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In the winter of 1794, the trajectory of Lestat de Lioncourt’s life veers off course and straight into hell. After a nightmarish week spent in that hell with the vampire Magnus, Lestat takes another two weeks on his own, abandoned by his maker, to decide how to live again.
He feels terrible for making Nicki wait so long without hearing so much as a word of his whereabouts, but he fears his presence might endanger him. He thinks long and hard on what to do but, in the end, he finds himself so desperate to be with him again that he takes the stairs to their room with no plan in mind, his body moving forward on pure instinct.
As if he recognizes him by the sound of his boots alone, Nicki throws open the door before he can knock, face so full of desperate hope that Lestat nearly bursts into bloody tears upon seeing it. Not a second later, he is in his arms again, answering Nicki’s sobs of relief and frustrated accusations alike with profuse apologies.
He demands to know what happened, as expected, but Lestat can’t answer truthfully. If he was not so occupied with holding onto him for dear life, Nicki would surely realize no part of his hastily improvised excuse about having had important, secretive business to attend to makes sense. As it is, he is simply too relieved to have him back in his arms to be suspicious of his words.
It might have been minutes or hours of clinging to each other before they finally part. It matters not, as no duration of time would have prepared Lestat for the conversation he knows is coming as soon as Nicki gets a good look at him.
At first, confusion. He isn’t sure if what he’s seeing is real or if it’s a trick of the light. Worry follows suit when he pulls Lestat further into their room, further into the candlelight, and sees no change. Doubt, then. Fear…but it’s sympathy he finally lands on, a detail that makes Lestat want to cry as much as Nicki’s own crying did.
“What’s happened to your eyes?” Nicki asks as he reaches up to cradle his face in both hands.
“Nothing,” Lestat says. “They are the same eyes I’ve always had.”
Nicki shakes his head. Something fearful in his expression. “Not true. Your eyes were a deep blue, the color of the sky at dusk. Now they’re gray as a storm cloud.”
“Nothing has changed, Nicki,” he says, placing one of his hands over Nicki’s own. “You’re imagining it.”
Nicki pulls away from his grasp, releasing his face to grab him by the hand. “I’m not! Here, look in the mirror,” he says, pulling him towards it. “Look and tell me, honestly, that you see no change!”
“There’s no need for this. You’re being ridiculous.”
Nicki lets go of him. “Why do you say that?” he asks. “What’s happened to you, Lestat? Really?”
“Nothing, I assure you. You worry over nothing.”
Nicki glares at him. “Fine. Don’t tell me, then. But don’t treat me like a fool, either. I won’t tolerate it.”
“You’re not a fool,” Lestat assures him.
“Then let’s drop it for now.” Nicki sighs. “You can tell me when you’re ready.”
Will you not tell him?
Lestat flinches at the sudden echo of the now-familiar voice in his head. Thankfully, Nicki has turned away with a comment about needing to show him something later, and doesn’t see it.
Get out of my head.
Would you prefer I come up and ask you directly?
Absolutely not—as much as he had wished the stranger would show himself for once, that is the last thing Lestat needs right now. I’d prefer you leave me be.
I cannot do that. You are a liability. Your mere presence threatens everything I’ve built.
That is your problem, not mine.
He will come to learn the truth eventually, one way or another. What will you do then?
He does not have to know. I will ensure he does not.
And how will you do that?
Am I on trial? Why have you so many questions?
I need to know, because the mortals learning of our existence threatens said existence.
Nicki is not ‘the mortals’, he is one boy. He poses no threat to a creature like you.
You are a boy yourself: young and naive yet. You do not know the things I do. You have not seen the things I have.
And I care not to. Now leave me be.
“Lestat?”
Lestat shakes his head, like he could shake the stranger’s voice free from it and finally be rid of him.
“Are you alright?” Nicki asks. He looks so genuinely concerned Lestat wants, for only the briefest of moments, to tell him everything.
“I’m…” Lestat begins, but cannot finish. He cannot tell him. “It’s nothing,” he says. “I’m fine.”
It’s clear from his expression that Nicki doesn’t believe him, but he doesn’t push. He nods curtly instead, then returns to his chair. Lestat watches him, feeling unfathomably lost and alone in a manner he never once has before, while he looks over his sheet music.
He will need to feed soon.
♦♦♦
Lestat returns to acting at Renaud’s. He bewitches the crowd more so than ever before, but his heart isn’t in it. Nicki is suspicious of him now. He is often resentful, and angry. His dark moods last longer than they ever have before. Lestat fears he may grow hateful of him. The strange vampire must know this as he grows bolder, following closely in the shadows where Lestat might for once see him if he were to turn around.
He does not turn around.
“You seemed distracted up there tonight,” Nicki says. He avoids a piece of cobblestone that’s come up loose, pointing it out for Lestat to avoid as well.
“Did I?”
“You were a bit late on your delivery, more sluggish in your movements.”
“Was I?”
“Absolutely. I doubt the crowd noticed, but it was obvious to me.”
“Alright, I confess. I was thoroughly enamored with your playing tonight. It was difficult to focus.”
“That’s not it at all!” Nicki complains, coming to a stop just before the intersection. “Do you really take me for a fool, Lestat?”
“I do not—”
“You weren’t listening to my playing at all! Do you think I haven’t noticed how often you ignore my words now? Your mind wanders off somewhere halfway through every conversation! Tell me, do I bore you? Have you no interest in what I have to say anymore?”
