also on wattpad under @janice2535
pairing: lestat de lioncourt x oc!reader x louis de pointe du lac
summary: wife turned lamb.
warnings: angst, mentions of domestic abuse and rape, mentions of blood, s*x work, death, infidelity, alcohol. (let me know if I forget something!)
disclaimer: OC story!!! english is not my first language, so sorry on that front. and this is my first published piece, thus please have mercy on me. this is also not always accurate to either the chronicles or show. might be shit but at least not ai. thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy it!
"And I never stepped on the cracks 'cause I thought I'd hurt my mother."
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She hears them before she sees them, her feet hurrying out, worried out of her mind about the first feeding experience this child could have had. She cannot imagine how scared Claudia must have been, how overwhelming it is and Seta regretted not having gone with since she knew how her husband was about these things. Always rushing the process of transformation.
"Is she alright? Does she need comfort?" Seta's bare feet toe over to the yard once more, towards the opening towards the street and she halts in her steps when she sees just how fine Claudia seemed to be. The man playing the trumpet on the other side of the street seems like a silly and ironic backdrop to all of this.
"I'm soooo hungry. I think I'm gon' die. Is that how vampires die? From starvation?"
"You don't want to engorge yourself, ma petite." Lestat tells Claudia with a certain patience that wears thin after one word of defiance. Seta would know, she has been there.
"More tomorrow, okay?" After Louis says those words, Claudia drops onto her knees with a desperate "Please."
Seta blinks when she comes to a stop beside her husband, blinking in disbelief at the opposite of what she had thought she would see. Her head cocks, gaze flickering to the blood on the corner of the girl's lips and her dress that Louis had bought in a haste.
Louis glances at Seta when he notices her presence, a small tight smile on his lips as to say "she did better than we do" and Seta only acknowledges it with a blinkless stare, face blank in wariness. Because she questioned it. Was Claudia a natural? Was she as bad as Lestat? Or was she something entirely different?
"Histrionics." Lestat notes, glancing at his wife in silent understanding, who gives a silent nod of her head in reply. Both were old enough to know these things, to understand the works of a fresh fledgling unable to stop its hunger.
Louis sighs slightly, turning to look at Lestat with exasperation. "Some sleep is what she needs." He says, turning to Seta to ask for silent backup. Setareh does not nod at Louis. Because this sort of hunger could not be sated by sleep.
Lestat quirks a brow at Louis. "Sedation is what she needs."
Just then, Louis interrupted in his sentence, the sound of squelching and pleads from the man across the street are cut short.
The three elders's heads snap to the empty spot where Claudia had stood before and to across the street where Claudia now currently was, killing a man in the middle of the street.
"Claudia!" Lestat scolds, face grimacing in the ungracefulness of her killing, disgusted by the pure hunger and the absence of the play.
"Claudia!" Louis immediately runs over to her, leaving Lestat and Seta standing there as he tries to pry the fourteen year-old off the poor soul. And it is a good thing that Lestat stood there. His wife hands clasp over her mouth when she gasps, eyes squeezing shut at the brutality of it. She was no stranger to a brutal kill, not at all. But she had not expected it in this moment, from this small of a person.
Her body immediately angles towards his, curling into his chest to hide both her face and gaze from the scene. Her fingers curl into his jacket, searching for sanctuary with the very man who was everything but. His one arm loosely wraps around her waist, the other hand resting on her hip when he watches Louis and Claudia with that disgusted curl at his lips and disapproval in his gaze.
She seeks comfort in his arms, he holds her out of habit and instinct. As difficult as things were, as uncategorisable their emotions were for each other, they were still husband and wife. Some things would never change.
"Elle n'a aucune grâce. Je vais devoir lui apprendre." ("She has no grace. I will have to teach her.") Lestat murmurs to his wife who flinches in his arms at the sound of a body falling to ground and it being hoisted over Louis's shoulder. She hears Claudia's and Louis's quick footsteps back, Louis peering around the street to make sure no one saw.
