InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Slayer, the"

Lestat de Lioncourt (i_liveforever) wrote in we_coexist,
@ 2012-03-21 19:40:00

Entry tags:

eric northman, lestat de lioncourt, stand still

oh, now you're just taking things too far. (eric)
Lestat did not need as much rest as younger vampires of his kind did; in fact, he'd mostly gotten away from the Hells Bells of his youth, from the sound of dawn approaching feeling like a death knell.

But sleep he did, shortly after the sun came up, and he'd wake just before sunset. Fully fed and strong, he could withstand the sun--and had, in the dessert. The sun still put him to sleep, though, whether he wanted it to or not. There was only so hard he could fight it.

When he awoke this evening, in his beautifully appointed apartment made to look just like his home in New Orleans, something caught his eye. He was reaching into the wardrobe for a jacket and shirt to wear, something eye-catching.

That was when he saw it.

The heart on the mirror. A lipstick-drawn heart. And a square in the middle, a picture.

Holding his chosen garments, Lestat crossed the room in the blink of an eye, grabbing the picture up.

Eric. Eric in the park. During the day.

Lestat growled. It was a low, angry, predatory growl.

The clothes were donned in a flash. And he was out the door in a blur. Eric was out during the day? Eric, whose particular brand of vampire was so vulnerable to the sun?

Once he was on the street, he pursued Eric with a single-mindedness that rivaled actual obsession.

(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)

i_liveforever
2012-04-17 06:29 am UTC (link)

It was a good thing that Eric hadn't tried to drain him.

Historically speaking, that act generally ended poorly for those who tried it. Or with the burning of a building. Either way, there was jeopardy involved. And there was a chance that they were fairly well matched. Then what?

Lestat could see--and hear, in his thoughts--that Eric was more than a little bit intoxicated by the entire experience. Partially, he was surprised by what Eric said.

But mostly he was not.

There was so much in his blood. So many people. So many vampires. Heaven and Hell. Mayfair witches. And Magnus, probably. Motherfucker that he was.

Still, he was crouched there. Looking up at Lestat with a face that was not entirely lacking in lust.

Their faces flashed through his mind, as well as the reasons he'd made them both. Love both times, though misguided. Nicki could not handle the blood. Claudia? She was the equivalent of having a child to keep a spouse around. And it'd worked. Lestat was a fool, and he knew it.

The glare that Lestat gave back was not entirely hostile, and in fact mirrored a degree of Eric's own expression. He offered Eric a smile that Louis would have detested, one tinged with arrogance and cruelty--quite literally one of the most attractive expressions that he had.

"We all make mistakes," he said. Then, in Eric's tongue, the one he'd heard, he repeated something of what he'd seen in the other vampire's blood. He got the sense it meant 'you, too,' or 'even you,' based on the context.

The playful glint that often graced his eyes slid into place like a mask. "Mine were quite beautiful."

And precious.

He was sure there was more Eric had seen. And that he might pay for it. That was fine. If Eric got uppity, he'd explain to him about how the Blood God was locked in the tree. The Viking really should get some sort of kick out of that.

He arched an eyebrow.

"If you'd like to continue to kneel, I don't object."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

i_bite
2012-04-17 06:39 am UTC (link)

Eric stood at Lestat's words. There was no need to be crouching, not that there ever had been. He couldn't deny being overwhelmed by the experience, and wouldn't have tried. He'd never felt anything like it. Even if it hadn't been evident by the way he had been acting, Eric would have admitted to it.

He took a moment to feel superior to Lestat on the basis of mistakes. Eric had never created another vampire because he'd hoped to keep somebody around, and his own vampire protege was an impressive sight on her own merits.

The one thing they were both lacking, however, kept him from actually saying anything about it. Neither of them had companionship here of that kind. The maker and the child. That bond that compared to nothing else. Eric could be hurtful, but he wasn't prone to bringing himself into that hurt.

"Do yourself a favor, don't speak in my language. Your accent makes you sound like the village idiot." It was the sharpest barb Eric could manage that didn't bring himself into it somehow, with the exchange still fresh in his mind. With those feelings still running through his veins.

He understood now, though, that Lestat had seen as much when he'd been the one drinking. In Lestat's world, then, nothing was truly secret.

"Now I suppose we wait and see what's happened." He didn't feel different, past the immediate sensations, but that didn't mean anything.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

i_liveforever
2012-04-17 06:53 am UTC (link)

Lestat had not made Claudia solely to keep Louis, though that'd been a large part of it. He'd made her to see what would happen. Morbid curiosity. And my God, the vampire she'd been.

"Do yourself a favor and leave my dead children alone. I'm sure you'd sound like the stable boy if you spoke French," he countered.

The stable boy had been quite attractive. And had seen more than one roll in the hay, Lestat wagered. But the tailor's son, he'd been the most interesting.

Now I suppose we wait and see what's happened.

He could already hear David chiding him. And he was slightly upset that no one was removing any clothing, though it did not show. Eric's mind still held all of those thoughts.