“Nicki, please—”
A two-horse carriage approaches, horse hooves clopping loudly against the road. Nicki glances at the driver and steps back, putting a bit more distance between himself and Lestat. That one single step hurts nearly as much as his doubt, nonsensical as it is. Nicki has always been careful around him in public.
“Have you grown sick of me?” he asks, voice low and full of despair.
In all their years together, he’s never once heard such pain in his words. Lestat wants to assuage it by whatever means it takes, but his secret admirer seeks to thwart his effort.
Will you tell him now?
Now is not the time!
What better time is there?
“There you go again! Even now, you’ve no intention of listening to me!”
“That’s not it, Nicki, I…”
“It’s what, Lestat?” he demands, throwing his hands up. “What? What could it possibly be that steals your thoughts away so frequently?
Yes, what is it, Lestat?
The voice in his head sounds pleased. Amused, even. Reveling in his torment, perhaps.
“Not now, he is listening…”
“What? Who?”
“Please! Later, I promise you. Not now…”
“You act so strange these days. I fear I no longer understand you.”
It is sounding to me like he considers parting ways with you.
You do not know…
Do you not know? You can look into his mind now, see for yourself.
I will not.
You do not want to know. You know that I am right.
His mind is private. I’ve no right to breach it.
You are afraid.
“…Lestat?”
“I am afraid,” Lestat says aloud. It is no admission, though he can feel the stranger watching them takes it as such regardless
“Whatever of?”
Lestat shakes his head violently. “Let us return home, now. Please.”
Nicki frowns at him. “But we are expected at…”
“Please!” Lestat begs, letting all of his accumulated fear and frustration color his voice.
Nicki still looks doubtful, but he gives a terse nod. “Okay, some other time then. We’ll go home now.”
Lestat closes his eyes, breathing a sigh of relief. “Thank you,” he whispers.
He does not hear the voice again until they’ve reached their building.
It is not my intention to frighten you. To prove myself genuine, I will leave you to your own devices for now.
Good riddance.
Do keep in mind, however, that should you intend on doing anything that threatens the anonymity of me or my children, I will intervene.
As soon as the door closes behind him, Lestat throws himself into Nicki’s arms, burying his face in the crook of his neck. He hates the way Nicki hesitates to hold him back—he would never hesitate before.
That will not happen.
He is sure of little these days, but he can say with only the utmost certainty that he has no intention of revealing to anyone—least of all Nicki—the ugly nature of his new existence.
♦♦♦
Feeding is becoming more difficult. When he winds through the darkened, putrid alleyways now like a snake ready to strike, the mortals know. Somehow, despite his careful ways, they’ve learned to leave him be. The beggar and the cutthroat alike turn their gaze away from him when he passes. They go quiet as he approaches, looking anywhere but at him, hoping he will not notice them. Somehow, word has spread. How do they speak of him? Do they speak of a well-to-do aristocrat, marching fearlessly among the dregs, safe in the knowledge that any who accost him shall be swiftly dealt with, as all the others have? Or do they speak of him as something unholy, something untouchable? Like a curse in the flesh, floating through their ranks, delivering ruin upon any who dare to look upon him?
Lestat hungers greatly, but he is not yet ready to set upon an unwilling, unoffending victim. The thought fills him with dread still. Delusional with it, perhaps, he imagines briefly how Nicki might react if he were to honestly beseech him: Nicki, my love, something dreadful has happened to me. I can sustain myself on bread and soup no longer. Would you allow me but a taste of your blood? In this fantasy, Nicki accepts. He tells him that his heart belongs to Lestat only, so of course the blood it pumps through his veins belongs to him much the same. He whispers sweet words to Lestat while he drinks. At the end of it, when Lestat is satiated, Nicki smiles up at him and says…
He says…no, Lestat cannot even imagine it. Even in a fleeting fantasy, the weight of the words is too great. He cannot imagine how wonderful it would be to finally hear those words now, after a lifetime of waiting for them. Waiting to hear them from someone who means them genuinely, someone who will not tell him what he wants to hear only to leave him after. Someone who will stay with him, hold him, see him as he really is, authentic, and prove their words true.
But it’s only a fantasy. Much as he hates to admit it even to himself, Nicki would not accept such a cruel reality so simply. He would not roll over and accept things so simply as Lestat did, as he saw no other alternative to doing. He would not understand how Lestat has changed or why. He’s told him this in as many words already. The longer Lestat avoids the subject, the more distant Nicki grows, and the sharper his tongue becomes. He is convinced, with the way things are now, that telling the full truth would solve nothing. Nicki is suspicious of his every word now, why would he believe any part of Lestat’s story? He would sooner grow angry at being told what to him would seem a fable than to believe in Lestat, or see his pain. He mistakes his fear for annoyance. He mistakes it for boredom. He did not believe him when he first told him of Magnus and his terrifying omnipresence, or how he could hear the stranger’s voice calling to him in his head.
He did not believe Lestat when he told him recent history was repeating itself. He fears no answer close to the truth will satisfy him. They’re at an impasse Lestat hasn’t the faintest idea how to cross.
A foul stench catches his attention: someone has left a basket of rotten produce at the doorstep just ahead. A small congregation of rats has gathered around it to partake, one of them holding a moldy morsel in its tiny hands, eating it almost like a person would. The food looks to have gone bad some time ago, but the rats don’t care. To them, it’s a banquet.
Perhaps he’s being too picky? Lestat wonders, could he not be like the rats and become a scavenger, feeding not on the fresh or the living but on the already deceased? The blood does not simply disappear when one dies. It would be cold and probably unappetizing, but it would certainly be enough to sate him, would it not? He won’t know for certain until he tries.
