Chapter Text
Who has the shorter temper?
Technically - Lestat. He’s quick to anger, and quicker to lash out. He’s always been this way. His default mode is basically always turned to set off. You can’t tell what will trigger it or the magnitude of which his tantrum will end up being. Most of his outbursts don’t end in murder and disaster.
However - Louis’ rage is deadlier. He bottles things up for a very long time, but once he’s reached his limit - he’ll go off on the most random thing, with a truly terrifying outburst of violence. He doesn’t miss Armand, but he does admit (even if it’s only to himself) that Armand put in a lot of work into checking him, and without someone constantly shifting reality to fit - Louis has to start checking himself.
The air in the penthouse suite was thick, not with blood, but with the heady, metallic residue of three hours of applause, stage lights, and the kind of high-octane sensory overload only Lestat the Vampire could generate. Lestat was resting—a magnificent sprawl of white silk and black velvet across the ridiculously huge bed, exhausted from having bewitched twenty thousand mortals, and very acrobatic après show activities.
Louis, on the other hand, was already up and away from the wrecked bed. He always was.
It was just past 4 AM in New York, and Louis’s internal clock was set to ‘Escape Before Dawn’.
He slipped out of the Italian linen sheets and began his ritual. Trousers, shirt, cufflinks. The careful, measured collection of his effects. It was a quiet, obsessive routine that had defined their two-year dalliance: arrive, indulge in each other, and then depart with enough time to avoid the pull of the sunrise, thereby preserving the magnificent, all-important proclamation that he was, indeed, companion enough for himself.
Lestat was still. His eyes tracking Louis' every move in the lavish bedroom, but his body still in the eerie way of his. Louis located his favourite antique watch—Lestat had moved it, the menace—and strapped it to his wrist. He was halfway to the bedroom door when a voice, low, raw, and absolutely laced with the kind of hurt only Lestat could manufacture, stopped him dead.
"And where, pray tell, are you off to this morning, Louis?"
Louis turned, affecting a look of mild surprise that he hoped landed right. "To my hotel, Lestat," he said, trying for a tone of sensible, mature detachment. "It’s almost sunrise, I want to sleep."
“You can sleep here,” Lestat countered, looking meaningfully at the vacant spot to his left. Louis’s spot. It had been his spot since the very first night they spent in a coffin together: Louis on the left, Lestat on the right.
“Lestat,” Louis said, exasperated. He was too tired to have this out again.
The calm vanished from Lestat’s face in an instant. He sprang upright, pushing his hair back from his face. "Lestat what?" he demanded. "I saved you a seat—your usual favourite box—for seven nights of the most important professional achievement of my career. And you are leaving after the first?!"
"I have tickets for all seven shows," Louis corrected him, carefully. "I'll be here for the shows. That was the agreement."
Several expressions passed on Lestat’s face in a rapid, devastating sequence: betrayal, confusion, hurt, and finally, rage.
"L’accord!" Lestat scoffed, throwing the silk comforter off. "Of course. Je suis un idiot. Thinking you’ll break your ritual of leaving before I can even catch my fucking breath. Thinking we could celebrate this together. Thinking this would be at all important to you."
Lestat was now out of bed, closing the distance. His entire body was shaking with barely contained fury. Louis hadn't seen him this incandescently mad in a very long time. He made sure not to flinch or cower, not letting any ground be taken.
"C’est une putain de blague!" Lestat accused, his hand slamming down on the dresser so hard the decorative hotel picture frame rattled. "I pretend this casual arrangement is enough for me because I am terrified of crossing your precious boundaries! And yet I look at you, and I listen to you, and I know my love is a fire, Louis. It consumes me. But you… you just look like you are waiting for the smoke to clear so you can escape!"
Lestat snatched up the silver frame and hurled it to the carpet. It made a surprisingly pathetic, hollow thud.
"Enjoy your miserable, solitary week in your hotel," Lestat spat, his colour high, his eyes bright pink with unshed tears. "I shall not be here when you return, Louis. When I want an audience, I'll go back to my fans. At least they have the decency to applaud!"
Lestat spun on his heel and strode, radiating raw, hurt fury, straight out the room, slamming the door behind him with enough force to rattle the crystal glassware in the minibar.
The silence that followed was immense.
Louis stood there, shoes still in his hand, and let the truth sink in. Lestat was right, of course. It was a fucking joke. Acting like this casual fuck-and-walk-out arrangement was going to hold had been a fool’s hope. The victory of his so-called independence tasted like ash in his mouth. Louis walked over to the discarded silver frame, the slight dent in its corner a testament to Lestat’s genuine hurt. Louis couldn’t just leave him to sulk, not when he knew that all he had to do was… stay. He wanted to stay anyway. He had always wanted to stay. Wasn’t that the whole problem to begin with? Louis closed his eyes for a moment. He had no idea where to look for Lestat. New York wasn’t home. Lestat didn’t know the streets like the back of his hand. He could be anywhere. Taking a deep breath, Louis concentrated on the bond. New York was big, but Lestat’s heart beat louder than anyone else in the city.
He put his shoes on, and walked out into the street. He had a maker to track down.