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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Dec 28, 2008 22:53:40 GMT -5
Nicolas released his hand, unaware of the lack of pain in his hand, unaware that there ever had been. He blinked at him and gave him his most angelically innocent expression, quite accidentally.
"Pardon?"
He remembered a moment later, but not after having spent a few sizeable seconds looking enormously puzzled in an offhandedly charming fashion (or what would have been, if he had not been so keen on speaking to Armand moments before, and had not already had a moment of not understanding what Armand was referring to within the past ten minutes). When he did, it was plain, for his expression looked starkly pained very suddenly, and it might have been unexpected, because he did not look pained very often, at least not in a subtle, genuine-seeming way. This expression altered, however, into the typical grimace very quickly, which was likely to produce much less sympathy. He looked down at his hands, then folded them and stood slowly, looking down at the marks his knees had made him the dust without thinking much of cleaning his trousers off.
"Armand, I met someone rather...unexpectedly. Someone who had a curious theory about Paris. Or...this version of it." He sat very swiftly, as vampires could, beside Armand on the bench, his legs on the other side of it, and did not touch him - his good fortune that he did not think to - but simply looked at him. He couldn't know it consciously, but he was very frightened of this revelation Claudia had made, and looked to Armand for assurance as always, almost demanding of it.
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Post by Armand on Dec 28, 2008 23:10:32 GMT -5
Armand's eyebrows rose at the expressions flickering over Nicolas's face, the confusion, the realization, the pain. That whatever thoughts Nicolas was about to share caused him this amount of distress naturally enough to make Armand powerfully curious. Very few things troubled Nicolas de Lenfent- or rather, everything troubled him, maddened him, infuriated or pained or fascinated or surprised him, but not to the extent that he treated them seriously. To have him come towards Armand now and sit, so very like the old days, was the trick that made Armand lay their other issues aside and listen.
"And?" he said, softly, patiently, to draw the story out. Nicolas did indeed have his undivided attention- his clear, complete, unclouded by anger or any or other emotion attention, more so than earlier no matter what Armand had said. He didn't ask who the person was, which might have proven to be a mistake, but Armand unconsciously thought that if that detail were important then Nicolas would tell him it. If it was the theory which was important, as Armand thought was the case, then there was no need to know of the bearer.
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Dec 28, 2008 23:20:35 GMT -5
He looked very directly into Armand's eyes, something which seemed to be more significant with a vampire's eyes than with a mortal's. Vampires, souls expressly forbidden any afterlife whatsoever, were entirely physical beings, and therefore whatever souls they had were trapped inside their mortal bodies - or so Nicolas felt, anyway. Certainly it seemed that blood and a soul was all that existed inside a vampire's skin. The luminescence of Armand's eyes - of any vampire's eyes, of even Lune's eyes - looked like a soul to him. That Armand was looking back into his was more comforting than he was comfortable with, if that sort of paradox was allowed him. Had he been on about anything less serious, he would have acted on that discomfort and confusion, but he brushed it aside with more will than usual and continued to speak, pausing only to lick his lips in a curious, mortal fashion.
"She was Lestat's - and younger - much - than you when he made her," he said, as though this had something to do with their having spoken of Paris and its peculiarities. In his mind, it was entwined with her; he could not separate the two. And it was partly because her theory was very much a part of her experiences. "And she claims you killed her, but she's here..." This had yet to form the theory in any logical way, but he was working on it. He had a hard time articulating anything organized in this state. "She suggests this is...not where we came from, not at all, and you said so yourself in as many words... But Armand..." He couldn't even consciously understand what it was that he was getting at, that this might be some sort of odd afterlife. Even more disconcerting to him than the theory was the fact that Armand was here, too. Claudia had died, and Nicolas had died, but he could not imagine this having happened to Armand, not without Armand's knowledge.
"Armand, you haven't... died, have you?" Completely unthinkingly, Nicolas lifted a hand to tenderly smooth Armand's hair off his forehead in great concern.
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Post by Armand on Dec 28, 2008 23:48:46 GMT -5
As Nicolas spoke, Armand's forehead crumpled a little, then smoothed out. "Claudia, is that right?" he said. "The little vampire child. Yes, I've met her." She hadn't said that she was Lestat's, but considering her irritating habit to hint and tease, to taunt, never telling him anything of value out of some sharp sense of revenge, this was not really that surprising.
