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rainbowcarousels · 3 months

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remembering when you said nicki was more of a proto-daniel to armand rather an proto-louis and now i'm upset because it makes sense like lestat never saw nicki at his worst but armand did!! lestat doesn't know what a mentally ill vampire looks like when he meets louis 😭 (and oh boy is that an oxymoron because they're all fucked up but there's degrees)

and now i'm sad <3

So I tried to be thoughtful about this and make it detailed but...then I ended up writing you a fic in response instead. You played with my emotions and now this is what you get. I hope that's okay!

Whatever Louis said, Lestat was not stalking Armand. If anything, historically speaking, Armand had the tendency to stalk him! Even as far back as Paris, before they’d been formally introduced, Armand had stalked him through the theatre and watched his every step.

So if anyone was going to be prone to such an action, surely Louis should be aiming his accusations at their sometimes resident/occasional antagonist/often lover and not at Lestat. Lestat was out here minding his own business and his own business was everything that went on here, so him taking a casual stroll or three through the streets was not considered entirely unusual.

It was more unusual for Armand.

If anyone was acting in a way that you could call peculiar, look no further than his wanderings lately.

Was Louis rubbing off on him? Was he about to meandering about his eternal life now instead of building his fortresses in an illusion of safety? It’s not as if Lestat could say much about that now either. This place, this – what had Daniel called it, a Disney with fangs meets Colonial Williamsburg, this was supposed to be a place to make decisions, to keep safe the core of their ongoing immortality and it was supposed to mean something. A place to come to that felt safe.

Lestat huffed to himself.

In the end, that was all any of them really did, this building of safe havens and places to escape to.

Maybe for Armand, this was not unlike him watching Lestat at that theatre or ransacking the apartment. If he was out here gathering information, filing it away behind those intense eyes as if he were trying to make a mental folder all about him. Lestat wasn’t ruling it out. Lots of people had folders about him.

That was what happened when you ended up as the sparkling example of modern vampirism, fall apart and then try to put your pieces back together as if you’re collecting puzzle pieces. People watched you. People wondered about your decisions and considered the choices you made, even if Lestat often felt more like an oversized mascot than a Prince.

And secretly, or perhaps not so secretly by this point, that was how he’d prefer it. To be loud and wild and without the heaviness of a crown he took for the greater good but knowing it was being handled by people he could trust. As much as you could trust anyone with that kind of thing. As long as Armand and Louis never got up in arms at him at the same time, as long as Gabrielle didn’t join the rant, it was probably all running as best it can with egos larger than even his all stuffed into a little ruling party.

So if Lestat came out for a constitutional now and then, mostly now, then it was not out of character for him. It didn't mean he was stalking anyone, thank you very much.

“You’ve also established it isn’t odd for me either.”

Of course Armand was aware of him. Lestat hadn’t been trying to hide. They didn’t hide from each other, not anymore. Why should they?

“You don’t wander aimlessly.” They’d come to a stop outside the Inn, but the streets were quiet. Everything was stunningly quiet. “Since you don’t grant me access to your mind often, I must resort to more mundane methods to sniff out the mystery.”

“Louis doesn’t walk aimlessly either,” Armand deflected. “He enjoys it. That is the aim.”

“Louis doing something simply for the joy of doing it,” Lestat said, looking away from Armand and back around the streets. Doubtless people were watching him from somewhere, but he couldn’t tell exactly where from at this moment. “Will wonders never cease?”

“Joy is not spontaneous to everyone,” Armand replied evenly. “Even for you, sometimes you have to reach for it.”

“Are you reaching for it?” Lestat asked.

“I hope so,” Armand said, his expression changing from the impassive to something a little softer, something that suited those little cherubic cheeks a lot better.

This was closer to how he’d looked when he’d arrived, fledgling in tow, well over a week ago now. Something burning in veins far more potent than blood, anticipation for a reunion of their little family, perhaps?

It had only been a few nights ago that this melancholy wandering had set in. Lestat had wracked his mind to find the cause of it.

There were the complications of their relationship, but they’d embraced as lovers long apart do and he’d felt the warmth of him in his heart. No, Armand had been as happy to see him as he’d been to have him there.

