warning: fucking gross! || starter for @bloodsalted
★・・・・・trapped in an abominable time loop of dribbling water, Lestat sits under the leaking sink of an empty apartment. This place does not belong to him. A rusty edge of a silver swan vomits dirty droplets of something undrinkable. The owner of this place hasn't paid on time in many years, and the missing bills pile under the door. The rental-friendly stickers on the ceramic-tiled walls peel and curl inward, creating a grotesque image of dry, flaking flesh. Where some tiles have crumbled, black mold peers through, overtaking the entire wall, the integrity of which relies on hope alone. The air is heavy with humidity. Something is burning in the neighboring apartment, but no one is coming to put out the fire. The yellowing sink sits lopsided, housing Lestat's cheek pressed flatly against a cool curve. He has been staring at the opposite walls for days now, devoid of any emotional reaction to black nests of spiders filling the small bathtub to the rim.
The corner of his dry lips fills with drool that runs down his chin as he considers the spiders edible. The vampire's saliva trickles into his lap, where his hands lie slack. Each blink causes agony from his heavy eyelashes crusted with blood. Not his blood. Someone else's blood. The door into the bathroom is ripped from its hinges and leans against the sink, casting a dark shadow over motionless Lestat. Across the hallway, there is a bedroom with a shredded curtain draped over a decomposing body filled with the same festering spider nests. The babies hatched a while ago and ate all the maggots.
The living room is a rushed work: three more bodies sharing a decorative rug purchased from a sketchy website promising the handiwork is a family tradition. The blood soaked through each thread, turning the rug into a maroon cocoon. The walls bear witness to a massacre of stripped skin, ripped orange-colored wallpaper. Dents litter the protective layer of a coffee table, its glass surface shattered and stuffed into the pores of nameless victims. Floorboards have stopped creaking, thoroughly rotted from the stomped out vital organs. The neighbors living a floor below have long since moved out. No one moved in, complaining about the smell. Police did not come. The apartment is left alone. Lestat moves his head, and something pops in his spine like a stone statue coming to life. He blinks again, and his glassy pupils suddenly regain their focus. Sky-blue eyes appear gray and empty. He stares down at his hands and nervously darts his tongue over his blood-crusted lips. It's been months since he last fed, and yet his empty stomach fills with dreadful darkness, keeping him sated. He cannot starve himself to death. This is his conclusion.
He finds Dean like a hound following a pale scent from a dull past. The Impala is painfully recognizable and stands like the Holy Mary amid mayhem. Dressed unlike himself, Lestat meanders by the window of some dive bar, peering in. The hood of his sweater hides his dull strands. They used to resemble bouncing waves that caught the artificial sunshine of the spotlight when the former rockstar ran around the stage, demanding devotion. Now, pulled into a low ponytail, his hair darkened from the season and rejects the ambiance around him. His face wears a tint of gray from lack of nutrition. His eyes are sunken despite the immortal perk. He reasons that this is a bad idea, but nothing has been helping. The last thing Lestat considers is for the sun to rise, and yet that, too, suddenly proved impossible. A branch cracks behind him, and Lestat snaps his head around, staring into the night. He catches a glimpse of movement next to him and turns to capture the sight of his shadow stalking around the silhouette of street lights. It stops when the vampire captures it with his attention. The flat layer of blackness turns its head. Despite the shadow's eyeless appearance, Lestat feels a searing gaze upon him of something more ancient than Akasha herself. He shakes his head at it and moves his hand to wave the shadow over.
"Come here." He mouths, demanding the shadow return. The figure does not listen, merely cranes its head until it reaches an impossible, terrifying angle. A human would have snapped their neck if they attempted such a tilt. And yet the shadow stands there, suspended by something invisible. And then. It melts and vanishes into the night. Lestat gasps, feeling a tag at his ankles and quickly dips into the jarring door. The light teases his eyes as he squints against it. The sound of the living assaults his ears. The dive bar is lively, no one knows a starved vampire has entered after torturing himself for several months. Years? What date is it? Lestat refuses to shed his hoodie, sporting black pants borrowed from the former wardrobe that runs thin. He used to be the lace god, the leather king, the fashion man whose iconology was once of a kind.
And then something happened after a gang of vampires assaulted him after a concert. Wrong place, wrong time. A throat split by a butcher knife that spiraled the vampire into a memory he did not want to be a part of. He vanished from everywhere. And now he is- Lestat slips into the bar seat next to Dean, staring over the rim of an empty glass. He looks up at the bartender and compels the mortal to look the other way. For the first time in his two-hundred-something-life, Lestat refuses the attention. He sits there a while in silence like some fucking stalker. And finally, after contemplating leaving entirely, Lestat turns his head and looks up at Winchester from the shadow cast by his hood (which appears a lot darker than it should be).
"Hey." He whispers lowly with swallowed pride. "I need your help."
