Work Text:
Snowed In
I am the son and the heir
Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar
I’m the son and heir
Of nothing in particular
You shut your mouth
How can you say
I go about things the wrong way
I am human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does
I am the son and the heir
Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar
I’m the son and heir
Of nothing in particular
You shut your mouth
How can you say
I go about things the wrong way
I am human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does
There’s a club if you’d like to go
You could meet someone who really loves you
So you go, and you stand on your own, and you leave on your own
And you go home, and you cry and you want to die
When you say it’s gonna happen now
When exactly do you mean?
See, I’ve already waited too long
And all my hope is gone
-Love Spit Love, How Soon Is Now
Eleven-year-old Jade Chan groaned as she opened her golden-brown eyes. Great. Another boring day at school, she thought to herself. And she was having such a good dream, too – until she heard the voice she feared the most yell, “I don’t care how good this dream is. It’s time to get up – now!”
“You know, Jade, I don’t think you’ll have a boring day at school. As a matter of fact, I don’t think you’ll make it there today at all.”
Jade jumped in surprise when she made eye contact with the speaker sitting on her bed. It was none other than Lestat de Lioncourt. His grey eyes sparkled with amusement as they locked with Jade’s golden-brown ones.
Just as she lifted her hand and was about to place it over her heart in order to get it to slow down a bit, Lestat then reached over and wrapped his fingers around hers. She flinched at the sudden cold.
“Your hands,” she said.
“Cold as death itself, my dear Jade?” purred Lestat in reply.
When she nodded, Lestat smirked and then leaned in... drinking Jade in with his eyes. “I thought so, my dear. I thought so.” He then reached up and cupped Jade’s cheek. “After all, you are... so beautiful.”
Jade shivered as Lestat’s cold hand drew the warmth from her cheek, hitting her like a blast of icy cold air.
“I feel as though I’ve seen you before... like maybe in a dream, or something,” Jade said, finally breaking the silence. “Maybe in the dream, we made – sort of a connection of sorts.”
“Yes, I believe we did,” replied Lestat. He then placed the palm that was cupping Jade’s cheek against her flat chest like someone with the clinical regard of a doctor. When Jade was about to speak for the second time, he placed the index finger of his free hand against her mouth. “Shh. Quiet now. Listen,” he told her.
It was almost as if Lestat’s words activated a spell of some kind. Maybe they did; she wasn’t sure, though. With that, Jade then closed her eyes.
What was going to happen now? She wasn’t sure.
Then, almost as if from far away, she heard the curtains being pulled open, and then Lestat’s voice say,
“Open your eyes.”
She did, and then sucked in her breath in surprise. “No way!” she whispered to herself (although Lestat could hear).
“It’s true. After all, I said you weren’t going to school today – and I meant it.”
Outside, snow was falling – a thick and almost heavy kind of snow. Namely, it was the kind of snow that Jade herself wouldn’t want to be caught out in.
Lestat then walked back over to the bed, and Jade narrowed her eyes in puzzlement. But before she could voice what it was that confused her, Lestat remarked,
“Ah, you’re wondering why the light from the lamp on your nightstand isn’t hurting me or making me burst into flames.”
She nodded.
“Well,” Lestat said, “it’s because, a long time ago – before I met you – I encountered the Queen of the Vampires herself. Her name was Akasha.”
“Was she beautiful?”
Lestat nodded. “She was. And – now comes the best part – when I drank her blood, it allowed me to, in her words, ‛live in the light’ itself. She also told me that the sunlight would soon sting my eyes no longer.”
Jade blinked. “Wow. So that’s why you didn’t burst into flames the minute you walked over to my bed even though the lamp on my nightstand was on?”
He nodded. “Yes. Plus, as a matter of fact, today happens to be quite cloudy and the skies are grey because of the snow outside. So, you won’t have to worry about losing me anytime soon to the sunlight.”
Jade then smiled. To her, that was definitely a piece of good news right there.
To Lestat, Jade’s face lighting up whenever she smiled was definitely a piece of heaven on earth in and of itself. He didn’t know why, though. He just knew.