Nicolas reached out for him and Armand leaned back to avoid it, eyes narrowing. He didn't enforce as he had earlier the new touching ultimatum; how could he? He was too arrested by Nicolas's question. "I did not," he snapped, but the suspicion was hooking itself in his mind. And, "Don't be ridiculous."
He hadn't, had he? Of course not. That he couldn't remember a small but increasingly important chunk of his undead life was not important. That he couldn't remember how exactly he got to this world where there was no theatre and strange vampires had occupied Paris for years- no. His master couldn't- Daniel, no, not his only- and maybe he wouldn't have known, cut off as he was from the both of them, but shouldn't Armand have felt something had they died? And Claudia, and Nicolas, two vampires who should have been dead yet were here now, and those he had looked for might not be here simply by virtue of still being...alive.
He might have shuddered underneath the ramifications of this "theory" had he not remembered, with a sudden almost painful realization, that this could not possibly be the Paris for them after the dead died again. Lestat was here, or had been here not long ago. Armand had never managed to catch him, but at the ball after he'd left Lestat had been there. Lestat. And Lestat couldn't be dead. Lestat wouldn't go out so easily, so soon. Never. And so there was his certainty.
Armand blinked, slowly, then raised his gaze to Nicolas's again. "I did not," he repeated, sure and final as the last letter engraved on a tombstone.
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Dec 30, 2008 17:12:49 GMT -5
Nicolas pressed on, ignoring Armand's certainty for once, because it was not enough for him that Armand was sure of it, Armand had to find the words to console Nicolas as well. "You are so certain, but I did! I have died, and I am here, and you're right, and after Claudia told me I went to look and the theatre is gone and I broke into the building over it and tried like hell to find it and it's gone," he said, breathing growing heavy as he spoke more and more quickly, his eyes very dark and very desperate, held on Armand's. Would Armand find some petty fault with that, Nicolas' mad search for it when Armand himself had told him it would not be there? Or would he be trying to explain things? Armand, the gentle teacher that was needed with the young ones in a coven...he had carried that burden before, had had that responsibility. Had he ever considered himself obligated to Nicolas? Nicolas supposed he'd find out.
He took Armand's hands heedlessly in his own, thumb brushing up against one of Armand's rings - he did not register it consciously, but it did fall into his mind for later thought, perhaps. In their intense conversations in the past, Nicolas might have touched Armand, but rarely so deliberately - or, at least, deliberately and with any great emotional fervour. It was at least some testament to his sincerity. "And if you have not died, how have you come to this Paris, which is not really Paris at all? And what are the odds of my being in this place you happen to come to with my being as dead as I am? Tell me my death is coincidence. Convince me that my coming back was a foolish trick, because you didn't scatter the ashes, and that I've not fallen into some twisted afterlife! Convince me. I need it."
He did not go into hysterics, but, as when he had hysterically laughed before, a bloody tear fell down his face. He didn't notice it.
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Post by Armand on Dec 31, 2008 10:03:09 GMT -5
Armand gazed at him quite levelly, feeling a trace of smugness that Nicolas had finally grasped the severity of the situation. That Nicolas was now panicked over the very thing he'd dismissed so flippantly on their first meeting was ironic and darkly satisfying. But to be asked like this, to be needed like this- Armand wouldn't even consciously realize it, but he thrived on this. He couldn't avoid rising to it any more than he could cast aside his thirst for blood.
"I did tell you," he said calmly, as though the more manic Nicolas grew the more collected he became. He drew his hands back without any real irritation- only moments after he'd declared his ultimatum, and he was already realizing it was going to be pointless. There was no indication the other vampire even realized he was doing it. “No, it’s simple. When you went into the pyre we built for you, the ashes weren’t scattered, and you came back. It’s predictable, in hindsight, and expectable. Were I to jump into a fire now, the results would be the same.” He pressed on, at his most compelling, devoting all his energy to soothe, to calm, to convincing Nicolas as he wanted to be convinced. His eyes didn’t leave Nicolas’s, even as he drew his hands back- without any real irritation, for only moments after Armand had declared his ultimatum and he was already realizing it was going to be pointless. The other vampire didn’t show any indication he even knew he was doing it, or that he was capable of piecing together if Armand was punishing him for this crime. “This is not some deeply ironic afterlife for the both of us. It can’t be. For all your mad speculations in the past, all my belief, centuries of religious exploration and epiphany and war, this couldn’t, at the worst, be any more than Limbo. And it is not even that, for if you want proof there’s nothing more persuasive than this: that Lestat, as of a few weeks ago, was here in Paris. Do you think he’d let himself die so soon? Such a bright light, so easily extinguished? Love or hate him, Nicolas, but you know he wouldn’t.”
