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New Orleans, a city that had always heralded historical moments for Armand, a city that endured, not unlike himself - whether he wanted to or not.
This was where he had left Louis for what he had thought would be the last time, this was where he had met Daniel, this was where he had slipped through the shadows awaiting Lestat to awaken from his slumber and where he seemed to be doing the same now. Slumber was too kind a word. Slumber implied some kiss imbued with love would wake him and he’d spring up as ineffable and cocky as ever.
Armand suspected of the pain Lestat had etched into his soul, he had it in himself, but he still had to know without doubt For that, he would have to venture within the chapel itself. It hadn’t been hard to find, there was enough chattering, childish trash wandering about to come and look at the great Lestat as if he were a carnival attraction and not a person at all.
Not that he looked like one.
They were close enough now that he could rip the thought from their minds, see him through the eyes of these impudent little creatures that had no real love for him. It stirred something in him to see Lestat laying as if someone had simply cut his strings. No one could get near him, they whispered, he would end them for trying. Funny how things shift and change – that used to be him that all the little ones feared coming near for he was death incarnate. Now it seemed they viewed Lestat that way and he was being hailed as some sort of martyr or vampiric saint.
There were others around him, some in the shadows and others making their presence known. Armand could pick out some of them even from here, but the closer he got, the more likely they were to pick up his presence and he didn’t know what would then. More likely still, someone would pick up on his shadow.
Even along the way here, Armand couldn’t be sure said shadow actually existed at all. He couldn’t bring himself to look too closely – even if it was merely madness, he wasn’t yet ready to face this alone and if he examined whether or not Nicolas was indeed really sitting beside him and chipping at his nails with his thumbs, he might vanish like smoke.
“There are chemicals that remove that.” Armand had found the concept of nail art interesting as one of his many fads, but the chemical smell of the remover was cloying, burning. It hadn’t lasted long.
“I’ve just put it on,” Nicolas explained, dragging a fang across the side of the nail. There was a sudden waft of blood, extinguished when Nicki licked it off along with the peeling paint.
“You’re destroying it,” Armand replied.
“I’m giving it character,” Nicolas responded, suddenly spitting onto the ground. It was tinged red with flecks of the polish. Armand wondered if he touched it, would it be real? “Sometimes you have to ruin something a little to make it a lot better. Are you hungry?”
Armand considered it, but no – he had fed only last night and while more would help his skin, he liked the way it looked darker – almost as if he’d gotten a tan slapped onto his skin by lotion to make him look more human. “Are you?” He hadn’t seen Nicolas feed at all, he seemed to just appear and disappear when he wanted to. Maybe he could just touch that spot and see if it’s wet. Wet would mean real, wouldn’t it?
“I’m not the one staring at a spittle like a baby bird looks at its mother's regurgitation,” Nicolas responded. “I thought you’d have gone to the chapel by now. Couldn’t find a white dress for it? Oh, as if you could wear white. You’ve had more holes ruined than anyone i’ve ever met, which given that includes both Lestat and Parisian prostitutes, that’s an achievement. “
“Are those two different things?” Armand asked.
“I don’t think he’s ever charged for it,” Nicolas replied. “Not outside of playing games.”
The thought crossed his mind and Armand couldn’t help himself but wade into the waters. Nicolas’ mind had never been an easy ride, like trying to traverse the ocean in a storm, but it was worth it to see the young mortal lovers playing. To watch as Lestat slid into a role, ever the stage presence even on his knees and enjoy the feeling of being inside him by proxy, of bringing him to a playfully reluctant but truthfully needful climax through memory. So alive, animated, happy – it made the statue on the chapel floor feel empty, like a vessel he’d already left.
“Enjoying yourself?” Nicolas broke him out of his thoughts. “You must not be hungry, look at that blush. Add a little sweat and humidity and you’d almost look like a person. So if it’s not hunger that’s keeping you from going in there and announcing you’re here to kiss sleeping beauty and break the spell, why are we sitting here? Every time you go waltzing into someone’s mind, you’re risking being noticed.”
“They’d notice you before me,” Armand replied. “If you’re there to be noticed.”
“You still don’t think I’m here,” Nicolas sounded amused, perhaps even a little smug about it. “You think I’m some sort of figment of your damaged mind, don’t you?”