He makes his way to the morgue. It’s predictably locked, but that is not a deterrent for a creature of the night. He breaks the lock with a clever flick of his finger and steps inside the dusty room. He’s unable to resist the instinct to cover his nose as the smell hits him—how morticians deal with it, he cannot imagine. There are two bodies laid out on the table in the center of the room. It’s dark even for his eyes, but he can see well enough to tell that the one on the left is an older gentleman, and the one to his right a young lady. They appear fresh enough despite the smell, that looking upon them doesn’t fill him with disgust. He approaches the corpse of the young lady, flinching back momentarily when he kicks something—a glass bottle, perhaps, by the sound of it—and it rolls somewhere out of sight. He chuckles at himself and his frayed nerves.
“There is no one here at this hour,” he reminds himself. “No one is watching. No one to judge you.”
He wills himself to stop breathing as he leans in close to the corpse’s neck. She would have been beautiful while she lived—soft features, plush lips, hair a shade lighter than his own. He wonders how she died. Not illness, surely, or she would not appear so healthy. Were it not for the smell, he would think her only sleeping, sure to wake soon. He hopes she doesn’t taste too foul.
As his fangs pierce her throat, however, a most unwelcome presence makes itself known once more.
Stop!
Lestat ignores him. He begins to suck but, right as the cold blood hits his tongue, he’s ripped away from the throat.
“What are you doing?” The strange vampire demands, shaking him by the shoulder.
“Why does it matter to you?” Lestat asks, tensing up at the unexpected contact. “Why is anything I do your business?” He slaps the vampire’s arm away.
“Are you trying to kill yourself?”
“What? Why would you think such a thing—”
“The blood,” he says, pointing an aggressive finger at the corpse. “It would have killed you! Did you really not know?”
Killed him?
“But we are immortal,” Lestat says slowly, understanding dawning on him. “Except for…”
“Sunlight, fire, dead blood, beheading…”
The latter two are news to Lestat.
“Did he really teach you nothing? Magnus?”
He can feel his fangs protrude a bit at the assumption. Correct or not, he finds it offensive. He doesn’t like this stranger’s tone or the way he brings up his maker so casually. He doesn’t like the way that, if he has told the truth just now, he technically owes his semi-immortal life to him.
“Then it’s a good thing I was following you,” the vampire says, shaking his head. “Come. Let’s leave this dreadful place.”
“I will not follow you,” Lestat says. “I have a whole host of better things to do than follow you around.”
“Very well, then. You lead. I will follow.”
“I’ve had more than enough of that! I tired of it weeks ago!”
The vampire heaves a frustrated sigh, running a hand through his unkempt dark hair. Despite the way he had cleaned up somewhat for Lestat’s performance the other day, he looks to have gone some length of time without bathing since. Perhaps he hasn’t bathed since at all, perhaps bathing isn’t something he and his children care for. He supposes it makes sense, considering how often they must find themselves covered in blood, that regular bathing might seem pointless. He, however, cannot stand to go more than a few days without a bath. With all the money and jewels he now possesses, there is no need to wait even that long. He bathes nearly every day now.
Despite himself, he’s curious how this vampire would look if he had a proper bath—if he had access to the private baths Lestat frequents. When he tilts his head at him with a curious look and the ghost of a half-formed smile, Lestat shakes the thought away.
“Armand,” says the vampire. When Lestat raises his eyebrows at him, he gives a short bow, one palm placed flat over his chest.
His name, then.
“Lestat de Lioncourt,” he says, though it’s unnecessary. He figures he owes the one who just saved him a proper introduction at the least.
Armand doesn’t offer him a last name in return. Lestat doesn’t ask.
“A parting word of advice, if you truly refuse to entertain my offer,” Armand says. “You will need to accept that you must drink from healthy, living, and often innocent human victims, or otherwise suffer illness and fatigue.”
Lestat grits his teeth. He knew that, of course. He was fine hunting killers and thieves when there were killers and thieves to go around, but he’s learned recently that it is not a viable long term option.
“I understand you don’t want to hurt them,” Armand says, voice low and surprisingly soft. “You are not like my children, who were chosen for their cruel natures and wicked ways.” He steps up closer to him, into arms’ reach. Lestat’s first instinct is to step back, but the expression on his face—angry, and sympathetic, somehow—arrests him, nailing him to the spot. “It is against our very way of life to make one such as yourself: one so kind and gentle, so full of light and life.” He takes another step closer, and there’s something dark in his eyes that makes Lestat nervous as much as it excites him. “Had he not already gone into the fire, I would have strung him up and gutted him for what he did to you.”
Lestat forgets how to breathe. When Armand finally steps away, he has to fight the urge to grab him by the wrist, to keep him close for God knows why—he doesn’t know this man, and he has no real reason to trust him any more than he could trust Magnus.
“When you change your mind,” Armand says over his shoulder, “You know where to find me.”
At that, he takes his leave. Lestat nearly follows after him right then and there but his pride will not allow it. He heads in the opposite direction, back towards home. He needs to see Nicki. He doesn’t care if Nicki is angry with him still, he needs to hold him.
When he enters their room, however, Nicki is not there. Wherever might he be at such an hour? He’s left no sign of his presence. No sign for Lestat to follow.
The sun will rise soon. Up to this point, Lestat has gotten away with simply refusing to leave bed until the sun has set, thanks to their bed sitting tightly in the corner of the room perpendicular to both windows. Nicki had considered it no stranger than the rest of his behavior and shrugged it off. He even adjusted his own schedule to allow for more nighttime activities, despite his constant irritation at Lestat for withholding the truth.
