Was Louis screaming still, when the coffin lid raised?
Claudia is dead. Louis is alive, but only just.
Claudia is dead. That is the only thing left to him now, now that he has run out of hallucination and fantasy, now that all strength and energy has ebbed away. Claudia is dead. Louis does not wish to be alive.
The blood finds him anyway.
Droplets of blood slipping through rocks, down and down and down, to find Louis.
Claudia is dead.
Louis sits up.
His mouth is full of blood and stones. This is animal instinct. A living body which does not wish to die, even if the mind has given over gladly to the thought.
No one asked Louis if he wished to live. Why would he? Claudia is dead.
But he is siting upright among the stones, breath coming heavily, wetly, through a mouthful of blood. Rocks drip from his lips, clatter back down to join the rest. Louis rakes an unsteady hand through them, lifting a second handful back up.
He's alive. Claudia is dead. There is little room for anything else in these first moments, this liminal space half in, half out of the coffin.
There is only the smallest shred of his mind growing aware that the blood Louis is sucking from these rocks belongs to Lestat.
It's dark, here, no fire, no moonlight, just brick and shadow. But nothing will ever be as dark as the inside of the coffin that Louis is still half-buried in.
Because shadows veil very little to them, and once Louis has enough wherewithal to do so, he'll be able to follow the mystery of the taste of Lestat's blood in his mouth to the shape of Lestat several feet away. Kneeling, arms wound around himself—a tight, coiled in posture that speaks less of wanting to be small, of wanting to defend himself, and more of restraint.
There is no restraint in his regard, gaze fixed and mouth parted, the sign of relief of great torment now (in part) drained away.
Barely voiced, the way he says, "Louis," in more wonderment than a meaningful attempt to draw focus.
It doesn't register, not immediately. Louis coughs, spills saliva and stone back down into the casket. A great shudder of hunger wrenches though his body. Fangs gleam in his mouth.
The taste—
"Lestat," falls out of his mouth before Louis realizes he is speaking. Recognizing the taste, feeling the lurch of want in his gut. (In the middle of everything, in the midst of betrayal and ridicule, Louis had felt it. Love.)
And then, ragged, voice breaking, "Claudia."
Louis wants it to be a question. But he had known, known all the while he was withering to death in this coffin.
Which alleviates Lestat from the burden of answering it. Sets his mouth hard against the immediate and wild snap of emotion he feels, a barely leashed wild dog of a thing. Swallows, and then moves.
The cuff at one sleeve is already open, and the wound that he'd made in his wrist has closed. When he redraws it with a claw, it's only shallowly, only enough to tempt the instinct that's dropped Louis' fangs and guide it to what it wants to do. He could tear open his flesh and allow blood to pour freely, and yet,
his other hand goes out, touching Louis' shoulder, while he offers his wrist, the trace blood smeared there. "Here," he says. "One thing at a time."
Louis' thoughts can progress no further, for the moment. What follows behind that is rage, rage, rage. It is already burning, gathering fuel, threatening to consume.
And his hunger—
It's so near to the surface. The scent of fresh blood hooks him, even as his body shudders under the application of Lestat's hand to his shoulder. His lips peel back off his teeth, base instinct carrying him forward to sink fangs deep into Lestat's wrist.
Where is Saint Louis' restraint?
It crumbled to ash. It is buried beneath stone. It is consumed by the endless, looping refrain: Claudia is dead.
And as he gulps messy swallows, the hunger abates. Grief and fury mingle, grow stronger with each passing moment.
His hand stays resting where it is, and Lestat allows his other arm to be gripped, caught in the unyielding bear-trap that is a hungry vampire's jaws. It is much like when Louis was turned. It is nothing like that at all.
As Louis drinks, Lestat tips his head back, watching the brick ceiling. Resisting the instinct, which is growing, to wrest his arm back and cease the bloodletting, feeling his heart struggling in his chest as he is drained. Louis has a powerful hunger. If Lestat could love him more, he might.
Practicality eclipses punishment. The hand at Louis' shoulder tightens, and he goes to turn his wrist to discourage the bite clasping it fast.
