There might have been times, even just recently while Lestat was sleeping his life away, that the vampire had been difficult or even impossible to track down, but right now he shone like a beacon of egocentric extravagance, finally fulfilling his potential and drawing the attention of every immortal in the world on him and only him.

Nicolas wasn't surprised. Not surprised to find Lestat thriving still all these years later. Not surprised to see his picture everywhere he looked, hear his voice always, everywhere. Hear him singing and daring the whole world to look at him and only him, to come and see and try and stop him or to join.

In the end, Nicolas went for him. Stolen money, stolen identity, hands covered with gloves, as they were only ever covered these days. Dressed in black, with his hair tied and with sunglasses, the only acquiescence he made to this centuries fashion, he might have stood out at some places, but not here. Not travelling to Lestat. The drones of teenaged humans following the Vampire Lestat, flocking to his concert, he looked no different from them. It made it easy to blend in.

He watched him live once before he went to see him, really see him. He listened to him, he saw him move and he almost thought he felt his heart beating. Such a confusing spiral of emotions inside him, the same spiral that finally brought him to Lestat's room. It was easy to bring the bellboy to let him in, easier still to make him forget all about it. And then he waited, standing in the dark and listening out into the night, where some lovesick teenage girl was playing The Vampire Lestat.

Seduced by the light, by the attention, the adoration, and beyond that, the risk. Vampires the world over were amassing, some to whisper the accolades they would never bring to the imp himself. Too dangerous to approach him, to be seen with him. A potential war was brewing, one the humans couldn't see. And for all Lestat's posturings, for all his rambling of literal evil and the stage show he put on every time his heeled boots clicked against the wooden floor -- thousands screaming his name, chanting it, sending him to a swoon before he opened his mouth to return the fervor -- they would never see. That was what broke his heart, lying awake at night, music blaring through tiny buds shoved deep within his ears. The knowledge that humanity, those he so desperately wanted to touch, were beyond him, even now.

Oh but he had other things to occupy his thoughts, things that didn't hurt so much. Forces were mounting against him and around him, tingling electricity that danced through him wherever he went. And he had to be careful now, where he decided to travel, had to take steps to hide where before it had been such a simple thing. Violet sunglasses and upturned collars couldn't disguise him from the adoring masses, though he so rarely found himself seeking it. Rather he would laugh for the flashing, disposable and portable cameras, as they worked their inherent and confusing magic to snap still shots of him. All wide smiles and windswept hair. Forever dazzling others with his antics. At least the human crowds understood and appreciated him, even if his contemporaries did not.

He was tired, when finally he retired to his room, flashing a fanged smile to the young woman behind the massive oak desk. Always extravagance, everywhere. He would wrap himself in it if he could, use it as a shield against the harsher elements of his beloved Savage Garden. Though even in the abrasive did he find magnificence. He was chuckling as he took to the stairs, skipping up two at a time in pure human fashion.

His own music was playing somewhere nearby, he could hear it as he approached his room. It pulled from him another soft laugh, to be so ubiquitous. What an interesting effect, his own voice drifting to ambiance. He was still laughing quietly to himself when he pushed the door to his room open, and though a curious sensation washed over him, he attributed it more to the foreign nature of a room that did not truly belong to him. The lingering scent of patrons bygone.

Nicolas was just fine with waiting in the dark, of course he was. He hadn't even pushed up the sunglasses, mostly because he'd forgotten they were there. His vampiric senses were more than sharp enough to let him see well even so and what they saw now, heard now, what his entire being was focused on was Lestat, beautiful, hateful, impossible Lestat, stepping through the door with a laugh, coming into a room he thought to be empty as if entering a stage.

It was only then that he realized that he had no idea what he was going to do. All his focus had been on getting here, on tracking Lestat down, but he hadn't let himself think of actually facing him. He wasn't prepared.

