Fic: (Fine) Dining on Rue Esplanade

[burnadette_dpdl]

(cross-posted to AO3)
 
From: @i-want-my-iwtv​ (burnadette_dpdl)

To: @kf-tea

​This is a gift for @kf-tea​, who requested: Claudia and Lestat, when they still liked each other. The fond memories.

So this is one such memory… I hope it satisfies! Happy Holidays. Huge thank you’s to gairid (same name on AO3) and @wicked-felina (rebness on AO3), who both beta’d this! 

Summary: Claudia and Lestat go out to share a kill of a couple, Claudia pushes his buttons, and he can’t help but be impressed with her.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Category: Multi
Fandoms: Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice, Interview With the Vampire (1994), Vampire Chronicles - All Media Types
Characters: Lestat de Lioncourt, Claudia (Vampire Chronicles), Louis de Pointe du Lac
Additional Tags: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Murder, Intoxication
Language: English
Words: 2135 

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When I’d come downstairs, dressed for the evening, it was obvious that Claudia needed to go out, although it was earlier than she usually needed to do so. She didn’t see me in the doorway to the parlor, where I watched her fidget with her skirts, unable to find a comfortable position on the piano bench, her lower lip flush from the gnawing of her kitten’s fangs. Hungry. I glanced over at Louis, he didn’t notice that her scales had become irregular, so lost in accounting at his desk. Why he insisted on balancing his checkbooks himself when we could hire someone to do so… well, it was beyond me, but then again, I insisted on keeping hold of some chores that others could be hired to do, myself.

“Claudia, ma petite,” I leaned into the doorframe, tilted my head so that loose waves of hair framed my face. She grinned, her face a lit flame, balled her hands into fists, in rapt anticipation as I made my way about lengthily asking her if she fancied going out into the fresh night air with me.  

“Yes, please!”

“... just that you’ve been sitting in this stuffy old flat for an hour, it must be,” I said, using a pocket file on a jagged fingernail. She squirmed on the bench with delight; she loved it when I played at the possibility that she could even consider rejecting my invitation. “A lovely girl like you ought to go out and enjoy the fresh air, the starry sky…” She was off the bench and across the room in a blur, taking my hand.

“I already said, ‘Yes,’ Papa Jaune.” she said.

“Alright, well, if you’re sure you really want to, if you think Papa Noir won’t be too sad without your music keeping him company…” We both looked over at him, and he hadn’t seemed to notice any of this at all, his pen scratching away. His fine feathered brows in that endearing fastidious expression. My Louis, wavy ink hair, sharp contrast of black and white jacket and shirt, stacks of neatly stacked papers on the deep cherry wood desk, he looked more like an illustration than a living creature. I had Claudia in my arms as if I were a thief, and I slunk out backwards, stealing a most precious jewel from a poor watchman, her arms wound around my neck, and we were out the door.

--

I took in the night, such a mild and balmy evening for fall, it must have rained during the day, the cobblestones were seamed in the gold of reflected streetlights. We played at cat and mouse as we made our way down the glimmering street. Claudia would run out ahead and hide, jumping out to frighten me, and I acted the part to her satisfaction, if her giggled reaction to my terror was any indication. I even took my handkerchief out and dabbed at my neck and forehead as if she was truly giving me heart palpitations. It reminded me of the way predators teach their young to hunt, which I was doing, wasn’t I? There was so much to teach her, she was insatiable! Could she read minds, or be taught to do so? Louis really hadn’t tried, or hadn’t revealed to me if he could, and both were somewhat sore spots to my mind, failures on my part. Lack of ability or lack of trust, which was worse?

Then, I had to consider that if she didn’t have this gift and couldn’t learn it, would it injure her to know what she lacked? So I hadn’t revealed it to her, that I could do so, not yet. I shoved these thoughts aside, there would be time for it further down the Devil’s Road.

...And I admit that there is little practical reason in being able to truly frighten mortals, but it does get their adrenaline pumping, it flavors the blood. More than anything else, Claudia loves to do it, and so I encourage her. Why shouldn’t she be a golden little fright?

She eventually tired of our game, and was content to let me carry her, but I could feel her growing thirst in the way she gripped and tugged at my sleeve. I had been sweeping the thoughts of passersby and those in the buildings all along, but found no suitable victims. We were in a darker neighborhood on Esplanade Avenue, nearly at the Bayou St. John riverfront. She tucked her head under my chin, her skin icy.

In the past, she might prod at me about her thirst, which was frustrating, there being nothing I could do, I certainly couldn’t produce blood at her whim! Or give her my own, that was a hard line I wouldn’t cross. Only a few times, I’d been driven almost completely mad by her pestering and shouted as much at her, and later felt terrible for it. Since then, I’d only had to be stern with her if I sensed she was about to start in with it. On this night, I could tell just from the fact that she had stopped talking altogether, that she was holding in her desperation for the kill.

I halted my steps, and focused my attention on what images I could gather from minds in the immediate area. My eyes closed to better hear, prayers from children, scattered wishes and desires, rich reminiscing memories of an old man,… Across the street, behind expensive ironwork railings, was a married couple who had drowned several young girls for sport. Yes, these were perfect.

--

It was simple enough to gain entry to their home, first by saying my daughter needed to use their privy, and then by chatting them both up while Claudia pretended to relieve herself. Sometimes she would look for a knife to use. The wife had been drinking heavily when we arrived, and I pretended to drink with her when they invited us to stay for awhile. The husband had been drinking earlier, but was mostly sober now, and I tried to keep him that way.