For a moment, it seems as if Louis will not disengage. That these minor, unmistakable means to dislodge him only strengthen the force of the bite, jaws bearing down harder. Blood drools down his chin. There is nothing behind his eyes, just blown pupils and Louis himself gone away with his pain.
And then, with a wet gasp, Louis' jaw goes slack.
Lestat is permitted to draw his arm back.
The hunger is not sated, only quieted. The pebbles shift as he begins the process of struggling free.
One thing at a time, Lestat had cautioned. Here is the next: get out of his coffin. He is alive. Claudia is dead.
The anger coalescing in his chest leaps higher, unencumbered by hunger.
A pained sound, with the release of those jaws, an echo of the one that came just before it with their bearing down. Lestat folds his arm back against himself, pressing his hand down against the punctures and willing his flesh to heal faster, his own teeth bared, fangs a little ways lowered as the rush of adrenaline empties itself through depleted veins.
The sound of the rocks shifting. Grinding together, spilling over the edge.
He moves from kneeling to crouch.
"Louis," he says, searching his face, for what has taken the place of shark-black eyes, a vampire's snarl—if anything. Heedless of his findings, Lestat reaches out with the intent to help him out from his burial. "Louis, let me help you."
That's what he's come here to do, after all. His voice a distant thing, compared to thumping heart, the way the previously unmoving rocks shift together, clatter on the ground, open air echoing noise back.
The hunger isn't gone, only momentarily abated, a slavering thing in Louis' hind brain with all too much influence. It scents the blood in the air, the torn mess of Lesat's forearm. It's fed by Louis' rage, fed by Louis' grief. It demands more. (Do they sleep upstairs? Santiago, Armand. The coven. Did Lestat have a coffin there among them?)
One thing at a time, Lestat had cautioned. There are stones in the folds of his clothing, closed into his flesh at the heels. Louis' chin and throat are slick with blood. His eyes are dark when he finally looks fully at Lestat. Swaying on his feet in a casket full of stones, heartbeat accelerating, chest heaving deep, unsteady breaths.
"Help me," is a furious, bewildered rasp. "Help me?"
Claudia is dead.
Louis hand closes in on itself, a feeble preservation of that last moment, of Claudia's hand in his own before he'd been ripped from his seat.
The word comes out—barely. A sound, a hiss, quiet in his throat.
Standing, and his hands out, and his arms out, like they could embrace if Louis allowed it, if he stumbled from his coffin and if Lestat could catch him.
But there is no romance to this, not in Lestat's expression, where wonderous relief has given away to (a dark flicker) a tense wariness, a focus. The knowledge that there is simply no room or space to feel the thing he can see in Louis' face, hear in his voice. Beholding a burning corridor, wondering if there is a least painful way through.
"Louis, you have to come with me now," voice thick. "Quietly, away from here."
How can he go? (Claudia is dead. Claudia is dead.) How can he leave her?
"Nah," is ground glass. Agony. "I'm gonna kill them. I gotta kill them."
Fury crystalizing, hardening, even as Louis begins the clumsy, clambering process of spilling out of the coffin. Weakly wrenching his feet from the rocks, overbalancing, Lestat's outstretched hands the only thing that keeps him from falling to the floor.
Lestat catches him. Lestat hauls him further away from the coffin, and wraps a completely unyielding arm around him, pinning them together.
This, too, lacks romance.
(Lacks romance? Holding him closely while Louis is consumed by his rage, his own wounded heart leaping in his chest to match it.)
"You cannot," is a furious near-whisper in Louis' ear. "You mistake your hunger for strength, Louis. Your anger for efficacy." The hold he has on him can only emphasise this fact, should Louis try to struggle. It won't work. "They will tear you to shreds and I will not allow it, do you hear me?"
There is no weeping to herald the flooding red in his eyes, just an upswell of deep feeling, impossible to name as one thing.
Somewhere, a theatre full of vampires and drunkards. Now is not the moment.
A last scattering of stone as Louis comes free of the coffin. He thrashes in Lestat's grip, furious, desperate.
Claudia is dead.
"Fuck you," Louis spits, strangled, panicked. A thrash of movement that takes him nowhere, weakened as he is. Spits again, through a mouthful of fangs: "Fuck you."
