Emotion closes his throat.

"...you were searching for the child no one else bothered to save."

A tear finally slips down his cheek.

He doesn't wipe it away.

He has hidden enough.

"I don't deserve that."

Louis opens his mouth, but Lestat gently shakes his head.

"No."

"No arguments."

His smile is soft now.

Not self-loathing.

Simply honest.

"I don't deserve it."

"But..."

His eyes shine with something almost unbearably tender.

"...you gave it anyway."

Another silence settles between them.

Not empty.

Full.

Like music before the first note.

Lestat draws a slow breath.

"I cannot promise you perfection."

A faint laugh.

"You know far too much about me to believe such nonsense."

"I cannot promise we will never wound one another again."

His expression grows solemn.

"We are us."

"There will always be storms."

He brings Louis's hand from his shoulder into both of his, holding it as though it is something infinitely precious.

"But I can promise this."

Every word is deliberate.

"I will never again mistake being feared for being loved."

A pause.

"I will never ask you to disappear so that I may feel larger."

His grip trembles.

"And if I lose myself again..."

His eyes search Louis's.

"...I will let you find me."

The vulnerability of the promise seems to astonish even him.

"I won't hide."

A long moment passes.

Then, with the smallest, almost shy smile—a smile Louis has seen only a handful of times in nearly two centuries—Lestat says,

"You told me once that I was impossible."

He tilts his head.

"I fear you've made a dreadful mistake."

Louis raises an eyebrow.

"Oh?"

"Yes."

Lestat's smile widens just enough for warmth to eclipse grief.

"You've gone and made me hopeful."

He laughs quietly.

"And now..."

His thumb strokes the back of Louis's hand.

"...I find I should very much like to see what an eternity looks like..."

He steps the last inch closer until their foreheads almost touch.

"...when neither of us is trying to survive it."

"And only trying to live it."

Lestat cannot speak.

 

Not immediately.

The words are there—thousands of them, perhaps.

He has always had words.

Words like weapons.
Words like music.
Words like shields.

But Louis has just stepped past every one of them.

And for the first time in longer than he can remember, Lestat finds himself defenseless.

His wrist remains trapped gently within Louis's grasp.

Not trapped.

Held.

The distinction nearly destroys him.

Because Louis has held him before.

In fury.

In grief.

In desperation.

But never quite like this.

Never with such clear-eyed understanding.

Never after knowing everything.

Lestat's gaze drops briefly to their joined hands.

His throat works.

Once.

Twice.

When he finally speaks, his voice is almost unrecognizable.

Quiet.

Raw.

"You always saw too much."

A fragile smile touches his mouth.

Not arrogance.

Not flirtation.

Something heartbreakingly small.

"I used to hate that about you."

His eyes lift again.

Find Louis's.

Stay there.

"Everyone else saw what I wanted them to see."

The smile fades.

"But you..."

He exhales shakily.

"You looked directly at the wound."

Louis doesn't move.

Doesn't look away.

And somehow that makes it worse.

Or better.

Lestat isn't sure anymore.

His free hand rises slowly.

Not to touch.

Not yet.

Just to hover near Louis's shoulder, uncertain for perhaps the first time in two centuries.

"You know what is absurd?"

A quiet laugh escapes him.

Wet around the edges.

"I spent decades believing if I could just explain myself properly..." He shakes his head. "If I could say the right thing. Be beautiful enough. Charming enough. Grand enough..."

His voice cracks.

"...you would finally understand me."

The confession hangs there.

Naked.

Humiliating.

True.

"And all this time..."

His eyes glisten now.

Not with theatrical tears.

With something far more dangerous.

Real ones.

"All this time you understood me better than I understood myself."

The city lights blur for a moment.

Lestat blinks hard.

Fails completely to hide it.

He laughs once under his breath, embarrassed by his own emotion.

A very human sound.

Louis's thumb is still resting against his wrist.

Still there.

Still choosing not to let go.

Lestat stares at him as though he cannot quite believe the sight before him.

As though at any moment this might vanish.

Like every other miracle he has ever touched.

"You missed me."

The words come out almost as a question.

Not because he didn't hear them.

Because he still doesn't know how to believe them.

Louis had said them plainly.

Without games.

Without conditions.

And Lestat, who has faced revolutions and wars and centuries of darkness, finds that three simple words terrify him more than any of it.

