SOMETHING DEAD THAT DOESN'T KNOW IT'S DEAD.
» THE CITY — INTRODUCTORY NOTES
Now that Halloween is just around the corner, the city is starting to come alive with seasonal cheer. You start to spot decorations scattered around the city: plastic skeletons sitting on benches, jack-o-lanterns decorating front stoops, and even a few places in the park near City Hall where the trees themselves have been decorated. It's clear that the autumn season is in full swing and the city is making the most of it.
From the morning of October 19, you also start to notice flyers hung up around the city that advertise the local university's homecoming Halloween party. They're cheerfully decorated much the same as the newsletter that was delivered to residents earlier in the month, and they're hung from light poles, pinned to bulletin boards, and occasionally fluttering on front stoops of apartment buildings. There might even be one taped to your door when you open it in the morning.
The flyer announces that the Halloween party will begin on October 22 and will run through October 31. It runs every night from sunset to midnight, and residents are encouraged to attend in costume! If they have their own costume, perhaps found at the Halloween Superstore, that's perfect—if they don't have a costume, though, one will be provided to them by the party organizers. Doesn't that just sound like fun? And the flyers really are everywhere, and that makes it hard not to take notice—but once you take notice, you really can't stop noticing.
Indeed, once you read one of the flyers, you just can't help but read the flyer every time you encounter another one. And every time you read one, you find yourself feeling a little more curious about the party being advertised. Will it be anything like the Halloween I know? you may think. Or, I don't even know what Halloween is, I wonder what it'll be like. It's not quite enough to compel you to pay a visit to the address on the flyer, which is one of the dorm buildings on the university campus, but it's definitely enough to get you thinking about Halloween. Maybe you ought to go find a costume…
But Halloween parties and costumes are not all you're thinking about. It's easy enough to write off at first, as tricks of the light or a figment of your imagination: flickers of shadow at the corner of your eye, cold spots in your apartment, creaking footsteps in your empty living room. There's nothing there when you turn your head to look, nothing there when you flick on the lightswitch to see if someone's in your house—but somehow, that doesn't reassure you.
By the evening of October 21, every resident in the city has been visited by some sort of entity haunting their house, and every resident of the city has been left a gift: a dorm room key, each differently numbered. You may find the key in your pocket, or on your bedside table, or in your favorite coffee mug.
Should you decide to attend the party, it will be up to you to decide: Is this just the City getting in the spirit of the season? Or is it something more… malevolent?
The flyers will be strewn about the city in various locations beginning on October 19. Characters who read them will find themselves feeling oddly compelled to go check out the advertised Halloween party, which will run from October 22 to October 31 between sunset and midnight. For the most part this will just feel like a sense of curiosity about the party, and astute characters may be able to pick up on the fact that they're being emotionally manipulated a bit.
Characters who choose to go can wear a costume of their choosing from the Halloween Superstore, or the City will provide one if they don't have a costume of their own yet. (Read on for more information about how characters can get their hands on a costume!)
Lastly, every character will find a dorm room key somewhere on their person before the party starts on October 22. This key may or may not correspond to a room in the dorm where the party is being held—of course, characters are not obligated to use the key, but they may want to know what's hiding behind those closed doors.
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ALL THESE GHOSTS COME STREAMING DOWN.
» THE CITY — GETTING THE PARTY STARTED
On the morning of October 22, every device in the city starts to buzz.
The screen illuminates, displaying a white page not unlike the orientation survey that welcomed you into the city. Unlike the orientation survey, though, there are no questions—only a single phrase in bold, dark text. THE GOOD OF THE MANY, it says, with a single "OK" button below.
For a minute, nothing else happens. You try to turn the device off, but the screen stays lit; you try to reboot the device, but the screen stays lit. It seems that the only way to get rid of the screen is to press the button.
…Have you done this before? Or are you having déjà vu?
At sunset that same day, the Halloween party will open for the first time. The party's entrance is located on the ground level of a large three-story dorm building in the western half of the university campus. The double doors into the building are fully decorated with folded-paper bats and ghosts, cotton batting pulled apart to make spiderwebs, and a cut-out sign that says "HAUNTED HOUSE" in bright red, dripping-blood letters. The decor looks almost… corny, hokey in a way that can't possibly be threatening. Right?
But the decorated double doors aren't the only way that residents may enter the party. Of course, the organizers would prefer that you use the front doors, but if you'd prefer not to, they have other ways of getting you inside.
