[Jon's expression is confused for a moment, but actually opening the door when he has to turn a handle and pull has become a progressively more challenging task over the past two weeks. It takes most of his concentration to figure out how to move right. The shelves do, in fact, appear to have eyes when they walk downstairs. The little nuts at the ends of the units combined with the hole they're in give an uncanny sense of them. And with Jon's current sleep deprivation-induced delirium and Lestat's curse from his dive into the Beholding, they have a blinking audience on the march to Jon's office at the back.
There are files scattered everywhere on his desk, but Jon shifts them aside and pulls out his tape recorder to turn it on and lean in toward the other man from across the table.]
No, they're not enough anymore. I need more of them. I've recorded passages from them for Statements. I have a whole box for you. This might start a second. You're what I need. [Because Lestat's Statements are some sort of stability, a thread through many different things.] Please.
[Jon licks his lips before pressing record.]
Statement of Lestat de Lioncourt regarding a haunting moment. Statement taken direct from subject 17th September 2018. Statement begins.
[You now have a very captive audience, Lestat. The Archivist focuses (as much as he's able to) on the other man, eyes wide and staring.]
[The nail file seems to vanish and in the blink of a human eye Lestat is now sitting there with his hands in his lap instead. When the movement happened only the supernatural can be sure of. Looking across at Jon, he offers him a smile.]
Did you know that ghosts are real? They haunt things. Haunt people. And they don't have to be tied down to places like the foolish notions they tell you in stories about them. No, they can go beyond that to find someone and follow them.
[The smile fades and he seems to look at nothing in particular.]
You may have read about it when creating statements from my books but I see Claudia at times. She haunts me, reminds me of the crime I committed to make her. This is one of those times.
It was during my period of death. You would know it as a long sleep honestly. It's something common for my kind...vampires. We go underground and don't come up for decades at a time. It was my time and yet I still recall such visions during that time. We won't discuss most of them tonight but there is one...
[He pauses and then...]
Deep, deep in the ground. So weak from hunger. I was wasting away slowly but so aware of the entire thing as I slept. The sounds of the world changing could be heard but I didn't care. In that time a small hand would touch me. Cold. So cold.
[He lifts a hand to his cheek as if tracing the line of the fingers.]
They would claw at my face as if ripping off my flesh little by little.
"We could have been so much without you." Her voice so soft and sweet. Musical in its cruelty.
[There's a pause and he seems to look distant for a moment and then...]
She would come to me again and again. Like she knew that in that moment I wasn't going anywhere at all. Not a single place. I was trapped there for her pleasure. A child of cruelty with her own little toy to play with.
[There's a shudder that runs down Jon's spine as he listens, the story of being trapped alive underground is personally terrifying. Daisy comes to mind, nearly lost to the Buried, but returned. Returned so horribly weak. Starving not just for food, but for the Hunt and basic connection. She was going to kill him... and then she went into that coffin, and a part of him wonders if some of that wasn't the Spider's hand at work.
He's trying so hard to focus and he's managing it for the most part. He wants this. He needs this. He just needs to focus. But his eyes occasionally drift to Lestat's lips or his hair or his hands. Wondering at fangs and claws and that lion's mane and how gentle it makes him look.]
How long did it last? Can you even tell time in a place like that? We couldn't.
I didn't care about time at that point. I was distraught about life. Decades passed, I know that much. Decades where my mind would drift between life and death. The blood from my tears long since dried up and my body barely clinging to life there deep in the earth.
And there would be Claudia in my moments of clarity. Beautiful and sweet sometimes. She would stroke my hair and pet my face. Other times it was like her eyes would glow and I would be powerless as those hands would stab into my body. As they would find every piece within me as if she was just curious to know how it all felt. For the longest time I truly believed it was no more than delusion.
[A finger roams over his lips as he becomes lost in thought, the lighting of the room making the glass like quality of his nails become more apparent.]
I'm not so certain it was anymore. Years later and I think she was punishing me for finding the will to live. There are times I can still see her. Even here in this place.