Louis had been quiet, but Louis was often quiet and the court was very social. Armand of all people knew that Louis liked his little corners to disappear in so he didn’t think being ignored was the issue.

There was Marius and the inevitable difficulties of their relationship, but he’d greeted him with more warmth than usual.

There was also Daniel, but he’d arrived with Daniel in good spirits and whatever they had been working out together, it seemed to be a source of something beautiful and not something that would cause him to wander about like a lost child.

Who else was there that could cause such a response in him?

It was embarrassing that it took more than another few nights before Lestat realised where Armand tended to end up. It was a route he walked himself on occasion, when he was longing for someone else, someone that they’d shared a very long time ago without ever truly sharing him. Eleni had once told him that Armand had taken Nicolas’s death almost as well as Lestat had – so was this why he wandered by the places he had to know clung to his spirit?

Not literally, Nicolas had never shown up as others had in ghostly form, but there was an imprint of him at the places they wandered past - his fathers shop with the open window, the inn, the square, even Lestat’s rooms.

Had Lestat simply not realised that Armand had found some way to grieve another old loss, not unlike Lestat himself had been trying to do?

Eventually, he found Armand in one of the larger rooms that had been turned into something of a crafting studio by the more creative of among them. Armand had sat himself in the corner, letting two dead former lovers talk wildly about plans for some project with such an intense passion that suddenly, in his mind, something clicked into place.

When he had left Nicolas with Armand, it had been because he thought that Armand needed a guide to the then modern world. Daniel had been the same thing two centuries later. Both were sarcastic, brash, passionate about their respective arts and both had fallen into an obsessive madness before their very eyes.

“Before my eyes.” Armand’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Be thankful you didn’t see the worst of it.”

Lestat met his eye and couldn’t help but grimace. “I still wish I had,” he said.It didn’t matter that all logic said he was making things worse by staying, that their relationship had been destroyed the moment he was pulled through that window and it had been cruel to keep hanging on after that. “If only for more time. He had always wanted more time to become whoever he was supposed to be.”

“Instead, the infinity of time was the problem.” Armand wasn’t looking at him at all. Maybe it was too hard to do so. “Did you really think it would end any other way?”

Lestat could think of no rebuttal to that. Maybe before he’d drank so deeply, seen such desolation and misery, then yes, he believed they could get past it. It may have taken a while, but there would be time. It was all Nicolas had ever wanted, the time to study, the time to become the musician he wanted to be and maybe it was Lestat’s own foolishness to think that may have made him happy.

“Giving someone what they think want can cause more problems than it solves,” Armand said.

It was only then that Lestat understood, that the reason he wasn’t looking at Lestat wasn’t because he was overcome with some old emotion but rather that he was looking at another child that should never have to pass: his own.

Daniel had been exactly what Lestat had hoped Nicolas would be for Armand, his link to the world, a teacher of how to be a person from the most self possessed person he knew and yet, shortly after coming into the blood, their relationship had been ripped to shreds too. Daniel had slipped into obsession while Armand had slipped into despair.

But they had recovered. Armand had founded Trinity Gate with Louis, he had kept the children safe and he had begun to connect with old lovers and lovers that should have been. From his understanding, Daniel had slowly found his way back to the world under Marius’ care and his patience, something Armand confessed he didn’t know he could give another of his blood. They had found new life in themselves before finding each other again.

If Nicolas had the time, if they had all known what they know now, could he have recovered from his fevered mind?

Could he have found himself in the rubble and as stubbornly as he had cursed him out, as creatively as he had written his music, as persistently as he had practiced his craft, begun to see the world as something that could be beautiful? No, not beautiful, beautiful wouldn’t have been enough, but as something interesting, something thought provoking, something that could have kept his mind from slipping down into the wailing waves of his own internal agonies?

“I did what I thought would help.” Armand’s voice was tight now. “Clearly Marius knows something I don’t.”

“And if you’re not careful, he’ll give you an extensive yet largely uninformative lecture on what it is.” Lestat reached for his hands, cupping them in his own. They were fever hot and it warmed something within him to do it. “I am not casting blame on you. I know that you did everything you could, and you always do. I’m not blind to what you did for Louis. I’m not blind to what you do for me either. I’m just a little sad to think of what we could have had.”