After the party begins on October 22, any door in the city that you walk through has the potential to become a door into the first level of the dorm building. You may exit your apartment and find yourself standing in the darkened lobby; you may walk out of the bathroom and run right into a handful of cotton spiderwebbing. Unfortunately, there's nothing to indicate whether or not a door might lead to the party until you're through it—and once you're through it, there's no turning around. The only way out, as they say, is deeper in.
Were you wearing a costume in preparation for the party? Fantastic, you'll keep that costume on! But if you weren't wearing a costume, don't worry—the party's organizers have you covered. You look down and find that no matter what you were wearing before, you are now wearing a costume of some kind. Maybe it's one you would have chosen for yourself, or maybe it's totally not to your taste. If you truly hate it, you can try to take it off… although you may not find it easy to remove.
Once the party begins on October 22, as stated above, any door in the city has the potential to become a door that leads directly to the first level of the haunted house. Characters will not be able to tell by any means whether a door is pointed there or not; only once they're fully through the door will they realize that they're actually standing in the lobby of the decorated dorm building and not in whatever room they intended to enter. Once characters are inside, there's unfortunately no way to get out, not without making their way through the haunted house itself.
Whether a character enters the haunted house via the main double doors or through another door somewhere else in the city, they'll need to come in costume. (Their own canon clothes do not count!) If they're already wearing a costume, they can keep it on arrival; however, those who enter the haunted house costumeless will be assigned a costume at random by the city. The actual costume is up to the player's choice. It may end up being something that suits the character, or it may end up being something totally embarrassing—that's completely up to the player.
Regardless, characters will have a difficult (but not impossible) time removing the costume until they have exited the haunted house. This includes both physical difficulty (feeling as though the costume is fused to their skin, feeling physical resistance to undoing zippers/buttons, etc.) and mental difficulty (an overwhelming sense of dread or vulnerability). Characters are able to overcome both of these difficulties to remove the costume if they're dedicated enough; the clothes they were originally wearing may be still on under the costume or might be awaiting them at home when they return.
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THEY GO TO GROUND AND ROT.
» THE HAUNTED HOUSE — LEVEL 1
CONTENT WARNINGS: One image containing fake spiders, mention of spidery feelings; mention of zombies (but no images)
The ground floor of the dorm is decorated much how one might expect a haunted house at a university to be decorated. The entrance to the haunted house proper is through a tunnel of cotton spiderwebs filled with little plastic spiders, so narrow that it forces you to hunch down and squish together to get through. Although it feels claustrophobic, and you may imagine the sensation of little spider legs crawling over your body, once you make it through the tunnel it becomes clear that the spiders never actually moved. Whew!
The tunnel lets out into the first-floor dorm, a long (too long?) stretch of hallway with doors leading to rooms on either side. Some of the doors are closed and locked, but many are open, allowing you a glimpse as you pass. As you walk down the hallway, you make sure to peer into each of the rooms. Some of the doors lead to total blackness; others lead to rooms decorated like an elaborate Victorian haunted mansion, and yet others even lead to perfectly normal dorm rooms, like someone forgot to get around to decorating. And sometimes—not every time, but often enough—when you peer into one of the rooms, there's something peering back.
Most of the frights you get on the first floor come in the form of animatronics, realistic-looking ones that jump out at you as you pass and give you a fright. There's a man with a bloody knife, or a zombie with flesh hanging from its teeth, or a clown with sharp, venomous-looking fangs—they leap out of the doorways with a startling quickness, but never come close enough to touch. They just brandish their weapons, then retreat back into the room they came from as if satisfied with the scare they've given.
There are also a handful of real scare actors on the first floor as well, perhaps even some faces you recognize. They lurk in the darkened rooms and leap out with growls or shrieks, then chase you a few meters down the hall before leaving you to run away. Just like the animatronics, though, they never get close enough to touch or harm you—they just want to get your blood racing.
The rest of the scares come from paintings that abruptly change form to show a ghost's face, or candles that swoop down across your path and then move back up. And behind it all are the spooky sounds of groans and screams and tearful begging, a solemn soundtrack to your trip through the haunted house.
Oddly, you never do see a speaker. And even more oddly still, none of the rooms on the first floor match the number of the key you're holding…
The first level of the haunted house consists of fairly cheap scares, mostly relying on animatronics, voiceover tracks, and tricks of the light or optical illusions to deliver scares to the residents. Players should feel free to use their imaginations to come up with potential scares or animatronics—think something moderately more scary than Haunted Mansion but less than Halloween Horror Nights. The animatronics may feature enemies or monsters from characters' home worlds, or may be simply generic creatures you would find at a Halloween store.