"You missed me."

A tear finally escapes despite his efforts.

He closes his eyes briefly.

Laughs at himself.

Then opens them again.

And there is no performance left.

No prince.

No legend.

Only Lestat.

"I missed you every night."

The confession falls between them.

Soft.

Absolute.

"I heard your voice in cities you had never visited."

His gaze never leaves Louis's.

"I looked for you in crowds."

Another shaky breath.

"In music."

A faint smile.

"In books I knew you would hate."

That earns the smallest hint of warmth in his expression.

But it fades quickly beneath the weight of everything else.

"There were years when I convinced myself I despised you."

His voice lowers.

"Years when hatred was easier than admitting what remained."

His hand finally settles against Louis's shoulder.

Gentle.

Reverent.

As though touching something sacred.

"But the truth..."

Lestat swallows.

"The truth is that every version of eternity without you felt wrong."

Silence follows.

Not empty.

Full.

Overflowing.

And for once neither of them rushes to fill it.

Lestat simply stands there with Louis's hand around his wrist and his own hand resting against Louis's shoulder.

Looking at the man he has loved through every terrible mistake.

Every betrayal.

Every impossible year.

When he speaks again, the words are barely more than a whisper.

"I don't need forgiveness tonight."

His eyes shine.

"I don't even need hope."

A small, trembling smile appears.

"But thank you..."

His thumb brushes lightly against Louis's shoulder.

"...for finally letting me stop being alone while standing in front of you."

Lestat does not answer immediately.

 

For once, there is no elegant recovery waiting behind his teeth. No smile sharpened into a weapon. No beautifully arranged confession prepared to survive scrutiny.

Louis has stripped all the velvet from it.

And Lestat—God help him—stands there exposed beneath the city lights like a man discovering too late that immortality never taught him how to endure honesty.

His eyes remain fixed on Louis's hand against his coat.

That tiny touch.

So impossibly slight.

But after years of absence, of slammed doors and oceans and graves between them, it feels catastrophic.

Lestat's next breath is uneven.

Not dramatic.

Real.

"You ask impossible things of me," he says softly.

The old arrogance usually woven through his voice is thinner now, worn down at the edges. Tired in a way Louis has almost never heard from him.

His gaze lifts slowly back to Louis's eyes.

"But perhaps that's because you are the only person who has ever truly known when I was lying."

A faint smile touches his mouth then.

Not triumphant.

Not seductive.

Sad.

"You are right."

The words come quietly, and that alone feels astonishing.

"I have said forever when what I meant was don't abandon me."

Another breath.

"I have said love when what I meant was forgive the worst parts of me because I do not know how to survive them alone."

His eyes darken slightly.

"And destiny..." A small shake of his head. "Destiny was easier to say than fear."

Louis can see the effort it takes to continue. Lestat has confessed atrocities with less difficulty than this.

Because this is not performance anymore.

This is surrender.

"I was afraid," Lestat says at last. "Constantly."

The admission settles between them like something ancient finally laid to rest.

"Afraid that if you looked at me too clearly, you would discover there was nothing beneath all the spectacle worth loving."

His voice nearly breaks on the last word, but he does not disguise it.

Does not turn away from it.

"And the cruelest part..." he murmurs, eyes searching Louis's face now as if the answer to his own existence might still be written there, "was that you did see me clearly."

A fragile laugh escapes him then. Barely audible.

"You always saw me clearly."

The wind shifts around them, cold against the warmth of bodies standing too close.

Lestat's hand lifts slowly—not to seize Louis, not to possess him, but with almost unbearable restraint.

His fingers stop just beneath Louis's jaw.

Hovering there.

Waiting.

"As for why I came back..." he says, quieter now, stripped raw enough that every word feels pulled from somewhere living, "it was never hunger."

His eyes flick downward for one fleeting second, to Louis's mouth, before returning.

"It was the unbearable fact that every version of immortality without you felt smaller than death."

Silence again.

But this time it is not sharp.

Not waiting.

Just full.

Lestat swallows once, and when he speaks again, there is no theater left in him at all.

"I do not know how to love without performing it first," he admits. "I learned applause long before I learned honesty."

Then, finally—

the truth, laid down without ornament:

"But I came here tonight because I missed you so badly that even my pride could no longer survive it."