The wound on his wrist was entirely closed and looked like nothing had happened at all, though almost no time had gone by.

"Has it worn off yet?" Lestat asked. It was as close as he would get to an outright come-on. It was not a jibe, but an actual legitimate question, and it was evident in the tone.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

i_bite
2012-04-17 06:58 am UTC (link)

Eric wasn't going to argue. He was sure that he would butcher French if he attempted it. His tongue was made for other sorts of languages. Languages that weren't quite so pretty and flowery when spoken. French would probably tumble out of his mouth like rocks.

"No." He didn't try to keep the irritation from leaking into his tone. "All I can think about is bedding you and how much I would hate myself for it, but not until after."

It was an admission he might not have made on any other night. But tonight, with so much shared, it didn't really seem like it could hurt anything.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	i_liveforever 2012-04-17 07:31 am UTC (link)
	Lestat chuckled. "Perhaps now you have a better sense of why I didn't want to do this in the street," he said. He did wonder, then, what it would be like. He supposed it would be interesting to be able to have sex as a vampire. Such a human thing, though. It seemed almost stupid, even if he knew it wasn't. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

i_bite
2012-04-18 11:20 pm UTC (link)

"I wouldn't have suggested it if I'd known." Eric admitted. He'd had no idea what Lestat's blood exchanges were like, those for his type of vampire. He'd imagined that it would be little different than they were like for his own kind. Not much other than the joy of the blood.

"Just so you know, this doesn't give you any excuse to go digging around in my head in the future. I'll still kill you for it."

He felt like he needed to say something to counteract the desire he was having for the other vampire. Snotty and violent seemed to fit the moment.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

i_liveforever
2012-04-20 09:44 pm UTC (link)

Lestat offered a slight nod in answer to Eric's admission.

Then he smiled. It was a large, charming smile. "I just saw a great deal of you. I have no need to 'dig around in your head.' There are plenty of others in this City to do that with, if I desire."

He enjoyed telepathically conversing with River, and Hannibal, too. And he quite enjoyed overhearing conversations having to do with and featuring characters he knew to be fiction. They tickled.

"You need not resent me just because you are suddenly attracted. You did ask," Lestat said, taking a seat on a chair that was about his age and worth, conservatively, the rental price of his entire apartment for half the year. He was facing Eric and had an irritating sort of amusement about Eric's situation that was beyond obvious. "This is why the Blood comes with a rule book. And also why I often toss that set of rules out the goddamn window."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

i_bite
2012-04-21 04:47 pm UTC (link)

"Need or no need, I doubt that is your motivation for doing so."

Eric was beginning to feel better. Less dazed and less filled with desire to throw Lestat onto the floor and do some things to him that the other vampire probably hadn't experienced in a long while, considering.

"You're something of a hypocrite." Eric shook his head. "You'd so willingly break these rules about blood exchanges, and yet it's the first thing you attempted to do to me, impose rules."

It wasn't said with snideness of any kind, just as a matter of fact. He'd already observed Lestat to be a creature of many conflicting views of the world. The more he got to know the other vampire, the more Eric thought that he might not really know what he wanted for himself.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

i_liveforever
2012-04-21 08:04 pm UTC (link)

Lestat's eyes shone.

There WAS a reason why he was so hated, or if not hated, seen as a goddamn annoyance by his kind.

He'd never deny what Eric had just said. Instead, he shrugged. "It's actually gotten much less over the last forty years or so," the vampire said. "I used to be flagrantly insufferable. And my reasoning for attempting to do that--get you to follow rules--was based on experience here, with other vampires who turned out to be largely moronic. I figured I'd hedge my bets. Whatever you may be, you are not moronic. I jumped the gun."

He considered, though. "Rules of some kind are necessary with the Blood, though. I'm sure your kind has them as well. Who can be turned, who cannot. Things of that nature. With us, since so few of us who are young remain, blood sharing has become a much larger issue due to the power we're carrying around."

He thought about the youngest vampire he knew. It was Mona, and he'd made her. Aside from her, it must be Quinn. "The youngest I know is a decade in the blood, but was made by a creature older even than you, I believe. We choose carefully, now. That was not always the case."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

i_bite
2012-04-26 07:11 pm UTC (link)

"I suppose it's nice to hear that you can admit when you're wrong." That bit, if nothing else, did raise Lestat in Eric's estimation. Eric was not fond of mistakes, or the insufferable, but the fact that the other vampire knew he'd been the latter and could admit when he'd made the former was something. Not a lot of people, humans, vampires, whatever, could manage to do that.

"We have the opposite rules." Eric didn't think anybody he'd ever known had been punished for making a vampire. "We're so few in numbers, our new die so routinely, that if you kill a vampire, often you are required to make a new one. That's if the punishment is light. There are times when you're sentenced to existing in a coffin underground, starving, for many many years."

He also chose carefully, Eric was not the type to require or desire many offspring. He knew what it meant to have to be around somebody for a very long time. He was picky. But he'd seen other vampires make progeny just to have bodyguards.

"So you haven't had a child in many years?"

