𝔰𝔬𝔦𝔢 𝔢𝔱 𝔡𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔢𝔩𝔩𝔢

I'm giving the paps my pussycat with no idea I would be in a fang fight less than an hour later.

@inheritable sent in a 📂 for a useless hc

even on the farthest lip of the bayou, where the city’s breath thins and the air turns thick with rot and hymn, louis lets it take him over. lets it slip into his bones, lets it unhook his shoulders from their burdens. his lungs still remember the old rhythm. he inhales deep, and the night answers sweetly, like a real mother. the kind he doesn’t have. the kind who forgives too much.

he remembers his father bringing him and paul out here on rare mercies of near-perfect afternoons. rarer than presence. rarer than praise. better than birthdays, better than christmas morning dressed in ribbons and expectations. boats rocking gentle as cradles. the water glinting like a blade. two brothers building their would-be kingdoms in the deeper brush, far from the water where long, patient monsters idle beneath the murk, waiting for foolish flesh. little gracie trailing after them, all indignation and spitfire, flinging sticks and stones, calling them devils for denying her entry into their sacred spaces. 

how safe it all seemed then. even in the marshlands with all its teeth. safety, he’s since learned, is a story a boy tells himself when the world is too large. later, when childhood turns on him quick as a struck match, the weeping trees provide another sort of sanctuary entirely. cover not for forts but for trembling. his first kiss stolen beneath a curtain of moss. first fumblings in the wet dark, hands unsure and greedy. the thrill of it. the terror. the shame that blooms afterward like a bruise pressed too often. all of it folded tender and tight between these trunks, these sounds, this damp, breathing darkness.

the automobile scarcely slows to a crawl before louis jumps out of it. his shoes strike mud, hard and slick, his body listing before it remembers its balance. the drink still hums in his veins while the moon rides high, indifferent and pale. he doesn’t choose the path so much as the path claims him. overgrown. inhospitable. feral in its invitation. the sort of way only a son of this wet, treacherous earth would know to follow into gentler secrets. he glances over his shoulder, catching the eye of his impromptu chauffeur of the night. time slackens, grows syrup-thick. his mouth curves slow, impish.

“best be keepin’ up, city boy. i ain’t comin’ back for your ass if you lose your way.”

he feels them watching as he walks with confidence. dozens. hundreds. bright, unblinking eyes stitched into the dark. small beasts. large ones. the swamp's never empty. and still, for a sliver of eternity, for the first true moment of this long and glittering night, he feels utterly alone in the world with lestat. his feet remember what his mind doesn’t, so he lets them lead.

sure enough, the willow waits for him, gnarled and old, its limbs bent with age. once upon a time, it held up the architecture of two ambitious truants and their crooked empires. no forts now. not a scrap of evidence left on the ground. only the bark, rough and reassuring at his back as he leans against it. roots burrowing deep. louis tilts his head back, closes his eyes. for a moment, memory prowls close. a boy who looks like him on his knees in the mud, praying not to god but to the dirt itself. swallow me whole. make me different. make me normal. he tastes the bitterness of it still. knows better now. the earth can’t change a damn thing.

ㅤㅤEven as the car grinds to a halt, the wave of nostalgia emanates from Louis to occupy the space between them, a buffeting force that’s both familiar and foreign to the vampire, the conflicting excitable chill of experimental unease juxtaposed with a contented warmth of boyhood calling to the immortal. On any other occasion, it would be the former that would primarily interest Lestat, a lurid eye latching onto a spark of desire and its inevitable capacity to bloom into far more, to delve deeper into a canvas of fluid motion in its excruciating indulgence - the desperation of grasping hands, heated flesh prickling from exploratory sensation, the capture of melding lips and stuttering breath, a roiling ecstasy that peaks in a manner that’s nigh tangible to him, an overwhelming intoxication of intimacy to be known in its rawest of forms utterly engulfing the senses entirely—  But it’s the innocence of youth that provides an alternative intimacy in a welcoming guise, one that imbues unadulterated happiness, sunlight pooling over skin to set it aglow upon glistening droplets, the chirruping din of cicadas providing a backdrop of never being entirely alone, the hushed whisper of shared secrets evolving into grand stories, the lines blurring between local folklore and personal experience with formative judgment - Lestat can’t visualise the members of the family in this instant, the joy that had derived from their time together thick like syrup, a sweetness in this simplistic setting creating memories whose potency far rivals the salacious.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤThe miasmic sentimentality brings about the surreptitious trace of a smile, an increasing distance forming between the pair as Louis traipses ahead in proud boldness  (  il apprécie la façon dont cet homme affiche sa confiance en soi, comme un costume élégant  ),  Lestat gracefully pivoting out from the vehicle with violet eyes lowering to take in the sprawling unearthed roots, leisurely stepping around and atop them in nimble gait, prior thoughts to be mindful of the layers of mud having long been cast aside  (  il devra laver ces chaussures plus tard  ).  He doesn’t follow Louis as such, but rather gravitates towards the drifting remnants of the man’s enticing thoughts, a subtle preternatural signature that the blond hones in on like a beguiled moth to a vibrant flame, a resonating warmth that rivals the city’s balmy air. It contrasts heavily with the biting chill of remembrance of the immortal’s younger years, a landscape of lush greenery of such possibilities firmly overshadowed by the cold grey stone of the de Lioncourt estate, every salient memory within those walls filled with a desolation that only augmented with each passing mortal year  (  silence isolant, paroles blessantes et coups brutaux, et puis après—  ).  The vampire yearns for the opportunity to replace them, to create experiences to call his own within a new home, a disinclination to reside in the past rooting into the present and future, fingertips figuratively breaching the surface of a tentative succor.

