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Larry didn’t know why he was in the hospital when he came to. He didn’t know why he has seemingly been torn to pieces only to be sewn and stitched and glued together like Humpty fucking Dumpty. He was wearing a neckbrace but could still look down enough to see stitches running up and down his body like track marks.
The nurse shuffled around the room quickly. He looked panicked. Not a great sign. He was holding a full bag of fuck knows what. Was he setting up an IV? Shouldn’t he already be on one? That should be… alarming. He’s not sure how to feel. Everything is kind of distant. His body. How he feels. What he feels. The nurse had been in the middle of saying “Happy to see you back. You’re so early! We figured you’d be–” when he froze. Larry wanted to ask what he meant by ‘early’. He was going to ask the doctor who was just outside the door what was wrong with the nurse, but the doctor was frozen, too.
Who walked in was the last person he figured would visit, saying the thing he least expected. Then again, he doesn’t know what the first thing he expected would have been, either. He’s got no fucking clue why he’s here.
“Oh good. You’re awake.” Singer’s voice was sardonic, so at least that was familiar. The rest of him was off. He wasn’t dressed like he normally does – gaudy and ostentatious. To go with his sunglasses-at-night motif, he was wearing a hoodie and fucking jeans. Wild stuff.
He picked at his nails like he was bothered by the inconvenience of the situation. Like seeing Larry strapped to a bed with several limbs in casts after whatever the fuck happened is his own fucking fault. Maybe it is? He doesn’t fucking remember! Still, it only drove home the fact that this was definitely Singer.
Larry inhaled to answer when he realizes the ventilator or whatever the fuck it is that was supposed to be up his nostrils is pulled off and to the side. Did he do that? What, was he trying to fucking kill himself? Then again, it didn’t seem like he needed it to breathe. Maybe whatever ripped his fucking arm and leg off missed his lungs.
His chin felt stiff though, so maybe he still can’t-
“You can talk,” singer said. “Though you could only be healed to an extent, your vocal cords remain capable of producing an airy tenor meant for children’s programming and the Coal Mine Theatre.”
‘Is that supposed to insult me?’ Larry thought loudly.
“You’re squinting at me like you want me to read your mind, but the unfortunate fact of the matter is I can no longer,” he said in a huff. “Or perhaps I am quite fortunate. Listening to your thoughts was droll enough I sometimes considered driving capos into my eardrums were it not for the fact that it would not solve the issue. I said you can talk. Talk.”
Larry blinked. “What the fuck did I do to piss you off this time? Snore off-key? I’ve been out for fuck knows how long–”
Suddenly the nurse was walking out the door, face blank looking like some fucking robot. The door locked behind him and Singer leaned both arms against the rail at the foot of his bed. “You were awake when they scraped your body off the tracks. You have been in a medically induced coma for one week, during such time you were cured of your sleep apnea.”
“When they what? What tracks? And who’s scraping?”
“The conductor was annoyed at the prospect of having to keep another body in the break room this year when someone heard your rambling and realized you were still alive. They diverted-”
Hold the fuck up. “Wait wait wait. What? I was hit by a train?”
“You threw yourself in front of the B line on Essex.” Singer doesn’t even bother to pretend he’s not annoyed.
He wished he could say he would never do that. He wished he could say that he liked life too much to even consider it. There was a cold pit in his chest since long before Alex left. TC noticed it. Sal definitely noticed it. They tried to help, but didn’t know how. They had their own shit going on, anyway. Larry didn’t want to bother either of them with petty shit, so he just put it aside.
Larry hadn’t thought it got so bad he’d actually…
God. What pussy shit.
“I–… don’t remember.” He would expand upon just how much he didn’t fucking know was happening right now, except he was distracted by the fact that his mind actually went quiet when he closed his eyes. Not some meditative Nirvana or some shit. Just. Quiet darkness. Like a lingering coma. Hell, maybe he wasn’t actually awake right now and this was some medically fueled nightmare. Seemed likely, seeing as Singer was the only person present.
