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Rage has been her constant companion for a while now. Ever since she crawled up from underneath those floorboards, to see the motherfucker speed off on his bike after telling her he was tired of her gloomy face. Leaving her to pick up the pieces. She’d thought that the rage might abate if she could get Louis to leave with her, become her companion through eternity. But of course Lestat wouldn’t let him leave, breaking him rather than letting him go.
And now he’s back, here in their home, as if nothing had ever happened, as if he’s still the master of the house. She can feel how Louis’ heart’s opening to him, letting him back inside once again, and it infuriates her. Her anger grows greater by the day. It’s like a great beast is coiling in her belly, eager to erupt and tear everything apart.
She clenches her right hand into a fist, sitting across from him in the parlour. He’s back at that damned piano, playing a jaunty tune. Seeming content, not even sniping at her as he lets his fingers dance across the keys. As if he’s enjoying her company and the music in equal measure. It stokes the anger inside. She wants to break him. The same way he’d broken Louis. The same way Bruce had broken her.
“That Magnus— he kept you for a week?” Something flashes in Lestat’s eyes, a flare of temper that gives her a vicious pleasure, but he just makes a non-committal hum as he keeps playing. “What did he do to you?”
No lies, no withholding. She enjoys prodding at wounds she can only guess at, pushing to see when he’ll break the rules. When the monster in him will come out to play. He’s not really playing by the rules now, anyhow, bending his head down to frown in concentration at a complicated passage and ignoring her question.
“Did he fuck you?”
Does she imagine that his fingers stall on the keys, a slight tremor in his hands? The anger, that helpless rage, coiling in her stomach purrs in satisfaction. She’s good at twisting the knife. It was him who taught her all of the best tricks. She can play him like a fiddle.
“Did he hold you down and fuck you until you bled?”
His hands come to a stop. The last sounds of the music ebbing out in the room. The part of her spoiling for a fight unfurls deep in her stomach, stretching like a cat. Sharpening its claws for the coming explosion. Eager for the chance to tear into him with even more vicious words. He hasn’t dared lay a hand on her since he came back. She’d like to see him try. Wants to dig her claws in and rake them over his stupidly smug face. Any second now.
But the explosion doesn’t come. She frowns, confused at her miscalculation. There should be a torrent of abuse showered over her, a rapid smattering of French as he curses her out, but there’s only silence. He’s looking at her. No. She tilts her head. He’s looking through her, blue eyes strangely vacant. A shiver of unease dances along her spine.
“Lestat?”
He doesn’t reply. Doesn’t even blink. Just keeps staring at something beyond her, something only he can see, with wide, empty eyes. A tremor runs through his body. He starts shivering, the way the meat does when it gets cold or very afraid. The trembling grows violent. His fingers pressing discordant notes on the piano as they skitter across the keys.
“Uncle Les?”
It’s torn out of her. Small and frightened in a way that would only feed her rage, if only she wasn’t so unnerved. This is all wrong. This isn’t what she expected would happen. Not what she wanted. He was supposed to act out the familiar pattern – all blustering rage and ridicule. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
His teeth start chattering.
Louis? she calls out in her mind, receiving a distracted hm back over the mind-link. She calls out his name more urgently, unintentionally letting some of her fright through. It snaps him to attention and then he’s running towards them, loudly threatening Lestat if he’s dared to touch her. It would laughable, really, to imagine Louis capable of moving against Lestat. But she can’t disabuse him of the notion that Lestat’s hurting her. She can barely move. Lestat has always been larger than life. She can’t stand seeing vulnerability in him.
Louis falls silent at the strange tableau in front of him. It should sting how he immediately zeroes in on Lestat, taking a hesitant step towards him, but she’s just glad if he can break him out of it. She wanted a fight. Not… this. Whatever this is.
“Les?” Louis asks softly, coming to a stop next to the motionless figure by the piano. “Les, where did you go?”
He reaches out to cup Lestat’s jaw with one hand, gently turning his head towards him. Just letting Lestat’s face rest in the palm of his hands as he waits for him to come back from wherever Claudia’s words had driven him. Finally those vacant blue eyes blink. Some life flood back into them, but he seems dazed. Confused. His eyes flickers around the room, landing on Claudia and taking in his current whereabouts. Something seems to steady within him.
“It was so cold,” he says, mostly to himself. “Désolé, I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
He’s jittery, eager to escape before Louis stops being so relieved at seeing him present back with them and starts questioning what happened. With his usual flourish, he stands up and straightens his suit. He flicks his hair out of his face, turning towards her to spit the venom she had wanted earlier.
“And Magnus did indeed – how did you so charmingly put it? – hold me down and fuck me until I bled.”
It feels hollow. It doesn’t satisfy the ever-present rage in her belly.
“Jesus, Claudia,” Louis says in a great expulsion of air, disgusted.
She would like to snap back, but she can’t. Because Lestat was turned towards the end of the eighteenth century and he’s still haunted by what Magnus did to him over a century later. Does that mean that she’ll forever carry the sensation of Bruce’s touch with her? Will she wake up, shivering, ten years from now? Fifty? One-hundred? She bites back the soft sound that wants to escape her at the idea of forever remembering the space beneath those damned floorboards, the terror and pain and helplessness of it all.
Lestat has moved until he’s almost by her without her really noticing. She has to fight back a flinch. Some weakness has slipped through her armour and she expects him to exploit it, dig his claws in. They are the same, after all. But he doesn’t follow the familiar script, even now, discombobulating her once again. He touches her hair – a brief, barely there touch. Just enough to make glance up at him, one skittish look to see the strangely gentle look upon his face. His voice is lowered, intimate, just for her.
“A part of you will always live under those floorboards. But you get up, you endure, and one day you’ll find that you’re mostly living rather than simply enduring.”
For a moment, she can see why Louis loves him so. Remember why she once loved him. And she hates him for it. She needs him to be the unequivocal villain of the story.
He nods, just once, and passes her by. Leaving her to Louis’ stricken silence and her uncompromising rage.