"Shut the gate behind me." Louis tells Lestat when he walks towards the incinerator, his suit ruined by the bleeding-out corpse on his shoulder. Claudia trails after him, her dress just as ruined, blood covering her mouth instead of chocolate. And it is a sick image that Seta cannot bring herself to watch, her body pressing closer to Lestat as if to fuse with him, as to become him and thus not care about such things.
Lestat sighs through his nose and lets his gaze linger on his two newest creations as they waltz past him. He had been told to do something and, brat that he was, did not like to be told what to do. He simply pats Seta's behind once before peeling off her to shut the gate with a loud sound resembling a thunder. His wife flinched but does not move from her spot, shoulders pulled up and tense, eyes covered by her hands and he rolls his own eyes at the fright she still feels after nearly two hundred years of blood and gore.
"Setareh, reprends-toi." ("Setareh, pull yourself together.") Lestat steps up towards her, gaze unflinching on his little angel of his wife trembling under the dim light of their small yard tunnel.
She shakes her head, face still hidden behind her hands. "Je ne peux pas." ("I cannot.") She murmurs with a slight shake to her breathy voice. "Elle est si jeune, c'est dérangeant." ("She is so young, it is disturbing.")
He stays silent for a moment, simply watching her while he tries to push away the thought she always seemed to make him feel every now and then. It was too human, this feeling of guilt and regret, the feelings she always evoked in him with her weak nature of property and distinction between good and bad. He knew he had done something undoable, something so morally wrong that it had made even him stand and think for a moment. He knew he had broken a grave law. And he knew that this could not end well, same as she knew. But he had done it for Louis. And that was enough justification for him.
He lets out a sharp breath when he straightens up, walking over to her with sure steps and grabbing her wrists to pull her hands off her face. Teary eyes look into his, that pouty lip quivering as she tries to hold back her tears with great effort. And for a moment, even his face softens when he holds hers. His grip is tender and yet firm, as if to shake her out of her feelings, his eyes darting between hers with something close as to what he used to have. That silent connection that husband and wife share, the sort of connection only two people who have known each other for so long could have.
"Tu voulais un enfant. Le voici. Une fille." ("You have wanted a child. Here it is. A daughter.") He starts, voice quiet and mingling with the distant sound of bones cracking when Louis and Claudia stuff the body into the incinerator. "Tu as obtenu ce que tu voulais. Elle est ta deuxième chance." ("You got what you wanted now. She is your second chance.")
She sobs at that, a small broken sound while she keeps her gaze on his, silent tears rolling down her cheeks and his thumb when he roughly wipes them away. Because yes, in a way, this was her second chance. A child for a child.
"Mais pas comme ça. Je voulais lui donner une chance. Je voulais que ce soit à nous." ("But not like this. I wanted it to have a chance. I wanted it to be ours.") She whispers with her small voice, hands moving to cover his on her cheeks and for a brief moment, his lips tighten in emotion, brows pulling together when he thinks of what could have been in a past life.
"Elle est à nous maintenant, chérie." ("She is ours now, dear.")
He wipes another tear off her cheek, much gentler now than before and he leans down to press a kiss to those pouty lips of hers. It is soft and tender, the way a lover would kiss to comfort. Because in all his cruelty, he still had his moments when he let himself be her husband instead of her maker and captor.
Her wet lashes flutter, eyes closing when he kiss her in a way he had not kissed her in a long time, without forcing her, without roughness. He kisses her again, and then again, lips gentle and lingering when he feels her kiss him back voluntarily. He is not demanding in this moment, he is giving her what she craves from him. Gentle love, not a firm hand around her throat, not tears induced by him or a tongue prodding in between pressed together lips to get her to open up for him.
He was husband. She was wife.
And when Louis walks back towards them to grab the other body of the police officer that Claudia had killed when they were out, the body lying in a cloth bag beside the couple's feet, he stops in his tracks. Because he too sees husband and wife. And he feels as what he is. The third in their marriage.
"I need the body. To burn." His voice rips them apart, Seta immediately lowering her head even when her back faces Louis. Lestat looks over her head at his lover, then glances down at the body bag at his feet. He gives a one shouldered shrug, and her heart falls when his hands fall of her face, when he simply leans down and hoists the body over his shoulder, leaving her standing in his dust when he walks off towards Claudia and the incinerator.
