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hekateinhell · 4 months

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Anne Rice plotting out Louis's (permanent) death in the early notes for Merrick...

Since I was already referencing a response I gave to a question about Armand's possible reaction to Louis's suicide attempt earlier today, I remembered this that I stumbled on while going through the Anne Rice Collection at Tulane — which in a way answers that very same question:

This scene has to be major in the novel, and as I see it now, Claudia will be extremely horrible to Louis and drive him to suicide.

Louis will expose himself to the sun, and the others will find his burned body in its coffin on the flat portion of the slate roof of the townhouse.

Those who will come together, having felt the passing of Louis will include Armand and Merrique.

David will be for scattering all the ashes of Louis. But Armand and Lestat will refuse to do it. Then Lestat will be won over. Armand will want to pour blood on the ashes. Armand and Lestat will get in a battle, and finally Armand will give up, and Lestat will pick up the lumps of charcoal of the body, pulverize them and scatter them to the winds.

Okay, but Armand and Lestat battling over whether Louis can be brought back to life? Lestat scattering Louis's ashes while Armand presumably watches, defeated? My heart!

Next time you complain about Merrick, remember... it could've ended like this.

I love Louis and I love him with Armand and Lestat both (separately and all together), so of course I'm very grateful Anne didn't go this route! But the idea that she might've??? 🫢

I'm not up to write this level of Angst™️ and do it justice but it's definitely something that could be explored further in fic! And it is one (of many lmao) instances where you can see such a stark difference between where Anne started and where she ended with her novels.

#i haven't fully fleshed out the thought yet so i'm stashing it in tags lol but also i'm wondering if armand and lestat's reactions here-#mirror enough of the actual canon in BC when louis is kidnapped #like there's not enough on lestat's mindset given HERE for us to stay but i imagine he's numbed out and destroyed and therefore susceptible #to david's suggestion to scatter the ashes instead of trying to resurrect louis #the vampire chronicles #vc #the skateboard of shakespeare #<- my tulane tag #lestat/louis #armand/louis #louis de pointe du lac #armand #lestat de lioncourt #quotes #anne rice

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v-e-l-v-e-t-g-o-l-d-m-i-n-e · 2 months

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Lestat/Armand + Moments that makes me feel Insane

If there had been a summons, I never heard it. If there was a greeting, I didn't sense it now. He was merely looking at me, a radiant creature in jewels and scalloped lace. And it was Cinderella revealed at the ball, this vision, Sleeping Beauty opening her eyes under a mesh of cobwebs and wiping them all away with one sweep of her warm hand. The sheer pitch of incarnate beauty made me gasp. Yes, perfect mortal raiment, and yet he seemed all the more supernatural, his face too dazzling, his dark eyes fathomless and just for a split second glinting as if they were windows to the fires of hell. And when his voice came it was low and almost teasing, forcing me to concentrate to hear it: All night you've been searching for me, he said, and here I am, waiting for you. I have been waiting for you all along. - The Vampire Lestat

He looked to Gabrielle, who stood near the fire, and then to me. And silently, he said, Love me. You have destroyed everything! But if you love me, it can all be restored in a new form. Love me. This silent entreaty had an eloquence, however, that I can't put into words. "What can I do to make you love me?" he whispered. "What can I give? The knowledge of all I have witnessed, the secrets of our powers, the mystery of what I am?" It seemed blasphemous to answer. And as I had on the battlements, I found myself on the edge of tears. For all the purity of his silent communications, his voice gave a lovely resonance to his sentiments when he actually spoke. - The Vampire Lestat