In addition, the first level is also populated by characters working as scare actors. These characters may be those who attended Robby and Tsuruno's house party, or may simply be characters with a sense of humor who enjoy making other characters jump and shriek a little. Either way, these scares are harmless and non-contact. The scare actors won't harm anyone going through the haunted house, even if they do a little chasing down the hall.
Although the hallway looks oddly long and is perhaps a bit more winding than it ought to be, there doesn't seem to be anything particularly odd about the dorm building itself. Characters may, however, find that the trip through the haunted house feels shorter when they're accompanied by another.
For characters who don't wish to venture up the stairs to the second level, there is a well-hidden emergency exit tucked out of sight behind the staircase that leads upward. This is the opt-out for players who don't wish to engage with the events in the second and third levels of the dorm.
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WE WILL NOT REMAIN UNSCATHED.
» THE HAUNTED HOUSE — LEVEL 2
CONTENT WARNINGS: Generally spooky images including some ghostly ones; mention of hanging. Prompts include violence (such as mutilation) potentially leading to serious injury or death. As always, please warn appropriately!
It's once you reach the second level that you realize something has shifted.
The metal door at the end of the hallway swings shut behind you, and you immediately realize it's far too dark and far too cold. Even with your eyes wide, you can barely make out the shapes of the decorations around you; they are lit mostly by the flickering orange of electric candles and the glow of the emergency exit sign above your head. Your breath condenses into steam as you exhale, and although you rub your hands together, you can't quite seem to gain any warmth. You feel a little bit dizzy and off-kilter, and from the distance you can hear the sound of a voice murmuring in quiet, urgent tones, interrupted by brief bouts of sobbing. You try the door behind you, but it doesn't give: you are stuck here, and must make it out.
The hallway is decorated, but even the same decorations that felt corny downstairs now give this floor an air of discomfort and desperation. As you make your way down the hall, you notice that many more of the doors on this level are open, and in the sickly, dim light cast by the fake candles, you're able to catch glimpses of what's inside: shadowy figures moving in the blackness. These are creatures that seem made of the dark itself, congealed into something more or less resembling a person. There's one sitting at the desk like a good student, its too-long fingernails rasping over the surface as it scratches something into the wood. There's one sitting on the windowsill, its too-long limbs hanging out into the night. There's one hanging from the ceiling, its feet at eye level, swaying slightly in an unfelt breeze. There's one standing dead in the middle of the room and staring straight at you, its eyes two embers in its featureless head.
You lock eyes briefly and the creature starts to move: this ghost is coming after you, and this one means it. There's no animatronic rigging to stop it and pull it back into the darkness of the room, and it's no scare actor that will stop after a few meters of pursuit—no, its hands reach for you, for your hair, your throat, fingers clutching and grasping. You turn and run, but it pursues, and that voice you heard murmuring earlier is now a fever pitch of syllables behind you, half-whispered, half-screamed in a language you can't understand. The noise of it draws more ghosts out from their rooms, and they follow as you sprint down the too long, twisting length of the hallway. You can see the glow of the exit sign at the end lf the hallway, drawing closer as you madly dash for it—
And then you trip. Or maybe you're pushed, you're not sure. You hit the carpet hard and then the ghost is on you, its hands scrabbling at your throat, fingers prodding at your eyes. Of course you fight back—if you don't, you're going to die—but as you fumble blindly for something with which to beat the ghost off, you realize that this ghost has weight to it, that the fingers trying to tear out your throat aren't incorporeal and ghostly but rather the fingers of a pair of very human hands. As you blink, eyes straining in the darkness, the features of the ghost begin to resolve into those of a person.
And it is a person. It's a person you may even know, a friend of yours, a fellow resident of the City. Not a mannequin facsimile, but someone real, someone who fights you with everything in them as you struggle to break free.
Your grasping hand grips something firm, maybe a flashlight or a fire extinguisher, and you swing it as hard as you can at their head. You don't want to, this is your friend, but what choice do you have? After all—it's either them or you.
Once characters enter the second level of the haunted house, those attuned to energy flow will immediately be able to recognize this as a place full of negative ghostly energy. Characters may sneak extremely carefully and quietly through the hallways, avoiding every single ghost; they may be pursued by ghosts, but ultimately make it to the exit, beyond which the ghosts will not pursue; or they may be caught by a ghost (or "ghost") and be forced to fight for their lives.
Not all of the "ghosts" on the second level are truly ghosts. Players may opt to have their characters participate in the event as the considerably more deadly "scare actors" of the second level. Only they won't be acting: to these characters, anyone who passes by in the second-floor hallway (the "partygoer") is an absolute threat that must be dealt with immediately. Scare actor characters will be possessed by an irrepressible need to hunt down and attempt to injure or kill any partygoer or other scare actor they encounter, and can only be stopped by either death (of either the partygoer or the scare actor) or being knocked out and removed from the hallway.