So he stopped thinking completely, an easy enough feat while his eyes were focused on Lestat, and then he rushed him. A strong enough impact to hopefully pin him against the door and then he was clawing at his clothes, clawing at his skin, the smooth leather of his gloves against the smoother marble his old friend had turned into. He was mindless in his pursuit of wanting to be close and wanting to hurt him, of wanting to feel him and wanting to be felt.

A ghost. It could only be a ghost, rushing him with those confusing and distorted features. Even with his hair tied back, even with the sunglasses, Lestat knew who he was immediately, knew and only had an instant to scream to himself that it was impossible. Nicolas had died. Armand had told him as much. It had been centuries ago.

All thought was obliterated by force, by the press of Nicolas's body against his, those hands raking at him, trying to hurt or trying to please. Impossible to tell. Impossible that it was happening at all.

A choked sob rose to his throat, his hands hooking in Nicolas's hair, trying to stop him and trying to encourage him. The door behind him felt an impassable barrier, the only thing anchoring him to the new and skewed reality in which he had been shoved. He heard his shirt tear, such gentle fabric and fragile, but he didn't care for the moment about the silk, the scratches in his expensive leather pants. His hair was a mess as he fought through the confusion and the deep rooted panic, it hung in his eyes, violet glasses askew.

"Nicki!" He gasped, searching for purchase, equilibrium lost but so desired, needed. How could it be! How could Nicolas be here? Touching him, tearing his clothes with an intensity that was unique only to him.

It was an insult, wasn't it, that Lestat said his name like that, as if he wasn't sure. An insult, or maybe it just hurt because it made him aware of the years he had lost. Either way, it was a howl of anger or pain escaping him, all mixed up, all colouring each other and driving him wilder still. If Lestat had been oral, fragile, his scalp would have ripped by now with his Nicolas was tugging on his hair.

So light, such a contrast to the dark fabrics he wore and a sharper contrast still to the darkness in Nicolas' mind, as Lestat had always been. "I hate you," he finally heard himself say and he marveled at his voice because he had barely spoken a word in longer than he could remember. Here he was, pinning Lestat to the door, pressing against him, standing surrounded by his torn clothes and only those tinted glasses keeping him from looking straight into Lestat's eyes. His last shield and it didn't seem to matter much. "I'll always hate you."

Pain, at those words. The sort that came with no feeling at all. Only an empty sort of shock, a refusal to understand or even truly to hear. His mind wouldn't process the words, protected him from what the meaning of them might bring. That it might end him, destroy him, unmake him. Maybe that was what Nicolas wanted. Maybe Nicolas needed to see Lestat torn apart the way Lestat had watched him be, all those years ago. Now it was his turn to be the mewling madman, or had that role ever truly shifted?

Ah, this was the Witch's Place again. A darkness Lestat had convinced himself he was beyond. The world around him was so light and stunning that this well of torment could not be opened.

Yet again came the words, as Lestat stared at him, into eyes he could never forget, eyes he didn't want to remember. Not with that twisted hate in them, mingling with something else he couldn't decide, couldn't devote the mental faculties to understanding. Because all he could hear was hate. Hate echoed after hate, and stacked behind it the swelling agony, as his mind could keep itself numb no longer.

"Don't," he whispered, his voice barely audible even in his own ears. And how often did this happen? The Vampire Lestat, struck speechless by a person who should have been a specter. But then, a ghost couldn't have torn from him this way his clothing, couldn't have left disappearing lines of red on his chest. "Don't say that."

Nicolas was the one who finally ended up tearing off his glasses, not caring that they broke in his hands, just letting the shatters fall to the ground. He stepped back then, because it turned out that Lestat's bare eyes meeting his still held more heat than he could bear, like flying too close to the sun. He'd be burned again, he was still burning, nothing but ash, nothing left from his own funeral pyre.

How long ago was it? It couldn't be long. Where was Armand, where was his executioner? Gone and only Lestat here, the man who'd left him behind, only ever to rise higher still.

