Characters are owned by Mater, apparently. But, hey, I bet God dosn't like people using Jesus in their novels. :-)

Blame spelling mistakes on the Dreamcast I'm using! It keeps cutting me off, the st---


I don't know if anyone remembers my other BS, "Weren't Yo Adored?" But this is a sort-of prequel to it. It's rather a sad piece, but, hey, this part of VC history intrigues me, M'Kay? Original lurking somewhere on Rotoli...

Spoilers: Up to TVL

Thought: MTV UK is showing the Real World: New Orleans at the moment. I really want to bitch-slap that uptight girl with the glasses!
Ahem.

_________________

"Remember me when I am gone away.
Gone far into that distant land,
When you can no longer take me by the hand..."

- Christina Rossetti

"One of my big concerns these past few years is that
I've been losing my ability to feel things with the
same intensity...it's scary- to feel you emotions floating
away and just not caring."

- Douglas Coupland, 'Life After God'.

__________________

New Orleans, 1959

Louisiana was struggling through the depths of winter, cold and harsh even in the warm climes of this part of America. In the legendary bars and clubs of Bourbon Street, the crowds heaved with revellers celebrating the coming of Christmas, still a good few weeks away, but giving ample excuse for revellers to drink in the splendour of this area.

In one bar lining the street, a busy throng of drinkers gathered in what was normally a quiet place for locals to visit away from the tourists. Irate locals shouldered them out of the way, whilst party-goers laughed and told them to 'lighten up', usually followed by a string of muttered curses.

If the drunken revellers paid little attention to the unusually handsome pair of men that sat at one table, they were watched keenly by one of them, glittering emerald eyes regarding them with the keeness of a predator, the appreciation of an artist.

He in his turn was watched with rapt attention by his companion, who, despite looking all of seventeen, had managed to charm his way into the bar to talk with him. "It's a little crowded in here, don't you think, Louis?" he asked finally, attempting to capture Louis's attention. Louis seemed to prefer to slip into the shadows and watch; others would do anything to gain his gentle attention.

"It's all right, Armand." he answered evasively, before returning his attention to the crowds once more.

"What are you thinking?"

"What am I thinking?" he murmured, "lots of things. None of them particuarly insightful or revealing."

"Try me." said Armand patiently.

"I was thinking of the past."

The young face before him betrayed wise reckonings of knowledge, of unhappiness. "Louis, it seems you are always thinkng of the past lately. Have you stopped running from it at last, only to be strangled by its grip on you?"

"I need to understand it. It can't hurt me anymore," he lied, "But...I must understand it."

"And you want answers from me?"

Faintly imploring voice, knitted eyebrows, soulful jade-coloured eyes; the requirements to soften Armand's resolve. "Tell me what Lestat said, that night he came to you. He never answered my questions; you do."

Armand sighed, gazing around at the crowds as if exasperated with the conversation, his first show of impatience that night. But he would answer him; here, he and Lestat differed; for Armand, knowledge held no power. "Louis, haven't I told you what happened that dreadful evening?"

"Yes, I know you have. But tell me it again."

"He said..." Armand paused, forced himself on, "That youy didn't do it. Claudia had attacked him. You...he loved. He talked of your indestructible humanity. He did not want you dead. But then he did not want her alive," he added quickly.

"Thank you," said Louis softly, unsure whether to believe this last statement, but satisfied to be given further revelations to fire him in his questions. But this time, he did not seek answers from others, rather, for his own wounded soul to reveal darker, untouched longings.

"You miss him," said Armand, a faint tone of bitterness rising in his normally steady voice, "and you would return to him if he were to appear in that doorway right this moment! Tell me, isn't that what you are thinking?"
Louis shrugged. "And what if it was, Armand? What does it matter? He's dead; you have told me this. And I will weep and I will mourn his loss; and nothing will ever come of it. I've always been this way; allowing you others to change my fate rather than rising up and grasping it for myself!"

"Have you never realised the sheer control your beautiful soul has over *us*?" Armand asked.

Louis made to reply, perhaps even to retort that he was sick of being told how devastatingly beautiful he was, when some song or another started up and the words caught in his throat.

