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Lestat can see the gift changing Nicki.
The vampire Nicolas is an eager one, chants and praises the Coven Master, who offers to take the newborn under his wing for the time being, as Lestat regains his bearings. What have I done? How could I have done it, am I so selfish to burden the only one I’ve— and more so useless regrets are wept on his mother’s gown after his lover’s turning, until he can stand to look at Nicolas again, who smiles, so warmly smiles at him. For all the time Lestat has known him, he has never looked this peaceful.
Nicolas’ life now follows the bow’s slide on his violin’s strings: music finally makes sense. Sinful yes— but not selfish as he once believed, not hollow. The boy aches to bare the beauty of it with mortals and immortals, Nicolas aches to love sinfully and shamelessly. Nicolas wants to be happy, for the first time in his life.
But Nicolas does worry the coven, when the high wears down and the gift settles, something in that happiness begins to shift, an unsettling minuscule detail per night. It starts out small: out of curfew kills, unkept attitude, unusual carelessness, the blood of his victims left uncleaned sliding into cobblestone cracks too close by livings, and at last a child slaughtered just too close by a church— shouting priests killed on a whim. Nicolas severs their heads and attempts to drink from their corpses before being violently torn away by Armand.
It’s the breaking point.
Unnecessary attention is driven to them, wasted blood on an impulse, an unruly subject growing harder to tame each passing week. Get him under control, Armand rages once they retrieve to the theatre, pushing Nicki out of the dressing room to confront Lestat alone; the young one doesn’t protest, barely aware the trouble is his fault. Accusations fly left and right, the fledgling starts playing outside the room with nothing short of a child’s glee, drawing out Lestat’s agony. I don’t know what to do with him! I don’t know!
When the argument wears down, Lestat runs to hide into the crest of his mother’s chest, seeking a comfort her pride prohibits.
If only you had listened to me, Gabriella cradles his head and kisses his hair with a tenderness that doesn’t belong to her: it’s for special instances, those Lestat would normally treasure. But it changes nothing and feels like nothing.
“His music has greatly improved,” Armand chimes in during the umpteenth performance, a dull play the cast has grown bored with but still earns enough visibility to keep running. Nicolas doesn’t seem to be familiar with the concept of “boredom” like the rest; all is new, all is thrilling, all is a chance to play until his fingers bleed.
“So it has,” Lestat concurs, playing it off as a positive. “He plays with an unprecedented disregard of Mozart’s teachings. I’ve never seen him so discounting.”
“His disregard of our laws precedes those of music.”
Lestat scoffs. “We’ll be lucky if he doesn’t set the theatre on fire, his violations are hardly mishaps— he’s adjusting.”
“I said get him under control,” Armand’s voice hardens, the sternness which turns Lestat’s bones frail. The Coven Master grants him a freedom prohibited to others, so to hear him demand is a rare instance. “And you’ve been avoiding him since. It won’t take long for him to notice your on and off presence, once he snaps out of this frenzy.”
“He’s been like this for weeks now, you’re the Master, handle him if you must. I want nothing to do with your laws.”
“I assume it is you have better things to do?”
In a flash, the taste of Gabriella coats his tongue, a cruel trick played by a cruel demon. Lestat’s pupils shrink on impulse, his heart rests uneasy.
“Handle him,” Lestat repeats firmly, proud of how little his voice shakes. “Do it for me.”
“I am not his companion, Lestat,” Armand says, and there is the guilt creeping back again, where Gabriella’s taste has not claimed, Nicki’s essence covers all the remaining senses. Lestat swallows, looks away from Armand as if caught in some mischievous act. The latter presses. “And his companion, his maker, is what the fledgling needs at this stage. The longer you put this off, the harder it will be the reel him back.”
In another lifetime Lestat would’ve never shied away from Nicki, not at his lowest, not in a million years. Only now his coward blood urges him to bury himself into the ground hoping to never be found. It is true Nicki doesn’t notice his absence lately, lost in each new composition granted to him by the Gift’s miracle, his mind has molded into a beautiful spiral creating and creating, his hands the vessels through which melodies human ears have never heard now freely roam Paris, touching the minds and hearts of the simplest life forms.
Nicki doesn’t need sleep nor food nor companionship as long as he creates.