“He would have liked that,” Armand said, eyes flickering to Lestat’s own. There was the briefest hint of an affectionate smile, but if it was for how Nicolas seemed to make despair and darkness into something to be loved or for Lestat then or Lestat now, who knows? “Any idiot can make you smile, but this deep sense of grief, a sweet misery, I think he would have liked to be remembered as having caused that.”

“You’re right,” Lestat agreed. Any idiot could be happy, he’d often said, in fact idiots were often happier because they didn’t know any differently. This mix of grief, nostalgia, pain and pleasure tied into a memory, it would be how his Nicki would want to be remembered. “And things didn’t turn out so badly in the end, did they?”

“He was right about one thing,” Armand said, rolling his eyes. “You are irrepressibly optimistic.”

“It’s part of my charm,” Lestat said, bringing Armand’s hands to his lips and kissing them, taking care to brush a fang over the skin just to feel the reaction. “And I am terribly charming, aren’t I?”

“You’re definitely terrible.”

It lost some of its heat by the way his face could still go the softest shade of red, but Lestat would take it.

#askbox fic #answered #hekateinhell #lestat de lioncourt #the vampire armand #vc #vampire chronicles #the parallel between daniel and nicolas always gets to me #so thank you for that #this is a little rough around the edges so please forgive me for that #nicolas de lenfent

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esper-game · 1 year

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A little idea popped into my head last night! So- What if the RO's had to face someone who had the ability to shapeshift into anything, including people, and before being able to engage them in a fight (because their on a mission to take them in or somethig idk) they shapeshift into MC

They look identical to MC, sound just like them, and they start to fuck with the RO's by begging and pleading to them, asking why they would hurt them

What's the reaction to this during crushing and or relationship stage? 👀

First of all, it's so strange to me (in a good way!) that people could possibly think about Esper outside of just playing it :')

Anyway... a mimic... interesting....

Crushing:

L: Would be able to keep a fairly cool composure, ignoring the way MC, no the shifter's eyes look at them. They'd act as though fighting them wasn't tearing them apart. They must remain vigilant. At all costs. Their own emotions cannot interfere with their duty.

S: While they can't stomach the thought of hurting MC, they're aware this isn't MC. They have to keep reminding themself of that. They have to get the job done. Even if it hurts.

I: They don't care. That's what they tell themself. So why is this making it so much harder? Even if that was really MC, they should be able to focus on their job. Why can't they focus? Why is this mimic's face causing them to pause.

V: At first they'd be frozen, unsure what to do. This isn't MC. But for a moment, they felt their resolve slip. But then they refocus. Look for gaps in the shifter's façade. Times where their face twists into something very different to MC. When their voice sounds distorted. The way they move just slightly misaligned from MC. No shifter ever gets it just right. So they pour their attention onto these mistakes.

Relationship:

L: They know it isn't MC. Logically, they're aware that this can't be MC. But it looks so much like them. It's eerie how easily they change their form to MC exactly. Right down to their voice, begging them to stop. They know they shouldn't listen. But it's so so difficult.

S: Nope. They just can't do it. They can't hurt MC. Sure, this isn't MC, but it looks too similar for S. They can't swallow down the guilt at just the thought of laying a hand on MC. Even if this is just someone using MC's appearance. They can't do it.

I: They'd be pissed. It makes them sick to see their MC's face so crudely puppeteered. How dare this lowly shifter attempt to use MC against them. They let this anger drive them, forcing themself to continue. Even with the voice in the back of their head protesting against fighting MC. They can't let this person get away with this.

V: As much as they know about shifters, they still didn't expect this. Maybe they should have, but they didn't. And now they're staring dead into MC's eyes, with the objective to take them down. It's... chilling. How uncomfortably close the shifter gets to being MC. But that's it. It's just close. Almost. They can try to focus on the not-quites. Because if they don't, there's no way they could complete this mission.

Thank you for the super cool ask!!! <333

#esper #esper ask #ask #ro ask #this made me think...#about how shapeshifters fit into esper's world....#so thank you for that #and this hurt.#not too much #but still

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