ㅤㅤ“ And if I were careless enough to fall behind. Is it your intension to swim to your abode? ”  A toothy grin flashes in the darkness with the good humoured rebuttal, curious line of vision trailing in all directions about the vampire’s periphery, the lofty branches shrouding their path gently swaying with a light breeze, the faintest of creaking present to his heightened hearing due to the sheer aged weight of the wood. Lestat finds it easy to fall into distractions in such surroundings, the litany of creatures lurking in the darkness inviting him to playfully probe, the smallest echoes of grunting from a snuffling maw buried in wild plantlife drawing his attention, steps slowing in the pair’s approach - the immortal stands completely still for a moment with an observational cant of the head, the sound changing pitch into a squeal  (  un avertissement  )  on account of his presence, yet another animal which wouldn’t be overly fond of Lestat given his unnatural state—  And yet there’s a sudden rapid ripple of leaves, line of vision darting upwards to the tree overhead, a thick black and white fur tail winding across a branch as small fingers grapple with the bark, large pointed ears twitching.  “ Mon Dieu… ”  The vampire has never seen anything like it before, the ringtail grasping his attention with such elevated appeal that Lestat has to remind himself that he’s with company, lips parted into an ‘ o ’ while fighting the impulse to follow it deeper into the woods.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“ C’est amusant… ”  Gradually dragging himself away from the fleeting spectacle, the blond meanders back towards Louis while sporadically glancing behind himself, subsequently peering up at the willow and the stories it holds  (  ah, c’est donc son endroit préféré  ),  this impressive beast having its own fragile means of immortality to look upon mortals who came and went over the years, the conflict between either form of childhood memory palpable as the man rests against the bark.  “ …you assume I come from a city. ”  Not divulging further  (  appât jeté de manière ludique à la surface de l’eau  ),  Lestat grins to himself in consideration of how differently he comported himself over the last century with varied individuals, once rougher around the edges during his youth which still managed to creep into view during moments of slipping resolve. Stepping nearer to rest beside the other, shoulders rearrange to comfortably lean back in acceptance of the unknowable invitation, peering at the soil with brow faintly creasing as the sorrowful call of a child rings in his temples, visualising a thumb lightly tracing the arc of a petite ear, unintentionally finding a cross section of understanding of what it all represented to the other, all while negating similar thoughts once entertained from his own past. A disconcerted trickle of laughter breaks a silent discomfort, a full bodied frisson that the elder experiences in isolation, swallowing thickly.

the failure(s); the many loves of the vampire lestat

( @evilanew )

“I used to think that way,” Celeste says, uncharacteristically solemn tonight. The kind of solemnity that comes from looking too far in the past while also facing a future as uncertain as hers is becoming. “But the older I get, the more things change and the less I understand it all. I know I’m not the oldest vampire alive still — ”

Her husband is twice her age, after all.

“ — but I can’t help but wonder if that’s because there’s an…end coming. I can feel it and it feels blood-deep. Like it’s warning me. I just…”

She stops, looking back at Lestat. He had never been the type to give empathy to others, the kind of vampire they had left France to distance themselves from. Why is she even saying this to him now?

Her small hand pats at the air, dismissing the thoughts in her mind. A smile comes to her lips but it’s not the kind of smile she flashes so readily at friends. It’s the tight-lipped, feigned kind that never reaches her eyes. The kind she’d plaster on as she stood at the outskirts of crowds, eying the lasciviousness and violence that look place at its center. The kind that sent her apart from the other guests at the parties all those centuries ago when she’d actually tried to fit in just enough to get the next invitation.