“So it may seem.” Singer took to wondering around the room, poking at wires and tubes.
“One week?” He didn’t know why, but he thought he could tell in the stiffness in his limbs whether or not Singer was telling the truth. Part of him felt every stitch in the tears in his skin. The other part felt like morphine was a hell of a drug. The pain went in and out like static on a CRT TV.
“Yes.”
He looked at the date on the TV. “Not three.” What the fuck? Two weeks missing. No memory of the train. Everything between his ears was cotton, but he thought he remembered some fuckin’ holiday- Labour Day, he thinks. After that it all went blank. Sal and TC had petitioned Singer to let them take a break from recording the album. Fuck, he never expected to have an actual album. Like. Produced, and shit. It was so fucking cool.
TC had been two seconds from quitting music, and Sal two seconds from OD’ing. Again. Music had been a lifeline for each of them. These past two years, they’d been allowed to not just survive, but fucking thrive. They’d been getting paid to do what they loved.
So he invited in the guy who would ultimately replaced him. So what? And Singer hated him. What else was new? People have hated him for more stupid shit than this all his life–he was used to it. He’d always had the band to fall back on. But turns out that was the fucking issue. He’d been the one holding them back. Him and responsibility had an on-again-off-again relationship, and he was working on trying to fix it.
TC joined after she’d been left at the alter. Came all the way from Winnipeg. Her family pitied her, and then scorned her when she decided to focus on music instead of “trying to win him back” like her mom wanted, which was something she was never gonna do. She had fucking pride. She’d gone through plenty of other bands of people just trying to fuck her or fuck her over until she found one that actually like, wanted her opinion and shit. They respected her. But, man, what the fuck were a bunch of chucklefucks going to do? Become emotionally enlightened and support her in the way she probably needed? They did what they could, and so did she. The tour had been proof she didn’t need some deadbeat to actually do something with her life.
Sal. Sal had been a mess. That man had a degree. Fuck load of good it did for him being American. English Education. Substitute teaching gigs and tutoring for years until he got tenure at some high school in Philadelphia. Then the government shut the place down. They had hardly paid him shit, but he’d been happy teaching. When that was gone, basement shows, bar shows, and selling hardly scratched the surface of relentless student loan payments. Sadness on Sal looked like foggy pipes and puke-stained sheets. But he loved writing lyrics. Don’t let the degree fool you, they were usually dog shit, but a good base to build off of if he has someone to riff with. So the tour had been the best of both worlds for him–money and music.
Alex had smiled for the first time in forever when the tour was announced. But then they’d found out what singer actually was, and Larry couldn’t have been more relieved he’d gotten away from all of it.
Alex coming back was a blessing and a curse. He loved having his brother back. Seeing that bottle in his hand was fucking terrifying. The kid (he was a grown ass man, but he’d always be a kid to Larry) was strong enough to walk away from living out their dream because he had good fucking morals. Larry didn’t. Larry was a selfish piece of shit who abandoned him. Left him homeless. Again. Was his relapse coping with compromising with the devil? Or did he feel the only thing to numb the pain of being left behind was a bottle of Jim Beam? He said his sponsor was a god. Sounded like Grade A cult shit. Larry never did trust AA. It was Alex’s sobriety but Larry couldn’t help feeling at least somewhat responsible.
“That is to be inferred by my confirming one week, yes.” Singer met his eyes and Larry felt like he was being weighed and measured. “How does it feel?”
The direct eye contact left him feeling breathless. Maybe he did need the ventilator. “To be alive? Sucks, but I guess I have a ‘new outlook on life’ or some-”
“Larry, you are not alive.”
