"Thanks," Alex murmured. There was a lump in his throat, and his eyes closed as he leaned into the touch, hiding the glitter of tears under the pretense of drawing comfort. "But I was going to wait for you."
He took a breath. It hurt, but they needed to talk. There were just some things he needed to say, and so he asked Dr Saito to give them a few minutes.
Once she was gone, he pushed himself up in the bed, both his hands going around Rick's. He stared at the other's fingertips, the soft whorls of his prints, rather than meet his lover's eyes. "Lestat's been telling me what it's like," he said softly. He was Lestat, wasn't that what the Agency told them? And Lestat was stronger than anyone he knew. So he could do this. "When you - go. It's not so bad."
His grip on Rick's hand tightened a little. "Azazel...He's a demon, isn't he?" They'd never talked about it. It would have been a little hypocritical, with a vampire in his own head. But it was important now.