"It wasn't that I wanted vengeance," he whispered. His face was stricken, his heart broken. He said. "But you came to be healed, and you did not want me! A century I had waited, and you did not want me!" And I knew, as I had all along really, that my restoration was illusion, that I was the same skeleton in rags, of course. And the house was still a ruin. And in the preternatural being who held me was the power that could give me back the sky and the wind. "Love me and the blood is yours," he said. "This blood that I have never given to another." I felt his lips against my face. "I can't deceive you," I answered. "I can't love you. What are you to me that I should love you? A dead thing that hungers for the power and the passion of others? The embodiment of thirst itself?" [...] Yet memory plays its tricks. Maybe I imagined it, his last invitation, and the anguish after. The weeping. I do know that as the months passed he was out there again. I heard him from time to time just walking those old Garden District streets. And I wanted to call to him, to tell him that it was a lie I'd spoken to him, that I did love him. I did. - The Vampire Lestat

In a way, he made me think of a child doll, with brilliant faintly red-brown glass eyes—a doll that had been found in an attic. I wanted to polish him with kisses, clean him up, make him even more radiant than he was. “That’s what you always want,” he said softly. His voice shocked me. If he had any French or Italian accent left, I couldn’t hear it. His tone was melancholy and had no meanness in it at all. “When you found me under Les Innocents,” he said, “you wanted to bathe me with perfume and dress me in velvet with great embroidered sleeves.” “Yes,” I said, “and comb your hair, your beautiful russet hair.” My tone was angry. “You look good to me, you damnable little devil, good to embrace and good to love.” We eyed each other for a moment. And then he surprised me, rising and coming towards me just as I moved to take him in my arms. His gesture wasn’t tentative, but it was extremely gentle. I could have backed away. I didn’t. We held each other tight for a moment. The cold embracing the cold. The hard embracing the hard. - Memnoch

Lestat, not a bad friend to have, and one for whom I would lay down my immortal life, one for whose love and companionship I have ofttimes begged, one whom I find maddening and fascinating and intolerably annoying, one without whom I cannot exist. - The Vampire Armand

I wanted to take him in my arms. I wanted to comfort him, to tell him wherever he'd gone and whatever had taken place, he was now safe again with us, but nothing could quiet him. A deep exhaustion saved us all from the inevitable tale. We had to seek our dark corners away from the prying sun, we had to wait until the following night when he would come out to us and tell us what had happened. Still clutching the bundle, refusing all help, he closeted himself up with his wound. I had no choice but to leave him. As I sank down that morning into my own resting place, secure in clean modern darkness, I cried and cried like a child on account of the sight of him. Oh, why had I come to his aid? Why must I see him brought low like this when it had taken so many painful decades to cement my love for him forever? - The Vampire Armand

Two hundred years ago he stripped me of illusions, lies, excuses, and thrust me on the Paris pavements naked to find my way back to a glory in the starlight that I had once known and too painfully lost. But as we waited finally in the handsome high-rise apartment above St. Patrick's Cathedral, I had no idea how much more he could strip from me, and I hate him only because I cannot imagine my soul without him now, and, owing him all that I am and know, I can do nothing to make him wake from his frigid sleep. - The Vampire Armand

Of course I knew the very moment that he left this world. I felt it. I was in New York already, very near to him and aware that you were there as well. Neither of us meant to let him out of our sight if at all possible. Then came the moment when he vanished in the blizzard, when he was sucked out of the earthly atmosphere as if he'd never been there. Being his fledgling you couldn't hear the perfect silence that descended when he vanished. You couldn't know how completely he'd been withdrawn from all things minuscule yet material which had once echoed with the beating of his heart. - The Vampire Armand

“Armand,” I said. “Please.” I dropped down on my knees in front of him, looking up into his face. All the emotion he had held back was printed there now. He was in a rage. “Is your heart totally turned against me?” I asked. “Do you have no faith in what we seek to build here?” “Fool,” he said again. His voice was roughened now by emotion he couldn’t suppress. “I have always loved you,” he said. “I have loved you more than any being in all the world whom I’ve ever loved. I have loved you more than Louis. I have loved you more even than Marius. And you have never given me your love. I would be your most faithful counselor, if you allowed it. But you don’t. Your eyes pass over me as if I don’t exist. And so they always have.” - Blood Communion