“I don’t know what you are,” Armand admitted. Reaching out, he felt one of several piercings down Nicolas’ ear and tugged on the long bar. He’d had Daniel get these once, then played with pulling at them until he squirmed and whined. Now he didn’t even know where Daniel was. Hadn’t known for perhaps a year or longer.
“What does it matter if I’m not?” Nicolas just watched him. “What are you afraid of, that they’ll think you’re mad? It’s not so bad, you get used to it.”
“Being mad?” Armand asked.
“People thinking you are,” Nicolas responded. Suddenly, his hand was on Armand’s and he was holding it out in front of them. “But since I’m feeling benevolent tonight, would you like me to prove it?”
Was there a way of proving it that would make Armand know beyond a shadow of a doubt? “How would you manage that?”
Without warning, there was the sharp pain and pull against his heart! Armand pulled his arm back, cutting it hard as he yanked it away bleeding and torn from feral fangs. “You bit me?” Armand said, putting his hand over his arm. It wasn’t the kind of bite he remembered having had in recent memory – not gentle, not lustful, not perfunctory but beastly. It hurt even as his body tried to repair the damage. “You bit me!”
“I’m a vampire,” Nicolas replied, smearing Armands blood across his hand as he wiped his face. “If I were a ghost, that wouldn’t have worked.”
Yes, that was true, but it didn’t make the bite less of a violation. There must have been something of his distaste on his face because Nicolas rolled his eyes at him. “You want to talk to me of violations? Let’s not forget who bit whom first.”
“I haven’t laid a finger on you,” Armand replied, watching his arm more so than Nicolas himself. The ache was so different to the burns.
“Not now, but when I was a drunk, baby mortal, you did.” Nicolas said, before his voice lowered to the whisper. “But that is your type. You like having someone you hold all the cards with. I’m not judging you for it, I know the allure all too well, but just because you haven’t touched me in a couple of centuries doesn’t mean you didn’t bite me first. Or perhaps even last – you’ve always liked diving into the memories etched in my blood. A little turnabout is fair play.”
“You’re wrong,” Armand said. He had never held all the cards with anyone. He’d never even held a majority. Every time, it had always been him running after his heart and that heart slipping through his fingers.
“Always so in control out here while the storm rages in there.” Nicolas reached up and tapped his shoulder – jabbed it. “What’s in there that you’re so afraid of? Is it your own maker that’s bothering you? If he left you to rot in the catacombs, I doubt he cares what you think. Lestat seems beyond all caring for anything, which is a beautiful thing that I must experience first-hand. Is it your child that’s bothering you? You don’t want to face them?”
“He isn’t there.” Armand had looked through enough eyes to check. “I don’t know where he is.”
“Think he’s one of the tiki torches?” Nicolas asked. “Throwing himself on the mercy of a non-existent deity?”
Armand pictured it against his will and recoiled. No, never. Daniel had always been afraid of his life ending, he would never do it willingly. “He wanders,” Armand said, trying to clear the ashes from his mouth enough to get the words out.
“So you – you – loved a mortal enough to refuse death his due but a decade later and all you have for what happened to him is ‘he wanders’?” Nicolas scoffed at him. “When I wandered, you strapped me down till I stayed put. Did you not think to try that? I’ve seen these modern parents going around with leashes for their children, you could probably clip one to your belt and not lose track again since you can’t just seek his mind out the way you can with me.”
“He didn’t get lost,” Armand felt fury build in him only for it to fizzle immediately. There was so much beneath his skin but he couldn’t reach any of it. “He didn’t want to stay and I did not force it on him.”
“You’ve gone soft in your old age,” Nicolas replied. “It wouldn’t have stopped you before.”
“It wasn’t the same,” Armand snapped at him. “I didn’t love you.”
Daniel, he had loved deeply within his heart. Daniel, he feared he still did love cripplingly, embarrassingly, terribly but he had cut Armand from his life. It had been his choice.
“Love’s a bitch,” Nicolas replied bluntly. “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, let alone you. I don’t love you either, but to my horror, I think I may give a shit about you. It’s horrifying. I should throw myself into the sunlight like the idiots looking for salvation just to rid myself of such a wretched feeling.”