But Lestat wasn’t granted this joy, a relief so powerful it washes out the questioning and fears of an eternal existence. The further he sunk into the gift’s claws, the more Lestat sought that human love now unattainable— scraps of it come from Gabriella, who trails her fingers in his hair like a lover, whispers filth that has no place in their bond. Lestat turns to Armand for all the more carnal attention, which he desperately accepts in a cold agreement. The rest— it comes from people, men and women and all there is beyond. Lestat needs to cradle life in his hands and have it melt and drip between his fingers. It’s good for a while, everything feels good until—
Lestat feels his presence before his voice.
“I miss you.”
Nicolas comes to him early in the morning, appearing in his room like a ghost; no sound to anticipate his arrival, only an eerie silence that feels like his former lover tints the air with the unmistakable awareness of him. Lestat slowly opens the lid of his coffin, still drowsy from his half sleep, watching Nicki stand still in the middle of the room like a dream.
“Lestat,” Nicki calls fondly, his name coming out like a prayer.
Nicolas appears softer, speaks in a low and dreamy voice, as if he’s been kidnapped by Eros and built from scratch by His hands. He has been sleeping at the Theatre for weeks now, Lestat had managed to catch glimpses of him every now and then between shows, but never enough time to truly take him in. Being alone together became a novelty, though Lestat’s heart skips still as it did before, an ingrained muscle memory to his presence.
“Nicki,” Lestat huffs, pulls the lid all the way open. “I— what are you doing here? The sun is up,” He can’t help the smile on his face.
“I just said,” Nicki repeats, rocking on his feet. “I miss you. I wanted to see you.”
“It’s morning,” Lestat blinks numbly, glances at the shut curtains and the feeble sun rays that find way to hit the wooden floor. “And— Armand. Won’t he notice that you’re gone?”
“Maitre is busy with harsher insubordinates than I. There’s been a consistent breach in curfew for—“ he holds up his hands, counting on his fingers. “Twenty-eight nights? The punishment won’t be soft and it’ll keep him too busy for routine check ups.”
“You’re breaching curfew.”
Nicolas grins, showing his all too familiar human mischief. “If you are so suddenly adamant to the Five Great Laws I suppose I should—“
“No!” Lestat scoffs, a breathless chuckle escapes him. He didn’t even realise the tension wounded up in his shoulders until he let it go, a sudden urge to climb out of coffin and melt into Nicolas’s arms, stronger than the Sun’s harsh pull into nothingness. “No no, Nicki. Come here, please. I’m glad to see you.”
It’s the truth, too.
Nicolas makes way to the coffin, Lestat admires from his fixed spot as the younger one slips inside, light as a feather. Lestat is confused for a moment, the cold body of his companion pressing on his body, thin legs neatly hugging his lap. Nicolas nestles in him with the freedom and casualty of a lifetime’s marriage, wrapping his arms around Lestat’s neck and putting their foreheads together.
Lestat’s heart stutters. It responds organically to his creation.
“I—“ Lestat’s smile can’t be concealed. “Hello.”
Dumb. He feels so warm.
“Hello,” Nicki says back. “Do you know who I am, good sir?”
Lestat giggles, hands sliding on Nicki’s waist. In that moment he wonders, how has he ever been worried about anything at all.
“Nicolas De Lenfent,” Lestat proudly announces to nobody, his voice a whisper only Nicki can hear. “The prodigious violinist of the Theatre Des Vampires, or so I’ve heard. It’s an honor to bask in your presence.”
“It’s my pleasure,” Nicki’s hands come to rest on his shoulders, cradling Lestat’s neck with the tender brush of his fingers. He distances their faces just to watch him clearly, Lestat’s pupils grow larger upon the mystical view. He’s neither human nor vampire, in the forbidden dim light that would burn them both to ashes, Nicolas is a demigod who’s taken pity on an ape. An ape that will be torn down and made anew. “Lestat De Valois.”
Lestat’s heart fills to the brim. His arm stretches past Nicki and grasps the lid of the coffin, quick to shut it down and have Nicki sink in velvet and warmth with him.
It’s been too long since they kissed. This hunger could not be satisfied with humans or the theatre’s insignificant vampires— companionship, as Armand had anticipated, is what lets immortals endure. And Lestat had ignored his companion far too long, allowing loneliness and misery to sprout doubts in his mind.
