Survivor

Becky Durden

Disclaimer: David Talbot is NOT a typical Engishman.

Owned by Mater, blah, blah, bloody blah.


Small. rather crappy, dashed-off story that just would not lie. Written on a Dreamcast because I have no damn computer for the next month. Please excuse consequent bad presentation. ;-)

Disregards Memknock-MerriQue confusing, convoluted books.
Timeline; Like, here, now, people.
Corresponds to some events in that wonderful "Secret History" BS by Cesare.

**********

"Louis, you must come back to me. There's something I must tell you...about that night in the swamp." But then he stopped and look about again, as if he were caged, wounded, desperate.

Louis, on Lestat, Interview With the Vampire, p.297

********

There are some things that you just don't mention, some things that no amount of talking will ever resolve. And the most annoying thing is, these things wil find a way to resurface, and they must be faced. Tonight was one of those times, and as I felt the sun's approach over the horizon, I cannot help but wonder why he brought this up tonight.

Life has been pleasant recently; the vampire community is quiet, the world means little to me at the moment. It means very little when he sun is coming up and I have just made love with Louis.

Lying there, covered in silken sheets while he veritably purrs against me, engaging in small talk, I have to admit I am a little exasperated at the sudden turn our conversation takes.

"You told me, over a decade ago, that you would never hide anything from me again." he says after what had been a comfortable silence.

"And have I?" I ask, running my hands through thick, silky hair.

"One thing you have never answered."

"Maybe you haven't asked."

"Maybe I haven't," he muses, and looks up at me, eyes glittering like jade stones in the dark so that I am mesmerized by them, "but would you tell me?"

"Anything. I said I would never keep you in ignorance again. After all, we've shared... everything else tonight," I say seductively, so that he laughs with embarrasment.

"All right, then; but promise me you will not get angry, because it might be painful..."

"I promise." I say, grinning wolfishly, "And it had better not be, '"Have you ever fantasized about Armand?'"

"Have you?"

"Fantasized about many things regarding him. There is "Armand getting eaten by Lions", "Armand Gets Caught in Daylight..."

"Lestat!"

I laugh and pull him closer. "All right, Beautiful One, I promise not to get upset. What is the question?"

He sits up and stares straight at me, serious, waiting. "What was it thatyou wanted to tell me all those years ago? When you returned to the flat after... you were nearly destroyed. At the Theatre. What was it you said had happened in the swamp?"

And because I promised not to get angry, and because to storm off would be to have to face him sooner or later, all I can do is become lost in one of the most painful memories of my entire life.

*******

That night, in the swamp, I learned and felt and saw many things as I was disposed of by two foolish, scared fledglings.

Of course, when Claudia ran that knife across my throat, I didn't really die. My soul, still damned, still earthbound, could never leave this mortal coil so easily. "Death" was a strange thing; a draining, morbid, otherside where I languished in a dream-like state.

Mortals who have died for a moment or two before surgeons have brought them crashing back to earth, or those who work out of their comas, will often say how they felt sealed off from the waking world- still *there*- never fully awake.

And indeed, though my eyes seemed blinded by death, though my lips were drawn back in a grotesque parody of a hunted animal succumbed to the cruelty of the chase, I saw everything. I could never have answered, or spoke one word of forgiveness or retribution, but, God, I was aware. And she knew.

Louis, poor, desperate Louis, secret lover, seeming enemy, trembled and retched as he carried my body and thrust it into the carriage. Louis, wo would have gone mad from guilt and grief had not cold blue eyes and petulant child-like voice commanded him so well.

"Pretty Louis," she whispered, "You always held him on a pedestal, didn't you, Lestat? Hated him because you loved him so completely, because how can such a creature exist without being owned completely? How could you allow such beauty to wither, and to die? And for that...for that you would condemn me to...this!" she held out her hands, indicating the chubby little form of a six-year-old girl.

"Did I ever tell you, Lestat? Did you ever guess... how muh I hated you? How much I hated you both? And now, you are dead, atoned for your most dreadful sin. And him..." she cried, "the paramour whom you must posess, so frustratingly blind to his beauty, to my suffering, toyur suffering, I have him to pander to my every whim. Tied to me as you were to him."

"Claudia?" came his voice, He was away somewhere, preparing some ridiulous burial ritual, most likely.

"Don't think I never loved you. I loved you both. But love is a human fancy, a temporary madness to be replaced by indifference. Or hatred if it is the motivation for abandoning me to such a cruel fate. Why should I suffer...because you loved him!"

I loved you, too, my darling. Love you still.

"And he is so beautiful. And you are...were beautiful. And neither of you could ever treat me as anything but a doll, never to be loved the way you love him, never to partake in the heated trysts you two played out...thinking I was too blind to see what was happening, fancying I was nought but a doll to play with!"

Her hands ran across my face, no longer shuddering at the ugly spectacle of vampire death. "Poor Lestat," she sighed, "at least for you, there is release in death. For me... and for your wretched lover...there is nothing. And I will love him. And I will hate him, as intensely as I loved and haed you. But I have his love, his soul... something you never have and wil never possess. A fair bargain, Papa Jaune?"

