Chapter Text
Lestat stumbles through a haze in which nothing is clear but ghosts. The drugs banish them, usually, but it isn't a perfect science—on an unlucky night, what yesterday swept them away resummons them tenfold. Tonight is an unlucky night.
The lights flare. The world blurs to the beat. Beneath the smell of sweat and drink and desire, the air is thick with blood and burning. Claudia just recently resolved into ash. She spent the early hours of the night following her usual pattern: mock, laugh, scream, ridicule, laugh. Accuse, accuse, accuse. After his fourth line of coke in the club bathroom, she melted away, but he finds now that she's not gone but everywhere, a million particles intermittently illuminated by bursts of neon light. Merciful, that he can no longer see her; less so, that she haunts the very space within his lungs, scraping at his throat with every breath. She's trying to choke him, in her way. Good for her. It's better than hearing her voice.
He busies himself with the throng, body turning liquid in the sea of warm, moving flesh. Someone runs their hands through his hair; another brings his arms around her waist, leaning in and waving a pill at him in question. He nods, and she places it on her tongue, beckoning. When he kisses it from her mouth, she cradles his face with a soft hand. He melts into the touch as the slow fizz of the ecstasy dissolves into his blood.
The journalist has not been helping with keeping the ghosts beneath the ground.
His constant pestering for a story was one thing, but the interview sessions themselves are proving Daniel Molloy to be a contender for the most insufferable being currently in existence. Sardonic quips. Knowing eyes. Surgical examination of memories only just unearthed. Lestat barely touches on one, and Daniel is already snatching it away, pressing and prodding and brazenly coming to conclusions that are entirely presumptive.
They'd come to blows, earlier, he remembers dimly. Daniel implying one thing, and Lestat, the one it had all actually happened to, insisting another. 'Just a few follow up questions', Daniel had said, as though he hadn't been about to kick the debris of Lestat's already ransacked life into his pre-approved pattern.
Agh. He doesn't want to be thinking about Daniel. He needs more.
He drops his head to his partner’s neck and noses at it, mouthing lightly at the damp skin. She presses a hand to the back of his head, fingers tangling in his hair. He bites down gratefully and welcomes the high that rushes into him, blissful and ferocious.
Drip, drip, drip. Silent as the noise would be to a mortal in this sound-soaked basement, he hears it. He unlatches, and—
It’s Nicki.
It's Nicki, in his arms, staring up at him, yellow eyes unblinking. Blood pools beneath his limp, handless stumps, dripping, dripping, dripping. He doesn’t speak. He doesn't need to. The hatred is there, and the darkness. The bird over the ocean, no longer flying, dropping like a stone into the endless blackness of the depths.
Lestat bolts. He stumbles through room after neon-lit room with no purpose except to get away. Every space looks the same; the world is a kaleidoscope of meaningless colours, faces, voices, thoughts, human eyes darting to him, but he doesn't want to be seen and it's always so exhausting to make them all look away so he carries on, even as the ground undulates and the ceiling spins. He carries on until the relative peace of a small, less populated room arrests him. Oh, look, it even has a bar. He sighs with relief and slumps onto a stool. Blissfully, even after seeing Lestat, the bartender's thoughts are of nothing but how much they want their shift to be over. Lestat orders shots.
The stool next to him seems to gape in its emptiness; his mother would be sitting there, if he hadn’t done something last night to make her disappear once more. What was it? The way he looked at her? Something he said? He can't remember. He can barely remember anything, tonight—yet still, the ghosts came. The world wobbles. He leans his head down on the bar, a laugh coming through gritted teeth.
It could be worse. It could always be worse. It could be...
Oh, putain de merde, why did he even let his mind wander in that vicinity? A thought—a fucking summoning. Yes, he remembers now, and for what? This is what he's been avoiding all night, and he's just walked himself right into it. He takes the shots in quick succession, but death-cold breath is already ghosting the back of his neck.
He screws his eyes shut, not moving, not breathing, but the voice still comes, and the hands, too. His voice, his hands, his lips, pressed like chilled iron against Lestat's ear.
“Wolfkiller.”
Lestat vaults over the bar, grabs a bottle of some kind of spirit, and downs it.
Someone's here. It’s blissfully dark behind his eyelids, but there’s a new warmth blooming in his chest, and it’s not the coke, or the ecstasy, or the alcohol. It's him. It has to be. He cracks open an eye.
Louis, radiant, silhouetted beautifully against the moving light and dark of the ceiling. Lestat can't help but beam.
“Louis.”
“Lestat,” Louis says. “You’re high.”
“Mmm. Well observed, mon cher.” Lestat slumps back against whatever couch he’s lounging on and lets his eyes slide shut once again. Faraway music rumbles pleasingly through his bones.
“Lestat.” There's a spark of annoyance in Louis’ tone. It stings.
Lestat sighs. “Why are you here?”
“Checking on you, obviously.”
The warmth begins to bloom again, but there’s something in the words. Lestat’s eyes flick open, narrowed. “Did Daniel put you up to this?”
The smallest of flinches. A slight glance away.
Oh.
Lestat’s lips curve around a laugh. It tastes bitter. “I see. Well, now you’ve checked for him. I’m fine.” Sick of Louis staring down at him, he rises abruptly to his feet. The world spins. Louis scoffs, but still brings out a hand to steady him.
“You seriously expect me to believe—”
Lestat’s chest aches, but indignation flares hotter. “No, of course not,” he bites out, inches from Louis’ face. “And it is your belief that makes things real or not. You are the narrator, yes?”