“I’m sorry- what? What the fuck do you mean I am not alive.” Singer began to crack open the cast around his left leg that went up to his fucking hip. Shit broke like flimsy cardboard in his hands. “Don’t-! Fucking stop it, man. I need-” Actually, he didn’t. Fucking apparently. The moment the cast was off, his leg flopped to the side like a rag doll. It didn’t hurt. “Singer, I swear to fucking-”
“Lestat.”
“You don’t like when we call you that.”
“No, you tried to keep an emotional distance between us the size of the Bible Belt because you were uncomfortable with how I make you feel.” Singer–Lestat–huffed. He examined Larry’s stitches. Started picking at them, plucking the string from his flesh like it was the nuisance the whole time and he just didn’t like how it looked under his skin. “Given our current circumstances, it would behoove you to bridge that distance, Larry.”
Walking around the nonsense false accusation, he realized something. Now, no matter how annoyed Lestat was getting, he didn’t raise his voice. No, it almost sounded concerned. What were the circumstances that-… Wait.
He had to be kidding. Either this was hell, or the ‘life flashing before your eyes’ shit was bullshit and you actually saw a life that never happened. If so, this trip was taking its sweet fucking time. “No…” He laughed in disbelief. Lestat did not. Just kept plucking stitches.
Something clicked. That something obviously must’ve been broken, because it told him Lestat was never actually angry with him. That he had just been projecting this whole time. Suddenly he was back in the studio. Lestat was yelling at him. The subject changed between blinks time and time again. Play it again. Take thirty-two, eighty-four. Standing in his eyeline. Initially, he’d been happy to carry the burden of his dramatics so the guys didn’t have to deal with it, but every time it felt more and more personal. It was just him. “No! No fucking way. You didn’t even want me!” In the band, he was supposed to add.
Lestat removed his neck brace. He hung it off the IV that the nurse had been trying to replace. It was an unmarked bag that contained only the dregs of a dark and syrupy substance. It looked almost black, but he could see a vibrant red underneath. “But you are an absolute shredder with an ax.” This fucking guy.
And then he remembered it. Not all of it. But he remembered amber eyes on a beautiful man. He remembered being tired. And then he remembered his foot leaving the platform. If eye contact left him breathless, this was like his chest was caving in. Again. “That guy in the subway. He told me to rest.”
“Armand. The gremlin.” There was actual ire there. “He did. And in that last step, something inside you resisted.” This Armand guy must’ve-… Wait a fucking second.
“Are you shitting me! What, was he fucking butthurt about ‘Big Boss’? I barely even contributed to that shit!”
“I do not believe he particularly approved of how… appreciative I have become of your more abstract musical capabilities.” Lestat grimaced around the words. He didn’t want to say them, let alone let Larry hear them.
What the actual fuck did that mean. “You fucking hate how I play.”
“I do say that.” Lestat began to watch him. Like, actively. Was he speaking in riddles now? Then again, when wasn’t he. Shit was all metaphors and soliloquy. “You play unabashedly. Even when your failures ring louder than church bells, you do not let it hinder your passion.”
“My failures? See, I fucking knew it. Are you telling me you like my-” Larry bodily flinched, struck with the memory of a feeling. Not his. At least, he doesn’t remember ever being metaphysically bound, unable to breathe but not needing to. Being wiped clean of the bullshit and emotions. Stripped bare and flayed alive and thankful for it. Ego death. It was a high so clean no drug could compete. And man, Larry wasn’t even the one to experience it. Like if someone told you you sleepwalk- you were there, but you weren’t. That was someone else. Something else. Lestat scowled at him, confused.
Another blink and it was like the moment never happened. The memory didn’t exist to him. But it did. He was beginning to get annoyed with this shit. “Somehow, that feels even more un-fuckin’-likely than whatever the fuck is happening right now.”
Lestat’s next words were cautious. “Whether it was of your own volition or not, you were at least tangentially involved in revitalizing the music within me.”
“Tangentially involved.” Another word fell from Larry’s lips, but it was someone else who said it. The soft pat of a silent ‘t’ on the roof of his mouth makes it vanish. ‘Detroit.’