"What does it matter to you, Lestat?" Oh, if only he could say that name without feeling, but it wasn't to be. Not now, not ever. "You left. You didn't look back. How long until you found the next fool, tell me!" He laughed, loud and bitter. "Only I already know. The whole world knows." He spat out, he shook out his hair, unsure when it had come undone but not surprised. Wild and dark it framed his face and he smiled as he glared. "Reduced to a few pages."

It was too much, the barrage of so many conflicting statements and expressions. The questions came rapid fire, tearing from him his flesh, leaving him a single exposed nerve, throbbing with the barest exhalation ghosting against him. Here was Nicolas, his beloved Nicolas, the only person he had ever lost that he believed would haunt him to the end of his miserable days, and he hated him still.

He truly was damned, then.

It took him a moment to find his voice, as he stared at Nicolas, his eyes huge, a mixture of terror and confusion and love warring in them. He had never hated Nicolas, had mourned him, had missed him and desperately needed him.

"Don't say that," his own words echoed, as he shook his head, seeking to clear it, to think and process and wrestle the situation into his favor. He wanted to reach for him, to touch his face, to see that he was real. Even as he told himself to be restrained, he was moving forward, his hand outstretched. "Not a few pages, my love. Don't belittle yourself."

When Lestat reached for him, when he moved forward, Nicolas stumbled back on instinct, almost ending up on the ground, but he managed to catch himself against the desk. He had been the one flinging his body against Lestat's before, but now the thought of bearing Lestat's touch, of allowing it, it was just too much to even consider. It would burn him, he was sure of it, burn all that was left of him.

"Belittle myself? I don't have to, Lestat. I haven't had to do that ever since I've met you. What do you ever do to people but make them seem small in comparison?" He smirked and it wasn't a happy a thing. A crazed thing, yes, but not happy, far from it. "Seem dark."

He shook his head yet again, gloved hands clenching to fists at his side. "What do you care, Lestat? You've only ever loved yourself. All you like in others is that they adore you. And that's why you left me behind. No use for my hatred, is there? No use for what you've earned."

Something in his expression steeled when Nicolas recoiled from him that way, violently, when he threw himself back with such force that he nearly fell. So he was poison, was he? Some caustic substance meant to burn away everything that ever mattered. As much as seeing him react that way hurt, it angered him, too.

"That is a lie, and you know it," he said, through a clenched jaw. "It was never I who projected upon you any darkness. That was you. I saw the goodness in you when you refused to see it yourself."

His hand balled to a fist, because he couldn't move toward him,couldn't bear to have him pull away again. The sharp nails cut into his palms, drawing blood that dripped along white fingers, the wounds healing even as they oozed. But he couldn't address the past, couldn't admit that he had left Nicolas, that he had needed it as much as he thought Nicki had. What would it cost him to voice such a thing?

"How is this possible?" He asked instead, telling himself, for the moment at least, all of Nicolas's vitriol couldn't touch him. Let him embrace it later. "How is it that you're standing before me, hurling at me these insults?" He took a deep breath, meant to calm the fire within him. "And how dare you presume that I do not care? You're perpetually blind, aren't you?"

That's the way, Lestat, he though. Calm the hatred in him with cruelness of your own. Meet his and maybe things will change? How likely.

"So what did you project? Louis, that's his name, isn't it?" Of course it was, it wasn't as if it hadn't been burned in his consciousness by now. "What a way to replace me. How pathetic you must think me." He laughed, hollow and bitter and crazed, always crazed. His lips parted, but he was silent for a moment, because his eyes were drawn to Lestat's bleeding hands and he could smell his blood, he could smell him and how could he possibly focus on anything else?

"You care? For me? With your mourning, your dramatic gestures? That's theatre, Lestat. I know you, mon ami, you've never left the stage. You love feeling sorry for yourself. I wanted to hurt you, I thought I could." Nicolas lifted his shoulders, shook his head. "Not enough to make you look back. Not enough to make you bear my presence again."

Flash of anger, white and hot, at the mention of Louis. His innocent and romantic and too human Louis. He told his tale when it might have meant the death of him. Had Nicolas read those words, those prettily crafted, eloquent lies? Had Nicki read them, and had he believed?