[Lestat hums softly.]
I don't often talk about this haunting. But I suppose I am in the mood for it tonight. To dwell on the twisted and cruel nature of it with you. After all, I know I deserve it for what I did to her.
[He doesn't often admit that he deserves punishment but in some quiet moments like this one he finds himself more open to admitting his faults.]
[There's a bit of a pause as Jon has to gather his thoughts to something coherent, go back over what Lestat has said.]
Do you regret it? You might deserve it... but do you regret it? What you did?
I think... I regret a lot of things.
[Most of his life at this point? Deciding to wake up from the coma? Let the Eye take him. He should have found the will to live and accept that sooner or just had the courage to let himself die and have the End take him. Maybe that would have been better.]
Yes. I regret it. I have a number of regrets in my life but that is certainly one.
[Lestat sighs, his eyes closing. He's not sure why he's being so open and honest about that this time. Maybe he just needs to. Maybe Jon's mood is getting to him. While he can't say he can say that he's glad to be discussing it.]
I may revel in how terrible I am but I really am terrible, Jon. I'm terrible and yet I still hunger for love. Devotion.
[His eyes open and he looks over at him.]
Do you want to know what actually scares me? What truly scares me?
[The answer is immediate, the Archivist's eyes keen for just a moment, lit up with hunger. Fear? Yes. Yes, he wants that.
And... love. God knows he doesn't deserve it anymore, but he craves it. Affection. Simple human touch that's so hard to let himself have, certainly something he'll almost never let himself ask for. Even with Martin and Peter and the Lonely being a universe away, he'd still felt it, stuck into his bones and digging in like picks. With Martin here... Jon tries not to let it get to him, tries to ignore how much more he wants to isolate himself now, like it had been when he'd first arrived here. It's back now. It's harder to reach out. Harder except in desperate moments like these, to hold out a hand to someone and hope that it might be grasped.]
That one day everything I am and everything I do really will chase the world away. That even ghosts won't haunt me, bugs will refuse me. That everything will swallow me whole because I will truly be alone. Unloved. Unwanted.
[And he laughs bitterly.]
It'll be my own hand if the day comes. You could ask Armand he would agree.
[He knows his lover isn't wrong. Far from it.]
To be alone and to know that no one will take my hand.
That's... that's possible, yes. It would be in my world. The Lonely. That's... it's what it does. You probably shouldn't ever go up to the second floor here. And, um... avoid Martin. Martin Blackwood. He's... he's sort of a servant of the Lonely? It just rolls off of him a bit.
[A thought strikes him.]
You didn't... feel anything up in the lobby, did you?
[But they'd been in the lobby. Hadn't they? Jon's mind grasps for memories from before they were in this room together. He went upstairs. Didn't he go upstairs? Or did Lestat meet him down in the basement? His expression is growing increasingly perplexed, but he does answer the question.]
The Lonely is a part of Martin. When he's near you... those feelings you have about being alone? He can make them worse. Might dredge them up when you weren't even thinking about them. Accidentally. He's... he doesn't mean to. It's just... something that happens.
[His brow is deeply furrowed as Jon stares in consternation. What had he been doing before this conversation? He really doesn't remember. He'd called Lestat over for a Statement cleat, but why? Just for hunger?
No, no. He had a theory about something. What was it?]
Yes. He's not as... tied to the Lonely as I am to the Beholding. Not, yet. But he, um... I feel it, too. An avatar of the Lonely took over the Institute before I got here. He's the reason Martin's like this. I mean, well, part of the reason. If I'd... [If he'd just given himself over to the Eye sooner.] But I've felt it. The loneliness. Like everything you have has gone away, wanting to just... isolate yourself. No one can hurt you if you never see them. [There's an edge of fear and desperation.]
I wanted to see you. I wanted a Statement, but I... I think I wanted another person here. The nights are lonely when everyone's asleep.
[Even without dipping into Jon's mind he can see it's all over the place. He's trying to gather himself but it's like he just can't. He's so scattered and Lestat finds himself drawn to it. Like he wants to know what triggered it. What will make it stop.
