Darkside - Part 1, 1990
© Gairid
stat1791@myway.com

Spoilers: Up to Memnoch the Devil
Rating: NC-17
Status: Complete
Characters: Lestat & Louis
Other Characters: OC (Brian Callahan)
Summary: A look into the lives of Louis and Lestat told by a third-party observer. Brian Callahan is my window into their world.

Late April, 1990

"Callahan, 75. Do you read? Over."

I lifted the radio mic from the hook and thumbed the button.

"75. I read. Over."

"Hey, Callahan, you speak French, don't you?"

I raised an eyebrow. One of the questions on the application I filled out to get the job asked if the applicant was fluent in any foreign language. I'd answered it yes, having learned the language from my Quebecois mother. I took four years of it in high school to get the grammar down.

"Yeah, Dave. Over."

"Fluent? Over."

"Fluent. Over."

"Good. You got a pick-up in the Quarter to drop at Lakefront Airport. 1127 Royal, ASAP. Over."

"1127 Royal." I repeated. "Over."

I swerved the limo, narrowly missing an elderly pick-up that had blown the light on his corner.

"Brian, these guys are eccentric. Big money, but definitely strange. Get it? Over."

"Got it. Over."

"Put your cap on and button your jacket. The name's Lioncourt." Dave said, knowing full well the cap was on the seat beside me on top of the jacket. "Over and out."

Eccentric? Strange? In New Orleans? Big surprise there, I thought, hanging the mic back on its hook. I inched along in the clotted early evening traffic, taking any advantage I could to move along; in New Orleans traffic he who hesitates is lost. It took me a little longer than I would have liked, but the impatience I felt was mitigated when I arrived at the 1100 block of Royal and discovered the minor miracle of a parking spot directly in front of the client's address. I got out of the car and shrugged into the jacket and put the cap on.

The townhouse was typical for the area with evidence of recent work on the façade and a fresh coat of glossy black paint on the front door. There was an oxidized brass lion with a ring clamped in its mouth for a door knocker and for some reason I raised my hand to use that rather than pressing the bell. After two raps, the door swung inward as though someone had opened it, but there was no one there. I put my head in.

"Monsieur Lioncourt? Diamond Limousine." I called. "La porte était ouverte."

"Ah, oui. Nous serons prêts bientôt. Veuillez prendre le bagage du foyer à votre voiture."

A shadow cast from the top of the graceful staircase crossed the polished wood floor of the foyer.

"Oui, monsieur." I answered. I stepped inside to get the two bags at the bottom of the stairs, looking about curiously. It was always a surprise to walk into one of these older townhouses and see what their owners had done. The quick look around I allowed myself showed antique elegance.

When the cases were stowed, I closed the trunk and leaned on the car to wait. The air was heavy with moisture and the jacket and hat weren't helping matters any. I'd been in New Orleans for eight months; a Yankee transplant with a hopeless South Boston accent and a fervent passion for my newly adopted home.

New Orleans was heady, dreamlike; a place I had not imagined in my family's cramped Southy apartment on freezing nights when the wind found its way through the cracks in the poorly constructed window frames and the radiators clanked crankily. I looked up at the balcony crowded with the shadows of ferns and flowers and in that time, on that night, it seemed impossibly lush and almost terrifyingly alien. The dense air was heavy with scents, each one more exotic than the next. Even the less-than-pleasant smells seemed exotic to me.

The door opened and I straightened up from my leaning position. For a brief moment my senses blurred and my thoughts fuzzed; the man that emerged blended perfectly into my otherworldly reverie. I shook my head once and passed the feeling off. It was easy enough to do, since the first thought had been followed by a rush of lust so strong it made me dizzy.

He was tall and well-built with a head of blond hair that seemed to shimmer beneath the streetlight. Killer smile, arresting eyes, and perfect, pale skin. His clothes looked expensive and tailored.

"Monsieur Lioncourt? Je suis Brian. Je serai votre conducteur ce soir."

"Good evening, Brian. Please call me Lestat." The Vision said in perfect English. "I apologize for our disarray. We are in a bit of a hurry and so I will also apologize in advance for the urgency I will surely press upon you during the drive."

After this confounding speech he laughed with what seemed to be genuine delight at his own words. I didn't really understand it but his laugh was so infectious that I found myself smiling at him. When his laughter tapered off he jerked a thumb toward the door.

"Louis will be along in a moment." He said, as though I knew who he was talking about. I was sort of used to that; clients often said inexplicable things and I'd learned to just nod politely. That's what I did this time and he erupted into laughter once again. Behind him I heard the door close.

"What has set you off this time, ‘Stat?"

"Ah, Louis. Here is our driver, Brian, come to whisk us off to the airport. Brian, this is Louis."

"Pleased to meet you." I rasped. He nodded briefly.

He was as beautiful as Lestat, though in a completely different way. Thick, black hair framed his face that was paler than Lestat's. Maybe it was the lights. His eyes seemed to glitter when he raked them over me indifferently.

I collected my wits and opened the door for them. Louis ducked in first, doubling his long body gracefully and Lestat followed him, sliding in close and putting his arm around Louis' shoulders. Louis turned his head and licked the length of Lestat's jaw.

