Chapter Text
In retrospect, the first warning should have been obvious, a familiar gesture performed in miniature: Lestat’s peevish purse of his lips and slight tilt of his head echoed in Claudia, a slight narrowing of eyes as a hint of a storm to come from his daughter, displaced from her perch on his lap to allow him to hold his new nephew.
“Grace-” He begins to protest. Well-fed for Claudia’s safety or not, he’d rather not test his willpower with his sister’s nine-day-old baby, warmth radiating through warm, tissue paper skin and blood beating close to the surface in tantalizing little thrums of young life.
“Hush, you,” his sister says without concern. “Been holding him for hours. Give me a moment to go powder my nose.”
He gently nudges Claudia back when she attempts to duck under his arm to reclaim her place, and from the corner of his eye, he sees her scowl. Before he can fully look at her, though, little Ezekiel is in his arms, and adjusting his nephew to rest better takes his attention as Grace gives him an encouraging–and slightly challenging–smile in response to his doubtful look before she steps away, flexing her arm to stretch it out.
“He looks all scrunchy,” comes Claudia’s lofty judgement, delivered with all of the gravitas a seven year old can manage. “He’s kinda ugly.”
“Claudia,” he says sharply, glancing up to ensure that Grace isn’t in earshot to hear his daughter’s commentary on her cousin.
The only response he gets to the reprimand is an irritated little click of her tongue before Claudia flounces off, not even glancing back.
It’s the under her breath grumbling in French that serves to finally give Louis a hint that he’s to face a reckoning.
*
Lestat meeting them three blocks away does nothing to improve Claudia’s stark refusal to so much as look at him after they leave Grace for the evening, his daughter marching along like a little soldier after snatching her hand away from his attempt to hold it with enough force that it’s a surprise she didn’t pull something.
Her other guardian, predictably, makes much of her bruised feelings.
God forbid the man ever miss a chance for a performance.
“-like a common vagabond,” Lestat continues, Claudia perched securely on his hip and giving her best performance of big, pathetic eyes as she nods along, appeased by the attention she’s receiving from a sympathetic audience. “How could you be so heartless, mon cher?” Lestat’s question–delivered with clear relish at the melodrama of it all–is punctuated by a wobbly-lipped little look from Claudia.
Even knowing that it’s fueled by unfounded jealousy from a child as unused as her other parent is to not being the center of attention, Louis does feel an unwanted and absurd pang of guilt.
“Flinging our poor little orphan-”
“Ain’t nobody been flung-”
“-to the floor,” Lestat says, patting Claudia’s back in a conciliatory manner.
“To the floor,” Claudia echoes, an obliging little parrot in this performance of her great injury.
Louis rolls his eyes and walks faster.
*
“You’re both being ridiculous,” Louis tells Lestat a week and a half later when the other vampire joins him in their chamber after settling Claudia into bed. Louis’s hope that Claudia’s fit of temper would be a brief thing has slowly faded with each night she’s flatly refused to let him tuck her into bed on charges of “‘cause you don’t love me anymore,” an accusation that’s patently false but delivered with all of the conviction of a Hollywood actress giving her best performance in a tragedy.
Unconcerned, Lestat flings his robe over a chair before pulling the chain to seal the door shut.
“An accusation fueled by jealousy, no doubt,” Lestat judges, and the way he’s still obviously enjoying himself as Claudia’s chosen parent at present is immensely annoying. Louis dodges the kiss he’s offered, and Lestat sighs but doesn’t pursue him, instead retreating to his own coffin. “She’s a sensitive little soul, our Claudia,” Lestat starts with a sanctimoniousness that makes Louis want to throw something at him. “Really, mon cher, how you could be so very heartle-”
Louis snaps his coffin shut.
*
“-move to California,” he hears Claudia saying emphatically from upstairs two weeks later when he arrives home after hunting.
“And what would we do in California, ma petite?” Lestat asks, tone indulgent. There’s the sound of a page turning and then a slow picking of keys as Claudia resumes what must be a piano lesson. “Especially without your daddy to keep us company?”
Louis raises his eyebrows as he shrugs out of his jacket, tilting his head slightly to hear better.
“Daddy Lou wants to play with the dumb baby,” he hears Claudia say, her playing veering forte under the force of her declaration.
“Ain’t even seen the baby in weeks,” he calls upstairs.
There’s the sound of small hands slamming against the keys followed by the stomping of little feet and the slamming of a door.