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

i_liveforever
2012-05-01 05:56 pm UTC (link)

Lestat smirked. He had not always been able to admit such things. Eric could ask any number of the remaining Coven of the Articulate, and they'd be quick to inform him of exactly how insufferable Lestat once was.

So you haven't had a child in many years?

He could see Mona, then, in his mind. Laying on that bed with all of the flowers, sick and weak, her red hair the most vibrant thing about her. He'd told her he was going to get her, and he had--but it hadn't been his idea. It was for Quinn. It was Quinn's idea. Her Mayfair blood had made her more enticing, but Lestat had not looked at Mona initially with an eye to make her a companion--even though she was dying young. He'd cared for Rowan, not Mona.

"I haven't sought out a child in quite some time," he answered. "My youngest was here, in the City, and is only a few years old. She was..."

... beloved boss...

"... dying. A witch. Promiscuous red-headed little thing who'd managed to bring a Taltos into the world and was paying for it. Her lover became something of an adopted child to me."

He remembered telling Quinn to man up and let her go. Or at least thinking it.

"He intended to turn her himself. I did it instead. We cannot hear the thoughts of our fledgelings. The blood is too close. I gave them the ability to preserve that bond. As a favor."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

i_liveforever
2012-05-02 03:15 am UTC (link)

Lestat caught himself then. He thought about his time in the City and shook his head.

"And Karen. There was Karen."

He'd damn near forgotten, focused so hard on his past. BEFORE here.

"I met her here, and turned her, here. But she isn't here anymore." He paused. He wasn't going to mention that he'd done it because he was bored. It sounded so childish.

There are those I'd like to give Blood to, but cannot. Not yet, anyway.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

i_bite
2012-05-02 03:24 am UTC (link)

Lestat's description of both of these progeny was interesting. Even without the last add-on, he still had more than Eric ever had. It seemed, despite the other vampire's attitude, that Eric was the more picky of the two.

At least when it came to children.

Eric held up a hand. "No in the head stuff." He also shot Lestat a warning glare. He'd really really meant it when he said he'd kill the other for that kind of thing.

"Why can't you give it to them?" As strange as it might have been, Lestat using the word blood with a capital B wasn't new to Eric. Vampires in his own world did the same thing. The Blood is sacred. The Blood is blah blah blah.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

i_liveforever
2012-05-02 03:37 am UTC (link)

It was simple.

Lestat could not be alone. He found it crippling, and thrived so much on the attention of others that he was unable to maintain a solitary existence for very long without going into the ground.

"It's quite unconscious," Lestat said. Hundreds of years communicating telepathically and Eric suddenly thought he should stop?

Lestat considered this.

"There are two," he said. "They would both have to agree. One without the other, and I'd be a dead man. The other would find me and dispatch me with what I can only describe as ... art."

River and Hannibal. He'd love to see what vampires they would make. His eyes damn near shone with it. He kept their names well hidden, though.

"I've spoken with them. About it." Which was true. He'd spoken to Hannibal, at least. He'd hinted at it in River's mind. "They'd never allow the other to make that decision. To die so willingly, despite the afterlife, so to speak. Never allow me to take one of them without the other, or make the choice themselves and cause the other any pain."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

i_bite
2012-05-04 07:36 pm UTC (link)

"Try to make a conscious effort." Things could go really bad between them, very easily, all because Lestat was just doing something he'd done since he'd first been able to. But it was something that Eric found intrusive and maddening. He was sure he could temper his own anger for a little while, at least. But if it continued, he couldn't make promises toward his actions. And if Lestat found something Eric didn't want known, well, that was something he couldn't predict at all.

His interest was piqued by the pair the other vampire was speaking about now. Eric found himself considering what had just been said. That if Lestat were to turn one and not the other, the other would kill him. That it would be done in some fashion that even he couldn't deny would be wonderfully creative and concrete.

"They are so attached to one another that they refuse to live apart?" In Eric's mind, that was a pretty good reason to run for the vampire line. He'd seen them made for worse reasons, or no reason at all. Devotion like that could last them several hundred years, if not forever.

"They'd rather both stay human and die?"

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

i_liveforever
2012-05-04 10:33 pm UTC (link)

Lestat didn't respond to the command. In general, he did not respond to commands.

For a vampire to admit a human being was capable of ending its life--a vampire of Lestat's type-- was a huge admission and glimpse into the type of human being he was talking about. But both River and Hannibal were genius-level intelligent, and both had killed several people. They might not have super human strength, and Lestat might be faster...

... but they were smarter.

"It is an odd and complex relationship, for being such a simple thing," Lestat said. He began to slowly pace the length of his flat, damn near soundlessly. "Their pasts, before the City, were not kind."

He understood, though he had never found his own equal. River and Hannibal took refuge in each other. There was a purity there that could not be taken away.

They'd rather both stay human and die?

Lestat stopped, turned, and smiled at Eric. It was a proud smile.

"They have no fear of it." Probably because they were death, each, on their own. "There may be circumstances that could come about to make them allow it."

(Reply to this) (Parent)

(Read comments) -