Every night, I hope and pray
For a dream lover to come my way...
Dream lover, where are you?

Stupid. how often these manipulative modern songs caught his heart and made him think of Lestat as if in some romantic dream. No wonder he disliked the emotional fix of modern music; almost instantly, he conjured up memories of some melancholy poem he had assumed as a fitting epitaph for Lestat:

He did not love me living;
But in death, he pitied me
And very sweet it is
To know that he is warm,
'Tho I am cold

Enough! Dwelling on this would make him go mad. He turned to the crowds, and felt himself suffocating amongst them. A wave of nauesea, remembered feelings of claustrophobia engulfed him. He groaned and turned to face Armand; and the thoughtful brown eyes, the questioning expression, became too much for him.

"Armand," he said suddenly, "I wish to leave... I...I have to leave."

"Where do you want to go?"

"Anywhere but here. I..." he stood up abruptly, feeling the terror rise in his throat, and in some morbid vision the air became the thivck murkiness of the lake in which Lestat's remains had been swallowed, became the dark depths of the coffin he had been imprisoned in, became the blistering, blinding sun eating at Claudia's flesh.

The scream threatened to rise from his throat and engulf him, and only the knwoledge that the eerie preternatural shriek would arouse the mortals' suspicions prevented him from screaming out loud.

A gentle but firm hand clasped his shoulder. "Louis?" came Armand's concerned voice.

He shoved Armand's hand from him, darted through the crowd and out of h door.

"Louis!...LOUIS!" Came the pleading cry. Louis did not answer. He knew his companion would not follow. He imagined him sinking back into his chair, sighing with exasperation, perhaps muttering dark oaths under his breath. Such scenes had been played out m,ny times before, and if Lestat had been consumate rage in the face of louis's anxiety, Armand was the emodiment of resignation. Louis did not know which reaction he despised most.

Walking swiftly from the bar, he turned corners again and again, stalking down deserted alleys that held no fear for him, until he found himself on a quiet stretch of road far from the city limits.

So quiet here. Almost eerie in its silence. He fancied a snowflake fell, and, like a mortal child, stuck out his tongue to catch it. He imagined he *was* a mortal child again, and playing with his brother and sister, looking to a mundane but comfortable mortal future of dances and children and the peaceful release of mortal, animal death.

Lost, lost, lost. The world turned on, each person rushing towards their respective fate, whatever that may be. And for him, an anomaly of nature that had destroyed the only semblance of peace he had ever known, the future was a dark abyss into which he was falling. He imagined himself becoming as lost and as desperate as Armand, reaching out for humanity long since gone from his grasp.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow...

The words thundered through his head, and Lestat was there, dancing nonchalantly along the lonely little street, cloak whirling about his cat-likeform, pointing his walking stick at him and declaring breathlessly, "Tomo
row and tomorrow and tomorrow, Louis!"

Somebody coughed somewhere, and the image faded. Louis brushed a silkly lock back from his face miserably, feeling his heart lurch as if crushed by the weight of his grief. But wasn't he being ridiculous, basking in his melancholia for someone who had at turns frustrated him and enthralled him, usually the former? And hadn't Lestat, selfish, incosiderate Lestat,mant to keep him forever, in ignorance and fear? How could Armand call that *love*?

Was he simply too human to understand the possessive, ruthless love of a vampire? Was he not Armand's bound companion as he had been Lestat's, only goverened by loneliness rather than ignorance?

No matter, he thought, pulling the collar of his coat up as protection aginst the bitter winter winds, now he thought as a vampire. Oh, he had leaned from his past mistakes. He would be cold and ruthles, removed fromhuman aspirations of love and loyalty.

And yet, Armand had been right, as always. If Lestat had appeared at that moment, he would have flung himself in his arms, begged him for forginess, offered him his undying obedience, his eternal friendship, anything- only, please end this loneliness.

He smiled bitterly. There he went again; descending into Romantic notions of love. Perhaps, he realised, only Lestat could release him from this sinking into oblivion, the fading of his soul. For that, he would have to bealive, would have to return someday; and there was little chance of that, was there?


The End.