#evilanew

chests heaving, the silence between them still vibrating with the last shreds of fury. the room looked as though a summer storm had torn through it. the bed lay in ruin beneath them, nothing left but a haphazard mound of wood and fabric and tangled legs beneath the sheets. antoinette’s perfume, still faint in the corners like a ghost refusing to leave. the songbird had long since scampered onto the balcony, her heartbeat quick and trembling. 

let her rot there. let her soak in her humiliation. let her catch a cold and shiver her way to an early grave.

lestat, beneath him, wore triumph like jewelry. already, in the slant of his mouth, in the bright, wicked shine of his eyes, louis had seen it: that deep, incurable smugness blooming the instant he’d kicked down the damn door and dragged his maker out from under that vile woman’s hands. he’d wanted to carve that look off lestat’s face. kiss it away, tear it away, fuck it away. each breathless laugh had only stoked him further, until rage had folded in on itself, collapsing once more into needwantlove.

nigh on seven years of silence, brittle and cold, had cracked open all at once.

vicious and petty, louis bit down hard on a familiar collarbone, a beloved architecture of bone and sinew.

“my heart beats in spite of you. not because of you.”

there, one last twist of the knife, a lie bundled up in a nice gift box with a satin bow. his grip tightened in angel-bright curls, stained mouths hoovering mere inches from one another. a lifetime away.

claudia was going to be furious with him. 

starter for @evilanew

He asks about Armand, and Molloy tells him to fuck off. Jesus, is being an asshole the only quality preserved by immortality?

Later that evening, he studies the only photo he has of his mom until his eyes burn, his mind drifting in and out of what he doesn't yet know. What had happened in the years after their shared memory was severed? Had she tried to look for him? Probably not, with T. J. fucking Eckleburg always watching. Page 227 says she was killed in Vienna in 2008, the year she went missing from his life. The photo he'd been AirDropped shows her in more recent years, in London, sporting a wrist tattoo of the Talamasca symbol.

It's almost a little too obvious to be true, isn't it? The British flag on the reflection. Big ol' Ben. It could very well be a setup, a shitty Photoshop job, but right now it's all he's got.

His tongue grows gently numb with the familiar bitterness of the benzo as he waits for it to wash away the swell of emotion that threatens to engulf him. He shuts his laptop, folding his arms over it and resting his head in their cradle until not even the racket of the city can dam his exhaustion any longer.

****

Mr. Molloy's taste for fame makes him easy to track down again. If he won't tell him where to find this Armand guy, then maybe the book's problematic diva will. Guy gives himself a couple of headaches trying to fine comb through the Interview, all the while digesting everything Helen had shared with him, the upcoming flight to London next week, and whatever tricks Burton had pulled on him at the penthouse. So they're real. Maybe. He hasn't seen any bloodsucking yet, just a lot of wide-eyed staring, manipulation and circus tricks. Some parts of the book are incredibly hard to read and he forces himself to skip ahead, searching for structural clues instead: timeline, locations, names.

If he's going to sniff out Lestat, he needs to do a little homework.

The studio is easy enough to get into. He jumps in to help with a delivery through the back door, his repurposed NYU library access card dangling from a nondescript lanyard, jeans and hoodie, nobody bats an eye. James Leamas, it's my first day. Here to help with wardrobe. He takes the lift up to where they're shooting, follows the jittery crowd. It hasn't started, they're sorting out the set. Lestat is not here yet but everyone's already on edge, an undercurrent of excitement and fearful anticipation keeping the whole place abuzz. Someone yanks him back out into the corridors, thrusts a clipboard into his hands.

"What the hell are you doing? Get the outfits ready."

