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And you know whose hand it is, you know, but you’re too scared to open your eyes.
— The Tale of the Body Thief, Anne Rice
The flickering lights. The throbbing music. The grinding bodies.
All of it fades into the background easily enough when Lestat, through the audience, keeps seeing flashes of a young girl. She's walking through the crowd at an angle, and she's somehow avoiding being hit by the ceaselessly moving bodies and their flailing mortal limbs. Careful girl. Little girl. Familiar girl. It's practically a miracle that she hasn't been pushed over yet.
Lestat wishes he didn't have to see her at all— but no, that's not right, is it? As much as he wishes she'd leave him alone, allowing him to wallow in his own misery, he doesn't really want her to go either. He doesn't know what exactly it is that he wants, but he knows that the idea of her being gone is unbearable.
The dark skinned girl is wearing a burnt yellow dress. Lestat kind of wants to look away, pretending he doesn't see her and focusing instead on his microphone, but he's scared that she'll disappear forever if he looks away. He can't allow that to happen. The guilty discomfort is better than the alternative of her being gone without a trace. He doesn't know how to exist without her familiar haunting presence anymore.
The girl pauses at last, turning to face the stage directly, and her mouth twists into an awfully off putting grin, as if she's pleased Lestat has finally spotted her.
"You're looking like a bit of a mess, Uncle Les," Claudia says, and somehow Lestat can hear her resounding childish laughter over the pounding of music, over the ringing in his ears. "You sure you don't want to quit while you're still ahead? While you're still alive?"
As of late, Claudia has been in attendance of Lestat's concerts more often than not.
Or no, that's not exactly right, is it? Sometimes, it seems to be the ghost of her in all its actuality, come back from the dead with the purpose of tormenting him forever, following him into dingy nightclubs with the intention of reminding him of things he'd rather be able to forget night after night, but other times? Well, it can't be her.
Sometimes, Lestat sees glimpses of girls who look just like her, wearing new and modern and clean and unscorched outfits, but on closer exception, he's always struck with the realization that it's not Claudia. It will never be Claudia. Lestat has half a mind to blame her for it, claiming that she orchestrates and positions reminders everywhere with the express purpose of hurting him, but no, that can't be what's happening.
Because Claudia is dead.
Claudia will never have the luxury of forgetting, and she will never again be able to be interact with the physical world, changing it in a way that matters. Changing it in other ways, perhaps, but only in the minds of very few.
Why should Lestat be allowed to look away?
"You should quit," Claudia repeats, and her voice almost sounds gleeful, as if Lestat's suffering is the most fun she's had in decades. Perhaps it is. "I'm sure everyone here would prefer it that way. They wouldn't have to listen to this earsplitting noise if you did." Claudia pouts exaggeratedly, and she adds, "Yeah, I said noise. Not music. Even you know this shit can't be called music."
Leave me alone, Lestat thinks loudly in her direction, and she laughs. The sound is sweet and childish and awful. Lestat loathes it. He can't bear the thought of being without it.
"Oh, we both know you don't want that, Lestat."
And she's right, isn't she?
When Lestat walks of stage to applause later that night, he immediately goes to his dressing room. Claudia is waiting for him there, leaning back in his chair and with her feet propped up on his vanity table. She has no reflection. Her ankles are still split open, bleeding forever without relief but leaving no visible marks against the wood.
"Occupied," Claudia says the moment he enters, without even turning to face him.
Her shoulders are shaking. Lestat has half a mind to think that it's with laughter, but when he storms up to her, spinning the chair on its axis, he sees that her eyes are red rimmed. She jumps up before Lestat has a chance to react, dancing out of his reach, her bare feet soundless against the floor.
"Well, I guess you're in more dire need of assistance than me." Her eyes rove over his glittery torso and to his glittery face. "Yikes. Not your best look, I must admit."
In the privacy of his own dressing room, Lestat can't help it.
In Claudia's life, Lestat rarely searched for her approval when it mattered most, but he can't help but find himself looking for it now. It's never there, of course, and it hurts to know that it will never be there, but he seeks it anyway. He can only ever feel her phantom breath when it brushes sharply against his cheek, and he can only hear her too-small voice when it whispers unsympathetically in his ear, never laden with anything but disdain, but still. It is better than nothing— to hear a voice that doesn't sound quite like it did when she was alive, withered by the pained screaming that accompanies being burnt alive, rather than nothing at all— so he doesn't bother trying to cover his ears, quitting in his search for something that will never exists.
He looks down at his body, and then he looks back up at her.
Lestat knows he's deserving her anger, even if she no longer exists— especially if she no longer exists. Claudia has been dead for years and years and years, and she will never be alive ever again. Why does Lestat get to seek approval from a dead girl? He is still alive. What is the purpose behind looking? He will never get it. Claudia, real or not, will never forgive him, just like he has never been able to truly forgive his maker or his maker or his maker or—
"You must admit?"
It's agony to think about. Does she trace it all back, too, letting her eyes wander through the centuries in the same why Lestat attempts, or does she know that the blame lies intrinsically with Lestat in his coffin? She must. Does she know, deep down, that Lestat can only blame his maker so much for hurting her? She must, but the idea is too painful, so Lestat pushes it away.
Claudia ignores him, letting out a tsking sound of disproval from the back of her throat. "I really still don't understand what Louis saw in you. For a while there, I really thought the misunderstanding was just childish naivety— you know, because I'm stuck like this forever because of the both of you— but you're just as rotten now as you were back then."
"Stop. Please."
Claudia doesn't stop.
No one stopped when she asked them to stop.
Lestat remembers her voice, yelling, Can I cry and say that I'm sorry too? to an unlistening crowd. Why would she stop, when she is already dead? Why would she listen to Lestat, who was always a part of that crowd, so attuned with the preciseness of their cruelty?
The ceaseless commentary continues as Lestat grabs make up wipes, and it doesn't stop as he scrubs the offending paint from his face.
Of course, her voice intones sweetly, I doubt it was your looks he was so obsessed with, but it certainly wasn't you're personality either. You're a bit of a wet blanket, aren't you? Maybe you were compelling him to come crawling back to you time and time again. Is that it, Lestat? Answer me. Were you compelling him? I can't think of a reason he'd choose you, so that must be it.
Lestat doesn't answer her, focusing instead on running the rag over the planes of his face, focusing largely on the skin around his eyelids.
After, Lestat throws the dirtied wipes against his desk, discarding them into the pile of leftover white powder from before last night's performance, sending it scattering across his desk. He makes a mental note to have someone clean it up later, but he promptly forgets when he remembers that he doesn't really care.
Claudia hums.
"Yeah," she says, and Lestat tries to ignore the bitterness of her voice, tries to ignore the way she swallows thickly. "Of course you don't care."
Later, when Claudia disappears again, gone for now, Lestat immediately wants to beg her to come back, but he doesn't. Of course, he doesn't. The train has left the station, and he will never drag her back again. If Claudia hears his thoughts, if she hears the way he lets his head thump loudly against the table, she has no comment to offer about it.
Claudia has no comment to offer about it because she is dead. She has no comment to offer because she has been dead the entire time. She is a haunting, and nothing else. She will never be anything other than a haunting ever again.