He wants to touch him. He...
Lestat's realized that somewhere in his time of thinking that he's reached across the table to gently stroke a finger over Jon's face. He blinks as he comes back to himself and sits back in his chair.]
You know, you could always call for me for company. I so rarely have someone I can simply sit and talk with now that I'm away from David. I truly miss it.
[Lestat's finger strokes down Jon's cheek, and heat rises to his cheeks as the Archivist stares. He flinches, but he doesn't pull away entirely. Not just now. There's a terrible part of him that craves the simple contact. It's the same reason he's wanted to curl up against Martin or Alessandro or Ava or even Hawke or Father Anderson. Touch. Simple, human touch when he feels like such a complete monster some days.]
You... you'd want to just sit and talk? Not just for Statements?
Isn't that what we're doing now? If we're honest with ourselves this stopped being a statement several minutes ago.
[Placing his hands in his lap, Lestat tilts his head. It's so naturally human that it can be easy to forget he isn't one. Well, until one looks at his coloring and the way his eyes glow in the lighting and so on.]
I like talking with you. It feels nice to simply expose myself for a time and just speak with another person like this.
[Is that what they're doing? The Archivist blinks several times, looks around and then down at his tape recorder.]
Right. Yes, you're... Statement ends. End recording.
[He turns the tape off, and just sits for a moment.]
Is she the only ghost you see? Claudia. The one I met was haunting Mr. Gray's Sinema. Here, anyway. The other one was... Gerry. Gerard Keay. My predecessor turned him into a page in a book made out of human skin. He said it hurt being kept like that. So, I... I, um... I burned him. I burned his page to release him.
It hurt. Like my whole body was burning with him.
[His eyes track down to the burn scars covering his right hand.]
I've seen others. Claudia is the only one that stands out to me for personal reasons.
[Lestat's gaze drives down to the hand that on is looking at. Reaching out, he takes it in his own, runs his fingers over the scars. Almost like he's admiring the texture of them.]
I cannot speak for vampires of other worlds but those in mine are more flammable than anything else really. A simple light can set the entire body aflame. It's one of the surest ways to get rid of most of us. Set us afire then scatter the ashes far and wide. Then we cannot come back.
[Again, Jon flinches at the first touch, jerking his hand away instinctively before settling. He doesn't know how he feels about this. Uncomfortable. He doesn't particularly like his scars, especially not the one Jude Perry gave him. It's a reminder of just how naive he'd been at the start, at how much more paranoid he really should have been.
What's happened to Jude? She's probably still around somewhere, destroying lives. Probably angry that helping the Stranger with the Unknowing had come to nothing. The Archivist rather hopes he doesn't run into her again.]
Yes, yes like that!
[Jon nods, fingers twitching and gripping Lestat's hand after a moment.]
Has anyone tried to light you on fire here? They might be working for the Desolation.
Here? No. It would be pointless anyway. I could survive it like I can sunlight. I've reached the point where I doubt anything could kill me now.
[His hand had followed the hand being pulled from him before relaxing when it returned. Lightly, he traces each mark, each damaged piece of skin. His own can never scar like this no matter what he does to it.]
I can catch fire but I'd be able to be in the right mindset to be able to put it out.
[Lestat will be able to feel out the vague shape of a hand as he traces, the worst of the damage in that more precise shape and then radiating out to the rest of his hand and a ways up his wrist. Jon remembers Nikola had tutted most over that hand.
'I think we can just cut that off, Archivist. I'll tell you what. I'll get a nice pair of gloves to wear instead of your hands!' the demonic mannequin had been happy to inform him while they were working lotion into his skin for what seemed like the umpteenth time.
The attention sends a shiver down Jon's spine. Touch he likes occasionally. This just feels strange when it's nothing other people have done before. He doesn't pull away again, but he does stare at what the other man is doing, expression wary.]
I have fire extinguishers down here. Ones with CO2 gas. You can take a few with you, if you'd like. I've got dozens.
