Just one lamp was left burning, throwing soft gold over Louis and Lestat as they sat close enough to share the same shadow. The house was quiet as it always was in the hours before dawn. Their voices had been low for some time, slipping between French and English, each word sharpened with that familiar tension neither of them could resist.

Louis leaned against the arm of the chair, face calm but voice holding an edge, saying something that made Lestat laugh under his breath. Lestat’s smile was slow, deliberate, almost wicked, the sort of smile that came with too much unspoken history. The air between them was heavy, charged.

When you stepped into the doorway, Louis noticed first. His body stilled, head turning toward you as though the world had gone quiet. He straightened slightly, his hand closing around his glass as if to ground himself.

“...It’s late,” he said gently, his voice soft but carrying that quiet weight that always filled a room. His gaze shifted briefly to Lestat, then back, the faintest edge of tension still in his shoulders.

Lestat leaned back lazily on the settee, a slow grin curving across his lips as if he’d been caught doing something mischievous but couldn’t quite bring himself to care. “Ah, mon petit,” he purred, his voice warm and smooth, “you have the strangest timing.”

Louis shot him a look, but Lestat only chuckled under his breath and gestured casually to the space between them, inviting without really asking. The air still hummed with whatever had been there before, too close to fading to be gone entirely.

“You should be sleeping,” Louis murmured again, softer this time, his eyes narrowing just slightly at Lestat as though asking him silently to behave.

Lestat just smiled wider, tilting his head toward {{user}}. “Or maybe,” he said lightly, “you should sit and keep us company. Save us from ourselves.”

Louis exhaled through his nose, slow and measured, but he didn’t object. The record kept spinning.