"Don't drag him into this," he said, quietly, anger and weariness and confusion warring in his tone. "He's innocent in this, doesn't deserve your ire."

He couldn't do it, he couldn't listen to the words that poured from Nicolas like so much dripping waste. No longer could he stand and gaze upon someone he couldn't help but love. He stepped closer to Nicolas, ignoring the expression on his face and the protest in his own heart. How could he stand to be near him, how could he abide his presence? How could someone so bubbling with madness and hatred be anyone who Lestat could truly love?

He stopped just before him, could have reached for him again, wouldn't let himself. Best to recover from some of the still raw wounds before he allowed Nicolas to tear open new ones.

"You think you don't hurt me? You say on one breath how well you know me, but in the next say you can't injure me enough?" He shook his head. "You're confused, my love, lost to yourself. You're just as dead to be now as before, aren't you?" And he wanted to cast him away, to demand he leave, but couldn't bear the thought.

"Of course he's innocent. Delusional, too, judging by what he writes of you." Nicolas seemed to find that part amusing at least. He relaxed, perhaps because Lestat's stance showed that he was doing the opposite, leaning back against the desk and folding his arms in front of his chest, his hands clenched into fists and hidden. Force of habit, a habit he was just developing.

"Wouldn't you just love it if I stayed gone? Your lost first love?" He smirked and shook his head. "I say again, you've only ever loved yourself. All you're doing now is just further proof. Stepping into the light like this, putting on a play for the whole world to see! The Theatre of Vampires."

He let out a short laugh and then, with a dry voice, very purposefully using these centuries words, "I should have copyrighted it back then."

"So you have read the books. Should I write one just for you? Would that make you feel better?" Of course it wouldn't, and Lestat knew it. Yet he couldn't stop the words from tumbling past his lips. There was no control, certainly no filter. And seeing Nicolas so relaxed, leaning back the way he was when moments before he'd been tearing at Lestat's clothes, his hair. "Really I am surprised you didn't adore every word. He made me such a monster, and isn't that how you're determined to see me?"

He shook his head, even as Nicki spoke he was negating the comment with his gesture. Nicolas was right about so many things, knew so much about Lestat, and yet he couldn't know it all. But maybe it was Lestat who was wrong, or at least unwilling to see.

"Is that what you believe, what you truly believe? You think I never loved you? You think I don't still?" He shook his head, his body held tight as he watched Nicki. "Do you know how badly it hurts to know you think so little of me? How angry it makes me?"

He slashed a hand through the air, droplets of blood flying to the floor. "The Theatre of Vampires? I would never wish that blight upon the world again. I never should have given Armand the damned place."

"Perhaps I should write one. Lestat the Shameless Whore." Nicolas spoke the crude words with a perfectly sardonic smile curving his lips, as if what Lestat said couldn't even touch on him. "The monster your Louis made you, he doesn't exist. Is that what you did, Lestat? After I was gone and Gabrielle left you, was it just easier to fall for people that didn't know you at all? Telling, isn't it?"

Nicolas shook his head, slowly, deliberately talking slow, as well. Taking his time, perhaps to test Lestat's patience. Perhaps to test his own.

"I think that you're so taken with yourself, Lestat, that it overshadows whatever anyone else might feel for you and as long as they're as blind to your flaws as you are, all shall be well." He stood up straight, looked up at Lestat to meet his eyes. "But good. Excellent. Because I want to hurt you. I want to make you angry. Will you run again this time? And I'll call Armand to me, once more, so he can do what he so loves to do. Taking from you."

Once more his eyes were wild, once more it was him stepping closer and him reaching out to claw at Lestat's chest, as if trying to claw his way through to his heart. When he spoke again, no, shouted, their was true despair in his voice, all the signs of a broken heart, but his eyes were focused on Lestat and only on him, wanting to see his reaction, wanting his pain. "Armand! Armand! I want to die!"