“Did it work with the bonfire?” Armand asked.
Nicolas looked at him sharply, his eyes dark. “No,” he admitted. “I’m still here, am I not? It seems I can’t cut my love out like a limb. You know that. It’s written all over your face how much you love. Strangest mask I’ve ever seen you wear, except it isn’t a mask, the indifference was the mask, Loki in auburn curls was the mask, this is you. You love Lestat, you love his wailing replacement, you love your own maker in equal parts to hating him and you love your absentee fledgling and leaving your heart in so many places, no wonder you wanted to burn.”
“I let them go,” Armand said. If only it were true. “It was the right thing to do to let them go.”
“Why?” Nicolas asked. “Why does it matter if it was the right thing? There’s no such thing as the right thing or the wrong thing, not for us. There’s only what makes you happy, what makes you fucking miserable and damn it, this horrifying, all consuming love that does both.”
For a moment, Armand couldn’t speak to that. There was something raw in his voice, not the acidic anger or playful spite but something almost human. “Seeing him won’t make you happy,” Armand said quietly. It wouldn’t make him happy either, it would break his heart again but what was one more piece torn out of him?
“Not seeing him won’t make me happy,” Nicolas replied. “Nothing does for long. They have fancy words for that now, people who can’t grasp more than a sliver of happiness before their heart and mind tear it away. I’ve got certificates.”
“From where?” Armand replied.
“Specialists,” Nicolas replied. “This is a very self focused era, I suppose I wanted to understand myself. Of course I’d end up having to kill them after a few sessions, cost of non-exposure and all of that, but it has been interesting to know what my imbalance is in this day and age. Helps with the experimentation of drugs in the blood.”
If this was a hallucination, he had to give it credit for incorporating advertisements for therapy to this.
“I can see him too,” Nicolas said suddenly, as if he had been gripped by the need to. “From here. I can hear his heartbeat. I can see he’s laying there as if nothing of the world can touch him anymore. I remember how that feels, I remember the first time I felt my violin in my hand and the world come crashing back into me so much so that it hurt with every movement. Every time I looked at him, it burnt.”
“Does it still?” Armand asked.
“I’m not really looking at him,” Nicolas replied. “I’m looking through my replacements’ eyes because his shields are shit. I don’t know if it’ll burn if I walk in there. My eyes might be better than his.”
“His eyes are beautiful,” Armand replied. It was cliche to say so about Louis’ eyes, but cliche didn’t make it less true. “He’s beautiful.”
“I don’t like him.”
“You don’t like anything.” Armand felt something pang in his chest, a longing he didn’t have it within him now to dissect. It was hard to look at Louis from the outside, worse to see him unhappy. It stood to reason he was hurt by what had happened with Lestat – for better or worse, Louis loved his maker.
“Did you see his face? From one of the little gutter rats staring at him?” From the corner of his eye, Armand saw Nicolas shift. “Looked like he’d been crying of all things. Don’t people get enough weeping from Lestat? He had to make another eternally maudlin monster?”
Louis had never been much of a monster. Louis was more human than any of them. Maybe that had been their downfall – there was too much humanity, too much bleeding emotion through Louis and Armand didn’t know if he had enough left within him to fill so much as a cup. A cold he’d tried to banish from his thoughts time and time again had taken hold of every inch of his body, his heart trying to thrum against the icy silence within.
“What exactly is it about Saint Louis that is causing this hesitation for you?” Nicolas asked. “You claim you don’t care if they know you’re alive, they certainly didn’t mourn you for long when there was Lestat to fuss over, so why are we still sitting here? Oh. You love him. Truly, not…You love him?”
Was it written so clearly in his face that he hadn’t had to say a single word? Of course he had loved Louis, he had wanted to give him the world but how do you give the world to someone who only floats through it like a spectre? How do you love freely with someone who was then defined by their despair?
“Does he have some secret talent I’m unaware of?” Nicolas was practically sneering, the monster of jealousy a green shadow falling around him. “All I see is a mastery of melancholy. Is it a secret? Is it lewd? Is he more entertaining when his mouth is so full that he’s weeping for better reasons than the naughty, nebulous evils of the world?”