Because it is the truth, what Lestat is saying. They would tear him to shreds. Armand would allow it. And Claudia—
A flash of memory: Burlap, wrapped around his head.
A flash of memory: Claudia, screaming as they forced her in among the rats.
A flash of memory: Hands restraining him, dragging him, silencing him.
Above them, laughter. Applause. The patter of music and performance. Below, Louis' hatred turning over in his chest.
"Fuck you," flattening out, Louis' knuckles digging in beneath Lestat's ribs. The fight waning, at least for the moment.
Lestat holds fast. Barely feels the strikes to his torso, hard knuckles to muscle. Words, more piercing, but he can take them too, rageful and and scarcely coherent. And slowly, Louis weakens, and he doesn't think it's so bad of him to bury his face against Louis' shoulder while he has him locked in like this, a brief crumpling hidden there.
The hold shifts. As Louis weakens, the grip gentles—a relative thing. Still holding him tightly, but that assertion of deep, supernatural strength abates, and Louis finds he is being held by another man rather than an unyielding statue of iron.
And he can break free of it, but Lestat doesn't let go, not yet. Waiting.
Louis doesn't break free of him. All the fury and panic and hunger, it doesn't vanish. It only smolders, banked and heavy in his chest. His head falls forward, blood-smeared mouth pressed in against Lestat's throat. Hungry like digging claws in his belly, fangs sharp in his mouth but kept free of Lestat's neck.
Claudia is dead. A constant, endless refrain. Louis' thoughts snag, stuck, coming endlessly back to her screams.
Slowly, like rising smoke, guilt. Deepening even as he takes this small comfort, hand closing slowly in the back of Lestat's vest.
The threat of sharp teeth at his throat, the ambiguity of the hand closing at the back of his vest. Doesn't matter. Lestat holds Louis to him, because Louis is alive, rescued, and if he has done nothing else in his cursed life, it is this.
And maybe he will never hold him again. Something he knows as he loosens his arms and grips Louis by the shoulders, Lestat drawing back. That waxy look, now, of a vampire well drained, bringing up the smear of blood tears a little brighter, but his eyeline is steady as he meets Louis' eye.
"Come with me now," he says. "Whatever you do next, do this one thing first."
It's in his mind now, a plan that surely ends in his own death:
Ascend the stairs. Sink his fangs into the first vampire he comes across. Repeat until there are none left, or until he is dead too.
Louis can't bring his fangs back in, can't reign himself back in. Lestat has him by the shoulders. His eyes are glossy, red traces of tears there. Looking at him, Louis feels some distant, dull stirring of feeling in his chest. An awareness of what had kindled during the trial, the breathless flutter of anticipation at his coming, the love Louis carried for him glowing like a coal in his chest even as Lestat damned him and Claudia both.
"I hate you."
Even this is not enough of anything. Not enough of a condemnation.
But it is assent. Louis leaves the certainty of his own death, and gives over to Lestat's plea.
A ripple of feeling through that intent and steady stare, a twitch at the mouth, absurd hurt flashing plainer behind focused, blood-rimmed blue. There is no surprise in it. A knife that twists and finds no resistance at all.
But it is assent. Lestat lets him go, banished, but expectant of being followed. The way out is easier, with the theatre's bowels tangled with the Parisian sewer system, and Lestat moves as efficiently as a night predator, caring only about making distance between them and the coven, only about Louis following along.
A manhole cover scraping aside. Crawling out onto a quiet street. The gleam of the river nearby. Lestat, first, and then turning to pull Louis out behind him.
It echoes in his mind, over and over and over. They trek through the sewers in near silence, Louis' palm on the slick stone to keep himself upright and moving. His breath is a scraping rasp of sound, a wounded creature tugged along only by its own pain. Hunger gnaws at him, the stopgap of Lestat's blood waning as they flee.
And his anger, his anger is a refuge. If he disappears into it, then the excruciating pain of his grief diminishes. He is thinking already of how he'll repay them. How he will make them regret what they'd done.
Lestat pulls him out. Louis remains briefly on hands and knees in the street, panting, before he pushes back. Looks up at Lestat from his heels, eyes dark. Fangs catching the waning moonlight. His breath comes faster, looking at him. Hurt. Why blooming in his expression.