“You know, it’s nothing. I’m just overthinking things again. It’s all going to work out fine. It always does. But you haven’t told me what you’re doing here in America and I find that far more interesting.”

ㅤㅤThere’s a difference between being capricious and overtly cruel merely for the sake of it, one that frequently clouds the judgment of others when it came to the blond, Lestat’s temperament often turning on a dime, the darkest of persuasions during moments of excessive impulse having everlasting effects. The Brat Prince’s name is known among vampires, but the reason varies between respective figures, love and hate forming strange bedfellows dependent on the individual at hand, some explicit in their desires whereas others readied themselves to be wronged. And France, well, it can be its own beast, Paris’s fetid demons still haunting this modern age, unsettled grief and turmoil readily getting out of hand in prior fits of indoctrination  (  il n’a pas de temps à perdre avec ça  ).  Celeste seems unnerved, aureate tresses spilling to the side with a curious cant of his head, iridescent line of vision tracing over her countenance without an ounce of shame nor discretion, a weariness having descended upon her that evokes bygone years  (  il le comprend parfaitement.  ).

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ“ Conclusions, damning as they may be… ”  Visage righting its position, words drift as Lestat distractedly glances away, the soft pitter patter of rain against glass shrouding the distant emergence of an oncoming storm, a flash of lightning lacerating the night sky which can only mean—  He smiles to himself as the inevitably booming thunder rolls in, teeth briefly plucking at his lower lip.  “ …do they not provide clarity regarding the passage of time, the notion of a life lived in the face of stagnation? ”  The blond always looks forwards despite the past forever clawing at his ankles, opposing outlooks from others difficult to reconcile when trying to set his mind to the task, fair brow pinching a touch in contemplation.  “ I say, ”  a pointed nail juts into the air,  “ we become more ourselves the older we become. Memory has its place, but if some are held onto too fervently, much to our detriment, they will encumber us. ”  A dismissive shrug, downturned lips forming a frown in thought.  “ Ask yourself, is what you want? ”

He called Lestat out for a reason, but hey...it's not often Dante's travels bring him to this side of the city, so the devil slayer is intent on indulging first. And this place has THE BEST strawberry-whipped cream pancakes. Breakfast for dinner fucking rocks!!

Dante cuts a delicate little triangle into his stack of pancakes and pops the first bite into his mouth, moaning with delight in a way that would embarrass anyone not named Dante and earning a slightly incredulous look from someone unfortunate enough to walk by them at that exact moment. Of course, Dante does not notice (more realistically, he just does not care).

The lady with the crimson coat walks by again. "You know," Dante jabs at her silhouette beyond the window with his knife, swallowing before he continues, "I really like that lady's coat." Because of course he does.

ㅤㅤAnnoyance, incredulity—  Lestat’s features twist into an incomprehensible display, one that dredges up the very depths of confusion, mouth slightly agape with an upward curl as animated eyes roll about the vicinity, taking in the shoddy grease-bucket of an establishment. Audible words aren’t required to heavily convey  ‘ you are defending the honour of this place?! ’,  a low scoff expelled with a quirk of the chin, the vampire sinking further into the seat - the motion is accompanied by a resultant faint rustling prominent to his ear, a very specific adjoined scent present, the blond fairly certain that there are old pieces of fried bacon stuck in the edges of the red padding, line of vision vaguely lowering down to himself with a displeased flaring of the nostrils  (  dégoûtant…  ).  “ Putain, I have been most patient. I may have eternity, but that does not signify that my time is expendable for your trivialities. ”  Hands withdraw from the warmth of the mug for arms to fold before him, a puerile petulance in place in the midst of a glower.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤThe consumption of mortal sustenance doesn’t bother Lestat, and while he can silently admit  (  uniquement à lui-même  )  that the airy texture of the food is pleasing to behold… it doesn’t negate the fact that the immortal has been at Dante’s whim more than once, each occasion unnecessarily dragging out before they reached the crux of the problem - the blond doesn’t make it a habit of asking others for help very often, but if the time of reciprocation were to arise, he would make it as painfully arduous as possible, a sly trace of a smile forming with the mere thought. Taking in a deep beleaguered breath, the other’s glance is followed beyond the hazy window pane.  “ Would you like my honest opinion. ”  The lack of inflection in the response withdraws the presence of a question, words leaping ahead without awaiting a reply.  “ I was always of the impression that red was not your colour. And I do not say this with malice, but as one whose colour it is. With your complexion and the hue of your hair, I would recommend royal purple. ”