SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 5 OF TVL
Okay, and Loustat shipper time. I can't help but scream over Loustat!
SPOILERS, I watched the leaked episode, SPOILERS! EPISODE 5 SPOILERS!
This season, Lestat is in this truly sick cycle of incest and pain with his mother, Gabriella. He can't stand it, but he can't help it. She hurts him, sometimes intentionally. He doesn't like their sexual relationship and still sees her as his mother, and she is the one who pushes the sexual connection. He convinces himself it's the vampire bond between fledgling and maker, but I think he deep down knows that isn't true. He doesn't feel sexual or romantic love towards Claudia, and he's her maker. He didn't feel much of anything for Antoinette, and he was her maker (he was sleeping with her to make Louis jealous, and that's it).
It has taken Lestat this long to sort of realize that his relationship with his mother might just be… grooming that started when he was a child by a woman who was always twisted, cruel, and cold even before she was a vampire. Lestat is also constantly haunted by the memory of Nicki, but Nicki is cruel to him, too, in these hallucinations. Nicki is angry, just as Nicki was angry with him when he was still a human. Nicki makes fun of him. Nicki points out all his flaws. This is, of course, just "Dream Nicki", or the Nicki hallucination. But he sees him everywhere, and it doesn't feel like a pleasant memory. He doesn't seem to long for Nicki. Instead, Lestat sees him as a person he failed who has every right to hate him, I think.
But when he hallucinates Louis… he just sees this beautiful man, quiet, staring at him, with a soft smile. Sometimes a pensive look, or a slightly critical one. Never scolding him. Never screaming at him or laughing at him. Just watching quietly. In the studio, when he sings and the music isn't right, Dream Louis just quietly shakes his head. When Lestat yells or loses it, Dream Louis walks out. When he sings a particularly painful song, Dream Louis stands in front of him at the mic and just listens. When he finally gets a recording right, Dream Louis gives him a small nod of approval, a smile, and taps a hand on the speaker. Louis is True North. Louis grounds him. Let's him know when he's getting to something real.
So, when real Louis texts him in a panic "Lestat, I need you! Please help me!", Lestat goes immediately. Even though he's annoyed that Louis didn't call to check on him after his "death." He still runs to Louis, because he loves Louis. He will always run to Louis. Louis is the only person in his life right now who, though Louis hurt Lestat, is a person he can be 100% himself with. He puts on the Lestat performance for everyone. He is still sort of a broken child with his mother, and also puts on the Lestat performance for her because he thinks it's what she wants. But with Louis… he is just himself. He is just Louis's person, even though they haven't officially reconciled. He sees Louis crying in his Escalade, asking Lestat to go into the diner to check if Regina is really Claudia, because Louis is losing his grip with reality and spiraling with grief. And he sits with him, and even though he's annoyed, he is patient with Louis, and he goes into the diner to check for him. And when Regina ABSOLUTELY looks like Claudia, he tells Louis that she's nothing like Claudia because he's trying to help Louis. He doesn't like Louis in pain. He doesn't want Louis to hurt himself over this anymore. No performance of the sexy rock star or the big bad vampire. Just a man who loves Louis and always has and always will. Their relationship has SUCH a different tone than every other relationship on the show. They never feel broken up. Just paused. And that's beautiful.