Louis lingers for a moment, watches her back and her hands as they fall back onto her sides, shoulders lowering nearly dejectedly. He turns and follows Lestat while she can still feel the phantom press of her husbands lips on her, how it reminded her of when they were both human, lying in high grass in the warm sun, in midst of wildflowers and buzzing bees and chirping birds. She can feel the wetness of his tongue drying on her lips, taste him, hear the faint sound of his past laughter when she had stumbled over a french word she was learning. It was a distant sound, but she would always remember it. She would always remember the man she loved, the man she mourned and who's ghost took over her husband every now and then. As it did now.
Perhaps it is this what kept her going these nights, what made her wake in her coffin, and go to church, and pray for forgiveness. These moments were rare and they came when she least expected them, but they came. And she clung to them until she would get to the next moment. And, unfortunate for her poor and battered heart, she would keep waiting and clinging.
Setareh was kneeling beside her coffin, wearing her light pink nightgown, silk tresses cascading down her back and catching the dim light of the bed(coffin)room. She was preparing her coffin for Claudia, fluffing out the pillow for her and placing it on the other end inside the silk enclosure.
"Claudia, do you want a fuzzy blanket or a quilted blanket?" Seta asks the girl who was currently chewing on a coloured candy stick with a weary gaze. She blinks at the other young woman, ignoring the question. "Why does it taste so bad?" She asks her, holding out the candy stick with a small frown on her face, standing there in her own nightgown which Louis had also bought in a quick frenzy as to get at least something for the girl.
"I do not know." She says quietly, shrugging one of her slender shoulders when she looks up at the girl, big eyes blinking back in reply. "I can taste it. I like it."
"Is that why you got them macarons and lollipops lying around everywhere? How can that taste good to you?" She asks with a cock of her head, brows pulling together. Setareh cannot even reply when Lestat enters, dressed in his own silk pyjamas, a hand leisurely dismissing the entire question that Claudia had.
"Setareh is different than us. She can cry human tears, she looks normal, and she can taste and eat. And oh does she eat." He nearly ridicules her, shaming her for her ability of still tasting and taking advantage of it.
"I like sweet things. They give me comfort." She murmurs, small pout on those lips when she turns her attention back to the space she made for Claudia inside her coffin, fluffing up the pillow for the up-tenth time.
Lestat only scoffs, walking towards his own coffin, not acknowledging her statement any further. Because it would mean him acknowledging that she needed comfort, because of him not giving it to her.
"And she can be in the sun, right?"
Both Seta and Lestat halt at that, gazes snapping to the little girl who widens her eyes at the sudden attention and looks of confusion.
"Qoui? Non. Of course not. I would burn. I know, I have tried as we all have." (What? No.") Setareh replies with a shake of her head, sitting back on her hunches, gaze nearly bewildered. Lestat too stands by his coffin with a quirked brow and a look that can only be seen as mocking, as if the thought of even entertaining something so ridiculous was insane.
"But-" Claudia halts in the middle of it, eyes flickering between the married couple. And for a beat, it is dead silent. Louis had entered as well, hovering by the doorway as soon as he heard those words leave Claudia's mouth, question etched into his expression as well.
For a moment, Claudia wants to inquire further, to state what she had seen. But Seta seems clueless, and so do the others. And Claudia, in all her youth and naivety, was not a stupid girl but decided to play stupid. "Oh, well... shame." She shrugs, rounding Louis coffin to step inside Seta's with her dainty feet.
Setareh blinks at her, lips parted dumbfounded. Turning to look over her shoulder at Lestat, the married couple sharing a last look before Seta pushes off the floor and gets into her coffin as well, sitting down in the other end of it. "Bonne nuit." ("Good night.") She murmurs towards Lestat (ever the dutiful wife).
Louis pushes off the doorway as well, his robe fluttering when he walks over to Seta's coffin. "Sleep well." He murmurs to both Claudia and Seta, leaning down to the latter to press a kiss to the top of her head.
