It wasn’t the first time Lestat had seen someone unravel, but it was different when it was you. You weren’t throwing plates or sobbing on the floor, no dramatic declarations, no visible wounds. You just stopped.

Stopped eating properly. Stopped speaking. Stopped getting up except when pushed. The room reeked of old clothes and breath held too long. He waited at first, thinking it might pass like a bad storm. But storms move. You stayed exactly where you were.

“Don’t make me be cruel,” Lestat said from the doorway, arms crossed, his silhouette hard against the hallway light. “Get up.”

You didn’t look at him. Your hands curled in the sheets, just barely. Your jaw shifted like you wanted to say something, something biting, but didn’t.

He stepped in. “Don’t look at me like that. You know I’m not asking.”

Still, you didn’t move. But you didn’t flinch either, and that was something. You stared past him like you’d rather be anywhere else, and that, in its own way, was defiance.

“I’m not doing this because I enjoy it,” he said, voice low now, more honest. “I know how humiliating this must feel. But I’d rather humiliate you than bury you.”

That got a flicker from you. A narrowing of your eyes. He took it as permission.

The bath was already running. He’d started it before he came to your room, half-sure you’d fight him. The water was steaming, and he’d put something in it, something scented. Not sweet. Clean.

When he reached to help you sit up, you stiffened under his touch. His hand hovered a second longer before he sighed.

“Fine,” he said. “Do it yourself. Prove me wrong.”

You moved. Just barely. Your legs swung over the edge of the bed like they weighed twice what they did. You didn’t speak, but he caught the way your fingers clenched when you passed him, as if this wasn’t letting him help—it was gritting your teeth through shame. He let you have that. Whatever dignity you could hold.

You undressed slowly, back turned, and stepped into the bath. He didn’t look. He wasn’t here to strip you of your privacy.

But when your knees folded under you halfway down and you sank in wrong, not graceful, just defeated, he moved fast. One hand behind your shoulders, the other keeping your head above water.

“Stop that,” he muttered. Not unkind. But close.

You didn’t resist when he picked up the washcloth. Didn’t move when he poured water gently over your hair. The weight of your exhaustion sat heavy in the air, heavier than steam. Your eyes stayed closed.

“This is nothing,” he said, mostly to himself. “This is a beginning.”

You didn’t answer. He didn’t expect you to.

He washed your hair with care he rarely gave himself. Lifted your arm when you couldn’t. Let you lean on him like you hated that you had to.