[This may seem to be an excessive amount for a relatively small space. But he's prepared in case there are any worms that attack here. His mind runs off on a different tangent once more.]
[Lestat actually lets go of his hand as he leans back in his chair. For a moment it actually looks like his body has somehow elongated itself before returning to normal. A trick of the eye, of course. It's just him moving faster than the human eye can process.]
Are you worried about me, Jon?
[He smiles and looks to the side.]
No. I don't want to do die. I tried and found I didn't like it that much.
[Jon squints, then rubs his eyes and blinks. What... what did he just see? Did Lestat's body stretch out just there? No, that's not part of his powers. Is it? This is Lestat. It's not Not!Lestat. He thinks. Not!Lestat wouldn't know about Claudia, would he?]
No, I... Yes? I accidentally set Ava on fire. I thought she was filled with worms. The Hive. I hurt her. I... I keep hurting her without meaning to. I need to stop. I don't want to hurt you, either. But I, um... I'm sorry.
[The Archivist reaches for Lestat this time. He'll clutch the vampire's hand between his own, tone earnest, pleading.]
I'm sorry, Lestat, I was scared. I'm sorry. I asked someone to kill her when I was in the People Zoo, during the inferno. The woman you told me about. The one who hurts Subs. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have. I shouldn't have done that. I don't want to kill people. I don't!
[Never mind that she'd come back to life like everyone else after. In the fever of his delirium, that part doesn't occur to Jon.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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There are files scattered everywhere on his desk, but Jon shifts them aside and pulls out his tape recorder to turn it on and lean in toward the other man from across the table.]
No, they're not enough anymore. I need more of them. I've recorded passages from them for Statements. I have a whole box for you. This might start a second. You're what I need. [Because Lestat's Statements are some sort of stability, a thread through many different things.] Please.
[Jon licks his lips before pressing record.]
Statement of Lestat de Lioncourt regarding a haunting moment. Statement taken direct from subject 17th September 2018. Statement begins.
[You now have a very captive audience, Lestat. The Archivist focuses (as much as he's able to) on the other man, eyes wide and staring.]
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[The nail file seems to vanish and in the blink of a human eye Lestat is now sitting there with his hands in his lap instead. When the movement happened only the supernatural can be sure of. Looking across at Jon, he offers him a smile.]
Did you know that ghosts are real? They haunt things. Haunt people. And they don't have to be tied down to places like the foolish notions they tell you in stories about them. No, they can go beyond that to find someone and follow them.
[The smile fades and he seems to look at nothing in particular.]
You may have read about it when creating statements from my books but I see Claudia at times. She haunts me, reminds me of the crime I committed to make her. This is one of those times.
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I've met ghosts myself, yes. At home and here. There's one in our program and I've taken a Statement from him along with a native ghost.
[A pause.]
But Claudia, yes. Tell me more about her ghost.
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It was during my period of death. You would know it as a long sleep honestly. It's something common for my kind...vampires. We go underground and don't come up for decades at a time. It was my time and yet I still recall such visions during that time. We won't discuss most of them tonight but there is one...
[He pauses and then...]
Deep, deep in the ground. So weak from hunger. I was wasting away slowly but so aware of the entire thing as I slept. The sounds of the world changing could be heard but I didn't care. In that time a small hand would touch me. Cold. So cold.
[He lifts a hand to his cheek as if tracing the line of the fingers.]
They would claw at my face as if ripping off my flesh little by little.
"We could have been so much without you." Her voice so soft and sweet. Musical in its cruelty.
[There's a pause and he seems to look distant for a moment and then...]
She would come to me again and again. Like she knew that in that moment I wasn't going anywhere at all. Not a single place. I was trapped there for her pleasure. A child of cruelty with her own little toy to play with.
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He's trying so hard to focus and he's managing it for the most part. He wants this. He needs this. He just needs to focus. But his eyes occasionally drift to Lestat's lips or his hair or his hands. Wondering at fangs and claws and that lion's mane and how gentle it makes him look.]