Lestat heard it. Ignored that anything even happened with the fucking projected PTSD. “That is what I said.”
Larry was tired. Just. Fucking tired. “And so you- what, saved my life? Restarted my heart? Scooped my brains back together because I was tangentially involved?”
“You survived the collision with your brain fully in tact. I did not restart your heart.” Larry only just now noticed the heart monitor to his left wasn’t hooked up either. “You know what has happened.”
Larry closed his eyes again. It was easier in the darkness. At least Lestat wasn’t there. “I think I’m still just in denial.” More of his memory was coming back. Kind of. It felt like he was watching himself walk out of the studio in third-person. “Denial is better than the alternative.”
“But how does it feel?”
God, what was this guy fishing for? “What do you want me to say? My thoughts don’t make any fuckin’ sense, and I mean, the. Feelings. And shit is like way more intense but,”– he motions to the rest of his body–“kinda? Maybe there’s still morphine in me. Will that be like. Permanent? If I’m dead now, can my body filter out any of the shit that was inside of me when it happened. Did you bite me, or just swap my IV with your blood?” Lestat winced again. “Fuck it, I don’t wanna know actually.” This was too much.
“So like, our minds are ‘cut off’ from each other now, right?”
“Being given the gift severs the communicative connection between your mind and my own, correct.”
“Your mind and my own.”
His wording was specific enough to leave room for whatever the fuck was happening between them. The severed connection was replaced with something quieter but a whole lot stronger. Like some tentacle had to go through Lestat to get to him, and when it squeezed, it hurt them both.
His own emotions are a flash in the pan, and anything worth noting wasn’t even his. What? He didn’t know what he was thinking. How the fuck was he supposed to describe it. Who was he even describing it to? Himself? God? Christ, nothing made sense.
Whatever it was, it scrambled his soul and spit out his bones. That didn’t even make fucking sense, but then it was the only thing that made sense. One minute he’s a person. Next he’s not.
“Larry, if you insist on parroting back things I have just said-…”
Lestat cut himself off. Larry gave him room to continue, but the threat hung empty between them.
“You’ll kill me?” Shit, he shoulda listened to Sal more when he was lore dumping about covens and shit. “Don’t you guys have like, a rule against killing other vampires?”
“Oh we are well past the confines of Great Laws.” He said it with the same ire he reserved for Armand.
“So you could. But you won’t.”
“Do not make me regret this, Larry.” Lestat was switching between pretending to be threatening to faking disinterest, back and forth and back and forth like a ping-pong ball. Really, Lestat wanted this, hated it, anticipated worse. Jesus Christ, it was tiring to watch. Tiring to feel. Larry knew he… Wasn’t afraid. Not concerned. Or even worried. But something like it. The closest word he could think of was cautious, and even that didn’t feel like it totally encompassed whatever this was.
“You already do.” He knew it like he knew this was truthfully hell. He knew Lestat regretted it. And he knew Lestat was mad at him for knowing that.
Lestat broke the cast on his left arm with a single fist. Another empty threat. “I regret that it had to be done without your express permission.”
Right. Like that was the only reason. He didn’t know how, but he knew whatever was wrong with him wasn’t fucking normal, even on a vampiric level. Great. A curse unique to him. “You didn’t have to do it. No one made you. The band sure as shit didn’t, and Alex is so far up his sponsor’s asshole-”
“Armand. His sponsor is Armand. He was going by the alias Arun and he deceived your brother, but when the Talamasca reached out to Alex after his own transformation-”
Like everything else, the rage that overwhelmed him felt more primal than he could have imagined. There was reality, and then in a flash there was nothing but coldness. The type of coldness he would liken to the emptiness of space. Simultaneously, there was a heat that burned brighter than the sun. He would have expected his body to shake as he held Lestat pinned to the wall. It wasn’t a conscious decision on his part. It just happened. The total loss of control terrified him, but he ignored that too. “You did this my brother?” In a beat, he then realized his body had gone numb the moment he and Lestat made contact. Gonna ignore that for now.