It is easy to forget it when Nicki veils him, whines his name with each heaving breath Lestat grants him between ravenous kisses, his legs wrapped around Lestat, who pushes into him in slow, languish strokes. He keeps it easy, not because Nicolas can’t take it, but because Lestat himself won’t have it rough. He takes his time covering Nicki in adoring bruises, his lips travelling to each patch of his skin that has yet to darken. When he tires, Lestat simply rests in the crevice of Nicki’s shoulder, murmuring I love you until his voice breaks.
No one was worth those three words, not Gabriella, Not Armand, not any warm mortal he embraced in the throes of his loneliness. His companion only could yank these feelings out of him, leaving to rest that uneasy, by now semi permanent sensation of inescapability. Nicki sprawls under him, sighing in bliss, beautiful tears stinging his eyes. Lestat lowers one more to say he loves him, just a moment before their lips brush.
Then Nicolas screams.
Lestat jumps away in fear, hitting his head with a loud thump on the coffin’s top he opens the lid in a panic, pushing himself as far as he can in the crumpled space they both share. Nicki scampers off him like a frightened hare as Lestat’s head begins to pound in red hot pain and— blood drips from the side, staining the coffin’s linen. His hand comes to clutch the wound, breaths coming into a rapid pace that could kill him had he still possessed human lungs.
“Wh-Wh-What happ—“ Lestat stutters in a rough voice, glancing up through a blurry vision he spots Nicki, naked and shrunk into a corner, red glowing eyes staring unblinking in his direction, drilling a sense of nausea and guilt in his chest.
“Nicki— Nicki what—“
“No, no no no stay,” Nicki orders. “Don’t you get out of there, don’t come near me— just. Just stay where you are, you filthy traitor.”
Lestat’s stomach sinks. Whether it’s his head bleeding or his lover’s words, the urge to retch scratches at his throat. “I don’t understand—“
“You don’t understand,” Nicki mock repeats, a smile that looks too wrong on his gentle features. He’s no stranger to Nicki’s cruelty, yet this bile is not from his human paramour, it comes from a darker pit, one which dries all the sap they shared. It keeps pounding. “You don’t understand anything! March fifteen, April twelve, thirteen— all the days after! All nights, three whole months!” He screams, backing further into the corner. “I smell them on you— I won’t let you do this to me. I won’t be another one of your meat bags.”
“Nicki—“
“Incube! Incube!— Meandering around town luring mortals to sin. What else can you be? Which other creature cages all that is alive in lust? What else drains their body after consummating, after dispersing the seed of evil inside them? What else?!”
Lestat’s head spins, the blood from his head a cascade he’s no longer concerned with. What has he done to cause Nicki such pain, and how can he take it away without touching him?
“I’m sorry,” is all Lestat can say, though he’s unsure what it warrants. “I’m sorry” his voice breaks. “Come back to coffin, please.”
“Hand me my robes, I’ll be out of your sight. I’ll be out of your hands— you’ll be free to lie with whoever your nature drives you to rape. You’ll touch them yes— your hands are so good at touching and probing and butchering—“
“Stop it!” Lestat cries. “I don’t know what you’re saying!”
Miraculously, it stops.
Nicki blinks a few times, clearing away the fog that had dimmed his vision, folded into himself like crumpled paper. The cruelty in him lifts, it’s almost visible in the way the body lets loose, how his irises lose their faint glow and the sharpness of his eyes dulls into a rounder shape. He parts his lips, but no sound comes out. Lestat stares in anticipation of another stab.
“Oh.”
Lestat stays still. Will he scamper again if he moves?
“Oh. Oh dear God,” Nicki’s voice cracks. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what possessed me.”
Whatever was trapped in the air a few seconds before shifts into an unsettling comfort. Nicolas covers himself with his arms and crosses his legs vainly to hide what sin still leaks where their bodies were one. Lestat doesn’t move to gather him, but he gets out of the coffin to hand him a blanket and the discarded clothes; he takes them in a hurry, a tint of shame colours his cheeks.
“Don’t hate me,” Nicki begs. “It wasn’t me.”
And what it was, it wore his face and spit poison that has never been. When met with silence, with Lestat’s unmoving terror, Nicki continues.