It didn't seem he could hurt Nicolas, didn't seem to be capable of getting past whatever madness in which he had so firmly wrapped himself. Easy to say there was nothing but hatred, to ignore anything that might flicker beneath. "Maybe that monster does exist. Levy a few more of your insults, and oh how familiar they are, and see what sort of monster you might awaken, Nicolas."

His hands were trembling, as Nicholas spoke, unsteady and needing something he couldn't give them. He wanted to tear, to destroy, to mangle. Something, anything, but Nicholas was closest and he couldn't bring himself to hurt him. Angry as he was, he couldn't move against Nicolas any sooner than he could do something to hurt himself.

He watched Nicolas step forward, let his pound against his chest, let him claw at him. What did it matter? The damage was to his soul, not his body, and he could weather it if he must. He stared down at Nicki, at the crazed expression, the pain. It broke something to hear his voice, to see him so wracked with agony.

It didn't matter than Nicolas wanted to hurt him, it didn't matter that he was angry, that he was furious and hurt. There were tears in his eyes, a red sheen over the wild blue violet. He didn't blink them back, wouldn't resist them. His arrogance be damned.

"I don't want you to die, you idiot," he said, tone furious still. "You died once, isn't that enough, you selfish little child?"

The madness stopped as abrupt as it had started, at least its outward signs. Nicolas looked petulant instead, although there was just an edge of something more to it. Humour, perhaps. Fondness. "You can't call me a child, Lestat. You're younger."

Which really had never mattered between them, like so little else had. He was running his fingers through Lestat's hair now, his touch gentle this time and for the first time he wished he wasn't wearing the gloves. After all these years, after all that happened, he could still remember how every inch of Lestat had felt under his fingertips. But his body had changed since then, had hardened. Yet Nicolas was sure that underneath it all, he was still the same. The same as back when his tears had been clear instead of bloody.

He leaned forward without thinking, licked his cheek, tasted his blood, and then his whole body trembled and he closed his eyes to let himself lean against Lestat. His voice was quiet now, any mortal wouldn't have been able to make out the words. "Don't let me die alone, again."

The tears come stronger when Nicolas changes, when his touch turns from clawing and grasping to caressing, gentle. He didn't want to speak, to move, to breathe. He was terrified Nicolas would change, would decide he didn't want to be kind, didn't want to look at him with that curious mix of so many emotions Lestat couldn't process.

"Well then don't act like one," Lestat said, voice very quiet. And that was when the tears slid down his cheeks, leaving red streaks on ivory skin. He hated to equip, to let another see him. But this was Nicolas, and didn't he deserve to see them?

He held his breath as Nicolas's tongue touched him, his eyes wide, though he saw nothing. Electricity in his veins, at that touch, at the raw sensation he was certain no other being on earth could elicit. He was afraid to touch Nicki, afraid he would vanish if he did, yet he had to. His hand find the back of Nicki's head, fingers sliding through hair be thought lost to him forever.

"I won't," he said, promised even as he knew he couldn't. Because he'd failed to protect Nicki once, and doesn't history repeat itself? Keep one trapped in a cycle of pain. "Never again, Nicki. But how is this possible?"

It's only then that Nicolas felt his own tears threaten, but they don't fall. For all the emotions he showed, sometimes rapidly changing every moment, he rarely grieved, not in the conventional way of crying, not when he could just go stark raving mad instead. But as it was he felt calm, strangely enough, calm and sad and that complicated mess of feelings that meant Lestat to him, that had always meant Lestat and only ever grew more complex still.

"It is not," he said, lifting his shoulders in a shrug, but not lifting his head, not looking at Lestat again, "Impossible." One of those words that meant so much more when spoken between them. He slowly became aware of how his cheek rested against Lestat's skin, of how he'd have been able to hear his heart beat if they had been back in another time, back in another life. He held still, as if stillness alone could change things.

"I heard your music. That's what I remember. I heard your music and I recognized you." He was silent for a moment before adding, wry wit returning to his voice. "It's not very refined."