“I love you still,” he said. “Yes, even now, I love you, as they all love you, your minions seeking just a smile or a nod or a quick touch of your hand. I love you like all those throughout this palace who are dreaming of drinking just a drop of your blood. Well, you can leave me now. I’m not going anywhere. Where is there to go? I’ll be here if you want me. And grant me my wish for the moment, you and your august friends. Go and leave me alone.” - Blood Communion

Armand suddenly began to weep. “Don’t do it, don’t trust him,” he said. “Lestat, he’ll just destroy you. And if you are gone—.” Ah, such sweet words from one who only hours ago had been cursing me with his every breath. - Blood Communion

The only thought in my mind, the only image, the only idea, was of Armand, and how Armand would feel when he too could hold Marius like this and know that Marius lived, that Marius had been restored, that all of them were safe and secure, and using my strongest power I sent the word to him. I sent the news. And I sent my love to Armand with it. - Blood Communion

#Vampire Chronicles #i've been meaning to do this for like two months lol once again i'm spreading my lesmand agenda #lesmand #armandstat #Lestat de Lioncourt #Armand #the vampire chronicles #the vampire armand #long post #the vampire lestat #amadeo #andrei #blood communion #memnoch #Lestat x Armand #Armand x Lestat

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hedonistbyheart · 1 year

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The vampire Armand with the manifest ghost of his best friend that he murdered in desperation. It’s fine. Don’t ask.

#vampire chronicles #the vampire armand #riccardo #armand #andrei ivanovich #amadeo #tvc #vc #my art #i don't know what is going on with the style but i wanted it unsettling and i'm pretty sure it is that lol #more vc art - it's more likely than you think!

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desertfangs · 2 months

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Daniel Molloy at the end of his 32 mortal years, half-drunk and half-mad with blood-induced dreams, is the biggest disaster of all time:

He'd been sitting on a bench in the little park near the Water Tower Place. A newspaper had been left there, and when he opened it he saw the advertisement: "Tomorrow Night: The Vampire Lestat Live on Stage in San Francisco." The cable would broadcast the concert at ten o'clock Chicago time. How nice for those who still lived indoors, could pay their rent, and had electricity. He had wanted to laugh at the whole thing, delight in it, revel in it, Lestat surprising them all.

How nice for those who could pay their rent?! My boy, you own an island! You have a rich vampire boyfriend. I know he's playing life and death chicken with Armand at this point buy goodness, you lost your wallet, you're not homeless. Just phone home!

I love him so much, he's such a wreck!

#daniel molloy #armand #devils minion #armand/daniel #devil's minion #i love him so much he's such a wreck #whenever i feel like i've lost control of my life i'm just going to reread devil's minion #daniel is a hot mess #vampire chronicles #vc #vc meta #vc quotes #queen of the damned #the devil's minion #sometimes i forget how melodramatic daniel can be too lol #he's as bad as the rest of them

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shadowsong26x · 9 months

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so rewatching the IWTV s2 teaser again and...

so there's that one very quick flash between louis detouring into another novel wandering through what may be a sewer and Fire Happening. the bit in the forest, where he's getting kind of beat up?

and i just.

gabrielle??????!!!!!!!

#my best beloved murder kitten armand is also v. pretty in this i approve #but yeah gabrielle is another of my favorites sooooo #and while nicki got talked about a fair amount they didn't really mention her #and like...if they cut her i kind of get why but #again another one of my favorites lol #and of all the things about you that i'm going to miss; it's the bond we formed together through this crimson kiss #iwtv #interview with the vampire #iwtv amc #((...very tangentially related but))#((while one of my issues with s1 is that it...sort of took away the idea that claudia and lestat ever loved each other))#((anyway i think a gifset of the two of them in that last episode with the chorus of 'after all this time' would be. Very Cool))#((and after all this time/i'll wash my hands of your charade/and celebrate your fall from grace/preserve that sad look on your face))#((and praise what god might manifest/himself in beings such as us/for vengeance that at last is mine/comes sweetly after all this time))

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0junemeatcleaver0 · 2 years

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alright. time to stop fiddly-fartin' around. i gotta at least try to finish chapter four. especially since i've added a new scene to it to fix the pacing.