“The Gift. The price for my music, my love. I get confused at times— but then it passes, it’s a summer wind. It passed now.”
The fledgling frantically begins to get dressed, the robes they so eagerly had played slipping away now buttoned back on in a frenzied panic. When Nicki finally looks up at him with those doe, guilty eyes, all the more Lestat understands the grave danger Armand had foreseen.
Nicki’s expression twists into something painfully apologetic. He tries to stretch his arm to Lestat, but the latter moves away before it can graze him.
“…It passed,” Nicki insists, hoping it sticks.
Lestat doesn’t have it in him to disagree. He forces a small smile and nods his head. He crouches where Nicki sits, though he keeps a distance. “I— get confused too,” Lestat confides. “The savage garden, all that roams inside, my mind splits trying to make sense of it all. It’s okay.”
Nicki scoffs, hugging his knees. “Everything always comes easy to you, my love. You have their cheering, their love— you have the Coven master enslaved. All I have is my music sheet and the rats wandering around my coffin to keep me company. There’s nothing else for me.”
“You have me,” Lestat says, a tint of hurt in his voice. “Nicki, you have me. This hasn’t changed.”
Nicolas curls deeper within himself, his sight aches in a way words cannot translate. Lestat tempts himself into touching his shoulder, tilt his chin up, promise him it’s true and it will always be true, no matter how low he sinks. Nicki should never have to doubt this, of all uncertainties this damned life brings.
Yet dozen of different people have known his kisses, his arms cradling, his gentle words. Many creatures have known Lestat’s passion without ever asking or chasing it— what cruel fate, to love more than being loved. To know he will never be the only one.
The fledgling’s eyes redden as though he has read Lestat’s mind, a cruel impossibility.
“Then why am I not enough?”
Lestat makes an effort to stay by Nicki the next weeks.
He gets a sense on what Armand had meant when he said their violinist was captive to a joyous frenzy. Everyone hates it and none hides this hatred to spare his feelings— Nicolas likely doesn’t notice them, either. Armand has kept him from being discarded by the company long enough, so when Lestat comes back, all the vampires plead and rage his way to urge Nicolas out or have his death be the last act. Lestat wishes to die by the next day.
“I warned you,” Armand takes these small meaningless victories, dangling rightness over his head. “Not a night passes where I don’t hear their scheming to feed your fledgling to the flames. I alone won’t be able to keep them tame much longer.”
Lestat’s patience has already run thin.
“What purpose serves being Coven leader if you can’t keep a few runts from stepping out of line under your jurisdiction?”
“I value them. They are my children.”
The words of a coward. “You’ll have your children execute their weaker, slower sibling,” Lestat grunts. “As nature intended. My question remains: what’s the point of a leader?”
“You should think to leave him,” Armand suggests, and the words alone trigger Lestat to glare his way; Armand doesn’t waver. “Vampires like him aren’t destined to last long, when the Gift settles as an illness, not much can be done. You’ll witness him get worse, grow sicker, madder, before the inevitable. I don’t believe you have to heart to bear it.”
“Or maybe it will pass,” Lestat snaps. “And he will be the first to make it out.”
“Maybe.”
Armand steps closer to him, ignoring what little agency Lestat stubbornly exhibits. They both know the truth, though Lestat follows the blind belief ignorance will be their saviour in the end, Armand has long accepted the boy’s departure, seeing a ghost where his music fades. Lestat needs a certainty, Armand understands this much.
“Be my companion,” Armand whispers, gently cupping Lestat’s face, a breath away from completion. “I’ll teach you to mourn him.”
Temptation itself veils in torn robes soaked in smoke. Lestat has never been able to resist him, not when he was taken against his will, not when he had the freedom to step away. Armand’s fingers curl around his collar and Lestat lets himself indulge in what little pleasure remains from this touch— brushing the devil’s lips as an invitation, watching as the fangs drop behind his lips, how Armand struggles to remain still and wait his fix.
Lestat kisses him because he can, because he wants to, there are many that will have him but very few that will own him as Armand does. Still the devil doesn’t tear him apart but simply waits, sits in his burning desire so that Lestat may have the power he has been stripped— yes, Armand knows this, Armand wants this. So when Lestat knocks him into the nearest wall and begins to chip away at his lips with bites and ravaging kisses, Armand allows it, embracing the younger one and childishly begging to have him now.