These characters may also be those who attended Robby and Tsuruno's Halloween house party and ended up getting a little too in-character in a negative way (see their plotting post for more information). However, characters do not have to attend the house party in order to participate in this mechanic. Any character who enters the haunted house can become a second-floor ghost if the player so desires.
Either the scare actor or partygoer may be seriously injured or even die. If this happens to the partygoer, the haze of bloodlust will immediately lift from the scare actor and reveal to them what they've done. (If the scare actor is knocked out or dead, obviously this realization will take place after they've returned or regained consciousness.) Killing and death as a part of the October event is not subject to murder or death consequences.
If a character chooses to sneak through the second floor and avoid the ghosts, and does so by entering any of the decorated dorm rooms, they may find shorthand messages scratched into the desks, closets, or doors. These messages might just be names, familiar ones belonging to people from home, or might say things like HELP ME or ITERATION 4█ or LOOK BEHIND THE APOCALYPSES. Characters may also find small, non-magical, recognizable personal effects belonging to people from their home worlds, tucked into drawers or kicked under the bed or in some otherwise unobtrusive location, easily overlooked.
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WHEN YOU HAVE NOTHING TO SAY, SET SOMETHING ON FIRE.
» THE HAUNTED HOUSE — LEVEL 3 AND CONCLUSION
After the second level of the haunted house, the only way to go is up… assuming you survived, that is. Exhausted and battered, you make your way up the stairs—perhaps alone, perhaps with a friend, or perhaps dragging the unconscious body of your assailant-friend—and let yourself into the third-floor common area.
This is where the Halloween party is taking place! Congratulations, you made it! There's a bass-heavy soundtrack throbbing in the background, and the room is decorated once again in the cheesy Halloween decor of the entryway. A large casket full of ice holds beers and sodas, and a table in the middle of the room bears all sorts of spooky snacks: peeled-grape "eyeballs," candy corn "teeth," sour gummy worms in brownie dirt, and any other kind of snack one might imagine.
If you made it through the haunted house with a friend, you will find a letterman jacket in your favorite colors, with your name embroidered on the back, hanging on a peg on the far wall of the room. You can take it with you now, or when you go home, or you can leave it on the peg forever—it's your choice, but it is a symbol of having survived the haunted house, so it might be nice to have. Don't you think?
You may have to do this again, you realize. Now that the doors in the city occasionally open straight into the haunted house, there's no telling how many times you'll have to survive this before the Halloween party draws to its close. Maybe you do need a beer after all…
Oh, and you still don't know what dorm room that key goes to. Maybe you had better just hang onto it for now.
The topmost floor of the dorm building, the third floor, is where the "party" part of the Halloween party is taking place! The food and drink is abundant and, of course, free. There's just about any type of drink or Halloween-themed snack imaginable, so characters can help themselves. When they're through partying, there's an outside staircase that leads directly from the common room back down to ground level.
Characters who survive the haunted house in a group of two or more will find that that there is a custom-made letterman jacket with their name on the back, perfectly their size, hanging on a coat rack on the far side of the room. While wearing this jacket, characters will be less susceptible to the scares in the haunted house, and the ghosts of the second floor will not pursue them as intently (although it has no effect on scare actor characters). To any characters who are particularly sensitive to this sort of thing, the jackets do have a moderate protective effect against various negative status effects, so to speak; this effect does not diminish after the event is over. Characters can only get one jacket, their first time through the haunted house; subsequent trips through will not result in additional jackets.
The dorm room key is not a usable item during the October 2023 event, but will become usable in November and December, so characters are advised to not lose them.
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WILDCARD.
The city is by no means small, and there are plenty of things for you to see. There's no rush in exploring, so feel free to take your time looking around and peering into various nooks and crannies and alleyways—and don't worry, you're not very likely to find anything peering back.
If none of the above prompts appeal, feel free to check out the Locations and Maps pages and write your own freestyle prompt using one or many of the available locations.
This month's event headers come from "Landscape with Fruit Rot and Millipede," a poem by Richard Siken.
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citylogs2023-10-19 09:00 pm
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Louis moves so quickly, Dorian's hand is jostled from the handle of the knife before he can pull it out. This enrages him more. He attempts to wrench himself from the vampire's grip; when he can't, he throws a right hook to his jaw with a bloody fist.]