#wip: angelheaded #i almost said #'hope yall like daddy kink'#and then remembered i'm writing armand/marius #lol #hope yall like textual daddy kink #instead of the canon subtextual daddy kink

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sangcreole · 1 year

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SCREAMS

#just got done recording our final podcast episode for the iwtv series #i'm so devastated lmfao i make myself so sad bc every time i talk about the show i find new ways that it's fucked up LOL #i care so much about louis i'm just so sad abt the implications for next season with armand #i was gonna come back here to cheer myself up with rp but i feel like all my threads and the stuff in my askbox is kinda sad LMAO #send me some goofy anons X)#*【 ❛I'm not the spirit of any age. ❜ 】 ➤ OOC #;delete

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notachair · 2 years

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omgg the imagery of lestat turning louis at the foot of the chancel (?) with christ baring witness, I cannot-

#the gift of new life after the willing sacrifice of one's own life #louis' baptism #born anew #the monstrosity of his new life in comparison to what is promised by a baptism #it happening *in a church* after killing the priest (?)#lestat's bloody embrace #the emphasis on desire #the emphasis on commitment #louis' catholicism being so central to this #the holy place tolerating lestat's entrance. killing and feeding of the priest. and the *un*holy baptism #like. I want to put emphasis on that and what it may say to louis. also the sorta parallels back to the whole armand's satanic cult going #''we cannot enter churches'' bit #lol imagine being reborn as a vampire within a church that would have actually killed you. maybe being bitten and seeking refuge 👀 but #also turned regardless to something ''demonic'' and suffering for it. whether that is a blessing or not to that life cut short. 👀#or maybe one is left terribly weak #hard times for louis apparently #oh also ofc. the gayness #enjoyed this newest trailer more than the last clip I watched #things are def different. lots of changes and adjustments. probably gonna be some I won't be too happy about. but I'm just hoping to have #fun with what we get. this as a story on its own. I want a riiideeee #and. I was actually surprisingly impressed with the first trailer I saw #crossing my fingers my guys 🤞🤞#gotta say tho. I think the lenses a bit of a shame. they look so wacky. and sure. ''it good cause they unsettling and they vampires''#but it also just takes me out a bit cause it's just *something* about them that makes the acting lose some of its emotive quality? idk obv #also to my shock I could edit the tags here #iwtv #amc iwtv #tvc #amc's interview with the vampire #amc's iwtv

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unnecessarilygrandiose · 1 year

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holy shit. i finally watched the last episode. i'm shaking. what a finale. i. am. i think i should let myself process this for a minute

#iwtv #interview with the vampire #so like. everyone was right rashid Was indeed armand #'mediocre star to a 514 year old vampire' bestie?? that star is still 4.5 billion years older than you? lol #ahahahha i cannot believe that's what i'm typing rn when my hand is shaking in shock #rashid is. i feel a little aggrieved rn. why do i feel like i'm grieving? i loved rashid so much surely i'll still love him as armand #also louis and rashid i mean. armand. are together?? i love love love this??#it has no right to be this enticing and yet??#this episode was finally too gory for me i found myself looking away at the massacre scene #although maybe i didn't mind it too much either because i was eating chicken nuggets while watching it lol.#and i started eating at the elixir scene too #i was so happy when lestat said amrit ras btw hehe #so acc to book readers lestat is going to be the focus of next season. i wonder how? this story seems decidedly not finished #daniel has no clue yet where lestat might be so..?#perhaps the story will skip ahead and behind? like next season about lestat then back to louis?#or maybe next season will also focus on louis and lestat will happen in s3?#okay okay also. what happened to claudia. we at least know what course lestat's life took for a few years after the story at least but #what about cluadia? when did she and louis separate ways? and how?#i'm also very excited about ras— armand. ya know what i'm gonna call him rashmand i keep typing rashid before remembering #yeah so i'm so excited about rashmand and louis' origin story. like really really excited #this new context to the blood sucking scene is making me salivate in excitement lolololol #also um. i think we do need more information as to why louis and rashmand decided to do the interview at all #like it's so curious #i'm thinking about the episode where rashid goes on that rant about how by doing the interview daniel is condemning louis and lestat both #which happened during the blood sucking scene too right?#yeah #so if rashid thinks that why would he and louis do this at all?#oh wow. what a show. i love it so much.#for some reason i'm thinking rn about all the levels and layers to which my mother would disapprove of me watching it lmao