The word set his soul to quaking, a trembling that shuttered through him, threatened again his tenuous grip on equilibrium. Seeing Nicolas, being so close to him, every shift of exchange since he had come hurtling from the darkness. It weighed on Lestat, but not as much as that word. Amazing that so few syllables could shake him, make him a believer again.

In his mind they were back in France, in the attic room above the inn. They would share a bottle or two of wine and laugh until Lestat stated crying, until one of them was too drunk and the Golden Moment would be again a figment of the past. How long since it had fled? How long since Lestat had let himself think of it?

A breathless little laugh escaped him, his fingers trailing through Nicolas's hair. So fine, so soft. As familiar as coming home.

"I should have known," he said. "You never have truly appreciated me." He was teasing, testing the air between them, this cautious truce upon which they had stumbled, as Lestat held Nicki close, refused to let go.

"I've always appreciated you entirely too much." And wasn't there more truth in those words than Nicolas should put out in the open just like that? He knew Lestat, knew he'd latch onto things like this and discount everything he didn't like. If not at the moment, then in retrospect. So predictable, but yet there was this undefinable quality Lestat held, that could still always shock him, thrill him.

He felt safe for the moment and that alone was most peculiar. Safe in his friend's arms, with his fingers in his hair, safe as he could still smell the blood of his tears and knew this couldn't last long. Ever the pessimist.

"You didn't take good care of my violin."

"Maybe that's true," Lestat said, thinking of so many times in the past, every instance when Nicki had gone along with Lestat's every whim. Nicki always had pampered the madman, and then Lestat had abandoned him.

Best to let that revelation slip from his pretty little head. Deal with the present, worry about the past later.

"Well neither did you," Lestat said, but he could close his eyes and see the violin shattering. He should have been more careful, should have never taken so many of the risks he had. He hated himself as much as he loved himself.

"I'll buy you a new one. I can do that, you know," but the comment trailed off. Nicki had been the recipient of Lestat's wealth before, it had begun his spiral to madness, to trembling and furious insanity.

"I don't need one, Lestat. I can't play." He did finally lift his head, not much, not really pulling away from him, just enough that he could look at him, see his face, perhaps even catch his eyes if he could bear it. "You're the musician now." He smiled and it didn't reach his eyes, but it wasn't quite the crazed one from before, either. "Rock star."

With a slow shake of his head, he did look down at his hands and the hint of despair showed on his face again, the crumbling of the fragile facade of sanity he'd pulled up. "This isn't right."

Lestat's hand moved to Nicki's cheek, catching his face to keep it upturned, didn't want him to turn away, wasn't sure he could bear it. Too many emotions to contend with, so he focused instead on the feel of Nicolas's skin.

"You can't play?" He asked, very quietly, trying to find Nicki's gaze, to capture it and hold it. He couldn't, and when Nicolas logged down, so did Lestat.

He could see Eleni's handwriting, superimposed over his vision, telling him shot Nicki's hands. He remembered wondering, asking if destiny chased even immortals. But Nicki had his hands, Lestat reached for one.

"It is," he said. "Everything is all right."

Nicolas caught his breath when Lestat touched his hand. He wanted to pull it away but instead he just stood there, still and shaking, staring down at his gloved hand held by Lestat's beautiful fingers and he couldn't even grasp at the horror, the wrongness of it all.

"No, no, no!" Shaking his head over and over he would have backed away had the desk not still been behind him, had he not been scared of losing Lestat's attention with the touch. "It is all over, Lestat! Gone. My hands are gone! Nothing can be alright, nothing is alright."

There were tears in his eyes now, a faint red line down one cheek. "Play for me, Lestat. Please."

So the memory was more fresh than real to him, then. Losing his hands so long ago. And did he still hear his father's words, a strident echo forever repeating, threatening to break them? Lestat hated anything that came between Nicki and his violin, the living music only he could bring forth from the instrument, steal from the truer world of spirit.