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Fangs bared, Louis shoves his face against Dorian's throat with the savagery of a jungle cat taking its prey, no romance to the bite at all, only the instinct to survive and to kill. He doesn't even have the presence of mind to prepare for the ecstasy of his first real taste of blood in months, for the overwhelming heat of it against his tongue and the pounding of a mortal heart connected to his. )
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Flashes of memories spark through his blood.
A shadowy house, cold and quiet. An old man haunting an empty house. If I make noise, he'll start shouting again.
Clammy fingers stroke my hair, pat my shoulder. I didn't tell him he could do that, but he says my beauty is a gift to the rest of the world.
A cruel smile, painted on a canvas. That wasn't there before.
I can still hear the guillotine, and I still feel the rocking of the ship across the Channel.
Her dark hair is a black halo on the stone floor, the shattered glass goblet scattered about her like many stars. What some men call evil is only a medium, an under-utilized brush to paint beautiful things. Angelique is so beautiful, even lying still against the stone, red lips having tasted their last champagne. A pity she had to die. She shouldn't have gone snooping where she wasn't wanted.
She is gone. Now I am the old man haunting an empty house. And I will always be here.
The struggling weakens, then becomes intermittent. Then it stops.]
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It's a long, dark spiral of memories, the flood of an entire immortal life spilling its last across his tongue with the force of a bursting dam, but it's over just as quickly as any other human being's would be. Too quickly, no, can't let it end, can't lose that heartbeat, that heat, that connection— he sinks to his knees, clutching at Dorian, biting down harder with an anguished, animal groan, tearing the flesh— but it's no use. Louis is alone with what he's done. )
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He's been calling loud enough to shatter mortal eardrums at this point, while hammering his fists on the door with enough force to shatter that too; all to absolutely no avail.
Until suddenly, the door gives under his assault and bursts off it's hinges, flying out from the frame and slamming hard against the other side of the corridor. It only takes him a moment of bewildered surprise to regain himself, and then he's stalking out into the corridor with his claws and fangs bared, eyes flashing in search of whatever creature has dared to do something so foolish as separate them. He smells blood in the air, his hunger only slightly piqued, but his fury proving too much even for that. Then, with a drop of dread he realises: he knows that blood, by scent alone he knows it.
And then he sees it.
Louis. Louis bleeding from his ribs and his bruised lip. Louis with his eyes glazed over and staring at a spot somewhere on the floor, with his mouth clamped around some unmoving mortal's throat; his lips pulled back in a snarl, blood leaking beneath his teeth in a slow ooze, the clear sign that there is no pulse left in the body beneath him to force anything else into his mouth. The death comes so swiftly when you're starved, and it's so easy to be lost in it.
Lestat's ire dies, replaced by some nameless feeling he can't waste time defining right now, as he moves forward toward the scene. ]
Louis. [ His voice is firm. ] Look at me.
[ No question of what's been done, no request that he snap out of it - just a shift of his focus, to look at him rather than down at what he's done. He repeats it, firmer still this time. ]
Look at me, Louis.
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He looks up at Lestat, glassy-eyed and uncomprehending, his pupils wide and black. Dorian's blood still coats his lips, shining a faint pink. Even in his wild abandon he remains the gentleman: he didn't spill a single drop. But his chest is soaked with it, dripping down his abdomen and the tops of his thighs, droplets hitting the floor with soft wet taps. The knife handle juts from his chest in the center of it all, sunk in deep. )
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With impressive restraint, Lestat keeps his expression unyielding, his eyes fixed on Louis', changed as they are into something more like a deep pool of ink than a shining faceted emerald. Once Louis is standing properly, Lestat starts to drag him away, away from the creeping smell of death and away from the pool of vampire blood staining the cheap carpet of the hallway. Lestat's mouth prickles, his fangs feeling sharp against his lips as he speaks again: ]
Not like this, my heart. It shouldn't be like this.
[ He takes a few steps backwards, knowing full well he can't drag him to the party like this, up the stairs like this, in case the sight of another human drives him wild, or someone else sees the opportunity to take advantage of the wound or his mindlessness before they can reach that safety... Instead he sees that doorway to the undecorated room again, and though he'd rather not go back into a room that had just kept him a momentary prisoner, he doesn't see much other choice. He leads Louis inside by his arms, over to the dreary bed with its beige comforter, and forces him to sit. He looks at the handle of the blade in his chest, sticking out at that gruesome angle. ]
Come back to me, Louis. You'll want to have your wits about you when this comes out.