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hekateinhell · 6 months

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Armand/Daniel "Oh, hey now, don't start crying on me"

New York City, 1979

"Oh, hey now, don't start crying on me," Daniel swallowed, the gin and tonic Armand had so lovingly prepared minutes earlier churning restlessly in his stomach as the hand that wasn't still holding the empty glass came to pet Armand's curls on his lap.

Not the first time Daniel had seen Armand cry, but that didn't make it any fucking easier. His father's voice rang through his head, overlapping with the intro to Saturday Night Live: "Now don't cry like a little bitch, son. Makes you look weak. A goddamn punching bag. And that's no son of mine, so you better man the fuck up or I'll give you something to cry about!"

Daniel blinked hard, willing himself to focus. Willed the alcohol to clear his system immediately, as if that would make this any easier. As if that would give him the answers to all the questions he's ever asked.

One of the two ice cubes in the glass had fully melted, and the other wasn't far behind.

"Hey, hey, it's okay."

It's not okay.

Shit people say when they want it to be okay and it's not gonna be. Never gonna be. But they can't stand being powerless and so they lie to themselves and everyone around them to maintain the grand illusion.

He never knows what to do when Armand's crying. It's so... fucking human.

So fucking human it hurts.

A different shade of vulnerability on Armand than his laughter endows him. When Armand laughed—a genuine, full-body laugh—Daniel could see him as the witty, sweet-natured youth with a sharp tongue he must have been once upon a time. Strange to think that anyone who's ever seen that has been dead for half a thousand years, huh, Danny boy? He could almost imagine what Armand would've looked like with the sunlight kissing his skin, igniting the reddish highlights in his dark auburn hair, a constellation of freckles over the bridge of his nose and across his cheekbones. Stranger still to think of seeing his mouth open and no fangs in sight. And would you have loved him just the same? Daniel shuddered at the thought.

Yes, laughter was one thing, but crying? Tears?

The way Armand cried—silent and unblinking, unbreathing—made Daniel think of a child in some distinctly horrifying way. Made his heart wrench in two, his skin crawl, and the edges of his vision blur.

Because it's not the way some children cry when they scrap their knees on the pavement or wake up from a nightmare. Loud and visceral and sure to make Mom come running down the hall.

No, Armand cried like a child who had learned long ago there was no point in crying out loud. And staring into the quarter inch of water now in his glass, Daniel knew why.

He knew that cry; he'd cried that cry.

Hiding his closet, biting into his ratty teddy bear so that his father wouldn't hear and beat him for having the audacity to feel emotion the old man didn't know what to do with. And what had been the lesson? No wonder he didn't know how to comfort this creature he so loved. Dear God, you might as well be as emotionally stunned as that cankerous, old-

Armand squirmed over Daniel's thighs then, snuggling into him as his eyes finally closed and his body gave. His smaller hand reaching for the one Daniel still had on his head.

A lingering kiss to his fingertips, a soft nudge against Daniel's brain: Thank you, lover. You are such a comfort to me.

It's okay.

Everything's okay.

#not sure what you were looking for anon but it got just a bit angsty rip i'm brooding tonight #i didnt have time to get into it-#but in my head armand is crying because he's feeling the weight of 500 years of unbroken existence and missing his mom!!!!#i'm so out of practice writing this ship even though it used to be my bread and butter LOL hope you like it #armand/daniel #devil's minion #vc #armand #daniel molloy #prompts

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volixia669 · 2 years

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Torn between knowing Anne Rice was a piece of shit but also REALLY wanting to satisfy 13 year old me via watching the 10x gayer adaptation.