I swallowed, throat clicking dryly. "All set?"

Lestat nodded. "You will bring us to the private hangars, please."

"Private hangars, Lakefront Airport. Right."

I closed the door and walked around the front of the car, heart thudding madly. Once I got the car started and pulled away from the curb, I groped for the bottle of water in the cup holder and drank the entire thing.

I got them to the airport with time to spare and followed them into the small waiting area with their bags. After conferring for a moment with one of the women in the office, Lestat turned to me.

"Thank you, Brian." He said, pressing some bills into my hand. "We shall be back here in six days, a little after midnight. If you would be so kind as to pick us up then? "

"Six days. Got it." I put the bills he'd given me in my pocket and pulled out the little notebook I kept to write in the time and date. "Merci beaucoup et bon voyage, messieurs."

He nodded and behind him I saw Louis gazing at me, his eyes flat and expressionless. Lestat turned to him and the blank look fled, replaced by deep, affectionate warmth. They linked arms and went out the door onto the tarmac.

It wasn't until my shift ended and I stopped at a convenience store for another bottle of water that I found out that Lestat had tipped me with five one hundred dollar bills.

~~~~~

That was the beginning of my odyssey and, to quote the Dead, what a long, strange trip it's been and continues to be. They are no less fascinating to me now than they were then, but I see them differently now. They are beautiful and they are powerfully strong. They can be terrifying and they can be tender, but as Lestat so often insists they are not angels, they are vampires. Does it make them evil? I don't know; certainly they have committed acts that might be so interpreted by human beings; however, they are no longer human and their motivations are necessarily not human either.

At least most of their motivations are not. They remain curiously human in some ways, at least these two do. They love one another and they have hurt one another deeply and repeatedly because of it, the same way that humans will, repeating mistakes over and over again.. I suppose when you have so much time, the mistakes are magnified and the pain is deeper, but there is also the time to make things right and to attend to one another properly. If it's taken them two centuries to get it right, well, it's a lot faster than some of the others that are like they are; as far as I know, none of them has managed it.

Thinking about all this planted the idea in my head to write down what I remember of how things were at the start, when I first came to work for them. I guess I caught the bug of writing down events that happen from Lestat but I never really did write down how things were at the beginning except as mentions in later reminiscences. I avoided it because some of it was not pretty, not at all. I saw things about them that I didn't want to see because it interfered with the mindset that at that time, anyway, kept me functioning and as sane as it's possible to be around creatures such as they.

Another thing Lestat often points out is that humans are adaptable and resilient, even if they break pretty easily .True enough, I guess. Things changed and I changed as well. Am I crazy? Maybe. Probably, even, but I wouldn't trade my life for a ‘normal' one. Seeing the flawed side of the creatures I revere made it so I earned more of their trust.

I wouldn't trade any of it.

(B.Callahan, 2005)

Early July, 1990

I was supposed to drive them to a party out by Morgan City. Although Morgan City wasn't much of a place, I knew there were some pretty rich folks that lived out that way, cloistered behind electrified fences and out of sight of the roads by virtue of winding driveways and strategic landscaping.

I made my way down Esplanade and turned onto Royal, giddy with excitement. It was a ridiculous crush, I knew it was, but whenever I was directed to their place my stomach fluttered madly and I had to work hard to suppress a big, goofy grin. No chance at all and I knew it, and it's not like that hasn't happened before. I didn't usually have a problem with that kind of thing because there's always someone that's unattached, always someone to hook up with for an hour or a night, or sometimes longer.

With Lestat, though, it was like being hypnotized or something. It would have been embarrassing if anyone knew about it, but I hadn't mentioned it to anyone.

Then there were the outrageous tips he gave me. The first time I'd held on to the five hundred, certain that it'd been a mistake, and when I picked them up at the airport a week later as directed, I tried to give it back to him. He'd only laughed and said it hadn't been a mistake and he wouldn't hear of taking it back. Those two trips alone had more than covered the rent for my tiny, cramped flat on Iberville.

There was more to it, though. I couldn't put my finger on it in a way that made any sort of concrete sense, but there was more than just butterflies in the stomach, yeah. Sometimes there was real unease. Not an awkwardness because of the crush, but something that brought up the hair on the back of my neck in a way that should only happen when a guy's in some kind of real danger. It was weird, that feeling, because Lestat was unfailingly friendly to me and Louis was aloof to the point where I felt invisible. Not a great feeling, I guess, but nothing that should make me feel threatened.

I had the stretch for them, as requested, and I wondered if they'd even bother to leave the back when I got them out to their destination. The last time I'd picked them up, Lestat instructed me to go to an address in Baton Rouge, but when I got there and opened the door they'd been mostly naked and twined around each other like vines. I stood gaping for a pretty long time before Lestat left off kissing Louis for a moment to suggest that perhaps I might give them some privacy, and that they had decided not to attend the soiree after all, so I would I please just drive back to New Orleans?