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I'm sorry— God— Lestat, I didn't mean to— nnnh—
( Louis chokes on pain, the knife shifting inside of him as he speaks, sending a violent tremor through his entire body. He swallows another low groan, his nails kneading Lestat's arms, head bowed. From this angle he can see the handle of the knife, and oh, that's going to have to come out of him, isn't it? He can't feel the wound trying to heal itself around it, so that's one agony he's spared — but it means he isn't healing so quickly that it won't be a potential problem.
God. All right. It's the least he deserves.
The guilt hasn't set in yet, just a galloping panic as the adrenaline courses through him. He tries to brace himself for what's next, fighting his body's instinct to gasp for breath. Doesn't need it. He nods once, blood sweat beading at his temples. )
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[ Lestat brings his chin up with a hand if Louis hasn't already raised it. He looks at him without fear and without judgement; the only expression leaking through his steadfast resolve being concern. Lestat knows this won't kill him, but even with that in mind there's something awful about seeing your fledgling, your lover, so wounded when you were supposed to be looking out for one another. Lestat knows it isn't his fault and isn't so vain nor self-flaggelating that he'll feel guilty, but it doesn't make him feel great either.
He holds Louis gaze a little longer before bracing one hand on his shoulder and wrapping the other around the handle of the blade. It's lodged in there deep and Lestat can feel how it resists when he firms his stance. He doesn't bother to count down, only inhales a slow breath he doesn't need and holds it-- and then pulls.
The knife jerks out of his chest and a thick swathe of blood follows, pouring down his shirt in a dark scarlet waterfall. Immediately the thirst returns with the scent and sight of it flowing so freely, and Lestat's only hope is to stay forcibly and determinedly on task. He can tell even like this that all the blood in Dorian's body isn't enough to heal this wound before it all pours back out of him, and without sparing more than a second to deliberate on it, Lestat decides to do what it is his instinct to do:
With one hand he shoves Louis' fishnet shirt and band tee up and out of the way, revealing Louis' pale stomach and chest and the gaping wound just below his clavicle. Then Lestat runs one of his fangs down his own thumb in a long, gory line, letting the blood spill into his cupped palm which he then presses to Louis' chest, over the wound, his fingers whisper soft against his ribs. ]
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He lets out a high cry of pain as the knife slides out. He knows that he won't die, but it's agony. Indescribable. His keen senses magnify the hurt a hundredfold, sending it through his entire body until it feels as if his bones are ringing with it, as if Louis is a struck gong and the only sound is pain. Instinctively he tries to double over, but Lestat holds him, keeps him upright and present inside of himself.
His vision swims, the blood leaving his body much too quickly. Delirium begins in an instant. The pain swiftly transforms into something that doesn't seem to matter, his losing blood like this something inevitable, and in a daze he wonders whether he'll find out what it was like for Lestat when he...
But he's spared from his memories of a white-wrapped body sinking beneath dark waters. Lestat's hands are on him, pushing up his shirt, and Louis only has time to make a vague, puzzled sound before his every sense is drawn like a magnet to the sight of Lestat gashing his own thumb and the blood pouring into his hand, the scent of it mingling with Louis' in the air.
Lestat's blood-soaked palm is on him before he has time to react. Louis' hands clutch at him with the blind desperation of a man drowning, and his back arches into Lestat's insistent touch. He's never done this before — it's so strange to feel the blood working on him like this, almost pleasurably ticklish somehow beneath the burning pain as it stitches his veins and muscles back together, slowing the fountain to a thin stream. )
no subject
Lestat looks up finally, searching Louis' handsome face for any sign of relief... but it's then Lestat notices that he can't feel the warmth in his palm that comes when his tongue seals itself shut, or when he heals his wrist after sharing what he has to give, that there is something missing from him and something wrong with this, with all of this. He glances down, looking between his fingers where they're splayed across Louis' ribs, and sees with a shock of panic that there is still the slowest dribble of blood squeezing between them.
In blind panic he draws his hand back from the wound - which seems smaller where the flesh around the edges has started to knit together where Lestat's blood had made contact - but only by the smallest amount. It's not enough, nowhere near enough, to do what needs to be done to make Louis safe, to keep him here. Lestat feels the uncanny sensation of feeling something slip between his fingers, of falling from a great height with nothing to stop his descent, of feeling ash smudge between his fingers, a handful of sand, a crumbling fist full of dirt--
He tears into that same hand again with bared fangs, pulling at his skin so roughly that a small vein twangs and snaps like a rubber band against his teeth. There's blood smearing his mouth and lips now, though who the blood belongs to isn't clear. He doesn't seem to care in the slightest; instead much more preoccupied by taking the weight of Louis' body into his free hand and guiding him gently down into a laying position. From there, he lets gravity do the work as he presses his wound to Louis' wound again, and tenses his fist to encourage the blood flow. ]
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Louis sees him as if superimposed against a similar memory: Lestat above him on the night he was made — listen, keep your eyes wide, the light of an oil lantern spreading behind his golden hair like a halo, steady, Louis, that's it, drink, and the living sounds of the night all around them fading, insignificant beneath the powerful drum of Lestat's heart.
