The Broken Lock
© Persephone & Siren
degas.ballerina@gmail.com
Spoilers: The Vampire Lestat
Rating: PG
Status: Complete
Characters: Lestat & Louis
Summary: What if, while home alone one evening, Louis received a mysterious delivery.
Lestat and Claudia had already been out nearly two hours, but the mild New Orleans winter was still waning, so it was not late enough in the evening for a knock at the street door to be a very odd thing. There was a pause, not long enough for a servant to respond to it even if one had been home, and then it came again, sharp and businesslike.
Louis heard it from the next room, but was not in a hurry to answer it. He'd opened the balcony door and was standing near the railing, his arms folded and his elbow resting against the corner of the banister.
It was at the second knock that he straightened and went to answer the door. Louis wasn't hesitant to open it; he thought it might be an admirer of Claudia's - she coerced so many into bringing her home that once in a while one of them returned. To check up on her, they'd say, but he knew it was because they wanted to look at her again. If Lestat was in the mood, he'd invite them inside, entertain them, and on those evenings it was Louis who would go out to escape the spectacle.
He opened the door enough for himself to be seen, but little else.
A man with reddened face above graying whiskers stood on the steps with a medium sized trunk at his feet. There was an impatient horse with wagon down beyond the gate.
"Good evening, monsieur. I regret to inform you," the caller began in a somewhat breathless drone, "that Bernard's on Canal has been foreclosed due to the untimely death of the proprietor. Even though it has been many years known as a prestigious establishment, there is no successor to absorb the liability, so all property unfortunately must be returned to owners." His eyes went briefly to the weathered trunk, and then he added with a brusquely apologetic tip of his hat, "I am afraid you will have to seek the services of another storage facility."
Obviously surprised, Louis looked from the man to the horse wagon behind him, as though that would explain more about the situation. He could not recall using the services of a storage house recently, but by the looks of the trunk, it had been there for a while. He thought it possible that it was something salvaged from the plantation, stored under a false name that he did not bother asking after.
"Thank you for delivering it to me." It wasn't often that he spoke with mortals, but Louis' voice was quietly polite. It wasn't necessary, but when he bent to retrieve the trunk he was sure to slip a good number of folded bills into the man's sweaty hand. Louis overpaid in every service that he required. Money bought silence, amongst other things.
The messenger tipped his hat again in a much more genuine way, and then moved forward to bend as well with only a faint wheeze. "I will assist you..." He did not have the chance to, however before the trunk was already out of his reach. Pocketing the cash without another word, he simply withdrew the delivery slip and offered it to Louis to sign.
The name on the form was Philip Rousseau. Two streets near the river that happened to intersect and meant nothing really.
It was an unfamiliar alias for Louis, and he hesitated, but then he signed the slip and gave the man a grateful nod. He turned and closed the door, and then lifted the trunk to bring it up into the parlor.
Once it was underneath the lamp, Louis saw that the chest once had to have been very polished and quite nice. He knew at this point that he'd never seen it before, but still could not help but wonder if it might have belonged to his sister. If that was the case, he wanted to see what it was.
There was a lock that required a key. Louis inspected it briefly, and then began to look for something that might fit. He checked all the drawers in his room, the ones in the foyer, and in every other room except Lestat's. He knew better, and Louis did not think that he'd find what he was looking for there.
Eventually, he returned to the trunk in the parlor and knelt before it, frowning. It would make sense that he would have misplaced or even lost the key by now, especially considering how old and decrepit it appeared. Louis passed his hand over the top of the rounded lid, and then brushed his fingers against each other to be rid of dust and grime. He touched the lock again, and then abruptly gripped the bottom of it and pulled. The metal snapped, and Louis was holding the lock in his hand. Unnerved by his own strength, he told himself that it was old, rusted, and bound to happen.
Louis set the broken lock on the carpet and lifted that same hand back to the lid. He pushed it up, careful not to let it fall right off its hinges.
It was more full than had expected. Despite the age of the box, it had been made well enough to keep its contents protected from moisture and time. A folded bolt of red fabric sat atop most of what was within, but when Louis lifted it to see what was below, he felt the hard but light shape of something wrapped in it. The whole thing smelt of old fur. The bottom of the trunk held several large envelopes that bore legal stamps, a small casket made of now very tarnished silver, and a bundle of yellowing letters tied with a black ribbon.
