Chapter Text
She wanted to blame it on the wine, all the feelings she was having, mostly deep-rooted resentment, that was normal for Claudia these days. A childhood mixture of loss and wealth, enmeshment and family counselling bred a particular sense of frustration for Claudia.
Though maybe it was Madeleine’s French insistence encouraging her to be a bitch. She resented that part of herself for a long time, mostly because it reminded her of her fathers and not enough of her mother. Did she have anything of her mother left in her?
Claudia shook her head, jostling about every piece of emotion inside, willing to spill out.
Ok, yeah, maybe it was the wine.
She felt a little woozy, the warm rush of it covering her skin like a blanket. She remembers so little about her mother, obscured now by grief and her father's memories and dog-eared pictures. She knows she's graduating this year, has read her mother's letters for her like a mantra, and knows she expected more from her, from all three of them.
Fuck shes drunk and angry.
Claudia is aware enough that none of this is her fault; she has seen countless therapists from the ripe age of 6 to help her cope with her mother's death, to her father's divorce at 13. She was a child, not an adult, no matter how many times she had to pull Louis from the edge, to tuck him into bed drunk and overcome with grief. To pat his head and wipe away his tears, she was not a parent. She reminds herself that now, pacing around her shared apartment with Madeleine.
“It’s just…” she groans, stopping dead in her tracks, searching for the words to describe the disappointment that has built up over the past 10 years, really…
fuck, there is none.
“ It’s my graduation,” she explains, and Madeleine hums, listening attentively to her for the past hour. Claudia notes that she owes her big time; being her full-time roommate and therapist is not what she signed up for. Not having to pay rent, though, is a plus, she’s sure.
” I got two tickets. Two fathers and a dead ma.”
She says it so matter-of-factly that her roommate chuckles slightly. It spurs Claudia on, feeling rewarded under the light of her attention,
“ They won’t even look at each other, talk to each other. How am I gon’ get them in the same room?”
She wasn’t, point blank, wasn’t.
Louis, with all his love and money, was never very good at handling his emotions- often when pushed to the brink, Louis reflected them outwards with cutting words and petty jabs. Seen it with Lestat, who could be cold and cruel when he was happy, never mind angry or upset, which could happen in the blink of an eye, mind you.
Rarely seen it towards her, though. Had their fair share of screaming matches, vases broken and pillows thrown (mostly on her end) while he argued back like he was her brother or friend and not her father. It would usually end with Louis pleading over the phone or a silence and snide looks before he resorted to the latter. He always apologised; that was one thing she couldn't fault him for, though she wished it would come a little sooner sometimes.
She's reminded of his recently failed marriage with Armand; he’d packed everything up on a whim and moved to France to live with him. Claudia was furious, even more so that he expected her to just come with. She refused, wanted to finish her studies and figured living away from Louis might do her and him some good.
He paid for her 2-bed apartment (with a library room for study), helped her furnish it and bought her expensive gifts when she visited, and a fight would break out over Armand and his treatment of her and Louis.
When she’d arrive back home, there'd be a big package waiting for her to unpack as an apology. She had cut contact with him for a whole 4 months after her final visit to their Paris home, flying back to New York last year. She fucking hated Armand.
Lestat, she hated him, too. Though this was often harder or easier to do, depending on the day, month, or hour. When she arrived back in New York, particularly vulnerable and sick of yelling at Louis, she had texted him.
Claduia lay on her bed crying, feeling embarrassed with the weight of her emotions and well, drunk and out of cigarettes, when she opened her phone she was was bombarded of pictures of Lestat and his retirement and shit, she really needed to block any mention of his name because she was feeling weak and that's what it was- a momentary lapse of judgement because she brought up their old text log. There were no messages there, of course; she deleted any trace of him from her phone, except his number.
She wasn’t even sure he kept the same one; in fact was silently hoping he hadn’t. Claudia had texted him, listening to Louis' pained voice message on repeat in the background, begging her to come back, and he didn't mean it, and he’ll fix it. With trembling fingers, she had typed out the following message;
Your last concert was shit. Most of them were.
And for good measure;
Think you should stick to piano. Unless you bad at that too now.
And then she flopped on her back, nausea and bile churning in her stomach; she couldn't even see the fucking ceiling, God knows how she navigated her phone. Lestat had replied, she read the text from the toilet, her cheek pressed on the porcelain seat, her stomach heaving from the vomit she had just expelled.
‘Claudia, hello, new phone, I see. Must have cost Louis a fortune, no?’
Read with half-concentrated, blurry eyes, she dropped her head into the toilet to let out the remaining bile, burning her throat. She never replied to him; in fact, she blocked him and unblocked him over the following weeks. Claudia wasn’t sure what she had expected, really; any form of reconciliation would have been shut down on her part, but the fact that he could frustrate her so easily was all he said after six years of no contact. Lestat ruined their relationship, not her; she had every right to throw petty insults his way, this she was sure of.
She had complained to everyone about it, her therapist, Grace, Levi and Madeleine, anyone who would listen, so evidently not Louis. When Madeleine had pointed out that his number was still the same after all these years, Claudia's world crashed around her. She had changed hers and didn't want to be found by him.
She knew Lestat had money at the time; he was all over the media for his drug-fueled scandals. It was clear that money was the least of his problems.
A small part of Claudia wondered if it was for her, that maybe he kept it available to make it easier to reach again.
The meaner part of her was glad, glad that he might be wallowing in regret over her; she deserved that much from him, craved it even, His sadness at least. The rational part of her knew it was for Louis.