Louis sighs and leans against the wall, eyes flicking up at motion to find Lestat leaning over the stairwell, looking far too pleased at the show.
“That went well,” he comments.
Louis flings a hat at his head.
*
“Claudia, enough,” Louis says a week later, pressing against her door with carefully-measured strength as his daughter tries to evict him from her room, putting her whole small weight into the effort. Frustrated at her lack of success, she screams, a sharp, piercing sound, and he gives her a look.
She gives him a look right back.
“Are you murdering her, then?” Lestat calls up, sounding unconcerned.
Louis doesn’t bother responding, though he jerks back when Claudia tries to bite his wrist.
“Enough,” he says, a snap in his voice, and Claudia pulls back, clearly resentful but unwilling to press her luck further with physical violence.
“Go tell the baby goodnight,” she challenges, turning on her heel and stomping to her bed.
Louis exhales heavily, glancing upwards and sending a vague prayer for patience to a God he may or may not still believe in. He graciously ignores the kick that’s aimed at his hip when he sits down on Claudia’s bed, his daughter giving him an uncannily Lestat look before she flops down and tugs her blanket over her head. He rests a gentle hand on her back that’s immediately slapped, the blow muffled by cotton but very clearly meant to hurt.
Not for the first time, he wonders if choosing to parent a child with Lestat de Lioncourt was the wisest choice.
“You gonna be mad at me forever?” He asks.
“Yes,” comes Claudia’s decisive answer, muffled by her blankets as it is.
“I ain’t even seen the baby in weeks,” he reminds her.
“You been thinking about the baby,” Claudia accuses. “And how you wanna hold him and not me.”
The potential humor of the drama of the moment is tempered by the genuine hurt he can read in her mind, fueled by the little story she’s been telling herself about him looking to get a baby of his own to love instead of her. He shuffles himself back, resting his back against her wall and ignoring another kick he gets to his knee.
Claudia growls like a feral thing when he picks her up, blankets and all, shrilling another screech for good measure in her frustration at being manhandled, but her earlier pouting works against her when it leaves her tangled in her blankets. The look she gives him when he gets her face free is fierce, but she’s currently bundled too well to hit the way he knows she wants to, ferocious little thing.
“I ain’t replacing you with a baby, Claudia,” he says, shifting to cradle her better.
Despite her clear annoyance, she rests her cheek against his arm.
“You made me move for the baby,” she accuses. “And you pushed me away, too.”
It’s an exaggerated retelling of what actually happened, but he can read in her mind that it feels real to her, his gentle nudge remembered as an active rejection when she was trying to snuggle close again, not used to not being on his lap at Grace’s house and feeling abandoned as a result.
(Really, it’s a wonder she isn’t somehow biologically Lestat’s, he thinks with equal parts exasperation and affection. God help him when she becomes a teenager. It’ll be a miracle for the ages if Rue Royale remains standing with two drama queens in their prime in residence.)
“You’re my only baby,” he says, voice deliberately warm. “And always gonna be, too.”
Claudia huffs out a little disbelieving exhale, but he can sense that she’s tempted by the prospect of no longer being at odds. Savoring her melodrama or not, he can hear in her mind that she’s missed their time together, and he rests back accordingly, cuddling her closer. She snuggles in a little tighter, almost despite herself.
“You gonna stop being mad at me now?” He asks.
“You gonna hold the stupid baby again?” She challenges.
“Stupid ain’t a nice thing to call somebody,” he tells her, and the look she cuts him is one that’s usually delivered with blue eyes and not her hazel. He returns it evenly, and finally she huffs again, tucking her face against him. There’s quiet for a moment, and then she tilts her head, one eye peeking up at him.
“You promise you ain’t ever gonna get a new baby like Aunt Grace?”
“And who do you think I’m gonna be having babies with, huh?” He asks, jostling her once teasingly.
Claudia seems mildly appeased by the question, going a little more lax.
“Promise you ain’t ever gonna have a baby with somebody,” she demands, and it’s an effort not to laugh.
Really, of the things he’s promised in his life, this is one of the easier ones to swear to.
“I promise,” he agrees.
Claudia holds out for another moment, but finally she sighs, tucking her face against him again and nuzzling until she’s comfortable.
“Okay,” she agrees. “You can be my daddy again, then.”
He rolls his eyes skyward but doesn’t comment.
Really, with the person he’s raising her with, what else could he expect?