"Is this where you leave me?" is the question posed instead, tone an inscrutable thing. Syllables scraped across gravel, thick with misery. One question from the many, the most immediate. How far does Lestat's benevolence stretch in this moment?
Lestat is standing, the cuffs of his trousers damp from the water and a sleeve now red with blood, staining white cloth, paler for blood loss—but much as he was during the trial, strong and poised and deliberate as he gazes down at Louis. Not cold, here. None of the sharp accusation he'd projected, when the script had demanded it of him.
The question, then, takes him off-guard. His hands form fists at his sides.
"You need blood," finally, tone flat, but lacking in edge. "And a coffin, when the dawn comes."
He would like to shatter into a million pieces. Fall to his knees in front of Louis, grasp him, explain everything, a tempting outpouring of hysterics, as if he believed Louis would hear it, would want it, would need it. Lestat would like it, at least, and he doesn't. Because Claudia is dead.
"Come with me. Hunt, sleep. See what revenge looks like then."
A crumbling sort of pain at the edges of Louis' expression.
He cannot return to the little apartment he and Claudia had shared. That is closed to him, he who will surely be hunted. Armand will look, Louis knows. The rest, upon finding the empty coffin, will seek to complete the verdict, to banish Louis from this world.
It is tempting to remain here. Kneeling in the street.
He would melt away in the dawn. It would be over.
It should be over. Claudia is dead. What else is there now?
(If he reaches for the comfort Lestat could offer, he will shatter. He cannot shatter.)
"I know what it looks like," roughly, stubborn. The grate is closed, prevents the impulse to simply turn to see it done now.
It is a labor, getting to his feet. But rise Louis does, propelled by the compulsion of hunting, of blood. (Of Lestat, inescapable and tangible, Louis' heart erratic over the continued presence of him.) He straightens slowly, runs his tongue across his fangs.
One hand turns, like the instinct is to go to Louis again, help him to his feet. Lestat can imagine doing so, and can imagine being shoved away. A stumble turns into something worse. Turns into Louis realising he can simply leave, turns into Louis leaving him.
And—voices. Foot steps.
Walking the river's edge, the smell of alcohol almost as vibrant as the clap of the woman's drunken laughter. She is wobbling on the arm of the man she is with, and he is moving them with intent. Lestat does not seem surprised, does not even look, as if maybe this manhole had more to do with the sound of easy prey up above than the nearest location of whatever he's managed to procure himself.
Louis is as Lestat has never seen him, not really. Pieces of it. Fury, bloodlust, hatred. But a proper hunt between them, they'd never quite managed. Always Lestat's hunts, and Louis in attendance. Always Louis' fumbles, and Lestat looking aside.
Now, he says, "Go on," and, "I'll keep watch," and expects Louis to do as a vampire should.
Later, maybe Louis will hate him for this too, even as he recognizes the reprieve couched in the temptation laid out before him. The man's intention. The woman, unsteady on her feet but more than capable of fleeing the thing Louis becomes in this moment. Straightening. Scenting them on the air. Hearing the pulse of blood.
And for a moment, thinks of Claudia. Not her absence. Not her death. Thinks of her, aglow with the joy of her kills, French spilling out of her mouth.
I never want to hunt alone again.
The sound Louis makes then, halfway between a snarl and a sob, startles the man. The woman's laugh goes high, a shrill cackle at what sounds nonsensical to her. What must look nonsensical, in the shadows. Is not identifiable, until it is too late. Louis is older than he had been in New Orleans, faster now than he was then.
This man is already dead. He is already dead when he begins to shout. He is already dead when the woman begins to scream, when Louis flings her away from her companion without looking to see where she lands or if he has left her only to Lestat's mercies. He hasn't chosen her.
Louis tears this man's throat out. Blood spills down his chin, down his chest. The scream turns to a wet gurgle. It is not enough. It will not be enough. His hunger and his anger are one thing. They are a wildfire. This man is only kindling. Louis hears bone snap as he slams the body against the bridge rail, and abruptly the struggling ceases.
There is no chance at all that Louis will hear the shuddered intake of breath in the moment he launches himself away, Lestat tipping a stare up at the sky as the animal sounds of the attack echo down the low walkway. It would have been the same, rescuing Nicki—an immediate and hateful thought. Vitriol, madness. But this is different. He has always determined that Louis would be different.
