Under the Influence By Bunicula (bunicula@northnet.org) Please be gentle with me. It's my first time posting specs and I had to be talked into it before I would agree to it. These are just two short specs about some average nights in the lives of Louis and Lestat. They take place just after QOTD and TOBT. Try to ingore any bad spelling. I haven't got spell check. :/ This is a work of speculative fiction and is purely hypothetical and not intended for publication or release outside of the alt.books.anne-rice newsgroup. No infringement of any copyrights held by Anne Rice or Random House/Knopf is intended. WARNING! PROBABLY CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR ALL VAMPIRE CHRONICLE BOOKS UP TO TALE OF THE BODY THIEF. This one is rated "R" too. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I woke to the heavy throb of music coming from one of the apartments below my rooftop flat. Ah, the tenants on the fourth floor just under me celibrating again. If they kept this up I would have to have a talk with them. Still, none of the other tenants had complained yet so I didn't worry too much over it. The fact that it had disturbed my slumber bothered me only a little. I hadn't meant to fall asleep, I was in fact waiting for a phone call from my lawyer in New York. But a look at the digital numbers of the clock on the VCR told me the call wasn't going to come tonight. Not at this late hour. I sat up from where I lay on the couch. What was I going to do tonight? It was tempting to just lay here all night as I had the night before and listen to the city outside. I did just that for a long while and was just drifting to sleep again when I heard a rattle of the security gates outside my door. I couldn't stop the smile that came to my lips. Only one person rattles like that. I jumped up, opened the door and went out to see Louis. I took a moment to lean against the door frame and examine him there, his fingers wrapped around the iron of the gate and his head resting against it. There was a cloudy look to his eyes tonight. His clothes were the same as the last time I'd seen him. About a week ago. A soft cotton shirt of darkest blue, the indigo of his lost plantations. The sleeves where long and gathered at his wrists with buttons of black velvet. The blue suited him I decided as I stood there. I could see that he had just killed, his skin was very pink, glowing in the moonlight, his lips stained in blood. The usual lust came over me at seeing. And, as usual I burried it down and ignored it as best I could. I don't think Louis has any idea the emotions he dredges up when I see him. I prefer to keep it that way. He smiled at me. "Hi." he said in a low voice that I had to strain to hear. I returned the smile, it couldn't be helped. I went to him at the gate and with a quick thought opened the lock there and let him in. There was something deceptive about him tonight. Something a bit off. I couldn't place it. It was in his eyes. The way they darted off me then back again. "What?" he asked, sounding a little uneasy. "I don't know. What?" I replied, moving to give him a quick kiss. The blood on him was almost more than I could take. I stepped away before I lost control and lead him inside. I went around turning off some of the lights in the rooms. Knowing he prefered the darkeness. Meanwhile Louis settled himself into one of the large stuffed chairs in the living area. When I returned to the room he was half sitting half laying in the chair, his head lolled on the velvet arm of the chair, the pupils of his eyes very tiny. Almost nonexsistant in the darker green. And then it came to me what was different about him. Drugs. He must of been out killing some poor mindless mortal. I wondered what kind it was. They all have the same effect in the end. Dulling the senses. And as vampires our senses are so strong already it's an over powering thing to have them suddenly dulled. An evil grin came over me as I watched him there. Completely at my mercy now. In the spider's web so to speak. A mirthless sort of laughter came over me as I approached him there in the chair. "Are you well Louis?" I asked, trying my damnest to sound seriously concerned. None of this registered as out of the ordinary to Louis. He just blinked up at me for a moment. "I'm fine... how are you?" I was leering, I knew it. I couldn't help it. He was so appealing. All lathargic and warm looking. Very inviting. My intentions seemed to soak into Louis's drugged mind suddenly. He sat upright and his eyes went wide as he looked up at me. "I have to go now." he announced, climbing up from the chair and making right for the door. The wrong door I noted. He returned from the kitchen a few moments later. "Did you rearrange some things?" He asked innocently, his pupils dilated now. "No Dear." I went to him, worried for him now. "You can't leave Louis. Not like this. You'll get hurt." I told him, taking him in my arms and pulling him along with me to the couch. He was positively hot. Feverish almost. I kissed his head as he stretched out with me. "You're burning up." I told him, returning to the comfortable tongue of the old French of our time. "I don't know what it was." He answered in the same language. His voice almost thick now. Listless. "Doesn't matter." I said as I kissed him slowly. Enjoying the heat of him, the taste of salt and blood on him. He returned my caresses until it seemed the drugs got the better of him and he just lay still beneath me, compliant in my arms. "You've got to do this more often." I whispered against his ear. He opened his eyes. "Of course you would like this." I stoped what I was doing and gazed down at him. "What? What do you mean?" "Me, submissive without putting up a fight." He closed his eyes again and appeared to drift off. "So why put up a fight at all Louis?" I forgot my lustful intentions and shook him a bit to wake him from what ever hallucinatory dreams he might be having. A sweet smile crossed his lips. How peaceful he looked. "Fight? I don't fight Lestat. I have to play hard to get or we would get bored with one another." It made sense for a few seconds to me. But then I lost the understanding. "You're wrong Louis. How could we get bored with this?" "Happens all the time." He replied. He opened his eyes again then put a hand up to pull my head back down to him. He kissed me deeply, running his tongue over the razor sharpness of my fangs. Of course I forgot the topic of conversation and lost myself in the blood of the kiss. I tangled my fingers in his soft hair. Louis pulled back, licking his lip where I had bitten him. "I don't like this..." he murmured. "Make it stop Lestat. Make this stop." There was no need to ask twice. I drove my fangs into him and felt his entire body stiffen in my grasp. Within seconds I'd managed to drain at least half the blood from him. I lifted my head, Louis pulling himself up to kiss the blood from my lips. I could feel the blood warming my skin, rushing through my entire body. My heart raced then became dangerously slow. Louis was watching me with half lidded eyes. "God." I whispered, my voice sounding wrong to me. "What was it? LSD?" "Maybe it was morphine." Louis suggested. "What does it matter?" I lay my head next to his, concentrating on this sensation. This heat that wasn't going away and the slow beat of my heart lulling me into sleep. If I listened close enough I could almost hear the same low throb of the music downstairs. Almost in rythm with my heart. Or was that Louis's heart?