“Are you worried he’s better than you?” Armand forgets himself and snaps; he’s still too raw for any of this. Nicolas was a livewire. Someone was going to get hurt.
“I don’t think it’s right for you to judge me on a diminished performance,” Nicolas kicked his leg at him, making Armand’s move. “I’m better at it when I have use of my hands and if you hadn’t been trying to punish me like some peculiar play of parenthood, I think we’d have had more fun together.”
Fun. Hard to picture them locked together at that theatre as fun. It was penance, it was an asylum, it was a trap – one that he could have handled better now, perhaps, but once again, he was alone on the outside looking in so perhaps he’d learned nothing at all.
“Do you want an apology?” Armand asked.
“What for?” Nicolas asked. There seemed to be a genuine confusion in his voice.
“Taking your hands,” Armand said. “Sending you to sleep without feeding.”
Nicolas cocked his head to one side. His hair had probably been cut by him from the jagged ends, but it was still jarring to see him this way, this modern creature where he shouldn’t be. “Would you mean it?”
Armand considered it. “No.”
“Then why bother with it?” Nicolas merely waved him off. “If I wanted liars and fools, I’d have sought out Lestat before now.”
Something protective reared up inside him. “I should have sewn your mouth shut instead,” Armand spat back at him.
“A bloody kiss with a needle and thread,” Nicolas shrugged. It was strangely familiar, the nonchalance of it. Nothing shook him. The echo of his own fledgling was enough to make him ache. “With romantic gestures such as those, I can’t imagine why your paramours keep running from you.”
“You’re not helping,” Armand muttered.
“Who said I was trying to?” Nicolas replied. “I’m just sitting here.”
Armand could sit there no longer. It was now or never. If he chose to hide away another night, he may leave and disappear. Try to forget. Build again on the ruins of another identity. “I’m going there now.”
“I’m not stopping you,” Nicolas said. “Nothing can, not when you put your mind to something.”
“Are you–” Armand cut himself off. No, he would not beg for company. No matter how shaky his legs felt beneath him, they’d carry him if he pushed himself. They always did no matter how terrified he was. “You want to go in too.”
“Do I?” Nicolas asked.
“You want..” To see him. To see Gabrielle, useless lump of a creature as she was being. To see Louis first hand and judge whether or not you still feel the same. To see the fallout from the veil and what all the fuss was about. “You want to tell him off.”
Nicolas laughed. It wasn’t the deranged one, the one he’d heard often but something so rich that he had rarely heard it. “That won’t rouse him from this,” he said. “It might arouse him, but something tells me slipping a hand down between his legs isn’t going to do what it used to.”
“So you do want him to wake,” Armand pressed, taking a few more steps till he was close enough to Nicki that his his knees almost touched him. “You don’t want him to stay lost to despair at all, you want him to wake.”
“I want…” Nicolas stood up, causing Armand to have to look up at him. “I want this to end. This idea of throwing yourself on God’s mercy, this hope of finding a peace that doesn’t exist, it’s vulgar and all it gives you is a long sleep in the ashes till you get woken up by bulldozers and modern gentrification and have to learn how to stand up again. They’re making you out to be some sort of modern saint, doesn’t that bother you? Do you really want to be deified by people who don’t understand you at all?”
“It’s a prettier lie than the truth.” The truth was still weighing on his chest and it hurt to breathe.
“The truth is always better, no matter how much it hurts.” Nicolas didn’t look away from him at all. “Especially when it hurts, then you know it’s real. Just like the bite.”
Armand looked down at the almost healed wound. The truth was that going in there was going to hurt him. To see their faces, to see either their grief or gladness he had been gone or worse still, indifference. To see Lestat bound by the pain of all of it, unable to move. To face up to his life, whatever the truth of it was now.
“I don’t want to go in there alone.” His voice sounded small even to his own ears and he waited for it, for the brash laughter, for the cutting remarks and ridicule.
Nothing came.
Nicolas was just looking at him.
“I suppose I owe you one for making sure I didn’t die an ignorant mortal, don't I?” Nicolas said suddenly, taking his arm forcefully and looping into it. “Fuck ‘em, let’s go see if we can raise hell.”