Louis had never seen any of this before in his life.
Looking down at the thick cloth he held, he pulled the object from the center of it. It was a wooden violin, all four strings still stretched nearly taught. It must have once been outrageously valuable, and was certainly now all the more so.
The violin interested him, but it was not what truly caught his attention.
The writing on the top envelope of the bundle below stood out on the crinkled paper. Louis set the violin aside and slowly picked up the letters, for now ignoring the silver box and other larger packets. The fading lettering on the black-ribboned envelopes stunned him. It was vampire handwriting. He could see the flawlessness of the penmanship, the little nuances that could not have been made by a human hand. The letter on the top of the stack bore an unfamiliar name and the envelope itself had become so thin that the back of it was nearly transparent, though Louis could not quite read the page inside. He was tempted to open it. All this was delivered to him, was it not? But something made him pause, and instead he gently put the letters back where they had been.
He thought of opening the tarnished casket; something about it was ominous, yet intriguing, but in this Louis also refrained. He folded the violin back in the red velvet, and carefully returned everything to its proper place.
It was getting late. Louis took the trunk to a corner of the room, guiltily threw out the broken lock, and tried not to think about what he'd seen. The letters plagued him. The writing was not Lestat's, no matter how it might have been masked. Louis thought about the vampire that had written them, as well as who he - or she - had written to. The name on the front of the envelope was a man's, but he knew better than to assume that it was the actual name of the recipient. This trunk had to be Lestat's, which meant that, if the letters were written to him, he knew of other vampires in the world. Or could it be he had only collected these letters some other way? Louis' desire to bombard Lestat with questions upon his return was only tempered by the fact that he knew he'd broken the lock to open this trunk, which was not his, without permission.
Momentarily undecided, Louis settled into an armchair near the window. His hand steadily turned the pages of a book that he could only skim, and he waited for the time to pass.
When Lestat came home, he was alone. He made his usual racket in the foyer, and then swung into the parlor and tossed a rolled newspaper at Louis. It hit him in the head.
Lestat laughed, more surprised than contrite. "Is that how you receive the evening news?" He crossed to Louis' chair and bent to pick the newspaper up from where it landed on the floor, and then dropped it unceremoniously into Louis' lap.
His hand had just begun to move as if he would flick back the piece of Louis' hair that the impact had unsettled, when he noticed the trunk in the corner and asked with a sudden frown, "What is that?"
Not at all appreciative, Louis moved the newspaper to the side table as Lestat went around the chair. Immediately Louis thought to ask where Claudia was, not out of worry, but the intention faded as Lestat approached the trunk.
The guilt that he had felt was more difficult to remember now, but Louis' voice was still faintly apologetic. "It came for you."
"Not for me." Lestat shook his head and glanced back over at Louis. "Not that anyone should know of, anyway." His brow furrowed again and he gave the corner of the box a contemplative kick as he pondered it for a moment before bending as if he'd lift the edge.
He paused before even touching it however, and his eyes widened, then he straightened abruptly and whirled around to face Louis. "Who brought this here?" he demanded loudly. "I did not order to have this sent! Where did he go? When did this happen?" His hands clenched and his eyes went to the door as if he were ready to chase down the delivery man the moment he knew which way he went.
The number of questions seemed to startle Louis and he sat forward slowly, both of his hands moving to the arms of the chair. The book in his lap fell closed and to the side, but he did not even look at it. "The storage unit that was holding it closed, Lestat," he replied calmly, and he glanced at the door. "The man has been gone over an hour."
Lestat's eyes narrowed, but he turned away from Louis without arguing. He dropped down in front of the trunk and ran his palms along its edge. "Don't they usually write first? They should have written. I would have retrieved it myself." He made a sound nearly like a growl, but then only shook his head and let his fingertips trace the crack under the lid back toward the center where they lingered at the latch. A pause, then Lestat asked in a very low tone, "Where is the lock?"
He stood and turned back to face the chair again. "Louis?"
Louis frowned, but his eyes remained steadily on Lestat's. He shook his head, but then sighed and responded carefully, "I didn't know that it was yours. I took the lock off and threw it out. It's broken." Louis paused and appeared to consider something, but then he only shook his head again.