It’s cheap, but it sates the sudden sharpness aching to get out of him. He pushes Louis’ hand away, regretting the act even as he does it. Louis’ hand is warm, soft. He’s been eating well.
Louis bristles; he’s poised to bite back. And, oh, yes, Lestat is buzzing for a fight.
But, no, wait. Louis steps back, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “Okay," he says. "I’m not doing this tonight. You say you’re fine? Fine.”
And just like that, he leaves.
Lestat stares at his back. He should have apologized. Should’ve said something worse. Should have kissed him, maybe. He glances round venomously at the shifting shadows and the winking glint of the bottles on the bar shelves and the constant, flashing fucking lights.
Fuck all of this. He stumbles towards the opposite exit.
He's in an elevator. He can't exactly remember how he got here, but it must have been intentional, because he knows this place. It's where he's staying.
There are others here. He thought he was hallucinating it at first, but as the elevator slowly ascends, it's becoming clear. It's not the usual smattering of human heartbeats, here and there, but a beating, vampiric mass, thrumming in tandem, waiting above like strings pulled taut. How many, he can't exactly tell, but they're at the top and, based on the white glow of the elevator panel, he's headed there.
He could probably try to slip away, but wasn't this the point? Wasn't it his intention, to become a magnet for their ire? He crushes his eyelids shut, willing his vision to stop swimming. Part of him knows it's not the best time for this. He can barely stand without swaying. The rest of him wants to crush something. It might as well be some upstart fledglings.
The choice has slipped away from him, anyway, because he's about two seconds away from floor fourteen.
The elevator stops. The chime dings. The doors slide open. He lurches forward with bestial ferocity, splattering the foremost vampire's head into the side of the hallway and drenching the wall with a bright spray of blood.
He glares darkly at the rest of them, fangs bared. The world is slightly too blurry for him to count properly, but there are probably about a dozen. They've momentarily frozen, as though they're shocked he was able to detect their ambush. Fucking amateurs.
"Well?" he asks, pulling his blood-soaked hand out of their comrade's skull.
That snaps them out of it. They come for him, and they come quick.
He's clumsy—it's hard not to be when it feels like the floor is bending beneath him—but he doesn't have to be precise to tear flesh, and it's a transcendent feeling when he manages to wrench a fledgling's arm from her torso, even if it's in the process of her burying her claws into his abdomen. That's the main challenge—evasion is hard, in this state. The beast in him doesn't particularly care; it knows how to take a beating. A bite here, a gash there, the crack of a rib or two when he's thrown against a wall—it'll heal later. What matters is the bloody, beautiful immediacy of the now. Rip, bash, bite. He pulls a fledgling's head off and their spine comes along with it. He tears out the throat of another using only his teeth.
It's about then, panting, blood-soaked, and bracing for the next attack, when the messy logic of the beast starts to reveal its flaws. He's slowing, dangerously. All the little indulgences of the night, not to mention the pain—oh, the fucking pain—are building up like a dripping poison, insidious. He's bleeding. Quite a lot. This is probably bad. If he doesn't end this quickly, it will be worse.
Fine. He'd wanted to kill them all with his own hands, but he doesn't have to. He's not afraid to cheat.
He wastes no time. He latches onto the minds of those that remain and grasps, twisting their thoughts in their skulls. He desires their deaths, promptly. So must they all.
Some of them take to the suggestion easily, immediately slitting their own throats. A blissful bubble of relief expands in his chest. Then the sensation of those who aren't going so easily catches up with him, and it's like having his head slammed into a cliff face. They're pushing back, wrestling him for control, and it hurts, it hurts, it fucking hurts. His brain is trying to crawl out of his skull; his blood is boiling in his head—but he won't let them win, he'll push them to their fucking deaths, he'll push and push and push—
Pain, white-hot, behind his eyes. He can't see. The agony has eaten him, and nothing else remains.
Then, the floor is cold. He has a body again, but he cannot move.
Clawed hands wrench him up. Rough and bruising, they wrap around his arms, wrists, throat. There’s a voice, faraway, muffled. He can’t understand it, the sound smearing across his consciousness, but it doesn’t particularly matter, does it? They’re deciding what to do with him. He chuckles hoarsely. What will they do with him? Kill him, surely. Isn't that the point? A hand trails languidly down his chest, and another choked laugh bubbles past his lips. Oh, yes, of course. This, too.
Fangs slide into his neck. The sensation draws a desperate noise up out of his throat. All thoughts stop.
He’s cold. He’s so, so cold.
“Your blood is so sweet, my Lelio. Come now. Ask for it.”
No, he wants to say, wait, no, please, but all that comes out is an unintelligible moan. A hand clamps over his mouth.
“Hush, child. Save your useless prayers.”
His eyes roll back and the blood is dragged from his veins in a sharp, aching pull. He's cradled by damp stone and the smell of molding straw. He spasms, body struggling on instinct.
“Ah, yes, always the fighter. So beautiful when you fight.”
An old rage rises. He tries to bite the hand over his mouth, but his jaw doesn't heed him. Amongst the bruising claws, fingers like icicles glide along his waist and cup his jaw, soft, too soft, as though they aren't sinking into his very bones.
“Ask for it, child. You're dying. You must ask for it.”
He almost wants to give in, to end it. If only his body wouldn't keep fighting; if only his soul wasn't always alight with resistance.
“Stubborn wolfkiller.”
No, no, no, not stubborn, not stubborn, br—
A crack. Shouts. He's thrown down. Screams. He wants to scream, too, but he can barely breathe.
The world narrows to nothing but darkness and the death-chill of hands ghosting his skin.