And so it is. Blood spatters. The panicky scrape of a drunk woman trying to get up and run, one of the heels of her shoe broken. Lestat looks over, evaluating the progress. Louis, tearing his victims to shreds.
He is there in an instant.
Not to stop Louis, or interrupt the meal he is now quietly indulging in. Further off. He takes the woman by the throat and snaps her neck, and she is dead, and without looking, he hauls her aside to drop into the river. A waste, he knows. He had intended to feed.
A little penance.
Turns on a heel, evaluating Louis, the curve of his back. Ready to intercede, should he decide to drink too deeply.
There is some distant awareness of a pulse suddenly stopping, of the splash that follows. That he is starving still. That he can still taste Lestat in the back of his throat, even as blood flows forth from the mangled man pinned up against the side of the bridge.
Not so much flow as sluggish spurts, but there is still the promise of more.
And then after, what next? Another, and another after.
More, until he is no longer weak. Until he is no longer a fool. (More, and more, because the world is quiet while he is so occupied, because the oppressive reality of Claudia's death is no longer crushing him beneath its truth.)
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no subject
Was Louis screaming still, when the coffin lid raised?
Claudia is dead. Louis is alive, but only just.
Claudia is dead. That is the only thing left to him now, now that he has run out of hallucination and fantasy, now that all strength and energy has ebbed away. Claudia is dead. Louis does not wish to be alive.
The blood finds him anyway.
Droplets of blood slipping through rocks, down and down and down, to find Louis.
Claudia is dead.
Louis sits up.
His mouth is full of blood and stones. This is animal instinct. A living body which does not wish to die, even if the mind has given over gladly to the thought.
No one asked Louis if he wished to live. Why would he? Claudia is dead.
But he is siting upright among the stones, breath coming heavily, wetly, through a mouthful of blood. Rocks drip from his lips, clatter back down to join the rest. Louis rakes an unsteady hand through them, lifting a second handful back up.
He's alive. Claudia is dead. There is little room for anything else in these first moments, this liminal space half in, half out of the coffin.
There is only the smallest shred of his mind growing aware that the blood Louis is sucking from these rocks belongs to Lestat.
no subject
Because shadows veil very little to them, and once Louis has enough wherewithal to do so, he'll be able to follow the mystery of the taste of Lestat's blood in his mouth to the shape of Lestat several feet away. Kneeling, arms wound around himself—a tight, coiled in posture that speaks less of wanting to be small, of wanting to defend himself, and more of restraint.
There is no restraint in his regard, gaze fixed and mouth parted, the sign of relief of great torment now (in part) drained away.
Barely voiced, the way he says, "Louis," in more wonderment than a meaningful attempt to draw focus.
Louis is alive.
no subject
It doesn't register, not immediately. Louis coughs, spills saliva and stone back down into the casket. A great shudder of hunger wrenches though his body. Fangs gleam in his mouth.
The taste—
"Lestat," falls out of his mouth before Louis realizes he is speaking. Recognizing the taste, feeling the lurch of want in his gut. (In the middle of everything, in the midst of betrayal and ridicule, Louis had felt it. Love.)
And then, ragged, voice breaking, "Claudia."
Louis wants it to be a question. But he had known, known all the while he was withering to death in this coffin.
Claudia is dead.
no subject
Which alleviates Lestat from the burden of answering it. Sets his mouth hard against the immediate and wild snap of emotion he feels, a barely leashed wild dog of a thing. Swallows, and then moves.
The cuff at one sleeve is already open, and the wound that he'd made in his wrist has closed. When he redraws it with a claw, it's only shallowly, only enough to tempt the instinct that's dropped Louis' fangs and guide it to what it wants to do. He could tear open his flesh and allow blood to pour freely, and yet,
his other hand goes out, touching Louis' shoulder, while he offers his wrist, the trace blood smeared there. "Here," he says. "One thing at a time."
no subject
Claudia is dead.
Louis' thoughts can progress no further, for the moment. What follows behind that is rage, rage, rage. It is already burning, gathering fuel, threatening to consume.