"What." Lestat's eyes seemed to blaze, but then he turned his back sharply on Louis and knelt before the trunk again. He pushed it open without delay this time and sorted quickly through the contents before he slammed the lid closed again and picked it up. He turned to leave the room without another word.
Louis was in front of the chair by then. He stepped forward and his hand lifted, but he didn't touch Lestat.
"Wait," Louis said firmly, severely, but he didn't sound angry. He went on quickly, as if afraid that Lestat would vanish from the room before he could finish. "I saw what was inside, Lestat. I saw the letters. Who wrote them? The handwriting isn't yours."
The trunk seemed to tremble between Lestat's hands as his gaze narrowed into a glare. "That is not your business. Get out of my way." He glanced down to the lid, then back to Louis and shook his head, taking a step forward as if he would knock him down. "How dare you read my letters!"
"I didn't read them, they're unopened." Louis frowned, and even though he was relieved that he hadn't opened the letters, he couldn't help but wonder what they said and why they mattered so much to Lestat. "Who wrote them? The address on the front was enough for me to know that it was a vampire. They were to you... who was writing to you?"
Lestat was silent, and then he turned away from Louis to set the trunk on the table with a dull thump. He dusted off his hands before folding his arms tightly, and though he did not look at Louis again, he remained between him and the chest as if afraid Louis would invade it again the moment he had the chance.
"It is none of your business," he snapped again after a moment. "How do you know a vampire addressed them?" He shook his head, and glanced to Louis out of the corner of his eyes before looking back across the room. "Why should I tell you? You shouldn't have looked in there!"
"How can you expect me to realize what it was? I didn't even know you had anything in storage." Louis shook his head, frustrated, but his voice remained even. "It is a simple question, Lestat. You told me that there were no others, and then I see these letters, which are clearly written by another vampire. You lied to me." This fact obviously didn't surprise him, but Louis seemed nonetheless disappointed. "The least you could do is answer me."
"There are no others!" Lestat threw down his hands and turned away from Louis, but then seemed to change his mind and went back to where he was standing. He shook his head and met his eye with a bitter scowl. "Not anymore."
Louis' eyes narrowed at first in irritation, but the expression faded quickly. "Not anymore?" He looked at the trunk again. "What about the violin? I didn't know that you played the violin." The words were pointed, questioning, but hovering on the verge of anger.
"I don't. I mean I didn't. I mean I never have. Well, I do, but that is not the point. It is not mine. I mean, it was mine that I bought it, but I gave it away." He pointed sternly at the trunk and continued to glare at Louis. "Now, everything in that box is mine. I don't know what you're thinking... You... They are no trinkets taken from victims. It is all rightfully mine, and it's been in that damned warehouse since before I even knew you! Damn it all to hell!" He clenched his teeth and turned back to the table and put his hands on the edge of the trunk, silently looking down at it for a moment before speaking again, though much more quietly. "I only played this violin once. That is not going to change."
It took Louis a moment to sort through Lestat's response enough to make sense of it, but then he only frowned at the contradictions. "I don't care if you play it." Louis hesitated and briefly the lie was obvious, but then he continued quickly. "Whose is it? Whose was it? You said you gave it away. Did it belong to another vampire? This violin?" Louis obviously didn't think that these were mortal trinkets at all; it was the fact that they were immortal that seemed to interest him.
"Why does it matter!" Lestat frowned tensely to himself, then just shook his head and looked back over his shoulder at Louis. "You know I have told you before that immortals can die after all. You too could die, Louis. It is not impossible."
The words made Louis pause, and briefly it seemed as though he would question Lestat about this subject instead, but then he frowned. "Did this vampire die?" Even though he was still asking questions, it was clear that Louis was already convinced that the violin belonged to a vampire since Lestat had not denied it and, consequently, so did the letters. "Who was it, Lestat?"
"Don't ask me about him!" Lestat turned away from the trunk and paced across the room. He stopped near the open balcony doors and glowered out at the night before brusquely closing them.
Louis watched him pace without moving. He was frowning faintly, but remained calm, and didn't seem to react at all except for his gaze to become more scrutinizing, though there was something hesitant about it even as he tried to keep it hidden.
"Who was he to you?" Louis asked abruptly, almost cruelly, but he wanted to see what it would do.