In time with their spoiling something made of glass shatters in their vicinity. Lestat’s head snaps up, his buttons half undone and Armand panting and hot beneath him. Nicki stands frozen in the corridor.
Lestat doesn’t get the time to speak, to explain what has no explanation. Nicolas flees the second he flinches as if startled by the motion, the loud noise of a door being slammed shut trails soon after, and then comes the crashing sounds of destruction; whatever equipment he is thrashing is what Armand will pick up by the time he’s worn out. Routine.
Lestat shuffles away as if burnt by Armand’s sole presence, buttoning his collar up and grunting out profanities under his breath, frustrated tears brimming in his eyes.
“It’s no novelty, Lestat. It’s the every night’s play.”
“Take care of him,” Lestat demands, pleads. He’s not sure. He has to leave.
“You’re losing him,” Armand warns.
“Please.”
“He won’t want it from me. He wants you.”
It doesn’t seem to matter, Lestat is out just as quickly as Nicolas disappeared. There’s nothing to talk about and not an issue to fix, just a broken vampire Maître has to assist. He can hear Lestat’s mind singing for Gabriella’s company, the sweetest love he has available. Armand leaves the child to rest, then, and turns to his feral progeny.
Your illness can’t be fixed, Nicolas.
…
You wish for him to love you again as he once did, but you are rotting before his eyes. As far as I see it, you’re already dead, puppeteered by your own violin’s strings. There’s nothing else to do, child, but rest.
…
You should say your goodbyes to him. Spare him the pain of holding onto the last hope you’ll make it.
…
I don’t wish to die, Maître.
What’s that?
…
You want fixing, fledgling?
…
I want him to love me again.
…
No solution is permanent to your ill.
I’ll take anything.
…
…
Your mind can no longer be mended, but your brain, the organic matter which no longer serves you any purpose for survival— it can give you relief, render you harmless, sensible, passive, if tweaked the right way.
…
Lestat could use the reminder of how good you can really be.
The reminder strikes Lestat on a warm night, when he retires in their flat and finds his Nicki resting in a pool of blood with a socket bayonet stuck up his left eye.
A patch of red covers a fresh dent in the wall above the boy, bloody streaks concentrated on the same spot point down at the shaking culprit, whose sane eye already looks dead. Lestat’s senses are overwhelmed at his sight, before he can even process the scene in front of him his fangs are already dropping, mercilessly following their anatomical obligation.
Then he sees the pieces.
Lestat slams a hand over his mouth, bracing himself onto the nearest wall; across the flooring lie dozens of little sliced wrinkled membranes, some chunks bigger, some smaller, the carpet soaking all the excess, leaving the inside that should never know outside bare.
Sickness overwhelms Lestat, careless of what his heart can handle, painful shivers travel through his anatomy like electricity. Nicki. Nicki. Nicki. It pounds loudest. What have you done.
Nicki’s good eye flutters. It tries to stare at Lestat, but it stays foggy and unfocused. It blinks.
“My love.”
Lestat sobs.
Nicki tries to stand but slips into the blood, old and darkened, a pool of cadaver’s waste. He giggles the fall off as a silly mistake before trying again, again, again, his legs visibly mellow and soft like a newborn’s fawn’s. Lestat can’t bear to witness.
“Please sit down Nicki— stay down,” he rushes to help, but the reek of dead urges his vampiric nature to stand back. Lestat pushes through, quivering hands wrapping around his shoulder. Nicki hushes when he’s touched.
“I got it,” Nicki mutters, a bone chilling softness in his voice as he pushes his legs forward to pull his back upright on the wall. The bayonet remains still, Lestat’s hands remain useless. “It’s my first time,” he smiles from the right side of his face, dreamily staring into him; into nothing.
“No,” Lestat’s voice cracks. “No Nicki—“
“Not angry,” Nicki interrupts, only one of his fledgling fang descends, eerily uneven. “Not sad, not jealous, not crazy. Love me again. Fixed, few tweaks, like ‘maitre said.”
His heart stops.
“Armand made you do this?” Lestat’s voice drops.
“Armand,” Nicki repeats slowly, chewing and savouring the word on his tongue. “Armand helped, now’m enough for you.”
