Lestat is already moving when he resurfaces. Not very helpfully. A lurch to the side on his hands and knees, a heaving breath to inflate one uncollapsed lung. A bleary glance to where Armand is laying limp, a dead baby bird half-squashed on the pavement. The golden morning light making blood shine.

He wants to kill him. Considering the damage he has already inflicted, the way he began this encounter, this should not be a new feeling, but it is. An ice cold impulse towards murder, towards ending a person for the things he has just seen, sears through him so suddenly and it slams into the brick wall of knowledge that this is impossible, and will always be impossible, no matter how strong he gets.

Senseless, he gives an animal's deep and rageful bellow, fangs long, and the noise of it chokes out quickly as he loses his breath.

And he is in the sun. He isn't burning.

But he cannot shake the idea that he is about to, at any moment. With a wet, sucking breath in of air and blood, he scrambles to his feet. Limps. His leg had dislodged and snapped back into his hip at some point, but feels both loose and swollen now. He clutches at his wounds and goes, leaving behind a trail of feathers and blood spatters.

A blur. Stop start super speed and more human stumbles. No thoughts left, save that he feels an urge to try to make it all the way back to the hotel before this is knocked aside. No, not there. Can't face them, not today, perhaps never again, who knows.

Finally, sanctuary. The rotting dark and a metal lid slamming closed over him. As good a place as any to bleed, which is all he feels capable of, all he feels good for.