"Nicolas, be still," Lestat said, running his finger across Nicki's cheek. He didn't dare try what Nicolas had, rather let his hand drop with the scarlet gleaming off his nails. His voice was soft, as he looked at Nicki, at the man he had once loved more than anything. How he had worried for him, railed to give him all he needed. How he had ultimately failed. So many doomed children at his hand.

"What do you want me to play? Anything for you," he leaned his forehead against Nicki's, keeping him close, holding the illusion of love if that's all it was.

It actually calmed him, which in itself was strange enough. Lestat's voice, Lestat's words, they were calming him. Nicki pulled his hand out of the other vampire's grasp, but he moved closer as he did so, pressing their bodies together while he hid his hands behind himself. He looked at Lestat again now, no longer staring at hands that shouldn't be there.

Suddenly the calm was easy to retain, when he had been so close to losing it all just a moment earlier. He hadn't felt anything like it in too long, a strange serenity and stranger still that Lestat's presence could have brought it on.

"You're playing everywhere." He inclined his head toward the window, smiling at the song that could be heard, with vampiric ears at least, blasting from someone's television. "They'll all come for you, Lestat. What a hunt."

How could Lestat think of hands, of horrors better forgotten, discarded, let drift in the wind like so much ash, when Nicolas was pressed against him like he was. Looking at him he saw some of that familiar intensity, that desire for things Lestat could never quite grasp. Nicki had always been the cynic, the one to second guess and even to complain. He had always been the one to follow Lestat, but only the one to criticize after Lestat had brought them together. Forever. Eternity should have been theirs, not this agonizing lie they lived instead.

Something deeper than that, too, the darkness that had claimed him. But it didn't matter, nothing mattered but that he was there. Hold him tight, as close as he could. Never let him go again. Better to die than let him go again.

"I meant to be heard all over the world. There are countdowns and television programs and radio shows; I wanted to monopolize them all," he followed the incline of Nicki's head, to look at the window, the flickering lights in the city beyond. How beautiful, how stunning. Only Nicolas mattered. "I'm not afraid of any of them. Let them hunt me. I'll take them all on. Every last filthy one of them."

"Of course you will. Just like the wolves." It hadn't surprised him back then, lifetimes ago, that Lestat, the castle's youngest son, was the one to take down the wolves. Now that he was starting to understand this century more, he wasn't surprised by what Lestat was doing. In fact, he had no idea what could be more like him.

"Come hunt with me now, Lestat." He hadn't known he would ask until the question came out and when he searched Lestat's eyes now, there was a certain hesitation mingled in with the darkness. Fear, perhaps even, and nothing drove crazy the way fear did. "On my own, it's hard to stop."

"The wolves," Lestat said, not able to choke out any longer a vocal thought on the matter. How clearly he could still see those hills, hear the shrill, trumpeting sound of a dying mare. His mare. He reminded himself as much, in harsh tones that rang with the clarity of silence. It wouldn't do to forget that event, which started everything, set the top spinning in motion. No, forget not, but live.

"Of course, Nicki," he said, frightened by that fear in Nicolas's eyes, by the shifting way they moved. It would do to be careful with him, to treat him as though he were not vampiric flesh but rather glass. Something so fragile that could shatter with the softest of breaths. Certainly he shouldn't reach up to touch his cheek, to brush aside the errant strand of black hair. Yet of course that was what he did, fingers resting against Nicolas's neck after. "I won't leave you alone, now."

He said the words, and they tasted a lie, or at least an uncertainty. How many children must he fail? How many lovers must he lose? Harsh words reverberated through his skull, singing praise to his worst qualities, his inability to do the simplest of things. To stay.

To those words, Nicolas laughed. And what a sound it was. Bitter, sure, but also unrestrained. Loud and clear and even filled with a strange kind of mirth. Gallows' humour, perhaps, for he knew what a lie it was, but at the same time he took comfort in that knowledge, because it meant that he truly did know. He, who knew Lestat better than anyone, would not fall for his lies again, even if that meant falling by himself forever and fearing the time he'd crash and burn. Again.

"Where to, then? Where does Lestat hunt?"