His eye starts bleeding, Lestat visibly flinches at the sight, a motion Nicki doesn’t fail to catch. When he opens his mouth to reassure him, drool streams from the side of his lip.
“Part of it.”
Lestat cups his face. Ignores all that pushes him to stand back and run to his mother’s hands. He should have never tried to be his maker— he should have never turned him into this creature. He should have died where Magnus left him. He should have left Nicolas to die underground.
Nicolas repels him. He has for long time.
“I love you,” Lestat whispers with a slither of voice, hoping it will fix his ill. Hoping it will make up for his absence at the theatre, cleanse the blood on the floor, gather the pieces, stack them back together. His love is always enough. “I love you Nicki. Do you hear me?”
The boy hums softly, soaking the warmth of those cradling, terrified hands.
It isn’t enough. Lestat’s eyes brim with tears.
“Why would I ever want you like this?!” He raises his voice at last, a sob caught in his throat. There comes the anger, the blame game the two play until exhaustion, the screaming matches that end with painful silences and forever knotted grudges: it’s your fault, it’s always your fault. It meant something before, but not now.
“You didn’t have to say,” Nicki croons with a sweet half smile, putty into his hands, basking in this crafted peace. His expression of awe morphs into something more familiar a moment after, twisting into the hurt Lestat has learnt to turn away from. “You never say,” his voice cracks.
Lestat braces him, wrapping his arms around the boy’s back and nuzzling in the crook of his shoulder. He can feel something wet dripping still, but he’s far too afraid to look. Flashes of the room before Nicolas’ fixing brighten behind his eyelids. His head slammed into the wall time and time again, the cracks in his skull healing too fast to allow matter to escape— then scrambling through the utilities, hunting equipment, blades, guns— something else, long and thin enough to be precise. Then in front of a mirror, the fastest way in: a pinch to keep his eyelid pinned up, pushing inside, pushing, pushing, prodding, squelching, liquid coming out, incessant probing until the anger stops.
Peace. Nothing. Everything. An itching starting in the back of his head. A bug crawling behind the eye. No pain. Sounds that don’t exist, colours that don’t exist. Dripping. No pain.
Nothing.
Everything.
Lestat.
They crumble on the floor together, Lestat is crying in Nicki’s shoulder now, sounds of distress that become static that become nothing. Nicki doesn’t understand what it means but knows he is being held, being warmed by Lestat, being loved by Lestat. Nicki feels a touch close to a kiss for a second. Then another, another. A liquid drips still and incessant. Something spongy and wet slides down an opening and splatters into the floor. Which opening? His body wet and cold. Too wet. Full of openings, full of entrances and exits from where the darkness escapes and the light enters. Lestat’s light slipping in. Slipping in. It’s wet. But he knows peace. He knows. He knows.
“It’s back,” Nicolas cries, his knees bruised from the kneeling on the splintered wooden floor. He shakes and heaves in Armand’s lap, who brushes his hair back with a cold tenderness. It has been hours of him whimpering the same thing. Armand has not moved.
“It’s back, it’s back. It’s worse. How could you do this to me?” Nicki sobs. “How could you give it to me and then take it away?”
“I warned you it wasn’t permanent,” Armand speaks softly, afraid talking any louder may scare him. Just as anticipated, his skull healed far too quick to indulge in that quiet ignorance, with it his brain, returning to the same old diseased state. “Relief is not meant to last, it’s a state of temporary peace. It’s in the word itself. I tried to tell you—“
“Do it again— make it permanent,” Nicki begs, his reddened eyes spill tears and tears of blood. He’s ruined himself, he’s ruined his lap. He’s ruined. “Do it each night. Put something in me so it may never be allowed to heal—“
“No.”
“Maître—“
“No, Nicolas.”
It’s a cruelty to deny the boy peace, but just as cruel to grant him a vacant life without any awareness. Lestat has disappeared yet again, unable to bear the creature he birthed— now left into Armand’s ignorant hands. Infertile as he is, how would Armand know what to do with him? They are both abandoned, left to wait for his uncertain return.
Nicki can’t understand the concept of abandonment— Nicki soon won’t understand anything, though awareness will occasionally crash into the midst of madness, pulsing and painful clarity that will fade as a déjà vu as soon as it comes, eternal reminder of his illness.