#interview with a vampire #vampire chronicles #anne rice #oh fuck is there gonna be a new wave of fanfic #because show and also lol she dead #ALSO YES REVIEWERS ARE SAYING THE SHOW TAKES THE SUBTEXT AND MAKES IT TEXT #and presumably also brings in an editor #the real question is how much of the vampire chronicles are they going to adapt #like #they could stop at interview #or go to queen of the damned aka the last book of hers with an editor #OR they could go all the way to the vampire armand and show us what that book looks like when there's actually an editor #no i'm not going to stop giving the wicked witch shit for not using an editor #she needed one BADLY

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kingdomoftyto · 2 years

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Paused the musical to look up a part in the book and ended up spending 6+ hours reading-slash-skimming a good chunk of the novel haha rip

#ignore me #Tyto watches LtM #so yeah turns out I had forgotten pretty much everything that happened with Nicolas #that part where he just kind of SNAPS after being catatonic for a while.... oughf #it's 5 a.m. so I'm actually having to put the book DOWN lol but i feel like there's no way this guy exists by the time Louis gets to Paris #so I'm guessing he does die at some point?? i just can't recall when or how ugh. presumably something to do with Armand...?#ffffuuuu I'll skim through the rest of the book in the morning #either way holy shit dude. i know i keep saying it but i can't believe how invested i am in Lestat as a character

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desertfangs · 11 months

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Daniel/Lestat '"I'm not going to do it again, this isn't a peep show."

This one is long and a little melancholy. I think I'm in a mood, ha! But I hope you enjoy it even though it didn't get smutty (I was trying to go there but I keep getting derailed.)

“I’m not going to do it again, this isn’t a peep show,” Daniel said, tugging his sweatshirt down over the waistband of his jeans.

“No?” Lestat leaned against the shelf below. Daniel glared from the ladder. He was trying to find the box they’d come for here in the archives of the Night Island cellar, and Lestat kept making lewd comments when his sweatshirt rode up and revealed his midsection.

“We didn’t come all the way to Florida so you could stare at my stomach.”

“Perhaps not, but there’s no sense in not enjoying the view.” Lestat smirked.

Daniel rolled his eyes, ignoring the flush that ran up his neck. “Do you want to see it or not?”

“And if I say no? That I’ve changed my mind? Then what?”

“Then you can get off of my island,” Daniel said, moving the ladder to the next shelf over.

Lestat dramatically clutched his heart, as if shocked by his harshness, and Daniel smiled.

He climbed up the ladder and found most of these boxes were labeled 83 and 84. That was the right time period, at least. He pulled one down and opened it. It was full of papers. Bills, mostly, long paid, with no reason to keep them. He dug through it vaguely out of curiosity but there wasn’t anything worth holding onto that he could see. He took the sharpie out of his pocket and wrote “Old Mail” on the side of the box.

Armand was a pack-rat of the highest order, and he’d been worse in the early 80s, keeping everything no matter how unnecessary. One of these days, Daniel was going to drag Armand down here and get him to go through this place and throw out the junk.

“You’d be better off doing it alone,” Lestat said. He was studying his fingernails, his rings glinting on his pale fingers. “He won’t miss what you toss.”

“That’s probably true.” Still, Daniel worried about throwing the wrong thing out and it coming back to bite him in a hundred years. Though what use Armand might possibly have for thirty-year-old utility bills was beyond him.

The next box was clothes. Old, ratty socks and underwear of Daniel’s, ones Armand had thrown out because they’d become too full of holes to be worth wearing. Or rather, Daniel had thought he’d thrown them out. Apparently he’d boxed them up and shoved them on a shelf down here in the storage rooms of the cellar.