Lestat doesn't move at first.
For once, there's no immediate retort, no easy smirk to slip back into place like armor. The quiet stretches—thin as a blade, sharp enough to draw blood if either of them breathes wrong.
Then—
A soft, incredulous laugh escapes him.
Not mocking. Not quite.
Something older.
Lestat (low, almost to himself):
"Ah... there he is."
His gaze drags over Louis de Pointe du Lac like he's reacquainting himself with something he once knew by heart and somehow lost anyway. There's a flicker of admiration there—unwanted, undeniable.
"And here I was," he continues, voice gaining that familiar silk, though it's thinner now, threaded with something real, "wondering if time had dulled you."
A step forward—not enough to close the space Louis created, but enough to acknowledge it. To respect it. Which, for Lestat, is its own kind of confession.
His eyes don't leave Louis's.
"Still cutting," he murmurs. "Still choosing your words like weapons."
A pause.
Then, softer—
"And still pretending you don't enjoy the fight."
There's the ghost of a smile, but it doesn't quite land. Not fully. It falters at the edges.
Because Louis's question lingers.
Why you came back.
Lestat exhales—slow, measured. For a fleeting second, the performance slips. Not entirely. Never entirely. But enough.
"You think I didn't ask myself that?" he says quietly.
Another step—careful, deliberate. The distance between them narrows, but doesn't vanish.
"I had centuries to ask myself that."
His voice dips, something sharper threading through now—not anger, but exposure. The kind he despises.
"And every answer was unsatisfactory."
A beat.
His head tilts slightly, mirroring Louis again—but where Louis held only truth, Lestat carries contradiction.
"I came back," he says, more plainly than he ever would have once, "because leaving you did not have the desired effect."
A faint, humorless smile.
"It was meant to be... liberating."
His eyes darken, something restless flickering there.
"It was not."
Silence again—but this one is heavier, more honest.
Then Lestat lifts his chin just slightly, reclaiming some of himself, even now.
"So don't mistake this for uncertainty," he adds, voice regaining a trace of its old confidence. "I knew you might not be here."
A small shrug, almost careless—but his gaze betrays him, fixed, intent.
"I came back anyway."
And now—finally—he closes just a fraction more of the distance. Not touching. Not yet. But close enough that the space between them feels intentional, charged.
Lestat's voice drops, intimate, dangerous in that way only he can manage.
"Because, my dear Louis..."
A pause. Just enough to let it settle.
"...you're not the question."
His eyes search Louis's, unflinching now.
"You're the answer I couldn't escape."
Another beat.
Softer. Quieter. Truer.
"And I wanted to see if you still felt like one."
The city hums below them, indifferent as ever—but up here, the world narrows to the space between two monsters who have never quite managed to be done with each other.

Lestat doesn't answer right away.

 

Of course he doesn't.

He lingers in the shadows just long enough for the silence to stretch—just enough to make it feel intentional, like part of the performance he's always so careful to curate. Then, finally, he steps forward, the low light catching the sharp planes of his face, the faint gleam in his eyes.

There's a softness there, briefly.

Gone just as quickly.

Lestat de Lioncourt (quiet, almost amused):
"Resurrection implies I was ever truly gone, Louis."

His voice is smoother than the piano drifting up from the street below—richer, warmer, and just as haunting.

He moves closer, not rushing, never rushing, as if time itself bends to accommodate him. His gaze flicks past Louis for a moment, out toward the city—toward the flickering lamps, the slow, breathing dark of New Orleans.

Then back to him.

Always back to him.

"You give me far too much credit," Lestat continues, a faint smile pulling at his lips. "Or perhaps not enough."

A beat.

His expression shifts—subtle, but real. The amusement thins, revealing something older underneath. Something that doesn't quite bother hiding anymore.

"I came because you're here."

No flourish. No deflection. Just that.

He studies Louis now, openly, as if reacquainting himself with every line, every shadow, every guarded piece of him.

"And you—" Lestat tilts his head slightly, voice lowering, curiosity threading through it, "—you're still pretending this city holds you captive."

A step closer. Close enough now that the distance feels intentional rather than necessary.

"Tell me, mon cher..." he murmurs, softer still, "is it the city that won't let you go..."

A pause—his gaze sharpening, searching.

"...or is it me?"