Louis lets out a plaintive sound, trying to lift a hand to Lestat's face, to stroke his cheek — he's so beautiful, and so frightened, and Louis wants to tell him it's all right, that he's doing so well, that Louis won't leave him, that he's holding on because of him, just like he had then, only now... )
Love you...
( It slips out without his meaning to say it, as if in some attempt to convey all of it at once, inadequate. Louis can feel Lestat's blood knitting the deep, internal wounds together, the heat of it, but God, he's still so weak. It feels too much like his consciousness is on a fraying tether. Perhaps it's his imagination, some hallucination of the body, but he thinks he can feel Lestat's blood moving through his veins, too — a strange, soothing sensation, a warmth like that which an infusion of strong mortal painkillers might bring. )
You have me, ( he murmurs, his speech quietly drowsy, trying to reassure. ) I'm all right, Lestat.
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He's on his knees beside the bed, both hands touching Louis' body - one of them tensing keep his wound open enough to control the steady stream of his blood into Louis, and the other still pressed firm beneath his shoulder where he'd used it to guide him down - and in some ways he almost looks like a boy in prayer, with bloody hands and lashes full of tears, begging his closest one not to leave him.
He hasn't said a word, might even feel as though he can't, but when he blinks he finds that he has indeed started to silently and calmly weep, as a tear breaks loose and runs down his cheek. It isn't even like he's worried for Louis' life - though there was a moment there where he'd felt the unmistakeable fear of loss, of being alone again - but more that he's realised suddenly and without warning how greatly the loss of him would shake him apart now were it to ever become closer than this.
His hand retracts from his shoulder to grip the one that shakily twitches as if trying to reach him, guiding it upward enough that he can kiss his knuckles as he watches his beautiful mouth form such heartbreaking words. ]
I know you are, and I know you do. I made you strong, Louis, I know you can overcome this.
[ He sounds reassuring, but it isn't clear which of them he's intending to feel that reassurance, as the sigh he pushes from his chest next is oddly shaky. ]
Can you tell me what you feel? [ His eyes flick to the wound on Louis' chest - still healing, but so slowly - and the wound on his own wrist which already seems smaller... though certainly not healing as fast as he is used to. ] Do you feel it working, mon cher?... My heart, oh, you mustn't go to sleep just yet. Hold on for a little longer, won't you?
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Keep talking, then. Keep me awake.
( He tries to smile a little — you're good at talking, he wants to tease, to be the one to lighten the mood for once, because the sight of Lestat's tears makes him feel almost panicked with the desire to fix whatever's caused them. But another shudder of pain takes him, and he tenses, gasping quietly. It's smaller this time, less agonizing, but still, he can tell the wound was deep.
His eyes fix on Lestat again when they flutter open. He takes a breath, sweat standing out on his temples, and tries. )
It's working. I know it. It's strange, I don't know how to...
( Breathing to talk is so unpleasant, some necessary muscle that he was unaware of obviously badly damaged. )
It feels almost warm, almost like tingling, but neither of those is quite... hmn. It feels good. Beneath the pain. It feels like you.
( His hand flexes in Lestat's grasp, and he fights off another sudden wave of blackness trying to drag him under. )
I wonder whether... because it's your blood, because you made me...
( He lets the thought complete itself. There's something else that's important about Lestat's blood, he thinks blurrily, but he can't seem to remember it now. )
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You will always be a part of me, and I you. That warmth is a reminder of that.
[ He had made Louis strong on his blood alone, but he knows from his time with Akasha and even from the account of the way Jesse had been made that he could have done more. He could have made Louis resistant to this kind of torture, harder to wound and almost impossible to kill; he could have tempered his fledgling like glass, so that nothing and no-one could ever threaten to separate them again. But he hadn't, and now he has to watch as Louis wound slowly, slowly starts to heal.
It makes him shudder to think that Louis feels good beneath all of this, that Louis can spare a thought to be romantic as his body rebels against him, as pain surrounds him. How impossible that he can be so vibrant to Louis that he shines through all of that... and yet how addictive it is to know, how entirely he adores the idea, how wretchedly happy it makes him. ]
I loved watching you fight tonight, Louis. The way you and I move together, like we're carved from the same source. We moved as one being. I even thought, at one point, that our heartbeats had fallen into sync. [ He says this all against Louis' palm, blabbering these sweet nothings into his skin between brief kisses, designed to keep him engaged and awake. ] You were so brave, so powerful. You captivate me like that, when you have purpose, a goal to reach. You've saved so many by my side. I've always thought of us as a pair, but I don't think I've ever considered how easily we could be a team.