Their impact broke cracks into the drywall. Lestat didn’t even fucking flinch. He looked like- no, he felt like he had other places he’d rather be. He also wanted to escape whatever this was between them.
Larry didn’t give shit. Fucking him over with this bullshit was a nothing burger, but Alex was going places man. He was the better guitar player, better band mate, better person. Sure, he might have relapsed a bit, but he could get back on that wagon.
“I did not.” But someone did. Lestat sniffed. “That was at least done upon his request.”
Larry blinked. Sighed. As quickly as it arrived, the fury was gone. He didn’t know what he hated more. Alex choosing this or the fact that he wasn’t really surprised. Looking back, the signs that the guys were up to something were there, but he’d been so detached from them. He figured they were just planning on kicking him out. He remembered now. He left. It was an attempt at making it easy for them.
Still, he couldn’t just let Lestat get away with this shit. “I don’t care if he requested it. You should’ve said no!” Lestat swatted his hands away and Larry didn’t fight him on it.
“They were very persuasive.” Lestat didn’t feel satisfied, but he curled his lips into an empty smile anyway.
“You changed the whole fucking band?”
“One could call us now The Vampires Lestat.”
They stood there. Coulda been seconds. Coulda been years. Logically, he knew it couldn’t be– they’d need this room at some point. Unless of course he fucking Jedi mind-tricked everyone into forget it existed. He needed to go for a walk.
Lestat watched him get dressed and followed him. Fucking prick.
Without even thinking about it, Larry ended up back at the train station. He stayed outside this time, chain smoking cigarettes in the alleyway across from the entrance. He half expected smoke to come out of his seams, but they seemed to be firmly shut. He didn’t even feel the scratchy burn he would normally get once he was on his seventh cigarette, having lit them each with the butt of the last one finished.
Lestat watched him, leaned up against the other wall. Larry didn’t want to look at him.
He also realized he could go a lot longer without blinking now. Or, maybe he was just more aware of his blinking now, seeing as every time he closed his eyes, there was the void.
But then he closed his eyes again and Alex was there. He had blue eyes now.
“What the fuck did you do?” He almost said the thought aloud, but managed to refrain. Was still learning the controls on this ride.
“He saved you.” His natural slouch couldn’t hide how tense he was holding himself. Shit, Larry hadn’t seen him look this on edge since the kid was called into work for a drug test. “Didn’t expect that.”
“He killed me, Alex. He didn’t fucking save me. He killed me.” He wanted to scream.
Alex didn’t respond. He just kept staring.
“I wish you weren’t here. You deserve better than this.”
“I’m exactly where I want to be.”
Larry didn’t know how, but he cut the connection before they could get into a fight about it. Or maybe Alex did.
“I told him you were not feeling particularly chatty.”
Larry finally looked at Lestat again. He had that empty smile.
“What colour are my eyes?” Larry spit on the sidewalk just to see him grimace in disgust.
“Black.”
“I’m not allowed to kill my maker.” They’d made their way to the bus. Still, Larry couldn’t bring himself to go inside.
“Again, with the Laws. Ne m'ennuie pas avec ces conneries.”–Larry didn’t know enough French to translate more than ‘avec’ but he was pretty sure one of those was a curse word–“You could not, even if you tried. Someone in your condition–”
Larry glared at him. It wasn’t his fucking decision to be turned into a fucking vampire when he was healing from being hit by a fucking train.
Lestat rolled his eyes. “It is not permitted. Not unless you want them to kill you and the others as well.” He paused. Sniffed. “They’d have your heads within the hour.”
“Aren’t they expecting you back?”
Lestat sighed. “Tu viens?”
“What makes you think I’m coming back at all?”