If he does not return by sunrise…
“No,” Lestat says, shaking his head with a soft chuckle. “He is fine. You overreact.”
He strips down to his undergarments before climbing into bed. The most probable scenario, he assures himself, is that Nicki has decided to stay at a friend’s for the night. He visits Mathieu rather frequently these days, especially now when Lestat must wander the streets alone to hunt in earnest. Perhaps that is where he is now.
He doesn’t much like sleeping in bed without the warmth of his Nicki pressed against him or the cocoon of his embrace. He feels exposed now more than he ever has, but there is no other option available to him at the moment. He tosses and turns long after the sun rises as he frets, but eventually he succumbs to sleep.
When he wakes that night, though…Nicki is still nowhere to be seen.
He goes to Mathieu’s. He has not seen Nicki since Lestat has, and has heard nothing from him: no weekend plans, no family visits, no parties. Lestat thanks him and rushes to the theatre. He is not there either, and has not been there in at least a day, he’s told. No one has heard tale of him since he and Lestat left together that night, before Lestat gave him the excuse of some business to which he had to attend. He goes to the market after that, questioning every vendor. No one there has seen him in days. He tries the butcher, and the bathhouse, and even the concert hall…but no one has seen him.
Panic sets in. Lestat knows not whether the curious and sometimes fearful glances he gets are because of his expression, or if he has made his inhuman condition apparent in his desperation and the speed at which he checks every nook and cranny, half mad with the fear that he might find his beloved sprawled out in an alley somewhere, eyes vacant and unseeing, heart gone still and quiet in his chest.
Eventually he comes to a stop in the middle of the street, just minutes away from their room. He knows not how much time has passed during his search, but he’s ended up right back where he started.
His eyes well up with tears. He doesn’t know what he will do with himself if something has happened to Nicki. He wipes at his eyes, intending to start back the way he just came, but an unfamiliar voice in his head gives him pause.
Maître wishes to see you.
Oh, for heaven’s sake! Now is not the time…
Your Nicolas is in our crypt.
Lestat spins back around, eyes searching for the owner of the voice. They land on a yellow-eyed woman peering at him cautiously from around the corner of the building just ahead.
“Take me there,” he says through grit teeth, knowing she’s close enough to hear.
He follows behind her at some distance—as anxious as he is to see Nicki and confirm his condition, he does not trust these vampires. Their Maître might have offered some useful advice, but the coven as a whole is still unknowable to him. For all he does know, this one might have planned a coordinated attack against him without Armand’s knowing. She is far from intimidating on her own, but a group of vampires in hiding could pose a threat.
Thankfully, that is not the case. She leads him to the cemetery and right down into the antechamber of their stinking crypt.
“Wait here,” she says aloud. “Maître will be with you shortly.”
As soon as she disappears down the darkened hall, Lestat begins to pace. He simply cannot help it: he is packed to the brim with anxious energy he must deplete in some way or risk imploding. It doesn’t help much, but it’s better than standing around. Armand appears before long.
“Lestat,” he says. “Good to see—”
“Where is he?” Lestat demands. “Why have you brought him here?”
Armand’s face is infuriatingly placid as he explains how Nicki almost died. “One of my children, Etienne, intended to feed on him. I came upon the two of them, and I recognized who it was that Etienne had in his grasp. I pulled him away, but I fear he drank from your Nicolas rather deeply before I managed it.”
Lestat can’t even be angry. He’s already moving past Armand, into the hallway from which he emerged. He sees the light of several torches dancing against the wall ahead and quickly ducks into the main hall, where the rest of the coven stops whatever they’re doing to turn and gawk at him. But he doesn’t pay any of them any mind—his eyes pass over all of them, as well as the frightened vampire chained to the stone dais in the center of the room, until they land on Nicki, laid out on a table on the far side of the room.
Lestat dashes to him, crouching to slide one hand under his head and the other under his back to raise his torso. His lack of response frightens him but he is relieved to hear a pulse, weak as it is. He is alive.
“I would like to apologize,” Armand says, his voice close now though Lestat hadn’t heard him approach. “When I told you previously that I would leave you be, I informed my children that neither you nor your Nicolas were to be harmed.”
“Oh, did you now?” Lestat turns his head to snarl at him. “How kind of you. A shame that it meant nothing!”
Several of the vampires gasp at his outburst, but Armand ignores it. Instead, he gestures towards the restrained vampire at the centre of the room with a sweeping motion of his arm. “Etienne,” he says, “Either forgot my order, or did not recognize him despite my having shown Nicolas to him in my memories. Whatever the case may be, he went against my order.”
“Maître, please!” Etienne pleads, chains clinking as he squirms. “I did not—”
Whatever he’d been about to say is cut short by a horrid, pained scream. Lestat’s eyes go wide at the unexpected sound of it. The other vampires exchange fearful glances: none of them dare to look directly at either Etienne, whose eyes have rolled back into his head as he thrashes, or Armand.
“Whatever the case may be,” Armand continues, “He knew what the punishment for disobeying would be.”
Lestat turns to look at Nicki once more: pale, covered in sweat and dried blood, with the telltale pinprick holes left behind only by vampire fangs in the side of his neck. He returns his attention to the writhing vampire who did this to him, and then he looks to Armand.
“And that punishment would be?” he asks.
“Death by fire,” Armand answers with a short nod.
Good.