Armand paused and gave an easy shrug, his eyes moving away from Nicolas for the first time since the other vampire had sat down beside him. “As for the theatre… I don’t know why the world has changed so. All over Paris there are those who are out of place and out of time; they stumble from the opera stairs and don’t know where they are. Claudia suggested that she was from a future time, made by Lestat and murdered by me when I’ve never seen her before. Despite that, it’s ridiculous to think that you can’t make your way through the world the same as you did before. There are no necessary components lacking from this Paris that were in the old one. The theatre was the pinnacle of your mortal and immortal life, but it doesn’t need to be so. Cast that aside. It matters about as much as any other trappings from your mortal life. You know that. You are as far apart from that now as you are from one of the stars you would see were you to go to the door and look outside."
It had been a long few weeks since Armand had told Nicolas of the theatre’s disappearance with a sense of dread and that revealing tremble. He had his bearings now, more or less; without any clear sense of purpose he was himself in some state of Limbo. Smaller things had replaced the theatre now in his mind. Nicolas was one of them. Armand wondered whether the other would call him on it.
And he knew, rather distantly, that the mention of Lestat would have the exact opposite effect that he was going for. Nicolas was likely to become positively raving at the mention of his old mortal lover. Yet it was a convincing example, and Armand couldn't think of a better one when he really had no idea how he'd gotten here either. And if this admission led Nicolas off in search of the other...well. It would keep him entertained for a while, particularly as Lestat, while he had been in Paris at one point, seemed long gone.
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Dec 31, 2008 16:05:48 GMT -5
Armand spoke very clearly and fully rose to meet the responsibilities Nicolas was impulsively pouring onto him; and he sounded very sure, and it seemed that the centuries of coven master could be heard in the tone of voice, not in a manner that recalled superstition, but simple experience, that wisdom that Armand had gained by being the silent and observant fallen angel cast into the pit for hundreds of years. This was what Nicolas had demanded of him and Armand was doing a perfect job of it such that it might have worked had it not been blighted by Armand's mentioning Lestat in the same tone of voice.
Perfect, sure, and almost soothing, in a hard sort of way: you are here because we did not scatter the ashes, not because we are all of us dead. He had banished the thought. He had made it sound ridiculous to Nicolas, his theory; and this was immense comfort to him, that he should not think of it as humbug. But then to introduce Lestat with the same simple faith: Lestat is not dead because we know Lestat. He wouldn't do that. As though he were just as much a reason as anything Armand had learned in three hundred years guiding the Satanists under the century! As though he were just as significant as all that knowledge. It distorted the proportions of it, made those centuries the same size as Lestat himself, and made them all the smaller that way.
Nicolas could not shake the stupor that fell, not entirely noticeably but not hidden, either, at this mention of Lestat as Armand continued to try and explain away Paris. He heard him; he understood what he was saying, although this did not make things any better - after all, as he felt instinctively that Armand knew (whether or not the instinct was misplaced), the theatre had not grounded him in life nor in immortality, and had failed to be enough to save him, so a replacement for the theatre would not fix Nicolas' condition. He needed something he had never had, the same thing he had needed before - an anchor, a gravity.
After Armand had finished, though, preoccupied, Nicolas stood almost slowly and went over to the fire with a heaviness in his limbs that he couldn't shake, no matter how light his steps were. He tended to it a bit, eyes shutting and brows puckered in the warmth there was; then his eyes opened, and he looked back at Armand sharply.