“Well, it has been a lovely unexpected visit, monsieur, but you tourists shouldn’t be out at this hour of the night, this is a dangerous area for children,” the wife cooed at Claudia, petting her curls, and stroking at her lavender dress. “Shouldn’t she *hic!* be in bed?”

“Madame, I’m afraid we lost our way back to our hotel.” I lamented, taking her hand. “You have been most hospitable to us, and we are very grateful to you.”

“Think nothing of it, we needed some entertainment this evening.” said the husband.

I continued to make idle conversation, I told them we were from New York, but in their thoughts, I caught images of them planning to get rid of me, I was nothing but an easily dispatched young tourist, and then they would have another young girl to drown in the bayou. What deliciously monstrous creatures they were! And they were planning to kill me with a gun, such a long-range weapon, so impersonal. I was more than a little insulted.

In a matter of moments, I had signaled to Claudia to take the man, and I had brought the woman into my arms, driven my fangs into her neck. The blood hit me like a salve, curing all of the chill that I had been ignoring in my body. It flowed through me, I was vaguely aware of the fleshly vessel that delivered this to me as she struggled under my grip, and it felt so good, so soothing, I hummed to myself in bliss between draughts.

Claudia, meanwhile, had scrambled up into the man’s lap and was throttling him, but when she leaned in to take what she must have, she leaned back again, as far as she could without falling, disgusted.

“You always get the ladies, why can’t I ever get them?” said Claudia.

I looked up at her, she hadn’t even bitten into him yet! I let my fangs come loose from the wound, slowly lifted my head up, covered the wound with my fingers, licked my lips, but it had already run down my chin. Blood poured out around my fingers, going to waste. At least the victim was silent, she’d lost too much blood to be conscious anymore.

“Dearest, you know it’s rude to interrupt when someone’s drinking,” I said in a low tone.

“But it’s not fair, you always get the ladies, and this man smells like  offal!”  Claudia punched him in the shoulder, hard enough to break bones, and he cried out in muffled way. Why wasn’t he screaming? His eyes were as large as dinner plates!

“Are you hungry or not?”

“I am!”

“Are you really? You’re not acting like it.”

“I said  yes.”

“Then don’t whine about it, get to it.” I motioned dismissively to her victim, anxious to get back to mine before she bled out entirely.

“But why? Why can’t  you  have him instead?”

“Because, ma petite,” I said, leaning over my victim to her. “The lady’s drunk too much for you. I don’t want you drinking that, think about what Papa Noir said last time you came home to him drunk.”

She was silent for a moment, and then said, “He didn’t like it.”

“No, he did not.”

“But I still don’t see why I can’t. Why  not?”

“Did you enjoy  being drunk that night? Did you enjoy how you’d lose your balance, walking into street lamps, slurring your words when you spoke?”

Begrudgingly, she admitted that she did not.

“Well then, you see, I have your best interests at heart, I love you so much, my darling, I wouldn’t want you to be unhappy.” I had a hand on her shoulder and I drew her in for a little kiss on each of her cheeks, leaving a smudge of blood on each one deliberately. “Now, have your supper, alright?”

“Alllriiiiiight… ” she said, the vocal equivalent of dragging her feet, and turned back towards the man, who was in absolute terror now, but couldn’t make a sound but for gurgling, as his vocal chords had been crushed.

--

We came directly home after that, full and satisfied, and I was the drunk one, Claudia poking fun at the way I wove my way down the street, and talked, missing letters, all this I was exaggerating for her amusement. And of course, she went directly to Louis and told him I was drunk, as if he couldn’t tell on his own. He peered at me in that judgmental way of his, petting Claudia’s curls as if to say that I had barely fulfilled my duties as her guardian.

“I’d prefer you didn’t get your victims so inebriated that you barely make it home,” said Louis.

“Me? I? Are my victims not capable of drinking before  I arrive on the scene?” I scoffed, collapsing into my favorite chair.

“Anyway, Claudia brought me home in one piece, praise her.”

“I did, he would’ve gotten lost without me,” she said with some pride, playing along at the game. I’d never been that drunk from a victim, but let her think that. Why not.

“It’s not safe for her to be around such drunk people--” Louis began.

“Oh, stop it. Safe! You should have seen her, she took on a full grown man, he must have been six feet tall, a hundred and eighty pounds, she choked him and finished him off in about 15 minutes, really Louis, people should fear HER.” I said, my arm over my eyes.

No response.

And I didn’t expect one; he finds discussing the kill to be shameful in some way. “Anyway, until you volunteer to be the one to take her out, you’ll have to leave this to my discretion.”

“I suppose I will, then.”

“I had a good time with Papa Jaune,” said Claudia, quietly. “He took the drunk victim so I wouldn’t have to.”

Louis turned to her, his expression softened by the smallest fraction. “Is that so?”

“Yes” she said. “Papa Jaune makes everything so much fun!” she smiled. “They were dreadful people anyway, you would have agreed if you knew what they were thinking about us!”

“You can hear them?” I asked her, trying to conceal my excitement. “Their thoughts?” She gave me an impatient look, as though what I had asked should be perfectly obvious.

“Not always. I can if it’s loud. That woman wanted to drown me! Can you believe it?”  Her laughter was silvery and light. I caught Louis’s slight frown, when he gazed at me over her head. But when he turned his full attention back to her, I could also see in his eyes that he was proud of her. She really was a prodigy.