How long did it last? Can you even tell time in a place like that? We couldn't.
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And there would be Claudia in my moments of clarity. Beautiful and sweet sometimes. She would stroke my hair and pet my face. Other times it was like her eyes would glow and I would be powerless as those hands would stab into my body. As they would find every piece within me as if she was just curious to know how it all felt. For the longest time I truly believed it was no more than delusion.
[A finger roams over his lips as he becomes lost in thought, the lighting of the room making the glass like quality of his nails become more apparent.]
I'm not so certain it was anymore. Years later and I think she was punishing me for finding the will to live. There are times I can still see her. Even here in this place.
[Lestat hums softly.]
I don't often talk about this haunting. But I suppose I am in the mood for it tonight. To dwell on the twisted and cruel nature of it with you. After all, I know I deserve it for what I did to her.
[He doesn't often admit that he deserves punishment but in some quiet moments like this one he finds himself more open to admitting his faults.]
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Do you regret it? You might deserve it... but do you regret it? What you did?
I think... I regret a lot of things.
[Most of his life at this point? Deciding to wake up from the coma? Let the Eye take him. He should have found the will to live and accept that sooner or just had the courage to let himself die and have the End take him. Maybe that would have been better.]
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[Lestat sighs, his eyes closing. He's not sure why he's being so open and honest about that this time. Maybe he just needs to. Maybe Jon's mood is getting to him. While he can't say he can say that he's glad to be discussing it.]
I may revel in how terrible I am but I really am terrible, Jon. I'm terrible and yet I still hunger for love. Devotion.
[His eyes open and he looks over at him.]
Do you want to know what actually scares me? What truly scares me?
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[The answer is immediate, the Archivist's eyes keen for just a moment, lit up with hunger. Fear? Yes. Yes, he wants that.
And... love. God knows he doesn't deserve it anymore, but he craves it. Affection. Simple human touch that's so hard to let himself have, certainly something he'll almost never let himself ask for. Even with Martin and Peter and the Lonely being a universe away, he'd still felt it, stuck into his bones and digging in like picks. With Martin here... Jon tries not to let it get to him, tries to ignore how much more he wants to isolate himself now, like it had been when he'd first arrived here. It's back now. It's harder to reach out. Harder except in desperate moments like these, to hold out a hand to someone and hope that it might be grasped.]
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[And he laughs bitterly.]
It'll be my own hand if the day comes. You could ask Armand he would agree.
[He knows his lover isn't wrong. Far from it.]
To be alone and to know that no one will take my hand.
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Oh.
[His voice is quiet.]
That's... that's possible, yes. It would be in my world. The Lonely. That's... it's what it does. You probably shouldn't ever go up to the second floor here. And, um... avoid Martin. Martin Blackwood. He's... he's sort of a servant of the Lonely? It just rolls off of him a bit.
[A thought strikes him.]
You didn't... feel anything up in the lobby, did you?
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[You know because he's him.]
Why should I avoid him?
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H... how did you come in?
[But they'd been in the lobby. Hadn't they? Jon's mind grasps for memories from before they were in this room together. He went upstairs. Didn't he go upstairs? Or did Lestat meet him down in the basement? His expression is growing increasingly perplexed, but he does answer the question.]
The Lonely is a part of Martin. When he's near you... those feelings you have about being alone? He can make them worse. Might dredge them up when you weren't even thinking about them. Accidentally. He's... he doesn't mean to. It's just... something that happens.
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Much like the things with you that make me feel like I'm being watched? Is that what you mean?
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No, no. He had a theory about something. What was it?]
Yes. He's not as... tied to the Lonely as I am to the Beholding. Not, yet. But he, um... I feel it, too. An avatar of the Lonely took over the Institute before I got here. He's the reason Martin's like this. I mean, well, part of the reason. If I'd... [If he'd just given himself over to the Eye sooner.] But I've felt it. The loneliness. Like everything you have has gone away, wanting to just... isolate yourself. No one can hurt you if you never see them. [There's an edge of fear and desperation.]