Armand’s mouth curves upward into a small but pleased smile, and then he raises his arm. With a flick of his wrist, Etienne suddenly bursts into flames. If his screaming was disconcerting before, it is harrowing now. Or rather it would be, if Lestat did not find it so pleasing.
Concerned about Nicki’s condition, Lestat raises him gently into his arms. Armand apologizes once more with a comment about hoping this was enough to make it right and, though Lestat doesn’t give him a definitive answer, he does feel something like appreciation.
He takes Nicki out of the crypt into the fresh air and back to their room, where he lays him down gently on the bed. He turns to retrieve and dampen a small cloth in the water bucket before returning to crouch at the side of the bed and using it to dab at Nicki’s sweat-sticky skin. When he stands again, Nicki groans quietly. Lestat falls into a crouching position again immediately.
“Nicki?” He asks softly. “Can you hear me, my love?”
His face has crumpled up like he’s in pain. Lestat presses two fingers gently to his brow as if to smooth it, and thereby soothe his pain. He cracks his eyes open, to Lestat’s immense relief, but then his panic comes out of him in waves. He begins to hyperventilate even as Lestat cradles his face, telling him that he’s okay, and that it’s all over. He’s safe now, at home, with him. Lestat will never let anyone hurt him like that again.
But Nicki does not respond to any of that. His hand shoots forward suddenly, startling Lestat with the strength behind it as he grabs his wrist. Whatever panic Lestat felt from him has been replaced by something else. Something darker, for which he knows not the name.
“Give it to me,” he hisses, breath coming out sharp as his eyes bore into Lestat’s own. “I want it.”
“What do you mean?” Lestat asks, though the answer is clear. He grows nauseous at the realization that Nicki has learned, on his own, just what he is and what he can offer. “Give you what?” he asks, swallowing heavily around the lump in his throat.
“All of it,” Nicki says, breathing short, staccato breaths still. His eyes are wide, pupils blown. He looks straight at Lestat yet doesn’t truly see him. “Your power. Your resilience.” At Lestat’s frightened face, he grins. “Your curse.”
♦♦♦
Returning to him was a mistake. Lonely as he would have been at first, Nicki would have eventually moved on from the loss of him. He might still have found himself in a wayward vampire’s clutches, however unlikely that would have been, or wound up in an accident of some sort, or fallen ill, yes, but none of those scenarios pain Lestat as much as the one that actually happened—the one he brought about with his own selfishness.
Le Théâtre de Vampires. It is, as Nicki had so declared, his proudest achievement. A theatre company composed only of vampires, acting as vampires, putting on plays in which vampires go about their vampiric ways, but with a twist: the audience is completely unaware that everything which occurs on stage is real.
As a means of feeding, it is superbly efficient. As a form of theatre, well…it isn’t. It isn’t theatre at all in Lestat’s eyes. For what is the meaning in a play in which none of the actors are acting?
“You aren’t getting it, Lestat. You’re thinking too simply, again, as you always do,” Nicki complains, insulting his intelligence yet again as he so often does these days. “We sell the audience on the very premise that it is only theatre! It is an act within an act! We are not vampires acting as mortals, we are vampires acting as mortals who are acting as vampires!”
“But you are vampires,” Lestat argues, “And the audience only believes the act because they believe in the goodness of the art as much as they disbelieve in the existence of vampires! It’s a farce and an affront to all those who put their love into the art!” Nicki whirls around with a scoff. Hands on his hips, he glares down at Lestat where he sits at the edge of the aisle. “Any man can get on stage and punch another man in the face,” Lestat continues, attempting to paint a picture for him. “It takes real talent to pull one’s punch at just the right moment, and to take a hit that never connects.”
Nicki rolls his eyes at him. “Where is your—”
He stops short as the door swings open, and in comes Armand, followed closely by Celeste, Estelle, Eleni, and two others whose names Lestat has yet to learn.
“How goes the preparation for tomorrow’s show?” Armand asks Nicki.
There is noticeable tension between the two of them, though it is nothing like the bitterness between himself and Nicki. Still, Lestat doesn’t like watching their interactions any more than he likes arguing with Nicki—as every interaction with him these days is, most unfortunately, an argument.
Nicki is eerily silent for a long moment before he sneers at Armand. “Fine,” is all he says before turning away, and then he marches back on stage and disappears behind the curtain.
“Hello,” Lestat says in greeting, giving him a polite smile. Armand smiles back down at him.
“Hello, Lestat. How are you tonight?”
Lestat sighs with a pointed look in the direction Nicki vanished. “As well as ever,” he says.
Armand stares at the curtain as he speaks. “Things will get better for you very soon, I am sure.”
Lestat thinks to ask him how he could possibly know that but decides the better of it, assuming it to be no more than a turn of phrase.
They have a short but pleasant conversation, the women joining in as well when Armand invites them to do so. It is rather remarkable how much the dynamic of the coven has changed since that day: a small positive in a sea of negatives. As hard as it is to get through each night knowing that Nicki resents him now more than he ever thought possible, he can’t imagine how much harder it would be if he did not have Armand's comparatively pleasant company to balance the scale.
When an hour passes and Nicki still hasn’t emerged from the dressing room, Lestat excuses himself from the conversation and goes to check on him. He knocks quietly on the door, calling out to him as well, but receives no answer.
“I’m coming in,” he announces. The door isn’t locked.
At first he thinks he must’ve been mistaken, that Nicki had already left. The room is dark and appears empty at first glance, but then he spies Nicki in the far corner, shoulders rigid, head hanging low.
