#erlou

@maritimeericandersen

It was almost opening night of the show and things were very busy. The set was much more complicated than many of the others that Toulouse had worked on in his time as Set Director. He liked the business of it. It kept him from thinking too much about other things: like the dream. The dream and all that had come with it: a place of belonging, a contentment that Toulouse didn’t think he had ever felt in his entire life. 

Thinking about it burned like a wound that might not ever heal and there were only two things to do: never leave bed and do his best to sink into the mattress or busy himself to the point of exhaustion. 

There was also the matter of his brother, but Toulouse was more confident about the outcome of that scenario. He felt sturdy when he thought about his brother. A pillar. Someone that Berlioz could lean on, which is what he had always wanted to be. No, he had never in his life imagined it happening quite like this, but there was a part of him that was...happy that the tables had finally turned. Toulouse knowing once more the place in their relationship. 

So--it was Hades and Belle he was trying to avoid in his thoughts. And Hades and Belle he kept thinking about, as he looked over the near-empty auditorium seating, wondering if they would come to opening night. If they would admire his creations and if they would mention it to one another. Or if they would pretend the set pieces had materialized miraculously. Or if they would come at all, Belle perhaps too tired...she must be nearing the midway point of her pregnancy, if she had not passed it...either way, he tried to imagine them sitting there and wondered if he wanted it or not--

Wait, was there someone out there, hiding in the shadows? His head turned towards where he thought he had seen movement, worrying they were about to be infected with another poltergeist. There it was again--

Toulouse glided down the stairs from the stage to the auditorium floor and stalked towards the shadowy figure. “You!” he barked, “what are you doing, lurking in the shadows? These are closed practices.” 

@maritimeericandersen

Of course, Lou had heard about the petitions that had begun circulating around town. And, of course, he had heard about the vampires that apparently owned the bed and breakfast (the bed and breakfast, itself, had hardly appeared on Lou’s radar until now--why would it have?) He did not know what to think about any of it, to be frank. 

Part of him wished he did not have to think about it at all. That was--impossible, considering that two of them directly attacked what he was. The moniker was still taking getting used to. Sometimes, Lou forgot that he was a werewolf at all for how normal he felt. Which, he supposed, was an argument towards the ridiculousness of calling werewolves monsters, but he digressed. The thing was: Toulouse was still who he had always been, which meant an aristocrat raised for the foundational years of his life in Paris, to a mother and father of slightly liberal, but mostly centrist views on magic.

He did believe there were some Magicks that were inherently evil: demons, for one; vampires, for another. But if that petition passed, Lou would struggle even more than he already did to find a job, which was--not excellent news, considering the longer he went without proper work, the more he could feel his mania growing, like the true monster, feeding on his idleness until it drove him mad. More importantly: Hades could be out of a job, and while the Bonfamilles, of course, would support him if necessary--it was not a long term solution, if only for Hades’ own sanity. 

So, yes, he could not ignore it, but that did not mean he believed in the utopia that Miss Vee Hauntley was spouting either. And he found it very presumptuous that she had declared herself as speaking on behalf of “all Magicks in Swynlake.” He was a Magick in Swynlake. She hadn’t spoken to him.

These thoughts chased themselves around in his head as he sat on the grass in the park, rolling a ball for Opal to chase after. In his distraction, he had rolled the ball a bit too hard, a bit too far away for Opal’s toddling legs to catch up to it quickly enough. It bounced against a stranger’s shoe who was walking by, Opal giggling as she ran after it.

Toulouse stood at once. “Opal,” he called, causing her to stop and look back at him with her wide, bright eyes.

“Ba!” she told him, pointing at the ball.