"Do not restrain yourself on the account of no one." The boistered giant glowers with inebriated vigor, the growl of challenge in his voice at once incognizant of (or further emboldened by...?) the double entendre slipped before the other's question. His is a towered figure rousing - agitated, restless, excited - as he moves in bolder motion to brace his footing to the floor, drawing the eye of certain curious bystanders to whom he pays no heed nor notice;

He does not know what force of motion to which the fair man may be capable, nor does it matter. He is hardened. He is enduring. He can take it--

𝖆𝖋𝖋𝖊𝖈𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓𝖆𝖙𝖊 𝖕𝖗𝖔𝖒𝖕𝖙𝖘.

first, rhea's blessed with a rare stroke of luck to be one of the few fortunate fans ( or “ fangs, ” to get technical ) to have scored a ticket to the vampire lestat's first ever show tomorrow night – her head had spun so hard, the dizziness has yet to recede – then, she bumps into the frontman, himself on the eve of said debut. not literally, thank fuck for that.

she'd ventured to find a park bench, guitar in tow, simply to play. the air is fresh, albeit chilly, but giddy energy had forced them from the cramped space they call home. it's a lot of mindless strumming at first, to find a chord, the proper tuning . . . laughs through her nose as the song that's become a deeply embedded earworm over the past five days takes over her hands, now ; back to the tuning pegs, then to settle upon the instrument's neck. a deep breath.

a. c sharp minor. f sharp minor. d. repeat.

the opening is simple, no fumbles thus far, nodding along in time. it's difficult not to sing, & so they do – low, quiet, warm, like the occasional summer breeze through the trees – barely above the music.     ❝    you really caught my eye. i think you're somethin' special, babe. i wanna take you out tonight, i think we got --       ❞    

all at once, everything stops. their voice. their hands, resting over guitar strings. their breath. her heart, for a moment or two. & for a stretch longer, time. she is stone cold sober, & unless rhea has really, truly, completely lost herself to her delusions, that's lestat, himself in the dim evening light standing right in front of her fucking face. nope. he's still there when she blinks. in fact it's only when he speaks that she'd rather dumbly frozen in disbelief, grin & all.

[ @evilanew ] - [ always accepting! ]

Louis glances away, his new vision making even the darkness of the room sharp and clear in ways that should unsettle him. Every detail is almost painfully vivid. The grain of the wooden floorboards, the colorful threads made up of the finest fabrics woven together in the carpeting, the way the dust motes hang suspended in the air he no longer needs to breathe. (it would be enchanting if it weren't for the perfume of death lingering like a halo of darkness). His fingers twitch, bloodstained and sticky. He wraps his arms around himself as though that might help to hold all of these conflicting emotions inside. As though it could ease the prickling of drying blood.

It does not work. (it never works)

"Am I?" His voice comes out quieter than he had intended, still adjusting to the way the sound reaches his own ears now. Too loud, too bright, too much. (senses have become amplifiers, echoing ripples). He finally turns his ethereal green eyes back to Lestat, to his Maker, to the man who had asked him to take this leap. To the man he had said 'yes' to. "I killed a man tonight, Lestat. Drained him. And the worst part…" He stops, his jaw tightening.

Even now he can taste the thick crimson on his tongue, metallic and sweet, still singing inside of his veins like nothing he has ever known before. Shame wars with something else, something hungry and alive and ancient inside that wants to dance and revel in the kill. (hungry, he's hungry, still hungry, pulsating in descended fangs).

"…The worst part is how good it felt. How did you do it, Lestat? How did you let go of the shame?" He searches his beloved's face, genuine, desperate for an answer that might ease the war raging inside of him between what he is and what he has become.

"Good, I was done with pretending to be on polite terms-"

The witch crossed her arms over her chest, glaring daggers at the vampire before her. "Vampires suck- I don't mean in a ha ha funny way. You're annoying, you smell bad, your face is smarmy, your hair is too swishy and you have the. Absolute. Worst. Taste. In. Clothing. You look like you picked your clothes out at an estate smell, old moth ball & tabacco smell included. And your teeth, don't get me started on how hidiously perfect your teeth are-"