Cold lips against my face. Her deadly kiss. And love, and hate, bitterness and a cold kind of triumph in her voice. And I felt for her, even in my suffering, even in my fear for Louis. What did it matter now, though? Surly, death beckoned.

He returned, shifting, awkward. "I have found a patch of land... to afford a burial..."

"What shall it be, Louis?" she asked, "Christian? Jewish? What sort of burial?!"

"And what would you have me do with the body?"

"Consign it to the swamp. Let the putrid life feed from him, find what goodness, what nourishment there can be in our maker."

"You don't mean that."

She gazed at his shocked face, serious, intent. "It will swallow the body. The animals will take him back into nature..."

What did they know of our nature? And he must have thought that, too, must have wanted to argue as he would with me, and then he remembered that it was not me he argued with, but his beloved Claudia.
"Surely there must be..."

"The swamp, Louis. You know it must be..."

I had never known him to be more defeated, more ready to give in than at that moment. And, both Claudia and I knew, never more acquiescent was he than in defeat. He moved to the coach, caught a glimpse of my eyes, winced, and stepped backwards again.

"Do it."

"Claudia...I-I..."

"Do it!"

She knew better than to hiss such a command at him. He could be so rebellious, so incredibly stubborn when ordered to do something. He turned away.

"Louis," she whispered, walking over and taking his hand. He made to pull away, but did not. "The task is done-"

"Task! As if it were so very mundane!"

"- and I need your help," she murmured, "without you, I am nothing. Without your help, Lestat will not rest. Would you consign him to this? Leave his body here, on the road, to become carrion that will never rot? And me? Will you leave me to die...for him?"

"Never!" he whispered, "I told you, I will not let anyone hurt you. but...I won't do this! I cannot do this!"

"Dispose of something that is already dead? Is he so different to some vitim who you dispose of to hide the evidence of the kill?"

Flash of a memory. Louis laying beneath me, tousled hair, dishevelled clothing, my fledlging, my lover. Mine.

"Louis."

Soft, beautiful voice, imploring, faintly demanding.

Sound of movement. Clumsy, human footsteps that were unmistakably Louis's. God, Louis, don't do this. And then the sensation of being lifted.

Even in my altered state, I could feel the murky, cold waters embracing my emaciated body. No panic, no pain, that is, unless you counted the pain of watching him turn forlornley away, consigning me to my fate forever.

She's going to destroy him.

Destroy him as she did me.

And does it matter, finally?


Yes. It mattered. Cursed, wretched fool that you are, Lestat. In love with this self-destructive gentleman, who so deserved everything he got for such a betrayl.

And yet, even as the swamp drowned out these thoughts, even as the first wretched snake or whatever thing it was came to investigate, sw, and turned in terror only to be snatched up by blood-hungry hands, I knew that I could not leave it at that.

I would regain my strength. Return to them. For what? Vengeance? Compassion? Understanding? I didn't know. But I would, at least, let him know just what manner of vampire Claudia had revealed herself to be. Dark. Deadly. A thousand more times the predator me or my misguided fledgling ever could be.

****

"Well?"

The soft, accented French lilt brings me jolting back to the present. I remember that the silken sheets are not the grey murkiness of mississippi waters, that the creature laying next to me, serpentine, languid, is something much more embraceable than the dying snake I had drained.

"Well, what?" I ask.

"This revelation, this startling thing you had to tell me- what was it?"

"Don't mock me," I growl.

"Then tell me!" he pesists, laughing now, but I hear te urgncy nhisvoie.

"No."

"Lestat, *tell me!*" And this time, he is not laughing.

A nasty impulse shakes me. I want to grab him, hiss in his ear, "You know this petite beauty whom you adored? Who you adore? Truly, do you know her? Here's the truth, my friend. Here's the tale of a little girl who would just as soon as had you retching on that floor, watching the blood spill from you as you did with me!"

And, oh, I was so tempted. And then I remember, one night two years ago, when I had enjoyed a rare conversation with Armand. Walking through a moonlit New York park, I had enquired about Louis's years spent with him, asked him if he thought it was punishment enough for Louis, if such dull companionship was ample repentance for his deeds?

Armand had simply replied, "He realised just what he sacrificed in you for Claudia. He gave up his soul for you, and she stole it when the sun burnt her life from her. I think it is punishment enough."

"I don't!" I had snapped, though of course, I had agreed with him. Louis's conscience was torture enough for him; he dwelled in a world of regret, of sorrow for what he should have done, what he had done. And still he had returned to me, still he hid these thoughts as best as possible.

"What was it?"

"I don't remember," I lie. "Does it matter? Is it so important?" He knows to leave it at that, and rests his arm back into the hollow of my shoulder.

"Not important, now." he whispers reassuringly, though I can tell he is disappointed.

"I don't remember." I repeat softly, wishing, with all my heart, that my words were true.


The End.