This time they went to the party and I dozed on and off in the car while I waited. One of the women who were catering the party came out at one point to give me a plate of food and passed a few minutes talking to me while she smoked a cigarette.

"You're Mr. Lioncourt's driver?"

I nodded, unable to speak through the mouthful of shrimp étouffée.

"Lucky you." She said dreamily. So handsome. He's real nice, too."

I'd managed to swallow. "Yeah. He's a good client."

"Too bad he's one-a them gayboys. How's the food?"

"Food's great." It was. And I was sincerely glad when she finished her smoke and went back inside.

When they came out sometime around 3 a.m., I held the door open for them and once again I got that feeling, a sort of dread that kicks up your adrenaline. Lestat was already in the car, pulling playfully at Louis' hand, but Louis wasn't moving to get in with him. Instead, he was leaning toward me, mouth slightly open. The feeling of danger increased and I took an involuntary step back.

"You pay attention to your instincts." He said, as though he knew exactly what I'd been feeling. It was the first time he'd addressed me directly since I'd begun driving them. "That's a good thing. Perhaps Lestat is right about you."

He got into the car and I shut the door, leaning back on the car for a moment to try and reason away the feeling that he'd somehow read my mind.

Because that couldn't be, could it?

Mid-August, 1990

I opened the car door expecting, by this time, that I would be greeted by the pair of them in a clinch, possibly undressed, but not necessarily so.

They were dressed. They were in a clinch, too, Lestat's face buried beneath Louis' chin, and so I started to close the door. Lestat raised his head and I stepped back hurriedly, nearly falling on my ass, because what I saw was a dripping, red grin and his eyes blazing blue fire at me. The gaping wound at Louis' throat was purplish red, lurid in the yellowish light cast by the dome light.

"We're not ready just yet." Louis rasped gutturally.

Lestat's tongue darted and twisted around in his mouth, licking at his teeth and his lips.

Licking at his fangs.

I shut the door.

It was a good thing that driving in New Orleans was second nature to me by this time because I had a difficult time concentrating after what I had just witnessed. It was one thing to idly contemplate just what it was that was so different about them and the word 'vampire' had crossed my mind more than once during such ruminations. It was another thing altogether to see the ferocity that is not always attached to the word, romanticized as it has become.

The divider window opened and Lestat leaned through it.

"You can bring us back to the casino now." He said affably. "I'm afraid we got a little carried away."

I nodded, speechless.

Mid-August 1990 - The Next Day

I sat at the end of the bar, hunched over my drink. I'd had several already, even though it was only early afternoon. It didn't matter; I was off for the next three days and it seemed like a good time to go on a binge.

So far, neither the drinks nor the loud music was having much of a dampening effect on my racing thoughts. They were curiously circular, possibilities that presented themselves, forcing me to one conclusion.

I could have hallucinated the scene in the back of the limo. But I hadn't.

They were really deep into some kink that I didn't have a name for. Except, I knew that wasn't it.

They were vampires.

And to that, well - yeah.

Because there was all that blood, but when I dropped them off, there was no longer a wound in Louis' throat; the skin there had been pristine. His clothes were another story, dark with blood, but his neck? Nothing.

And the fangs. Let's not forget those. Lethal, wicked teeth, stained crimson.

Sort of explains those feelings of danger, too.

Yeah.

And the fact that they only went out at night.

I signaled for another drink.

Early September, 1990

"I wondered if you'd be back." Lestat greeted me.

"Yeah. Me, too." I said.

"I believe I will ride in the front with you."

"Your call, monsieur." I opened the passenger door in front and he slid in.

"So formal, you." he said when I got in and started the car. "Tell me something. Did you come back because of the money?"

I looked at my hands, steady because they were gripping the steering wheel.

"No." I said in a low voice.

"Why then?"

I smiled tentatively.

"You did request that I drive you to your meeting tonight, right?"

It must have been the right answer, because his rich laughter filled the car as I pulled away from the curb.

Late October, 1990

"So, what do you think? The choice is yours, of course." Lestat said.

"Sounds too good to be true." I said.

"It's a generous salary." he agreed, "But you would be at our beck and call as they say. At night, anyway."

Crazy, I thought. I'd be crazy to do this and just as crazy not to. He was offering me three times what I was making driving for Diamond Limo.

"I'll hand in my notice tonight." I told him. Lestat extended his hand and we shook on it. His hand was smooth and warm and curiously hard in a way that I could not quite explain. He didn't give me time for contemplation about the texture of his skin, however. Releasing my hand, he leaned close to me.

"Are you sure you want to do this? I can be difficult at times." He smiled broadly and the light caught his fangs, glinting on the evil points. He dipped his head closer, sniffing delicately. "You seem nervous."

Was I scared? Damn right I was; terrified might not be too far off the mark, actually, but there was more to it. There was the invitation to glimpse something that I was willing to bet not too many people ever saw. There was his unearthly beauty and there was his beguiling charm and there was the distinct challenge in his voice.

He said the choice was mine. I wonder if he really believed that I would have chosen differently.

"I'm sure." I told him, making a concerted effort to regulate my breathing and remain still when his face was so close to mine that I felt some of the golden strands of his hair whisper across my jaw.