Lestat stopped midstep and remained perfectly still for a moment before turning around to look across the room at Louis. There was something nearly lethal smoldering in his eyes and then it seemed to simply go out like a snuffed candle. "I don't..." He paused, then put a hand on the shelf of a bookcase to his left as if needing to lean against it.
At the same time Lestat turned, Louis stepped back, and his hand moved to the back of the chair. He didn't look afraid of him, but wariness had replaced the determination of before. Louis shook his head slowly, shocked, but the gesture had no meaning. There was something undeniably sympathetic about the look in his eyes, but then Louis shifted his gaze. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..." Louis shook his head again and took a breath, obviously unsure of what he had done, but he had the understanding that it was substantial.
Lestat did not acknowledge the apology. It seemed his mind was entirely elsewhere, and a minute later his hand slipped off the shelf limply. He moved quietly to the hall door, but paused there, his hand brushing the molding of the fame. "You are asking me this because you think he is the one who made me," he began plainly. "You think I knew more about him than I have admitted, and you expect answers." He turned back around to look at Louis again, his expression grim. "But that is not who he was."
"Who was he?" Louis asked quietly, carefully. The hand that rested on the top of the chair slipped down, but then he only moved around it. He started to speak again, but seemed to think better of it and remained silent.
"He was mine." Lestat waved a hand in the air and then folded his arms and frowned quietly at the carpet. "And yes, he is dead." He blinked quickly and then lifted his head to look across at where Louis stood again. "You saw the addresses on those letters were foreign. That was all long ago."
Louis nodded. "I didn't know you traveled." He frowned and looked down at his hand, which clenched slightly, but then he lifted his eyes to Lestat. "Then he was like us." He was talking about Claudia and himself. "These things are his, and you saved them to remember him."
It seemed Lestat flinched, but then he glanced away. His hands shifted uncomfortably on his arms, and then a moment later his gaze moved to fix across on the trunk on the table again. He answered very quietly, "Something like that, yes." A hardly believable sigh of exasperation, and then he moved to go back to the table. "I am furious with you, you know."
"I wouldn't have opened it if I knew that it was yours." Louis' brow furrowed and he looked away. "I suppose you'll have to find somewhere else to store it." He moved around the front of the chair and to the balcony windows, but didn't open them again. Sighing, Louis rested his hand against the doorhandle. His thumb brushed along the curve of it as he spoke to Lestat, his voice more solemn, "How can it happen?"
Wooden sounds of the trunk opening again. The iron latch clacked against the edge. Lestat's hand ran across the velvet folded over the contents in the wrong direction, its roughness prickling his palm, and then he smoothed it down again. His back remained to Louis as he answered him softly, "Are you really so damn morbid?"
Lifting the material out of the trunk, Lestat pulled the violin from its folds and then set the garment aside. His fingertips traced the strings and then he twisted one of the pegs, but stopped the moment the wood creaked. He sighed as if he were terribly annoyed, but sound did not at all match the distance of his expression.
"He wasn't...like you," he added after a moment.
Louis' hand that had been tracing the handle slipped around it and he opened the door, but only halfway. He did not go outside, but the breeze was nice and unusually cool.
"I would like to know." Louis looked over his shoulder, his gaze steady, but he didn't even acknowledge the trunk. He was looking directly at Lestat for the first time in weeks. "Tell me, is there more than one way?"
Lestat turned around and met Louis' eyes across the room. His brows were knit, and for a moment there was a nearly lost look to his gaze before it fell to the violin in his hands.
"Not really, no." He turned the instrument over as carefully as if it were made of tissue. "No matter what way it's done," he continued, "it all comes down to the same thing. It is the fire. Or the light of the sun, which is the purest fire of all." He licked his lips as if they were dry despite how flushed they still were from his kill earlier in the evening. "No matter what is done before the fire, it will still always end that way... Eventually."
Something of what Lestat said made Louis frown, but it had faded again by the time he was finished. He nodded slowly, but seemed to be too preoccupied to ask him anything else about it. He turned fully away from the doors and watched Lestat closely while he could get away with it.
A long time seemed to pass before he moved, but then Louis crossed the room until he was standing on the other side of the table. He still wasn't looking at the trunk, and was obviously deep in thought.