Daniel saw Lestat watching him in his periphery. He closed the box and slid it back into place. The next one was more junk: matchbooks pilfered from bars, random keys to god only knew what, spare buttons, a few coins, a pair of sunglasses with one of the lenses missing, and a pack of Big Red gum that would probably crumble to dust if opened. Junk drawer stuff, as if Armand had dumped the contents of the junk drawer of their last house into a box when they’ve moved into the Villa. Which, now that Daniel looked at it, he clearly had.

“You know, I find it’s easier to remove the garbage from Louis’ collections bit by bit,” Lestat mused.

Daniel glanced down at him. “How often does he notice something’s missing?”

Lestat folded his arms over his chest. “More often than I’d like. He’s meticulous about his trash.”

Daniel laughed. “Or maybe you guys have different definitions of what should be held onto.” Daniel looked into the box one more time, detritus from a lifetime ago, and closed it up. So it went, Daniel trying to notate the contents of each box to make a future clean out easier as he opened them and put them back. Lestat watched, not bothering to help—“You know your maker’s organizational system best”—and occasionally making a comment about Daniel’s ass as he climbed the ladder.

Finally, two shelves down, Daniel found the box. He was suddenly glad for Armand’s almost obsessive need to keep things. “Got it.” He climbed back down the ladder, box under his arm, and left the ladder where he’d set it up. “Come on.”

Lestat followed him up out of the cellar and into the parlor. Daniel opened the French doors that lead to a veranda with a view of the ocean to let in some air and then took the box over to the coffee table.

Lestat bounded over with the enthusiasm of a puppy, eager and impatient. Daniel opened the box. He pulled out a stack of t-shirts and tossed one at Lestat’s head. Lestat laughed in surprise. It was tie-die, blue, purple and green. The stack had various experiments with colors, all mixed together in funky patterns.

Lestat unfolded the shirt and held it up his chest, over the plain blue shirt he wore beneath his leather jacket. “What do you think?”

“It suits you,” Daniel said. He lifted stack of Polaroid photos from the box. Armand, his auburn hair short, wearing the very shirt Lestat was holding. He looked so blank as he stared at the camera. He did that sometimes when Daniel took photos of him, froze into this neutral statue of a thing. Lestat came and sat beside Daniel, the shirt in his lap.

Danie flipped through the photos. Armand in a shirt that had not come out as well and was mostly blotches of color. Daniel in one of the shirts smiling awkwardly. Daniel with his back to the camera, standing on the veranda, a cigarette in his hand, wearing the orange-and-red tie-die shirt.

Lestat took the one photo where Armand was laughing, Daniel having managed to catch him at the right moment, still in the blue-purple-green shirt, dye standing his pale white fingers as he held them up and laughed.

Daniel’s heart squeezed. Those were the photos Daniel loved, the ones where Armand was natural and himself, how he’d been so much of the time.

“I suppose I owe you ten dollars,” Lestat said.

They’d been watching some TV special about the 70s and the tie-dye trend, and Daniel had bet that there were photos of Armand in a tie-dye shirt. Lestat hadn’t believed it.

“This was 83,” Daniel said. “Armand found the tie-dye kit somewhere, I don’t even remember. I only remember we spent like half the week making shirts.”

He dug into the box, pulling out even more shirts, some better than others, all arrays of colors and designs. They’d had to knot up the t-shirts in different ways to get different patterns on them. It had been a meticulous process.

At the bottom of the box was a VHS tape. Daniel frowned. On the side it was labeled “Tie-dye, 83.” Daniel vaguely remembered Armand filming with his camcorder but he did that all the time back then, filming random bits and pieces of their lives.

Lestat snatched the tape and examined it “Is this some display of your passions inflamed by tie-dye?”

Daniel snorted. “Yeah, totally, a tie-dye sex tape.” Although Daniel couldn’t remember what was on it. Sometimes there were little snippets of intimacy in their home videos. Most of them were unedited, just snippets of things Armand decided to film.

“Well if there’s video evidence of him wearing these hideous clothes, that’s worth quite a bit more than ten dollars.” Lestat grinned at him.