And his hunger—
It's so near to the surface. The scent of fresh blood hooks him, even as his body shudders under the application of Lestat's hand to his shoulder. His lips peel back off his teeth, base instinct carrying him forward to sink fangs deep into Lestat's wrist.
Where is Saint Louis' restraint?
It crumbled to ash. It is buried beneath stone. It is consumed by the endless, looping refrain: Claudia is dead.
And as he gulps messy swallows, the hunger abates. Grief and fury mingle, grow stronger with each passing moment.
no subject
His hand stays resting where it is, and Lestat allows his other arm to be gripped, caught in the unyielding bear-trap that is a hungry vampire's jaws. It is much like when Louis was turned. It is nothing like that at all.
As Louis drinks, Lestat tips his head back, watching the brick ceiling. Resisting the instinct, which is growing, to wrest his arm back and cease the bloodletting, feeling his heart struggling in his chest as he is drained. Louis has a powerful hunger. If Lestat could love him more, he might.
Practicality eclipses punishment. The hand at Louis' shoulder tightens, and he goes to turn his wrist to discourage the bite clasping it fast.
no subject
And then, with a wet gasp, Louis' jaw goes slack.
Lestat is permitted to draw his arm back.
The hunger is not sated, only quieted. The pebbles shift as he begins the process of struggling free.
One thing at a time, Lestat had cautioned. Here is the next: get out of his coffin. He is alive. Claudia is dead.
The anger coalescing in his chest leaps higher, unencumbered by hunger.
no subject
The sound of the rocks shifting. Grinding together, spilling over the edge.
He moves from kneeling to crouch.
"Louis," he says, searching his face, for what has taken the place of shark-black eyes, a vampire's snarl—if anything. Heedless of his findings, Lestat reaches out with the intent to help him out from his burial. "Louis, let me help you."
That's what he's come here to do, after all. His voice a distant thing, compared to thumping heart, the way the previously unmoving rocks shift together, clatter on the ground, open air echoing noise back.
no subject
One thing at a time, Lestat had cautioned. There are stones in the folds of his clothing, closed into his flesh at the heels. Louis' chin and throat are slick with blood. His eyes are dark when he finally looks fully at Lestat. Swaying on his feet in a casket full of stones, heartbeat accelerating, chest heaving deep, unsteady breaths.
"Help me," is a furious, bewildered rasp. "Help me?"
Claudia is dead.
Louis hand closes in on itself, a feeble preservation of that last moment, of Claudia's hand in his own before he'd been ripped from his seat.
no subject
The word comes out—barely. A sound, a hiss, quiet in his throat.
Standing, and his hands out, and his arms out, like they could embrace if Louis allowed it, if he stumbled from his coffin and if Lestat could catch him.
But there is no romance to this, not in Lestat's expression, where wonderous relief has given away to (a dark flicker) a tense wariness, a focus. The knowledge that there is simply no room or space to feel the thing he can see in Louis' face, hear in his voice. Beholding a burning corridor, wondering if there is a least painful way through.
"Louis, you have to come with me now," voice thick. "Quietly, away from here."
no subject
How can he go? (Claudia is dead. Claudia is dead.) How can he leave her?
"Nah," is ground glass. Agony. "I'm gonna kill them. I gotta kill them."
Fury crystalizing, hardening, even as Louis begins the clumsy, clambering process of spilling out of the coffin. Weakly wrenching his feet from the rocks, overbalancing, Lestat's outstretched hands the only thing that keeps him from falling to the floor.
no subject
This, too, lacks romance.
(Lacks romance? Holding him closely while Louis is consumed by his rage, his own wounded heart leaping in his chest to match it.)
"You cannot," is a furious near-whisper in Louis' ear. "You mistake your hunger for strength, Louis. Your anger for efficacy." The hold he has on him can only emphasise this fact, should Louis try to struggle. It won't work. "They will tear you to shreds and I will not allow it, do you hear me?"
There is no weeping to herald the flooding red in his eyes, just an upswell of deep feeling, impossible to name as one thing.
Somewhere, a theatre full of vampires and drunkards. Now is not the moment.
no subject
Claudia is dead.
"Fuck you," Louis spits, strangled, panicked. A thrash of movement that takes him nowhere, weakened as he is. Spits again, through a mouthful of fangs: "Fuck you."