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Oh, Lestat, truly? How wonderful. You don't know how I've wanted that...
( He's feeling slightly stronger, at least strong enough to move his free hand to lay atop Lestat's wrist against his chest. That warmth inside of him is spreading slowly, but it has far more to do with Lestat's praise than with the blood soaking into the slowly knitting wound. But he can feel the blood that way, he's sure of it, brief sparks of connection zinging outward through his veins. )
It feels like fireflies, ( he says, sounding nonsensical, hoping that Lestat will understand what he means. ) Your blood. ( He makes a small gesture with his hand atop Lestat's, fingers spreading outward to indicate the spread of it through his body, before relaxing again. ) Do you know why they flash? Courtship... calling out for their mate. That's what it feels like.
( He'd read about that somewhere. His eyes drift shut, just for a moment, before he forces them open again. )
Are you all right?
( Louis squeezes his wrist. )
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He presses his head into the palm he has a hold on, just about the same time as Louis touches the back of his hand. It feels like static, like something charged and powerful, when the link of connection between their bodies makes a complete circle as Louis' bloodstained hands meet with his own. How he longs for the true completeness of that bond, but how lovely it is to experience something so poignant still without it. ]
Fireflies.. [ He repeats, breathless and incredulous but voice full of ridiculous emotion. ] Is that so...
[ Louis is so clever, so vibrant with all he knows; even in a state such as this one he still manages to amaze Lestat, and to hold his heart in a tight grip that he is entirely certain Louis isn't even aware of. How it makes that delicate but desperately romantic part of him soar to hear Louis talk this way, and all he can think of is that low voice Louis takes on when he's feeling particularly sweet, pressing these tender things into his skin as they curl up with one another amongst the blankets of their safe sleeping space.
Suddenly this dorm room is the very last place he wants to be, he wants to be home, he wants to be safe, with Louis. He wants to be far from here and not come back, enough is enough, he's finished with this place and risking their lives for the sake of it all. ]
I'm-- [ Louis asks if he's alright as though he can read his mind and tell he's getting worked up, so he exhales slowly and nods. He glances at his wrist, sees the wound barely an inch across his veins now, though still running thick with blood, and sucks his teeth at the sight. It isn't that he's reluctant to give him more - hell, Lestat would open a vein as many times as it took to have him back to full strength - but he's aware that much more of his sweet ichor poured into Louis' veins, and he won't be able to get him out of here in one piece. ] I'm alright, Louis. Don't worry.
[ He lets his hand go, enough that he can reach his out and stroke over Louis' hair, brushing the waves through with his fingers. ]
But we shouldn't linger here much longer, beautiful one. We have reprieve for now, but who's to say how long it'll last. I want you safe before I can relax.
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I think I can walk, but you'll have to help me to my feet.
( He takes a deep breath. Not so unbearable as it was before Lestat put his blood to it. He thinks it will be better once he's upright, once he isn't moving those specific muscles. He doesn't know if he'll have the strength to make it all the way to their apartment, and in fact the prospect makes him feel queasy and lightheaded, but he doesn't want to give up without trying. He looks at Lestat, paler than death beneath the red streaks painting his skin. )
Take me home, Lestat.
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Anything for you, mon seule.
[ He doesn't give Louis an opportunity to stand, though. How could he?
The hand in Louis' hair moves to his shoulders. The one with the wound he puts to his mouth and runs the flat of his suddenly bleeding tongue across it to help it heal, before he's sliding that hand under Louis' knees. ]
A deep breath, Louis, that's it…
[ He guides him, despite the fact that breathing is useless to them, he knows all too well how comforting the ritual of it can be, and then lifts Louis into his arms. He steels himself for any sound of pain that might escape him, and then wastes no time keeping him close to his chest - tight, secure, protective - as he turns and moves out into the corridor.
The spectres in the hall haven't seemed to notice their closed door, but when it opens a few faces turn to look with absent interest, a few even approach. Lestat spares a glance down the hallway - feeling no small throb of alarm when he sees Dorian's body has disappeared - but then turns and races with preternatural speed toward the staircase, growling and baring his fangs at any creature - ghost in the corridors or human at the party - that might come close until they are safely out in the rain and on their way home. ]
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