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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[ While he's speaking to them both, he is observing Lestat especially intently. If he was in his right mind, he would be horrified with himself right now. As it stands, he's just seeing red, he couldn't drop the knife even if he wanted to, not until the two men standing before him were crumpled corpses on the ground. The task at hand is more important than breathing for him right now, so he plans to do his due diligence. He doesn't see the faces of two people he's grown close to, he sees two of Dracula's minions, aiming to finish the job. ]
I wonder if you'll bleed as much as he did. I want you to die, vampire.
[ The last word is whispered into Louis' ear shortly before he jerks backward, releasing him, and driving the sole of his boot into the small of the man's lower back to launch him towards Lestat. Ethan uses the chaos of the situation to crouch low to hide behind Louis, fully expecting his paramour to be more concerned with catching him than watching for him. He doesn't have their speed or strength but he's tenacious, so a closed fist is going to be soaring over Louis' shoulder, aiming for Lestat's pretty face. The odds of two on one suit him just fine, he's no stranger to brawling with multiple people at once. ]
no subject
He doesn't have time to wonder who he is before suddenly Ethan is moving. He isn't expecting him to release Louis, so when he comes flying toward him he's honestly expecting the worst. His arms go out to catch him, instincts focusing solely on making sure that Louis is nowhere near whatever Ethan plans to do next; but this means he doesn't look at Ethan for a moment, and a moment is all that it takes for him to miss his opportunity to duck away from the fist quickly flying at his face. ]
no subject
But Louis lacks Lestat's sentimentality when it comes to what they are. He knows they're monsters. It doesn't sting in the least. And so he has his wits about him when Ethan shoves him toward Lestat, and when Lestat catches him, he's prepared: he whirls to face Ethan again, catching his fist with preternatural speed and shoving hard, though the impact sends Louis back into Lestat again. )
Lestat! ( Louis' voice is sharp and urgent, desperate to cut through the fog of pain and grab his attention. ) Do you want to save our friend or not?
( He bares his fangs and lunges for Ethan, aiming a blow for the side of his head if he's lucky, but mainly just trying to distract him any way he can. And — all right, yes, he's annoyed about being made into a damsel. )
no subject
Save our friend? You don't have friends. Vampires don't save anyone but themselves, don't give me that shit. I've seen what you can do firsthand!
[ With that, he opts to forego talks in favor of action. His face is twisted with a rage that Lestat may recognize from the graveyard but it's beyond that now. He is done talking with the creatures that took everything from him, now it's time for payback. He throws an arm up to block Louis' hit but his plan is working like a charm, he has taken his attention off of Lestat to engage the other man. With his free hand, due to their proximity now, he slashes at Louis' midsection while narrowing his eyes. They might be stronger than him but he is as stubborn as they come and can take a hit. ]
no subject
He grabs the back of Louis' shirt when he sees the flash of metal, only yanking him backwards just enough to avoid being wounded, though his clothes might have been torn in the process. He doesn't have time to check, or think about it.
It feels terrible to conceptualise it, but it's true that this is no situation they are necessarily equipped to deal with. ]
Louis, we haven't been hunted like this before.
[ Lestat tries to swipe at Ethan's wrist, trying to knock the blade from his hand. He grimaces when he misses, and takes a step back. ]
We may have to run.
no subject
Louis acts as if on command, hooking his arm through Lestat's and pivoting to pull him down the winding hall and get some space between them. If there's one thing he's certain they both have over Ethan, even now, it's this sort of speed. Something tells him Ethan will follow swiftly, though, so he ducks into the darkness of another dorm room and pulls Lestat close.
Thoughts swarm him all at once now that he's still, and his heart races beneath his torn shirt. Lestat seems so shaken by all of this that Louis feels wildly off-balance himself, and he holds Lestat's arm tighter to anchor them both. )
We're in real danger, aren't we? ( Louis whispers below the range of human hearing, frightened and stunned. ) Lestat. If we run, we leave him to this place, but...
( He doesn't want to hurt Ethan, or to put Lestat through hurting Ethan. And more than that, much more than that, he doesn't want to think of what he might do to Ethan if Lestat should come to any serious harm. )
I don't want us to hurt each other. What do we do?
no subject
After readjusting his hold on the pair of knives, he begins to stalk down the hallway after them at a leisurely pace. There are so only so many places to hide in this place. While they might surpass him in speed, his drive to destroy the ones who ruined everything is unwavering. They could run to the ends of the Earth and, no matter how long it took, he would still find them. ]
There isn't a place dark enough for you to hide from me. The moment your master pulled you into this, he signed your death warrant. Come out and I'll make it quick, you won't suffer.