"I see you have not lost your superstitions, Armand," he said, voice crisp and mordant. "Your faith in Lestat is enormous. Have you built a religion of him? It doesn't matter if there's war or famine if some pretty, stupid orphan saw the Christ walk between those two buildings and vanish again!" His voice rose in the last sentence, an unusual bitterness entering into it that nonetheless did not detract from the intended mockery in the words. It wasn't that he was unconvinced. Lestat was a good example, and Nicolas was as superstitious as any as far as Lestat went. Lestat had come to take on meanings with Nicolas that were positively idolatrous, and it had happened well before either of them had been born to darkness. But Armand saying this, Armand being in that same place as Nicolas...was inconceivable. Armand was supposed to be better than Nicolas! And here he was as blind and as ridiculous as Nicolas himself. He offered nothing, simply reiterated the rules Nicki knew and expected him to follow them because of the reminder.
Nicolas stood swiftly and took a few steps towards him as though to confront him, but veered off towards the window. It looked as though he were going to leave, but all he did was put his hands on the sill and look out at the stars Armand had mentioned and then turn back and look at him. "Do you think I don't know the distance?" he said now, stating out loud the root of his fear, what had been his despair in life and his insanity after Armand had let him out of the locked room in this very tower. "It isn't just between the stars and I, between the theatre and I, between life and death! That's all there is to me; distance! Here..." He started to pace without realizing it, starting off towards Armand and walking away again, growing more and more agitated as he did. "Between you and I, even!"
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Post by Armand on Jan 1, 2009 0:01:36 GMT -5
Oh, he'd miscalculated. He'd thought...that Lestat would be example enough. Perhaps foolishly he'd assumed Nicolas's world did not extend far beyond Lestat and the pain he had caused the violinist, for didn't Nicolas begin to fall as Lestat began to rise?
"Nicolas," Armand said, almost disapprovingly. "Look at me and tell me you'd know a better contradiction. Would you like for me to make up some pretty, comforting lies to tell you? I can do that, but you don't seem to like it." But he knew that wasn't the real issue by the way Nicolas was pacing now, his lips parting as if to speak, so frustrated and so restless. He waited, head tilted to the side, one leg drawn up to his chest- attentive, patient, and so sympathetic.
But what Nicolas wanted- Armand couldn't give that to him. He could lie to him, yes, just like he'd said. Closeness, understanding, that was what he'd promised Lestat, wasn't it? Those words of love were easy to summon; they rose unbidden to his lips like the sweetest lure. Nicolas would be easy to ensnare. Armand could have him dazed and complacent if he took him into his arms and to his throat. Not for long, not with Nicolas's kind of mind, but for a moment Armand wanted it.
Armand gazed at him and did not speak to answer him, lips parted instead wonderingly. Too reminiscent of Daniel, that closeness.
"What is it," he said at last, "that you want, Nicolas? Don't you know?" Then a thought occurred to him- reckless. Manipulative. Armand stretched out a hand. "Come here."
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Jan 1, 2009 0:54:15 GMT -5
Nicolas did not respond, did not answer, too agitated and beginning to feel (like the world blackening around the edges of his vision, warning him that he was about to pass out with drink except that he felt a heightened awareness of the world around him rather than the sweet bliss that drinking had afforded him in life - but no, he wasn't about to think of Lestat, he would smash his head against the wall of Armand's - Lestat's - Armand's tower if he did, and Armand would find it so distasteful) despair creeping in on him, just at the edges. He didn't pace, but the tension in his body, particularly in his shoulders and arms, revealed he was growing excitable to the point of sick anxiety, and lifted his hands to his head, fingers sinking in beneath the hair and his expression twisting into a grimace that might have turned into hysteria if he were alone.
He was not alone, though - he was extremely aware of Armand's presence there with him, but at the same time he seemed extremely distant, and this was what was increasing Nicolas' agitation. He tried to focus on his being there, to weigh all of his attention on him, to lay it down there in the amber eyes. When Armand spoke again, Nicolas took a breath, let his hands slip down - as though sliding them through his hair, effortlessly, fingertips slid over the ears and then down the neck, and it looked very graceful and elegant, despite the dusty in the curls, the blood beneath the nails, the expression he had worn moments ago - and met his eyes.
If he'd had more time - been a mortal, and therefore walking slowly - he might have been dazed. But his hands merely lowered to his sides and he stepped to Armand, almost in an instant. It didn't occur to him to disobey, or to speak again - at a time like this, he couldn't think but to do exactly what Armand said. His mania was beginning to drift away like the tide again, and so he was thankful for that, so thankful - the command was making it so easy to focus, to look at him.