“Nicki?” Lestat asks, stepping into the room and quietly shutting the door behind him.
Nicki stands up straight but doesn’t respond nor turn around. Lestat approaches him cautiously, one arm extended, intending to grasp him by the shoulder, but Nicki spins around abruptly just before he makes contact.
“What do you want?” he asks, like nothing is wrong. Like he hadn’t just been staring at the wall in a pitch-dark room, entirely unresponsive.
“I just wanted to make sure you were alright,” Lestat says, letting his arm drop. “It has been over an hour since you—”
Lestat flinches, backing away a step when Nicki suddenly bursts into raucous laughter.
“Alright? Me?” Nicki asks, pointing at the center of his own chest. “Alright?” He laughs again, and again, until he doubles over with laughter. “My life was over before it ever truly began! I was nothing, nobody! A dark void where a soul should be. I had no reason to live, but then there came a breathtakingly beautiful man so impossibly full of light and life…” Nicki steps forward, the simple motion wobbly and unnatural. He lifts his hands to hold Lestat’s face—something he sorely missed, but that felt horribly wrong now, as Nicki uses far too much pressure, his nails biting into Lestat’s scalp. “A man who lived a life just as pointless as mine, devoid of any real joy, who somehow remained joyous despite that. I saw that man, and I thought to myself, what would it take to utterly ruin someone like him?”
Lestat doesn’t like his words nor the tone he speaks them with one bit. “Nicki, you’re hurting me. Let go.” Nicki only held onto him tighter, his nails piercing the flesh enough to bleed.
“What would it take to drag someone like him down to the depths of hell, where I’ve resided all my life? What would it feel like to watch him fall apart, to watch him realize that I’d been right all along? There is no goodness in what we do, Lestat. There is no goodness that cannot be corrupted. You are the evidence!”
Lestat slaps his arms away, caring not for the drag of his sharp nails across his face. “You’ve gone mad!”
Nicki chuckles. “No, no. I’ve not gone mad. It’s this world that’s gone mad. Or perhaps it always was, and I’ve only come to that late.”
Lestat shakes his head and turns on his heel. “I won’t entertain this madness. I won’t entertain your delusions, and I won’t entertain this sick idea of yours or the way you’ve—”
“But you’ll entertain him just fine,” Nicki scoffs. “Won’t you?”
“What?” Lestat had been reaching for the door, but he pauses now with his hand out.
“Don’t play coy.”
“What in the hell are you even trying to say?” Lestat demands, whirling around to face him. “Speak plainly or not at all!”
“And if I do, will it help at all? You don’t listen to a word that comes out of my mouth either way.”
“If you want to insult me,” Lestat says through gritted teeth. “Then do so at your will. But do not speak to me meaningless words and act as though I’m a fool for not inventing a meaning to fit them! It is a waste of my time and yours!”
“You are a fool if you think you can convince me you don’t know what I’m talking about,” Nicki says with a sneer, “And a worse one if you really don’t know. I’ve seen the way you look at him. I know you were speaking to him all those times you ignored me. I know you’re drawn to the darkness in him just as you were drawn to the darkness in your maker.”
Lestat feels the blood in his face drain away as he finally catches on to Nicki’s meaning. “Drawn to him? I told you!” he shouts. “I told you he was watching me, speaking to me, I told you! I told you, and you didn’t listen! And I told him no,” Lestat says, voice cracking. He doesn’t want to cry here, now, in front of Nicki and his delirious, cruel smile. “I begged for death, and he denied me. I prayed to God and he did not answer. Don’t accuse me of things you have no knowledge of. You haven’t the faintest clue what I’ve been through.”
Finally, Nicki’s smile fades. “No, I don’t. Because you won’t tell me. I waited months for you to tell me, and you never did. You don’t trust me, so why should I trust you? Hmm?”
Lestat has nothing to say to that. He knows Nicki won’t accept any answer from him. They are long past that point. Past the point of return now, it would seem.
As much as it pains him to acknowledge that, Lestat can’t simply ignore it any longer.
“I was not drawn to Magnus,” he says. “I was not drawn to Armand either, at first. But you don’t want to hear that. You’ve already decided what is true and what isn’t without my input. So be it. You want to stand around in the dark and stare at the wall all night, so be it. You want to kill people on stage and call it acting, so be it. You want to belittle me, mock me, call me a coward, a liar, a fool?” Lestat shakes his head, then points at the corner of the room. “You can tell it all to your new friend, Monsieur dusty wall. I won’t tolerate it any longer.”
Nicki scoffs again, preparing to say something else, but Lestat has already swung the door open and slammed it behind him before he can start. He meant to head back to the auditorium, but his legs won’t move. His back slides against the door as he falls to the ground. He’s startled to see a drop of blood on his pant leg, entirely unaware that he started crying at some point. He swipes at his eyes with the back of his hand but acknowledging it in this way only makes it worse. He needs to get away from the door; he doesn’t want Nicki to hear him knowing he’ll make fun of him for it later. He doesn’t know when or understand why Nicki became so cruel.
“Oh dear,” says Armand. Lestat flinches at the sound of it, didn’t realize he’d come down the hall. “Are you alright, Lestat?”
No point in lying seeing as how his face is a bloody mess, but he refuses to admit defeat where Nicki can hear. “Perfectly fine,” he says, attempting to dry his face on his sleeve. “I was just going to get myself some fresh air.”
“Shall I accompany you, then?”