Because it is the truth, what Lestat is saying. They would tear him to shreds. Armand would allow it. And Claudia—
A flash of memory: Burlap, wrapped around his head.
A flash of memory: Claudia, screaming as they forced her in among the rats.
A flash of memory: Hands restraining him, dragging him, silencing him.
Above them, laughter. Applause. The patter of music and performance. Below, Louis' hatred turning over in his chest.
"Fuck you," flattening out, Louis' knuckles digging in beneath Lestat's ribs. The fight waning, at least for the moment.
inappropriate icon moment
The hold shifts. As Louis weakens, the grip gentles—a relative thing. Still holding him tightly, but that assertion of deep, supernatural strength abates, and Louis finds he is being held by another man rather than an unyielding statue of iron.
And he can break free of it, but Lestat doesn't let go, not yet. Waiting.
hearty lol
Claudia is dead. A constant, endless refrain. Louis' thoughts snag, stuck, coming endlessly back to her screams.
Slowly, like rising smoke, guilt. Deepening even as he takes this small comfort, hand closing slowly in the back of Lestat's vest.
"Should've left me in there."
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The threat of sharp teeth at his throat, the ambiguity of the hand closing at the back of his vest. Doesn't matter. Lestat holds Louis to him, because Louis is alive, rescued, and if he has done nothing else in his cursed life, it is this.
And maybe he will never hold him again. Something he knows as he loosens his arms and grips Louis by the shoulders, Lestat drawing back. That waxy look, now, of a vampire well drained, bringing up the smear of blood tears a little brighter, but his eyeline is steady as he meets Louis' eye.
"Come with me now," he says. "Whatever you do next, do this one thing first."
no subject
Ascend the stairs. Sink his fangs into the first vampire he comes across. Repeat until there are none left, or until he is dead too.
Louis can't bring his fangs back in, can't reign himself back in. Lestat has him by the shoulders. His eyes are glossy, red traces of tears there. Looking at him, Louis feels some distant, dull stirring of feeling in his chest. An awareness of what had kindled during the trial, the breathless flutter of anticipation at his coming, the love Louis carried for him glowing like a coal in his chest even as Lestat damned him and Claudia both.
"I hate you."
Even this is not enough of anything. Not enough of a condemnation.
But it is assent. Louis leaves the certainty of his own death, and gives over to Lestat's plea.
no subject
A ripple of feeling through that intent and steady stare, a twitch at the mouth, absurd hurt flashing plainer behind focused, blood-rimmed blue. There is no surprise in it. A knife that twists and finds no resistance at all.
But it is assent. Lestat lets him go, banished, but expectant of being followed. The way out is easier, with the theatre's bowels tangled with the Parisian sewer system, and Lestat moves as efficiently as a night predator, caring only about making distance between them and the coven, only about Louis following along.
A manhole cover scraping aside. Crawling out onto a quiet street. The gleam of the river nearby. Lestat, first, and then turning to pull Louis out behind him.
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It echoes in his mind, over and over and over. They trek through the sewers in near silence, Louis' palm on the slick stone to keep himself upright and moving. His breath is a scraping rasp of sound, a wounded creature tugged along only by its own pain. Hunger gnaws at him, the stopgap of Lestat's blood waning as they flee.
And his anger, his anger is a refuge. If he disappears into it, then the excruciating pain of his grief diminishes. He is thinking already of how he'll repay them. How he will make them regret what they'd done.
Lestat pulls him out. Louis remains briefly on hands and knees in the street, panting, before he pushes back. Looks up at Lestat from his heels, eyes dark. Fangs catching the waning moonlight. His breath comes faster, looking at him. Hurt. Why blooming in his expression.
"Is this where you leave me?" is the question posed instead, tone an inscrutable thing. Syllables scraped across gravel, thick with misery. One question from the many, the most immediate. How far does Lestat's benevolence stretch in this moment?
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The question, then, takes him off-guard. His hands form fists at his sides.
"You need blood," finally, tone flat, but lacking in edge. "And a coffin, when the dawn comes."