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Post by Armand on Jan 1, 2009 11:29:48 GMT -5
In the blink of an eye Armand was his side, face tilted up, eyes large, sweet, and to a certain extent, patient, horribly patient. His arm slipped around Nicolas's waist with disarmingly familiarity. Maybe this intimacy would have infuriated Nicolas, driven him deeper into the mania Armand had surely seen in his quick, desperate movements and his grimacing, but Armand did not give it time to see. His lips were at Nicolas's cheek, then his mouth, the blood welling from where he'd bitten his own tongue.
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Jan 1, 2009 19:24:13 GMT -5
((...well that was....unexpected...))
With anyone else, the meaning would have seemed clear, the movements simple, the motivation transparent, but there were always two sides of Armand acting simultaneously, giving his behavior horrible ambiguity. Nicolas reacted, dubious and doubtful, by hardly reacting at all, body growing rigid as it had when Lune had touched him, but then relaxing slightly, rigidity transforming into stillness.
He was no longer able to look into Armand's eyes; that was clear enough. Perhaps Armand didn't want him to. If he had wanted to disarm him, he acheived his goal, but what was the reason for that goal? To simply silence him? Nicolas was frankly shocked by the sudden pressure of Armand's mouth on his - unpredictable, even for him, even for Armand's long record of unpredictability. The sudden taste of blood was doubly disarming, though, and Nicolas - so often accustomed to seeing his body react in ways he couldn't guess or control - parted his lips, a hand finding its way to Armand's back.
What had Armand said that first night? Something about - if he were to take his mouth to Nicolas' throat, Nicolas could stroke his hair all he wanted, but until then to keep to himself? His fingers were already buried in his hair; he hadn't even realized it.
And he hardly realized he had used them to push Armand back - gently, firmly - until moments after he'd done it, and by then he belatedly had discovered the vein of longing for this that Armand had apparently deliberately tapped, so that by the time he missed the chance it had already passed.
"Mm - don't do that," said Nicolas, frowning, voice something of a murmur that would have been nearly too low for a mortal to hear, his lip stained with Armand's blood.
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Post by Armand on Jan 1, 2009 20:26:06 GMT -5
Armand regarded him rather blankly, licking the blood off his own lips in an absent mortal gesture. He might have been smirking, had he been the type to. Nicolas hadn't reacted exactly as he'd thought he would, but nor had his reaction been a violent outlash. Almost anticlimatic, and Armand was a little disappointed- Nicolas had neither pulled him closer nor shoved him away. He wasn't displeased, though; the violinist seemed distracted but calm.
Armand wondered whether Nicolas had understood his intention. Probably not. Nicolas had been distressed by this distance, and Armand knew nothing more unifying than the blood. But there were shades of intention to his every movement; quite often his every word, gesture, every line of his body was calculated. This kiss was no different. And he was not displeased with the outcome, although it was too early to tell.
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Jan 1, 2009 22:18:16 GMT -5
Armand had misjudged, but only by accident; the blood exchange was the greatest connexion in the world for Nicolas, the only thing he had anymore to remind him of life. It added greater colors of ecstasy to the kill for him, even moreso than it would normally have been ecstatic for any thirsting vampire, and this had always been the case for Nicolas in his immortality, that when he sought to connect it should be, after passionate speaking by candlelight (which had been the thing in his mortal years), the sharing of blood, his or someone else's - why else try to make new vampires, when he hardly cared for the ones he already had?
It was simply that this manner of it, a kiss, had never really been something Nicolas had used, in general, to draw someone closer. Sometimes he used it for deliberate distance; it had often been like that, even in his intimacy with Lestat. Kissing Lestat brought him very near, but built up a wall around the most intimate part of himself. It brought Lestat into the garden and shut the gate behind him, but closed the doors of the house inside the garden very firmly; and the connexion Nicolas really wanted so intensely was to bring someone into the house. He had not wanted to bring Lestat into the house, though it had pained him so much to hold him out; he hadn't wanted the chill of it to harm him, to break his heart. He no longer cared as much, and Armand did not seem like that to him and never had. From the start, the auburn-haired vampire who had abducted him had seemed to come out of that chill and fog itself and bring Nicolas so far into it that that garden - Lestat's Savage Garden - no longer existed, except as a memory that seemed so unreal that it was almost a figment of his imagination.