"Then it can end." It wasn't a question.
Lestat's eyes snapped up to look at Louis, but then he only frowned faintly and shook his head as he turned back to the trunk. He picked up the velvet and carefully began to wrap the violin back up in it. "Yes," he said quietly, and then he laid the bundle back into the box and closed the lid again.
He picked the whole thing up and once more turned to leave the room.
"Lestat."
Louis shifted as if he would stop him from going, but his hand remained on the edge of the table. He finally looked at the trunk that Lestat held, but his expression was difficult to read. "Would you do that again? Will you, I mean, once it has ended for me?"
Stopping immediately before the door, Lestat shot Louis a look to keep him from saying any more. "You are being ridiculous," he snapped to hide the unevenness of his voice. He hesitated, then narrowed his eyes at him and gave him a snort as if he felt that was the only response Louis' questions deserved. "Claudia will be home soon. Do you want to frighten her to tears talking like that?"
He rolled his eyes, his hands shifting where he held the trunk and then he shook his head. "Keep something for you? Like some sentimental fool?" He snorted again, but his gaze drifted away and he seemed unable to meet Louis' then.
The mention of Claudia made Louis hesitate, but he wasn't deterred. "It's not impossible, as you said." Louis' hands lifted to the sides of his arms and he stepped back.
It seemed that he was willing to let his question go, but it was impossible not to see that something about Lestat's response pleased him. "You would..." Louis didn't quite smile, but his interest was undeniable. "What would you keep?"
The trunk made an abrupt clunking sound. Lestat shot it a look as if it had done it on its own and then immediately busied himself with putting it under a table just next to the door in the foyer, not quite far enough beyond it to be out of Louis' sight.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he said with his back still turned.
Shaking his head, Louis' hands moved against his sleeves. He hesitated, but then continued more probingly, "Or do you already have something locked away?"
It didn't seem as if Louis even believed what he was asking, but that the strangeness of Lestat's reaction prompted him.
Lestat returned to the doorway abruptly and stared across the room at him, his eyes wider than he usually allowed them to grow. He practically stammered, "For the love of hell, Louis!"
Louis blinked, startled, but then he smiled a little. The expression was so rare that it looked strange on him, but he turned away almost immediately after. His arms slipped down to his sides and he put a hand once more on the doorhandle that led out onto the balcony.
When Louis spoke again his voice was soft. "Forget that I asked."
Lestat folded his own arms tensely and attempted to glower at Louis' back. "Count on it."
He remained where he was, but seemed incapable of standing still, and when Louis moved out onto the balcony, he turned as if he would go back into the foyer to continue taking the trunk to his room.
But instead, not even a minute later, Lestat was out the door as well and at Louis' side, taking in the same view he was. He refused to look at Louis, but his hand rested lightly against the railing between them. The breeze that ruffled his hair was still cool, but it was welcoming.
At first, Louis didn't acknowledge that Lestat was there at all. His arms were crossed tightly as he stared out into the night, and he appeared distantly contemplative. If his thoughts were on anything morbid it didn't show at all; he was still smiling.
It happened silently, and perhaps some more minutes later, but Lestat's hand slipped off the railing, and his arm moved gently but fully around Louis' back. His gaze was on the street below, and then it was on the horizon.
Louis' eyes shifted to the side when he felt Lestat touch him, but he remained otherwise motionless. He spoke as if Lestat had done nothing at all, and his tone was one of quiet acceptance, even resignation, but it was not at all embittered, "I'm not going anywhere."
"Of course you're not." Lestat's eyes met Louis', only for a moment, but something of the starlight seemed to glimmer in them. He shook his head and sighed before looking away, but not quickly enough to hide his own faint smile. "Now I have to buy a new lock."
"No you don't..."
One of Louis' hands moved as though it would take the railing, but it hovered in the air above it. He let go of his own arm with his other hand, and let both of them rest against the top of the banister. His thumbs moved against the edge of it slowly, distractedly.
Another minute passed. Louis began to speak, hesitated, but then seemed unable to keep himself from asking, "What do you keep of mine?"
For a moment Lestat's entire posture tensed, but then it was only his arm around Louis that tightened and he gently drew him close against his side while responding in the softest of tones, "Shut up, Louis."
Louis smiled.
The End