At first Lestat thought only of escape from it all, but something about the unreadable look on Armand’s face when he looks up at it—certainly not the pity nor sympathy one would expect from someone who’s stumbled upon a grown man crying on the floor—has him accepting the offer. “Please. I’d appreciate the company.”
Armand smiles. It’s…more genuine than the others he’s seen, Lestat thinks. He didn’t think the others weren’t genuine before but in comparison…he doesn’t know where this is coming from. Armand is offering him his hand, so he takes it with an answering smile of his own.
“There’s a secret place I frequent when I need a break from it all,” Armand says as he pulls him to his feet. “Let me show you.”
He doesn’t let go of his hand. Lestat doesn’t bother pulling it away, letting himself be led by the hand like he once led Nicki through the crowded streets during a festival that had been held shortly after they first arrived in Paris. It was the only time they could get away with such a thing as there’d been the convenient excuse of not wanting to get separated from each other amongst the throngs of people. No one looked at them strangely for doing so. Lestat wishes either of them had had the courage to try it again.
“Where are we going, exactly?” Lestat asks. “Or am I not allowed to know yet.”
Armand chuckles quietly. “You’ll see when we get there. It’s not too far.”
Not far at all it seems, as they soon stop at the doors of Les Invalides.
“I would hardly call this a secret place,” Lestat says, raising his brows at Armand.
Armand shakes his head with a bright grin, the likes of which puts that last smile of his to shame. Lestat finds himself smiling too. “Not Les Invalides itself,” he says, then raises his free hand to point straight up. “Up top. Come, follow me.”
He begins to rise. Lestat lets himself be pulled up for a second before he rises too, wondering what could possibly be so special about the roof. Only, they don’t stop at the roof. Armand leads him all the way up to the very tip-top of the spire.
“Here?” Lestat asks, eyeing the point of it. “And you simply—what, float above it?”
Armand sits one foot down on it, still holding onto Lestat’s hand, and wobbles slightly as he tries to balance. “Here, you try,” he says.
He looks ridiculous! Lestat can’t help but laugh. “Absolutely not! You barely fit yourself, there’s no chance the both of us could stand on it together.”
“Oh, come now! At least try first before you decide it’s impossible.” Armand tugs his hand, trying to pull him closer.
“Oh, this is ridiculous!” Lestat complains, and yet he tries his best to find room for his own foot. “We’ll both fall!”
“Well, it’s a good thing we can fly. I’ll hold on to you, and in return you’ll hold on to me. We shouldn’t fall like that.”
It sounds reasonable enough, but Lestat is suddenly aware of just how close they’ve been all this time. It’s senseless considering it didn’t bother him at all up until this point but his face grows warm nonetheless.
“Is this why you brought me up here?” Lestat asks, attempting to diffuse his embarrassment. “Just to hold on to me?”
“Not entirely,” Armand says. “There’s something else I wanted to show you. But I’ll only do so if you can balance with me.”
Lestat huffs. “Fine.” He reaches for Armand’s other hand as he plants his foot firmly on the widest part of the spire he can reach. He doesn’t know what to do with his other leg so he bends it up and out of the way. Armand must find this funny as he tries and fails to contain his laughter. “What? I’m balancing, just like you asked.”
“That pose. You look very dainty, mademoiselle.”
Lestat’s face burns even hotter at that. “That was hardly my intention,” he says, “And don’t call me that.” He drops his leg with a pout, turning his head away to look down at the city below them. “I still don’t understand this balancing act but the view is quite nice.”
“Yes, isn’t it? As I said, I come here often when I feel overburdened. To balance on the tip of the spire, as no mortal could ever hope to accomplish, and look down upon the whole of the city. So high the mortals look like ants: tiny and insignificant. The city itself doesn’t seem so large from up here. Everything appears small to me, even my burdens.”
Lestat watches a tiny carriage pass over the bridge until it passes out of sight.
“Your burdens…you mean the coven?”
“Yes.”
“If you find it to be a burden, why don’t you leave? Surely no one is forcing you to lead them?”
Armand’s grip tightens momentarily but he says nothing. Lestat turns his attention back to him, sees him frowning down at his own foot, and waits. What he finally says is not at all what he had expected.
“Why haven’t you left your Nicolas yet?”
“I beg your pardon?” Armand turns to look at him. His face is serious now, and there’s a trace of irritation in it. “Nicki is not a burden.”
“You and I both know that is not true. And yet, even after what he said to you earlier, in the dressing room, you have not chosen to end it. Not entirely.”
Lestat lets go of him completely. His foot slides but he corrects his posture in the air immediately, and Armand follows suit. “You were listening.”
“Difficult not to. I heard you shouting and came to check on you, but I didn’t want to interrupt. I didn’t want you thinking I was eavesdropping either, so I returned to the auditorium, but you were both quite loud. I fear everyone there became your unwitting audience.”
Humiliation colors Lestat’s cheeks now. “Well, I’m sorry you all had to hear that but the words shared between Nicki and myself are none of your business.”
He doesn’t wait for a response before floating back down to the roof. Armand touches down shortly after he does but he ignores him, intending to jump. Before he can, Armand grabs him by the arm.
“It might be none of my business, but I don’t like seeing you hurt,” he says. “I know you love him with all your heart, but I don’t like hearing the things he says to you and I don’t like seeing you cry because of him.”
Lestat watches him warily from the corner of his eye. He had his suspicions, and Armand has just about confirmed them. Even so, he has to ask. “Why? Why do you care?”
Armand releases his arm only to take his hand again. He takes a step closer, urging Lestat to look him in the eye. “Because I love you.”