Daniel rolled his eyes. “He’s going to murder me,” he muttered. “Come on, I think there’s still a VCR in the den.”

The den was on the second floor, a smaller room as far as rooms in the Villa went, but sure enough, it still had a VCR and an old television. Everything in the room was covered in plastic and Daniel removed it before sliding the tape into the player. He and Lestat settled on the couch. Daniel hit play.

On the tape, they were on the veranda downstairs, the doors open. They had big plastic tubs arranged outside for making the shirts in and Daniel was squirting dye into one of them. Daniel watched as on the video, he dropped a t-shirt into the tub and swirled it around in the dyed water. His hand came up stained orange and pink. The tape cut and it was Armand fishing wet, freshly dyed shirts from the tubs. Then another shot of Armand wearing the shirts, telling Daniel to hold the camera steady. Daniel laughing from behind the lens.

Another cut. Daniel was frowning at the camera, smoking a cigarette. He wore the orange and yellow tie dye shirt, his blond hair messy, circles beneath his eyes visible even under his glasses. “Put on the the purple one,” Armand said from behind the camera. “It matches your eyes.”

Danie glared at the camera. “Let me finish my cigarette.”

“I’ll hold your cigarette,” Armand offered. The camera moved closer.

“Jesus Christ, Armand, we’ve been doing this for three days, can you just give it a rest?” His tone was harsh, his words slightly slurred. The tape was grainy but Daniel could see how his hand was shaking and the exhaustion on his own face.

“Of course,” came Armand’s reply, his voiceless toneless in a way that indicated he was hurt.

On the couch, Daniel winced. But on the tape, it only irritated past Daniel further.

“You know, it’s easy enough for you to waste a week with this crap, but how many weeks do I have left? You fill our nights with this nonsense like I’m going to forget that my life is slipping out from under me and every day I get older and closer to death.”

Heavy sigh. “Don’t be dramatic, Daniel. You’re still young.”

“For now.” Daniel flicked his cigarette into one of the dye tubs and stormed past the camera, which lingered for a second on the empty space where Daniel had been before turning off.

Daniel’s stomach roiled. Lestat reached over and squeezed his hand, warm and reassuring. Daniel’s throat felt tight. “Sorry you had to see that.”

Lestat scooted closer, putting his arm around Daniel’s shoulders. “C’est rien. I’m grateful none of my fights with Louis are on film. I don’t think I’d enjoy that either.”

Daniel sucked in a shuddering breath. “We fought a lot back then. I was at my wit’s end, haunted by the specter of aging and death, and he was so damned determined that things could just keep going how they were.” Daniel shook his head. He didn’t even remember this particular fight but there had been so many like it that all blurred together, Daniel desperate to make Armand see that he should turn him or at the very least, that he was in pain, while Armand tried to pretend there wasn’t a problem. “God, I was such an asshole.”

Lestat laughed. Daniel looked at him, surprised.

“Danny, my boy, you were in a hard situation and faced with the little imp’s stubbornness. You handled it better than most.”

Daniel sighed. “Yeah, maybe. I just wish…” He shook his head. He wished he’d done a lot of things differently.

“We all have regrets,” Lestat said, his voice low and soft, as if thinking of a few of his own. “The key is not to dwell them on. And look, here you are! And now we have photographic evidence of Armand in the most hideous t-shirts known to man.”

Daniel laughed at that. Lestat smoothed his hair and kissed his temple before standing. “Come, let’s get back to New York. I want to lord those photographs over Armand’s head.”

Daniel smiled and stood. “Oh yeah, he’s definitely going to kill me.”

#this is so long and i'm sure i missed like 5 typos but anyhow i hope people like it #i love lestat actually being genuine with daniel when he's sad okay #lestat/daniel #lestat de lioncourt #daniel molloy #vc fanfic #my fic #night island #the night island #post-canon shenanigans #vc #vampire chronicles #first sentence game #this is like 2000 words i have absolutely failed at keeping it short lol #10 points if you know why Armand kept everything btw

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