“You don't have to invite either of them, mon amie,” Madeleine says, pulling her out of her head with a voice dripping in honey.
“I know that.” Claudia snapped and immediately felt guilty, her deep brown eyes slowly drifting toward Madeleine, who sat with her feet tucked under her, a small, easy smile gracing her lips. No apology was needed because she knew Claudia.
Her bottom lip pressed against the rim of her glass, and Claudia felt herself flush at the observation, heart racing, spurred on by insane jealousy of kitchen houseware. She was going insane.
“ I know that,” she repeated more firmly this time. The implication was there, to be read, but she wouldn't say it out loud.
I know that. But I want them there.
She hadn’t heard from Lestat, not since the messaging and the breakdown and counselling that followed.
Had been patching things up with Louis since his second divorce a year ago and his move back to New York.
She doesn’t want a family reunion; in fact, that's the opposite of what she wants. She just wants them to be civil, like her mom had pictured they would be. Claudia still hadn't forgiven Lestat, not sure if she ever will, and sometimes she doesn't want to.
Others she mourns for the happy times in Rue Royale, the simplicity of it, almost yearns to want for nothing as she did back then, and it erupts a disgusting mix of shame and anger within her. Spoilt rotten and childish, his voice echoes in her head.
She needs to move on. Needs to travel Europe with Madeleine after graduation, needs to be in a room with her fathers, practising civility and performing the roles of people who can tolerate each other for an hour for her.
Claudia lets out a scream, raspy and straight from her throat and kicks some stray pieces of fabric at her feet.
She flops down beside her roommate with a puff of air, arms resting on her stomach, fingers needling together and pulling incessantly. She bites her lip when Madeleine's hand creeps towards her head and twirls a coil of her hair, blown out and washed for her appointment tomorrow. She almost tells her off for it, but when her eyes meet hazel, she melts.
Madeleine is staring at her with such adoration, lips parted slightly but turned up in the corners, a smile never far away when she looks at Claudia.
She almost gets the courage to kiss her, but doesn’t, not while she’s drunk.
Instead, her eyes trace the ginger curls frayed around her face and find solace in the soft tone of her voice. Madeliene's French accent used to grate on her, never really accustomed to it being used so gently that it almost made her cry to hear it spoken with just love, nothing else. No other emotion she might have to guess the meaning behind.
She will kiss her soon; she will make sure of it.
“They’d make the whole thing about them,” Claudia whispers finally, not breaking eye contact. She chews on her lip out of nervousness, the naivety of her confession and stiffens ever so slightly, embarrassment crawling up her neck. Pathetic, she thought, shaking her head.
Madeleine nods, fingers moving to cup her face, still an arm's length apart, she wipes a tear she didn't know had fallen.
“Yes”, she agrees, and her eyes circle Claudia's face; she almost wants to pull away from the vulnerability of it. ”So make them listen,” and she says it with such reverence that it startles a laugh out of Claudia; the absurdity of it makes her turn hysterical.
” Them?” she accuses, and Madeleine grins along with her,” Lestat only listens to himself. And Louis hears what he wants to hear!”
“They love you, Claudia-”
“Don't say that. He doesn't-
“They love you. So use it.”
She pauses and rubs harshly at her cheek. ” Use it,” she repeats, and Madeleine hums, starts going on a whole spiel about how she has to live for herself, not her father's or even the memory of her mother. The idea felt strange in her head because that is all she has ever done; that’s what she’s spent the last two years trying to undo.
“How am I gonna do that?” she said flatly.
Madeleine smiles again and shrugs.
” I don't know…” She set her glass down on the coffee table, picking up her cigarette instead. Claudia watches every move with adaptive attention, like she'd disappear if she blinked.
She moves closer to her, face in mock concentration, before blowing the smoke in Claudia's face.
Claudia doesn’t even grimace, too transfixed by the next words she might say.
They both look down at the other's lips before Madeleine smiles, pulling back after a beat.
“Tell them to fix it,” she continued, “cry, scream, shout or say nothing at all. Scare them.”
She thought about it.
Thought about it for the rest of the night, actually, giggling into Madeleine's neck and clutching her stomach from laughter at her Lestat impression- of being told he has to not only show up for his daughter but sit next to his ex-husband of 9 years. For someone who had not met him, it was oddly accurate.
Claudia even traded her impression of Louis until the cigarettes became joints when the wine was empty, and their ribs were sore, they cuddled up on the sofa, unwilling to move to their beds in separation. They had drafted up messages in her notes app, a plan filled with typos and tears from jokes told that wouldn't be funny when they were sober.
She woke up hungover the next morning, dragged herself from Madeleine's arms and pressed a kiss to her temple, lingering too long, but she wouldn’t be punished for it as her friend slept on. She kept her sunglasses on during her lecture, even with her head pounding. Claudia found herself not regretting the night before.
She flicked through her phone during her lecture breaks, looking at the saved destinations and holiday plans she and Madeleine had made. Despite the sobriety worrying anxiety into her bones, she decided that she hadn’t been as happy as she was last night, surrounded by enough love from Madeleine that it should've felt suffocating.
But it didn’t.
She was going to tell Louis about everything- about her European year abroad, about Madeleine, about Lestat and her graduation. She craved a fresh start.
Claudia grabbed her phone in the throes of bravery and texted Louis.
Class finishes at 12, meet me at 787? Dont got too long, appointment at 2.