He would like to shatter into a million pieces. Fall to his knees in front of Louis, grasp him, explain everything, a tempting outpouring of hysterics, as if he believed Louis would hear it, would want it, would need it. Lestat would like it, at least, and he doesn't. Because Claudia is dead.
"Come with me. Hunt, sleep. See what revenge looks like then."
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He cannot return to the little apartment he and Claudia had shared. That is closed to him, he who will surely be hunted. Armand will look, Louis knows. The rest, upon finding the empty coffin, will seek to complete the verdict, to banish Louis from this world.
It is tempting to remain here. Kneeling in the street.
He would melt away in the dawn. It would be over.
It should be over. Claudia is dead. What else is there now?
(If he reaches for the comfort Lestat could offer, he will shatter. He cannot shatter.)
"I know what it looks like," roughly, stubborn. The grate is closed, prevents the impulse to simply turn to see it done now.
It is a labor, getting to his feet. But rise Louis does, propelled by the compulsion of hunting, of blood. (Of Lestat, inescapable and tangible, Louis' heart erratic over the continued presence of him.) He straightens slowly, runs his tongue across his fangs.
"Where?"
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And—voices. Foot steps.
Walking the river's edge, the smell of alcohol almost as vibrant as the clap of the woman's drunken laughter. She is wobbling on the arm of the man she is with, and he is moving them with intent. Lestat does not seem surprised, does not even look, as if maybe this manhole had more to do with the sound of easy prey up above than the nearest location of whatever he's managed to procure himself.
Louis is as Lestat has never seen him, not really. Pieces of it. Fury, bloodlust, hatred. But a proper hunt between them, they'd never quite managed. Always Lestat's hunts, and Louis in attendance. Always Louis' fumbles, and Lestat looking aside.
Now, he says, "Go on," and, "I'll keep watch," and expects Louis to do as a vampire should.
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And for a moment, thinks of Claudia. Not her absence. Not her death. Thinks of her, aglow with the joy of her kills, French spilling out of her mouth.
I never want to hunt alone again.
The sound Louis makes then, halfway between a snarl and a sob, startles the man. The woman's laugh goes high, a shrill cackle at what sounds nonsensical to her. What must look nonsensical, in the shadows. Is not identifiable, until it is too late. Louis is older than he had been in New Orleans, faster now than he was then.
This man is already dead. He is already dead when he begins to shout. He is already dead when the woman begins to scream, when Louis flings her away from her companion without looking to see where she lands or if he has left her only to Lestat's mercies. He hasn't chosen her.
Louis tears this man's throat out. Blood spills down his chin, down his chest. The scream turns to a wet gurgle. It is not enough. It will not be enough. His hunger and his anger are one thing. They are a wildfire. This man is only kindling. Louis hears bone snap as he slams the body against the bridge rail, and abruptly the struggling ceases.
He drinks.
The world around him quiets, for a moment.
(Claudia. Claudia is dead.)
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There is no chance at all that Louis will hear the shuddered intake of breath in the moment he launches himself away, Lestat tipping a stare up at the sky as the animal sounds of the attack echo down the low walkway. It would have been the same, rescuing Nicki—an immediate and hateful thought. Vitriol, madness. But this is different. He has always determined that Louis would be different.
And so it is. Blood spatters. The panicky scrape of a drunk woman trying to get up and run, one of the heels of her shoe broken. Lestat looks over, evaluating the progress. Louis, tearing his victims to shreds.
He is there in an instant.
Not to stop Louis, or interrupt the meal he is now quietly indulging in. Further off. He takes the woman by the throat and snaps her neck, and she is dead, and without looking, he hauls her aside to drop into the river. A waste, he knows. He had intended to feed.
A little penance.
Turns on a heel, evaluating Louis, the curve of his back. Ready to intercede, should he decide to drink too deeply.
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There is some distant awareness of a pulse suddenly stopping, of the splash that follows. That he is starving still. That he can still taste Lestat in the back of his throat, even as blood flows forth from the mangled man pinned up against the side of the bridge.
Not so much flow as sluggish spurts, but there is still the promise of more.
And then after, what next? Another, and another after.
More, until he is no longer weak. Until he is no longer a fool. (More, and more, because the world is quiet while he is so occupied, because the oppressive reality of Claudia's death is no longer crushing him beneath its truth.)
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