[ There's no manner of stealth here, the sound of his footsteps are getting closer and closer with each passing second. He's deliberately letting them know he's coming for them and there's nothing they can do to reason with him now. ]
no subject
I don't know how to defend us both against someone as skilled as he is at hunting. We aren't apex predators here, he might as well be an assassin to our kind.
[ Lestat drops his voice to the same impossibly quiet volume as Louis, figuring it highly unlikely that Ethan's hearing be so good he might pick up on it. ]
I can subdue him, but not without hurting him badly, and if he were to wound you-
[ Lestat breaks his sentence off with a short shake of his head. Either he knows the result doesn't bear thinking about, or he's simply refusing to imagine it because he will not let it happen. ]
The most humane option is trapping him in a dorm room and hoping he stays there long enough for this thing to wear off. [ Lestat doesn't look happy about such a miserable solution, but seems to be facing it with grim resolve. ] He seems fixated on vampires like this, perhaps if he breaks loose he won't hurt anyone who isn't of our kind.
[ It's more likely that he'll be convinced that everyone who passes is a child of darkness, but he's trying not to think about that. ]
If we run out quickly, I think I can distract him enough to push him backward into this room. We can barricade the door.
no subject
I love you.
( Louis says it because he can't help but say it, moved as he is by Lestat's tender heart, and because he knows there is a very real chance that one of them could still be badly hurt in the attempt. He holds Lestat's troubled silver-blue gaze, hoping that Lestat can sense Louis' complete trust in him even through the veil that keeps their minds separate from one another. )
It's a sound plan. I'll follow your lead. Please don't do anything too reckless.
( He knows that's like asking a fish not to swim, but. )
I can't stand to see you hurt again.
no subject
Instead, there is an eerie silence before a sharp crack echoes down the hallway, he's just kicked in one of the doors. Not off of the hinges, but it does slam into the wall with great fanfare before slowly creaking shut again. He does this to two other doors before his careful footsteps stop just outside of the doorway where the two vampire lovers are currently taking shelter. ]
I don't want to hurt either one of you, Louis. I'm so tired of hurting people.
[ For a moment it actually sounds like Ethan normally would, his voice has dropped to a quiet, unsteady whisper. Were they to peek into the hallway, he has a hand pressed against his face, the cool handle of the knife resting against his forehead now. A moment of clarity? Not quite. He is tired of hurting people, but these vampires aren't people, they're undead things that have no business languishing in the mortal realm.
There's a sound that could have been an attempt at a laugh, but there's little mirth to it. It's not quite bitter, he sounds utterly defeated. Even with a bloodlust that isn't his own, he's tortured. ]
You waited until she was alone to prey on her, knowing none of us were there to stop it. Knowing I couldn't protect her. If I'd been there, you never would have been able to cross the threshold because I would have put a fucking bullet between your eyes. I never would've had to.. [ He doesn't finish the sentence. ]
No. No, Louis, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm just going to kill you. [ With that he straightens up and proceeds to pass the room they're hiding in. He never even looks into it as he's walking by -- but he has purposely cut his hand with the intention of luring them out. A vampire's thirst, he's found, is something they can't simply ignore. It's dinner time, gentlemen. ]
no subject
[ Lestat is in the process of bringing Louis' fingers to his lips to kiss them, to silently relay his understanding and his promise that he will at least be careful if he can't assure him he won't be reckless— when he hears Ethan's voice so close, hears the thrum of a hunter's heartbeat made loud by adrenaline, a mere stones throw from their prone location. He bares his fangs at the door, ready to take whatever surprise comes... and then Ethan's footsteps move away, and he wonders for one blissful but foolish moment if Ethan might have given up on them.
The smell of blood stains the air, and Lestat's grip on Louis' hands tighten for a second as his mind tries to process what's happening.
Then rage takes over. Lestat is instantaneously furious that this mortal would try to lure him like a dog, that his opinion is so low of their kind that he thinks all of them are driven foolishly mad by just the scent of blood alone. (Some are, of course, the weak ones, but even they have some restraint to them lest they lose all traces of their humanity completely). He can smell the sweetness of it in the air, but his hunger only drives his anger more wild.
The door to their dorm-room is practically ripped open, and Lestat charges down the corridor so fast he's a blur of blonde hair and flashing teeth as he storms up behind Ethan. At this point he's fully prepared to take a knife in his efforts to subdue this man, so he bares down on him with all the speed and might that fury allows him, grabbing Ethan by the back of his ridiculous vampire outfit and slamming him face-first into a nearby dorm-room door so that the wood buckles open and Ethan goes flying inside. ]
Louis-! [ Lestat shouts, almost a hiss through the air, catching Ethan's eyes for one singular moment before he slams the door closed behind him and holds the handle. ] Now!