Lestat knew he didn’t have the balls to abandon them now. They both knew.
“I need a minute.”
Lestat went inside. Larry picked a direction and kept walking.
“It hurts. The farther I get from you, the more it feels like I’m-” Lestat found him again a few miles away. Some park, he thinks. Not Central. One of the other fifty million parks in New York. He isn’t sure, but he thinks the gunshot from the guy he just killed might have clued him in on his location. “Like I just got hit by a fucking train.”
Lestat was texting. Probably Christine, to find someone to clean up his mess.
“Is that normal?”
Lestat put his phone away and crossed his arms. “A cop, Larry?” His tone reminded him of when his girlfriends would get disappointed he’d forgotten some arbitrary date or something.
“Hey, at least we know he probably deserved it.”
Lestat clicked his tongue. “Nothing regarding your embrace is normal, Larry. While the connection between maker and fledgling is unique, no two connections are the same. But I do not know of another fledgling that experiences pain when distant from their maker. Not physically, at least.”
“Well, whoopdie-fucking-doo for me.”
Lestat pulled the hem of Larry’s shirt up and hesitated. Larry was too tired to fight him on it. Keep the bloody evidence, or let Frankenstein walk the streets? Probably realized that weirder people walk around New York at night and peeled off Larry’s shirt. He tossed it in the nearby trash can that was up in flames within moments.
“Perhaps it will fade in time.” Lestat’s tone didn’t even convince himself.
Larry stared blankly. “Alone. Together.” He didn’t say forever because he knew he would never last that long. Either Lestat would get bored and kill him, or he’d piss someone else off and they’d do the job. Or the third option. “Let’s see how long I last before I fling myself into the sun.”
“Tu le sens?” Lestat looked at him like he actually had a fucking answer for him. Larry didn’t need to know French to know what he was saying this time.
He might not be as knowledgeable on this shit as Sal, but he read the book. Or skimmed it. The concept of vampire loneliness was mentioned somewhere along the lines. And then there was their song. He’d underestimated it. It’s… bad. Like. Real fuckin’ bad. But it’s like playing in the Variety Theater after years of only having a box speaker. It’s the same fucking guitar and the same fucking music. Just louder.
There’s something else. Smaller. Hidden under the muck and the mire. It’s not a good feeling, per se. A relief. Recognition. Couldn’t even call it hope. It’s falling off a cliff and seeing someone else jumped, too.
“Yeah. Like I said, it’s just more intense than-…” Lestat grabbed his chin. Began tilting it left and right. “Than before.”
The sudden finger pushed into his mouth made him realize his teeth felt bigger. He licked at a canine and- yep, that was definitely bigger.
Lestat let his lips flick closed. He went all stiff like he does when he’s noticed something and is trying to ignore it. “I see.”
When they walked into the hotel lobby, there were frozen guests left and right. Lestat had told the desk some weird-ass name–Clarence Oddbody–and they were given the fuckin’ penthouse suite.
Lestat was a lot less cagey with his answers this time around. Did he bite Larry? No. Where was the bag from? He’d bottled it right after the second show in Detroit, but figured this would be putting it to better use. Larry didn’t ask him if that was before or after the MDMA got through his system. Didn’t want to know. Why not just bite him? Thought the slower process would give Larry time to heal and be less likely to kill him. Why now? Once Armand eventually found out Larry lived, he would probably try to finish the job. He was in a rush.
Standing under a waterfall shower of some fancy-ass hotel, Larry would accidentally cut himself a few times with his gnarly new claws as he yanked out his stitches. Each cut closed in seconds. The lines and puckering left from the stitches didn’t heal.
Lestat bled too. While there wasn’t a lot of privacy on a tour bus, this was new. Circling around him, pulling Larry’s limbs out, Lestat would rub red hands over the worst of the wrinkles. He clicked his tongue every time nothing happened. Somehow, this felt like the least of Larry’s problems. They both ignored Larry’s coming and going bodily reaction to the proximity. It was general closeness–nothing to do with who it was. Definitely.
