didntrun | (no subject)

lestat

ANSWER ME

dude, im at work you need to come visit me here right now

Eddie drums his fingers on the front counter at the record store, staring at his phone, waiting for Lestat to acknowledge his fucking existence. And yeah, okay, it's not like they're the sort of friends who do a lot of texting or any texting, really, but he knows Lestat at least looks at his phone from time to time. Eddie figures if he can get annoying enough, he'll eventually get an answer.

Or Lestat will jump out at him from the shadows when he leaves later, but either way, he'll at least be able to tell him what he's discovered tonight.

seriously

He waits another minute.

i will text you until you answer me or SHOW UP HERE

Thirty seconds this time, then he sends a series of vampire emojis.

He gets interrupted by actual customers, rings three people through, staring at his phone the entire time, waiting for an answer, then jumps right back to it to keep making himself the most annoying person Lestat de Lioncourt has ever met in his however many years he's been alive.

im not joking this is so serious i need to see you right now!!!!!!

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"Okay, you and me, we're going to have a discussion about mind reading and consent later," Eddie says, his hands having gone to Lestat's forearms when he'd been taken by the shoulders. Even though Lestat steps back, Eddie doesn't let go, stepping away from the wall at the same time.

"Here," he says. "Like... an hour ago? Just after sunset. I've been texting you since he left."

And if he hadn't answered, Eddie would have gone to his place and banged on the door until he got an answer. He doesn't want to explain how he knows who Louis is, why he knows enough of their history to know Lestat had to be told, but he couldn't pretend he didn't know Louis was here.

Lestat was dismayed at not feeling the echoes of Louis here, within these walls. It was a foolish, maudlin thought, but he could not seem to rid himself of it.

And what he ought to have felt was anger. Fury. Betrayal. Instead, what consumed him was regret. An unspeakable longing, despite all that had happened between them.

"You spoke with him? Did he..." Lestat was uncharacteristically ineloquent. "Was there anyone with him? A girl."

"No," Eddie says. "It was just him."

Later, he'll be grateful for his genuine concern being the primary focus of the moment. If he'd thought about her then, if Lestat had heard her name in Eddie's head, maybe things would be a lot worse, but it doesn't even occur to Eddie to think that. He's just watching Lestat, still holding his forearms, his brows pulled together in concern.

"Are you okay?" he asks.

Lestat's mind was a tempest.

Claudia. He wanted, viciously, to put his hands around her little neck and squeeze. To tear her sneering, hateful little head from her body. He wanted to set her ablaze. He wanted to have her as far away from himself as possible. On another planet, perhaps.

He was mortified to realize that he did not want her dead.

And Louis. Oh God...

"Yes, of course," he said airily. "Never better."

Lestat is so full of shit and Eddie's head tilts slightly, looking at his friend, not with pity, but with an expression caught somewhere between disbelief and concern. He knows Lestat is lying to him. He also knows he can't really dig in and demand Lestat share, no matter how badly he wants to.

Eddie is full of feeling and he knows Lestat is, too, but the difference between them is that Eddie tends to direct a lot of his feelings out.

"Can I do anything?" he asks.

"What could you possibly do?" Lestat said, not unkindly. There was nothing to be done. It rankled him to be treated as fragile. The raw humanity of the moment ought to have disgusted him.

Genuine care was something he had little experience with, and despite his desperate craving of it, he'd never known how to accept or return it.

"How does he look? Well, I hope."

"I dunno, man, get you a place to sit, keep you company once I'm off work, distract you with my shining personality?" he responds. "Yeah, he liked fine. Like a normal person, I guess, except not a person, which I didn't tell him I knew, for the record."

Whatever drama might happen between them, Eddie is content to let it happen between them. But Lestat is his friend, whether he admits to it or not, and Eddie couldn't have not told him or not offered to help, even if he can't.

"I cannot be placated like a child," he snapped, showing teeth. "You cannot comprehend what I am feeling in this moment, so I would ask you not to coddle me."

Taking a step into the center of the cramped storage room, Lestat straightened his vest, his hand fluttering briefly in front of his mouth. It was a small gesture, over in a moment, but it might as well have been a scream for how loudly it spoke of his uneasiness.

"You're lucky he didn't sense it. My Louis abhors killing humans, but his rage is unmatched. He might have killed you," Lestat said, almost wistfully.

“I wasn’t coddling, that’s why I asked.”

Eddie watches, gaze sharp, and doesn’t say anything else for awhile. The gesture throws him a little. It feels like such a small thing, but also like it says so much, and he resists the urge to try and comfort Lestat again.

“Yeah, well, nice to hear you’d be so disappointed if he had,” he finally says, voice a little dry.

"Well, stop asking!" Lestat shouted, knocking a box of old cassette tapes to the floor with a wild sweep of his hand.

He was dangerous in that moment, but more than that, he was wounded. He did not like being caught off-guard. It so rarely happened. He might have torn down the entire building with his bare hands. He might've dropped to his knees and wept.

Instead, he turned, a frown creasing the brow of his otherwise impassive face. "If I wanted you dead, I would've done it myself." He shook his head, and turned to look away in a gesture so human he ought to have been ashamed.

"Snuffed out the only source of companionship I have in this hideous place," he continued, crowding in close once again.

“Jesus,” Eddie says, then exhales heavily. This is it, he figures, the moment he either breaks through for a second or gets his life drained out of him and he may still be a bit of a coward, but the one thing that can override Eddie’s fear is his need to care for people.

Even his vampire person.

“You can just say we’re friends,” he says before he loops both his arms around Lestat and hugs him tightly.

Was this a friendship? Was he even capable of such a thing?

Even as a man, Lestat's emotions had been in such turmoil, that he could hardly think in such terms. Friendship was small and inadequate. He'd had mortal enemies and great loves, and in between there was hardly more than ambivalence.

And this was hardly ambivalence.

Frozen in the circle of Eddie's arms, Lestat returned the embrace, not with reluctance but with wariness. Even fear, perhaps. He had cautioned Claudia against this very thing, and yet, he seemed powerless to stop it.

“I’m sorry shit went bad between you two,” he mumbles into Lestat’s shoulder. “And I’m sorry that you’re hurt. You wanna tell me about him, I’m here, man. You wanna wander around the city drinking and doing weird shit to take your mind off it, I’m here for that, too.”

His parents had never been around. Never. Eddie had promised himself a long time ago he would never be that sort of person, someone unreliable and only out for themselves. He might be a freak, but he’s a good one.