Weird and sad, and a liar. Given developments three chapters from now, a line in the back half of the book reads, concerning details conveyed to him by the vampire Armand, his word is somewhat difficult to commit belief to. No need to read ahead, just put a mental pin in there to hold yourself up from being swept away by the haunting seduction of his narrative.
But who doesn't want to include fucking in theater boxes? Come on.
Just a faintly amused hm for all of that, and then there's Claudia. Lestat's hesitation makes Daniel glad he gave him a warning. He knows they had photographs of her before, and he knows she doesn't age, but he also knows the last time Lestat saw her in the flesh was one of the worst things he's ever had to hear about.
"Louis asked me not to put any of her in. But I think he did excellent with these, too."
His Claudia, delicately dabbing the tip of her pen in his neck wound. His Claudia, one final look of defiance, of which there was none in her real final look to him.
Lestat's hands settle on either side of the keyboard as he gazes at this unmoving image that nevertheless shows so much movement. Life. Something stinging, about the happy life she briefly found in Paris without him, and immediately sickening, the guilt, for even thinking it, when Paris so thoroughly tore her to pieces. These feelings are familiar and they come and go as Lestat sits silently with them.
The next picture. Claudia again. He tips his head, then says, "I like that little capelet on her. She had all of Louis' refinement, I remember," towards the end, the adult vampiress trying to claw her way out through styling, body language, language, "but my passion for very expensive things."
Is now the time to say his true critique of the book? The thing neither Daniel nor Louis could, actually, represent, because Lestat wasn't in the room to make his case. Whether it even matters, when the cruel things he said and did, rendered on the page, were true things.
Still, there it is, in his voice, in the slight glossiness to his regard, a wellspring of love that doesn't quite match with the account Daniel was given. But Daniel knows all about fucking up one's daughters despite best intentions to the contrary.
There are things that Louis and Armand told him of Claudia that are in the book; there are things Claudia told him that are in the book. There are things he was told that he left out, feeling that no disclaimer could cover his disbelief. Hard things are there, hard because they are brutal, hard because Daniel kept seeing himself and his own failures in it.
"She's beautiful." Present tense, because they're looking at a photo, it is here, she is here. "Hell of a diarist. Funny, insightful, vicious. I felt like I got to know her a little, which is dangerous for a research project. Skews perspective, getting attached. In the end I figured she was owed a little."
Claudia is the heart of the book. Pared down, the whole thing is an accounting of the world as it fits in with her diaries, her timeline, her grievances and joys.
"I can't imagine reading diaries from either of mine."
In a way, Lestat and Claudia exit the narrative together. A final stinging flourish, a would-be execution for his crime in failing to save her, or so it had seemed to him at the time, and then nothing else—until the rest.
And in all the melodrama of the story that motivates present feeling, Daniel says this thing, and Lestat's sound of reply is very ordinary: relatable. No thank you. Even if reading the book is a mediated version of doing just that, hidden beneath layers of various opacity.
"It wasn't all terrible. Sometimes I was her favourite."
And he would like to think it wasn't just the moments he showed her how to murder people or drive cars, although yes, a lot of that. He made her laugh often, and she he. Sharing in Louis' exasperation when they would trade secret fanged smiles of increasing ferociousness in public, to see who would get caught by him first.
A hell of a diarist. Not liable to let her narrative get bogged down. The next photo is one of light and shadow, a streetcorner lit up. Releasing him, for a moment. It isn't just a deflection when Lestat asks, "Are yours very far from your mind, now?" Curiousity persists.
She was like him, Daniel understands. A viciousness inherited by choice and inspiration— they did not raise her from the cradle, the world had made an imprint on her already. To some degree, she would have had to look at parts of Lestat and resonate with them, want them, on her own. And so he believes that claim without the skepticism he often applies to them.
Makes sense. You love your family, even when you hate them.
Most parents would take the kids out of a house fire before their spouse, though. Daniel has had cause to think of it. Would he save one of the girls, or Alice? What if it was back then? If he had to choose between her and the baby?
Well. Again. A better journalist than a father.
"They don't want much to do with me, so I respect that." Which is not really an answer. Far from his mind. He huffs a sigh. "Sometimes. And sometimes I think of them very often."
There is advice to give, maybe. An awful thing, to watch your child die. Insist yourself on them, before they haunt you forever. He makes a study of Daniel's profile, before looking back to the screen.