Lestat inhales sharply, mouth hanging open as he stares back at Armand. He’s waited how long, exactly, to hear those words?
“I love you,” Armand says again. “You are unlike anyone I have ever met, mortal or immortal. You are beautiful and kind, and you light up every room you enter. You can see it in my children, how different they are now after the time spent in your presence. You have something the rest of us have long forgotten.”
“And what is that?” Lestat asks, still reeling from the confession.
“Hope,” Armand says, raising his hands to hold Lestat’s face gently. Lestat can’t help but remember Nicki’s nails digging into his skin. “And what a miracle that is, after all you’ve been through. In such a short time, at that. A testament to the strength of your spirit.”
“I…” Lestat doesn’t know what to say. Armand is staring down at him with so much raw emotion, he feels paralyzed by it. Nicki used to look at him like that once. It should make him sad. It does make him a little sad, but it also makes him…hopeful.
“Does anyone else know the size of your soul?”
He’s said it so quietly, even with the scant few inches between them Lestat can barely hear it. But the words themselves are gigantic, momentous, earth shattering. Whatever doubts Lestat had about Armand’s intentions, whatever regrets he had about the way things ended up with Nicki, none of them matter right now. Not with the gaze of this ancient, indescribably powerful being flickering between his eyes and his lips like he wants to kiss him but is too bashful to make the first move.
That’s all well and good, Lestat thinks as he closes the short distance between them. Armand gasps when their lips brush. He trembles when Lestat raises his hands to hold his face in turn and deepens the kiss, moans softly when Lestat sucks on his lower lip. He sighs blissfully when Lestat pulls away.
“Are you alright?” Lestat asks, tilting his head. “You seem a little…”
Overwhelmed, maybe? He isn’t for certain.
“I…I haven’t touched anyone like this in a very, very long time,” Armand says. Overwhelmed it is, then. “I’m sorry.”
Lestat shakes his head. “You’ve nothing to apologize for.” He leans in again, this time for a quick peck only. Even that little bit of contact has Armand shuddering. “Do you want me to stop?” Lestat asks.
Armand immediately shakes his head. “No, please don’t.”
Lestat smiles. He leans in for another kiss and threads his fingers through Armand’s hair. When he swipes his tongue over Armand’s bottom lip, he hears his voice in his head.
You’ve no idea how long I’ve dreamed of this.
You dream of kissing me?
I dream of much more than this.
Lestat pulls away. To think he’d been so nervous around him previously is madness. To think there was a time he’d been afraid of him is even moreso. Armand is nothing at all like Magnus. He shares much more in common with Lestat himself, he’s beginning to think.
“These dreams of yours,” Lestat says, “Would you show them to me?”
Armand searches his face for a moment before nodding slowly, like he’s uncertain. Lestat doesn’t mean to embarrass him but he can’t help a quiet chuckle when images of himself appear in his mind’s eye.
“Not like that,” he says, feeling bold. He lets his fangs drop and uses the hand still in Armand’s hair to pull his head to the side. “Like this.” He bites into his exposed throat, the both of them moaning in sync as the blood hits his tongue. Did you dream of this, too?
Yes. Yes, I did, but…
But what?
Well, we were far less clothed in my dreams.
Lestat releases him then, tongue flicking out to lick a stray drop of blood from the corner of his mouth. He didn’t much like the taste of Magnus’ blood but Armand’s is positively divine. “Show me then,” he says again.
Armand looks flustered to the point of embarrassment, but he eventually reaches for the top button on Lestat’s jacket. He struggles a bit at first, hands shaking, but Lestat remains patient. He doesn’t think he would be able to control himself if he hadn’t touched another person like this in a century either. He hasn’t the faintest clue how he’s managed it.
It takes time, but Armand grows bolder the more time passes. He gets Lestat half undressed before he undresses himself and then he kisses Lestat with the fervor of a man starved. Lestat ends up on his knees at the edge of the roof at some point, Armand’s hand shoved down his trousers, but then Armand suddenly freezes.
“What is it?”
Armand shakes his head with a frown. He looks irritated, focused on something Lestat can’t see. It must be the coven, Lestat thinks. Someone is speaking to him.
Lestat grabs him by the back of the neck and pulls him into another kiss.
“Ignore them,” Lestat says when they part. “You said you came here to escape your burdens, no?”
“But I am…”
“They will survive without you for one night.”
Armand looks uncertain. Lestat worries he might very well leave him like this, so to tempt him further he quickly undresses the rest of the way until he’s bare from head to toe. Armand’s eyes pass over him hungrily. Lestat beckons him closer with a curled finger. “Come to me.”
Armand is on him again immediately. Hands, lips, and teeth. If the coven bothers him again, Lestat doesn’t notice. He’s much too distracted by the slide of warm skin against his own and the pleasure Armand is impressively adept at delivering. He would’ve thought some part of him at least would feel guilty for holding someone else like this—someone who isn’t Nicki, but he’s surprised to find he feels nothing of the sort.
Perhaps there is something special to this place after all. But no, that can’t be right, Lestat thinks: it’s him. Something about him makes Lestat want to cast his burdens aside. He catches a glimpse of Armand’s heavy burdens and wants to relieve him of them, too.
Perhaps when they’ve tired and the sun rises once more, the guilt will set in. Maybe Lestat will come to regret this encounter on the roof of Les Invalides. Armand might as well regret having shut the coven out for once.
But while the moon shines down on them and the rest of the world seems so small and far away, let them be burdenless.