I wanted to see you. I wanted a Statement, but I... I think I wanted another person here. The nights are lonely when everyone's asleep.
[Or off working elsewhere.]
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He wants to touch him. He...
Lestat's realized that somewhere in his time of thinking that he's reached across the table to gently stroke a finger over Jon's face. He blinks as he comes back to himself and sits back in his chair.]
You know, you could always call for me for company. I so rarely have someone I can simply sit and talk with now that I'm away from David. I truly miss it.
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You... you'd want to just sit and talk? Not just for Statements?
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[Placing his hands in his lap, Lestat tilts his head. It's so naturally human that it can be easy to forget he isn't one. Well, until one looks at his coloring and the way his eyes glow in the lighting and so on.]
I like talking with you. It feels nice to simply expose myself for a time and just speak with another person like this.
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Right. Yes, you're... Statement ends. End recording.
[He turns the tape off, and just sits for a moment.]
Is she the only ghost you see? Claudia. The one I met was haunting Mr. Gray's Sinema. Here, anyway. The other one was... Gerry. Gerard Keay. My predecessor turned him into a page in a book made out of human skin. He said it hurt being kept like that. So, I... I, um... I burned him. I burned his page to release him.
It hurt. Like my whole body was burning with him.
[His eyes track down to the burn scars covering his right hand.]
Vampires don't like fire, right? It hurts Ava.
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[Lestat's gaze drives down to the hand that on is looking at. Reaching out, he takes it in his own, runs his fingers over the scars. Almost like he's admiring the texture of them.]
I cannot speak for vampires of other worlds but those in mine are more flammable than anything else really. A simple light can set the entire body aflame. It's one of the surest ways to get rid of most of us. Set us afire then scatter the ashes far and wide. Then we cannot come back.
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What's happened to Jude? She's probably still around somewhere, destroying lives. Probably angry that helping the Stranger with the Unknowing had come to nothing. The Archivist rather hopes he doesn't run into her again.]
Yes, yes like that!
[Jon nods, fingers twitching and gripping Lestat's hand after a moment.]
Has anyone tried to light you on fire here? They might be working for the Desolation.
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[His hand had followed the hand being pulled from him before relaxing when it returned. Lightly, he traces each mark, each damaged piece of skin. His own can never scar like this no matter what he does to it.]
I can catch fire but I'd be able to be in the right mindset to be able to put it out.
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'I think we can just cut that off, Archivist. I'll tell you what. I'll get a nice pair of gloves to wear instead of your hands!' the demonic mannequin had been happy to inform him while they were working lotion into his skin for what seemed like the umpteenth time.
The attention sends a shiver down Jon's spine. Touch he likes occasionally. This just feels strange when it's nothing other people have done before. He doesn't pull away again, but he does stare at what the other man is doing, expression wary.]
I have fire extinguishers down here. Ones with CO2 gas. You can take a few with you, if you'd like. I've got dozens.
[This may seem to be an excessive amount for a relatively small space. But he's prepared in case there are any worms that attack here. His mind runs off on a different tangent once more.]
Would you want to die, if you could?
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Are you worried about me, Jon?
[He smiles and looks to the side.]
No. I don't want to do die. I tried and found I didn't like it that much.
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No, I... Yes? I accidentally set Ava on fire. I thought she was filled with worms. The Hive. I hurt her. I... I keep hurting her without meaning to. I need to stop. I don't want to hurt you, either. But I, um... I'm sorry.
[The Archivist reaches for Lestat this time. He'll clutch the vampire's hand between his own, tone earnest, pleading.]
I'm sorry, Lestat, I was scared. I'm sorry. I asked someone to kill her when I was in the People Zoo, during the inferno. The woman you told me about. The one who hurts Subs. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have. I shouldn't have done that. I don't want to kill people. I don't!
[Never mind that she'd come back to life like everyone else after. In the fever of his delirium, that part doesn't occur to Jon.]
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