Lestat had saved Louis. He had saved Louis and now Claudia's footsteps echo down the stairways when he is alone, or he hears a derisive little sound in moments of second guessing. Worse, sometimes. There is being a shitty father, and then there's barely understanding the assignment until the moment your child looks to you as they perish.
The next photograph is flipped to, and the next, and Lestat realises he isn't really looking at them, and stops.
He lifts the laptop. "I'd like to see the rest another time."
Watching his kids die was his first objection to Louis' offer (which Daniel thought was mocking him, and still struggles with, privately). It is on his mind now and then, an unpleasant weight; he has known peers who've lost children and has seen the way it leaves them changed. It's naive to think that observing a natural death from a distance, happening to people he is estranged from and has been for years already, will pass over him without impact.
But what's he going to do about it? Walk into the sun? Turn his girls into vampires? Ideas so worthless as to barely qualify as laughable, simply nothing. He'll figure out how to endure that when he gets there. He has changed before.
A hum of acknowledgement, and Daniel takes the laptop back. A few taps on the touchpad as he rises, and then he closes the clamshell of it, ready to be tucked away again. It's probably time for him to get a full touch screen, one of those combo ones you can fold in every which direction. Innovation relentlessly forges ahead.
"He should get back into it." Louis, photography. "Do something besides crunch numbers and contemplate panda blood jell-o for a few hours a week."
Lestat's expression is agreeable, and then, a nose wrinkle at the notion of panda blood jell-o. An upgrade from rat? Maybe. Fancy rat.
He is otherwise reaching for his headphones and device as Daniel speaks, fiddling with them both of them to ensure they are pairing properly. He will indulge in something appropriately melancholic and stretch out on the seating, or perhaps start working his way through Daniel's recommendations, and try not to worry about whether his cellphone can receive calls while he is using it for music.
"I am sure he has not given up reading," he says, all the while. A glance up, a gesture with his phone, faint amusement mingled with exasperation. "Except in the situation of your book, apparently."
Because it is easier to tease them about it than actually look at that for any length of time. Back to scrolling his somewhat disorganised playlists.
"He already knows what's in our book," Daniel says gamely, "and he's already heard far worse commentary out of me about it than what was published."
Fourteen days of combat, intrigue, pain, bonding, upheaval, revelation, healing, worsening. Louis is allowed to skip it, just like Daniel is allowed to poke him about it. He thinks they each get it. Louis doesn't feel a need to scorch himself, Daniel feels like he only exists through his work. Balance, or something.
"And he read my other stuff, so I'm not too insulted."
Looked for himself in it. Found it, and couldn't recognize it—
Whatever. Headphones on is the universal sign of That's enough, pal, anyway.
A little lip curl, some unhappy thing about what Louis may or may not know of the book, of how necessary a reading is not—but Lestat's eyes are on his screen and he is choosing not to make it Daniel's problem in this moment. Whatever that problem might be.
Strains of music spill from unworn headphones. Fleetwood Mac.
"Then between he and I, we have your full repertoire," is his finishing flourish. He hasn't read Daniel's other books and will not begin now.
Headphones on. Time to—well, he cannot gaze out the window at this hour, wistful and thoughtful, but he can twist around with his back to the carriage wall and fold in on himself with a rustle of leather, and a heavy sigh out.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
But who doesn't want to include fucking in theater boxes? Come on.
Just a faintly amused hm for all of that, and then there's Claudia. Lestat's hesitation makes Daniel glad he gave him a warning. He knows they had photographs of her before, and he knows she doesn't age, but he also knows the last time Lestat saw her in the flesh was one of the worst things he's ever had to hear about.
"Louis asked me not to put any of her in. But I think he did excellent with these, too."
no subject
Lestat's hands settle on either side of the keyboard as he gazes at this unmoving image that nevertheless shows so much movement. Life. Something stinging, about the happy life she briefly found in Paris without him, and immediately sickening, the guilt, for even thinking it, when Paris so thoroughly tore her to pieces. These feelings are familiar and they come and go as Lestat sits silently with them.
The next picture. Claudia again. He tips his head, then says, "I like that little capelet on her. She had all of Louis' refinement, I remember," towards the end, the adult vampiress trying to claw her way out through styling, body language, language, "but my passion for very expensive things."
Is now the time to say his true critique of the book? The thing neither Daniel nor Louis could, actually, represent, because Lestat wasn't in the room to make his case. Whether it even matters, when the cruel things he said and did, rendered on the page, were true things.