Larry dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, sighing. “Why’d you really do it?”
“You are my frailty.” His voice came from inches away. Larry almost thought he was about to kiss him, but that’d be stupid.
Larry gave a weak laugh. Pressed harder against his eyes. There were none of those weird floating spots from the pressure in the void. If he tore off his eyelids and replaced them with someone else’s, would it still be there? Mmh. Wasn’t at that point yet.
“The fuck does that mean? The weakest link? So bad I make everyone else look good in comparison?” He was above average most of the time. He was actually self-aware, thank you. “I don’t…” He’s hit by the sensation that comes when you miss a step. “I don’t remember all of it, but.” But there was something intoxicating about the flowstate he could find himself in sometimes. Times when he thought he was pretty fucking good. Times when he thought ‘This is why I play.’ Last time was Detroit. Hasn’t been able to get that flow back since. “I told you, man. They can do it. I can’t. You know I can’t.”
“How do you think I came to write Stained Glass Eyes?”
The water turned off. Larry opened his eyes and found Lestat now outside of the shower. The wet clothes he wore while poking and prodding at Larry were on the floor and he was putting on the only robe. He tossed a towel to Larry. It was the softest fucking towel he’d ever touched.
“That was her.” There was the girl. Claudia. But there was someone else. Someone he’d been calling out to. Fuck if he knows who, but he can feel them in his fucking veins if he gets too far down the rabbit hole. Right next to the tentacle. Really, he was just a dead sack of skin full of trash and monsters now. And he’s going to pretend that these were normal thoughts to have. Fuck. It was either the MDMA or maybe the metaphors and soliloquies were in Lestat’s blood.
“Ghosts. Muses. Memories. You are the chain that connects me to them. Weak. Frail. But I will do anything to hold onto it.” Fuck. It is in the blood. “Even if that means holding your fucking hand while you tune it down a half step.”
So that was it. Suffering his own undeath because he was a tool. An instrument. Cool. Great. Larry isn’t even fucking surprised at this point. Fuck, he’d find another train if he thought it’d do anything. Could it? Maybe he’d give it a few nights before finding out if he’s a daywalker. At least he’d say bye to the guys this time.
“Is that why you keep looking at me like that?”
There was a knock at the door. Larry doesn't see who it was. They gave Lestat a clothing hanger with one of those zip-up bags, his frown deepening after looking inside.
Larry knew Lestat knew what he was getting at, so he decided to say it louder. Really drive it home. “Like I’m a stranger. Like we’re both on death row. Like you have the answer, but neither of us knows what the question is. I don’t fucking know! I don’t know, you just-... It’s weird.”
Lestat put out clothes on the bed. They were Larry's. Did someone fucking iron them?
Their eyes met. Larry felt something inside himself sever and tie itself into a knot.
“I think I may have broken you, Larry.”
His throat produced a noise. A laugh. A sob. A cough. A cry for help. “Yeah, well. That makes two of us." He'd say he doubted he'd make it out alive, but... “You think if I run far enough away, my body will fly apart?”
The next night, Larry’s body does not fly apart, but he does only manage to get to Hoboken before the pain renders him unconscious. When he woke up, it was in the back of a windowless van, some guy wearing glasses and a suit driving him to fucking Indiana a few towns behind the band. He refuses to enter the bus when they drop him off. Refuses to even play. They tell him they’ll leave him the van if he remains within a safe distance. Apparently his absence put Lestat off his game. His own case of the yips.
Lestat returns the favor some time after that by getting his fucking head lobbed off. Their weird-ass connection puts Larry down for the count when he’s driving, only to come to in Daniel’s sleeping bag, Sophia and Lestat yelling loud enough to wake the dead. Larry doesn’t think vampires should fall unconscious this much.