He probably intuited Armand's purpose - rather, he did not know Armand's actual purpose, but he knew what the superficial intention was, and that was always easy to deduce from Armand because he was always so generous and simple about it; it was why he really was always lying, always two-faced, because the surface reason was never the root one - although he did not think on it consciously. He felt Armand was certainly trying to reign him in, so that he no longer felt so far distant that despair was starting to swim before his eyes, but it also seemed that Armand was deliberately shutting him out - bringing him close enough to calm down, but not close enough to be soothed. Nonetheless, Nicolas was still somewhat shaken, although shaken in such a sense to make him very still and quiet for the time being. He did not release Armand, though; that never crossed his mind. He was very much of a mind to keep him as close as they were. It was intimate, and yet not; that their immortal bodies generated no heat took away the mortal warmth of it, removed half the undertones. It was like clinging to a stone angel when one was drunk and apt to fall; that was all it was for Nicolas, and that was exactly the sort of thing he'd do. Arm around Armand's back, he sat slowly on the bench again, pulling him gently and imploringly to sit also, although he did not look at him, eyes elsewhere, maybe fixed on the fire, although he certainly wasn't seeing it.
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Post by Armand on Jan 2, 2009 1:39:07 GMT -5
Armand obliged exactly like a stone statue, sitting next to Nicolas with the lines of his body attuned to the other, but any tenderness- in the tilt of his head, or the way the fingers on his hand next to Nicolas's leg curled so loosely and sweetly under- was half negated by the hard lustre of his skin. If he'd known of the comparison or had the thought of himself as a stone angel, he might have been amused; while not old enough to startle, his skin not yet like marble, it had that particular vampiric texture that was, after so long, not even as supple as Nicolas's skin and would not pass as mortal to the touch. One day, maybe his skin would be like a velvet glove over a stone statue's hand, just like- he had the sudden thought- the press of Marius's hand when he'd greeted him the other day.
But these were distracting thoughts, weren't they, or out of idleness. For right now, all he had to do was wait for Nicolas to come out of himself, if that was likely to happen. He stayed silent, partly out of patience and partly because he really had nothing to say. Nicolas seemed so calm but Armand was unwilling to settle his mild curiousity by dipping into the violinist's mind, for fear of stirring the violent unpredictable spirit. He really would have liked to know what Nicolas was thinking, but hadn't the way to ask him about it, and it struck him suddenly that he should ask about the penny he'd given the other the last time Nicolas was in his tower.
Armand didn't, but it was something for his mind to toy with. Nicolas had seemed so unwittingly fascinated with the thing.
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Post by Nicolas de Lenfent on Jan 3, 2009 14:59:41 GMT -5
Nicolas turned his head towards Armand, though not his eyes - he wasn't looking soulfully into Armand's eyes, not at this point, rather, nearly resting his forehead against Armand's shoulder. He wasn't quite gotten to that point - he could only have done such a thing wholly unconsciously, and it wouldn't work out so well for Armand if he became conscious of it very suddenly, for Nicolas was likely to treat any intimacy on his own part with a great violence at the object of tenderness in question, considering his history with it - but very nearly.
He removed his hand slowly from Armand's waist - as though it were made of stone and had to be carefully unwrapped - and put it on his shoulder, leaning far enough to rest his head against his own hand. It was unconsciously done, probably to be safer, by the time he began to speak. "You may think I don't remember - " he started, voice sounding soft, almost strangled in the first note, but becoming hushed within moments. "But it's almost all I do." His expression was profoundly shaken, disturbed, unusual for him. "Armand against the flames. It was almost a century down there, and Lestat hardly came into it, hardly came down into it, even when he did. He didn't understand any of it. He always destroyed...what he didn't understand - " His voice labored, he went on, grip on Armand's shoulder tightening. "Where I always destroy what I do..."
He shut his eyes, not managing to go on. It seemed to him, in these moments of despair, that the world had never progressed beyond that moment, that ever since, everytime he was in the theatre under the lights, or beneath it, writing the plays, speaking to Armand in the old dressing-room, or quailing anticlimactically away from Eleni's curious jargon, he was still in the cage beneath the cemetery. Maybe that was where Armand had benefited. He had been able to destroy it, and maybe move on, no matter how much he suffered from the loss - Nicolas was still there.
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