Still, there it is, in his voice, in the slight glossiness to his regard, a wellspring of love that doesn't quite match with the account Daniel was given. But Daniel knows all about fucking up one's daughters despite best intentions to the contrary.
no subject
"She's beautiful." Present tense, because they're looking at a photo, it is here, she is here. "Hell of a diarist. Funny, insightful, vicious. I felt like I got to know her a little, which is dangerous for a research project. Skews perspective, getting attached. In the end I figured she was owed a little."
Claudia is the heart of the book. Pared down, the whole thing is an accounting of the world as it fits in with her diaries, her timeline, her grievances and joys.
"I can't imagine reading diaries from either of mine."
It would be bad.
no subject
And in all the melodrama of the story that motivates present feeling, Daniel says this thing, and Lestat's sound of reply is very ordinary: relatable. No thank you. Even if reading the book is a mediated version of doing just that, hidden beneath layers of various opacity.
"It wasn't all terrible. Sometimes I was her favourite."
And he would like to think it wasn't just the moments he showed her how to murder people or drive cars, although yes, a lot of that. He made her laugh often, and she he. Sharing in Louis' exasperation when they would trade secret fanged smiles of increasing ferociousness in public, to see who would get caught by him first.
A hell of a diarist. Not liable to let her narrative get bogged down. The next photo is one of light and shadow, a streetcorner lit up. Releasing him, for a moment. It isn't just a deflection when Lestat asks, "Are yours very far from your mind, now?" Curiousity persists.
no subject
Makes sense. You love your family, even when you hate them.
Most parents would take the kids out of a house fire before their spouse, though. Daniel has had cause to think of it. Would he save one of the girls, or Alice? What if it was back then? If he had to choose between her and the baby?
Well. Again. A better journalist than a father.
"They don't want much to do with me, so I respect that." Which is not really an answer. Far from his mind. He huffs a sigh. "Sometimes. And sometimes I think of them very often."
no subject
Lestat had saved Louis. He had saved Louis and now Claudia's footsteps echo down the stairways when he is alone, or he hears a derisive little sound in moments of second guessing. Worse, sometimes. There is being a shitty father, and then there's barely understanding the assignment until the moment your child looks to you as they perish.
The next photograph is flipped to, and the next, and Lestat realises he isn't really looking at them, and stops.
He lifts the laptop. "I'd like to see the rest another time."
no subject
But what's he going to do about it? Walk into the sun? Turn his girls into vampires? Ideas so worthless as to barely qualify as laughable, simply nothing. He'll figure out how to endure that when he gets there. He has changed before.
A hum of acknowledgement, and Daniel takes the laptop back. A few taps on the touchpad as he rises, and then he closes the clamshell of it, ready to be tucked away again. It's probably time for him to get a full touch screen, one of those combo ones you can fold in every which direction. Innovation relentlessly forges ahead.
"He should get back into it." Louis, photography. "Do something besides crunch numbers and contemplate panda blood jell-o for a few hours a week."
Fond, for the record.
no subject
He is otherwise reaching for his headphones and device as Daniel speaks, fiddling with them both of them to ensure they are pairing properly. He will indulge in something appropriately melancholic and stretch out on the seating, or perhaps start working his way through Daniel's recommendations, and try not to worry about whether his cellphone can receive calls while he is using it for music.
"I am sure he has not given up reading," he says, all the while. A glance up, a gesture with his phone, faint amusement mingled with exasperation. "Except in the situation of your book, apparently."
Because it is easier to tease them about it than actually look at that for any length of time. Back to scrolling his somewhat disorganised playlists.
no subject
Fourteen days of combat, intrigue, pain, bonding, upheaval, revelation, healing, worsening. Louis is allowed to skip it, just like Daniel is allowed to poke him about it. He thinks they each get it. Louis doesn't feel a need to scorch himself, Daniel feels like he only exists through his work. Balance, or something.
"And he read my other stuff, so I'm not too insulted."
Looked for himself in it. Found it, and couldn't recognize it—
Whatever. Headphones on is the universal sign of That's enough, pal, anyway.
no subject
Strains of music spill from unworn headphones. Fleetwood Mac.
"Then between he and I, we have your full repertoire," is his finishing flourish. He hasn't read Daniel's other books and will not begin now.
Headphones on. Time to—well, he cannot gaze out the window at this hour, wistful and thoughtful, but he can twist around with his back to the carriage wall and fold in on himself with a rustle of leather, and a heavy sigh out.
Peace.