If looks could kiss, Lestat would have Louis multiple feet under the ground by now. But when Louis turns to glance at Lestat, the blond haired man smiles coldly, acting unbothered when he steps into his coffin as well, snapping out a "Bonne nuit." ("Good night.") towards the three of them before his coffin lid snaps shut loudly, wood banging against wood.
Now Louis and Seta share a look at the passive aggressiveness before she too lies down, a hand on the lid to pull it shut over her and Claudia. It clicks shut with a silent sound, locking them inside her little sanctuary. The angel pulls her blanket up to her chin, curled up on her side, silence enveloping them after the muffled sound of Louis shuts his coffin lid.
"Your heartbeats' so loud." Claudia whispers after a few beats of silence. "Like a small handed man bangin' on drums...but he's nervous while doin' it." Seta can hear the shrug after her description.
Seta pinches her brows softly, unconsciously trying to calm her already calm breathing as if it had any influence on the loud thump of her heart. "I am not nervous. It is always loud. Lestat also says tis too loud." She whispers, curling up more as to not bother Claudia with her feet and give her space.
"I didn't say it's too loud. Just louder. I like it." The girl replies, legs stretching out when given the chance, staring at the top of the coffin in silence and wordlessly taking in the scratches in the wood that she can see even in the dark due to her newly acquired abilities. Claudia liked finding out more about her abilities, liked using them.
"Can you teach me French? I wanna know what you and Uncle Les are talkin' about all the time."
Claudia is restless, eager to learn, eager to get to know the young woman who she lies in the coffin with. The young woman who did not know she could withstand the sun.
Seta's breath hitches slightly at what Claudia calls their maker, but she thinks that perhaps Louis told her to call him that, evoking some messed up sense of family. "Of course. I can teach you, tis not hard. I learned it as well when I was older than you are now." She replies with a small nod in the dark, eyes shut since she had no desire to look at the nail scratches on the wood of her coffin.
"You learned it later?" Claudia asks curiously, a constant stream of questions sounding in her loud mind, some of which she planned to ask Setareh.
"Oui. I was seventeen when I learned it. Lestat taught me before we married." She murmurs in reply as she desperately tries to push back the memories of sweet whispers in French, the feel of his fingertips when he traced invisible words on the side of her neck. "Tis the third language I have learned, after Persian and Arabic."
Claudia's brows pull up at that, silently surprised at the knowledge the quiet young woman seemed to have. "I can only speak English."
"You will learn. As have I." She whispers as she lies there curled up and smaller than Claudia, unmoving and unwanting of taking up any space that the young girl might need. "You will have much time to learn many things."
Claudia sighs through her nose at that. As eager as she was to learn new things, the sheer amount of what there was and what could be seemed overwhelming to her. "Just seems like so much." She mumbles, twirling a strand of hair between her fingers while feeling the crushing weight weight down on her of both impatience and fear of impending adolescence.
The stars are barely shining when Claudia wakes, thus waking all the other slumbering undead. Seta rises like a mummy, sleepy eyes still shut as she sits there for a few quiet moments, arms crossed and hands resting on her shoulders. Half starved, she needed to sleep longer than the others, needed longer to wake, body slumped from the starvation she put herself through.
Lestat notices immediately, seeing her small figure sit in her coffin when Claudia jumps out and hurries over to the balcony to peer over Royal street at the steady thump of life in human veins. But he does not bother to ask or help. He had tried decade after decade to get her to accept her hunger and what she was, to embrace their nature. But she had declined, over and over again and thus, he would no longer try. He simply waited until she starved herself enough to the point of cracking, knowing that he would be there and feed her himself. He would rip his veins open for her, while also being the one who so often locked her into her coffin and let her starve for weeks. It was either this or that for him. And even he himself never knew what side of him would take over.
Louis had been in the bathroom already, freshening up. Only few nights ago, he would freshen up to go tend to his business at the Azalea, but now, ripped from his clinging hands, the Azalea was gone. And so, a grand part of his past life was gone as well. But he had another focus now. Two, to be exact. Darling Claudia and Saintly Seta.
Seta rises with a huff, hands curled around the sides of her coffin when she stands on buckling knees. Lestat react before she even knows that she was falling, her eyes having been shut this entire time. His hand grasps her wrist harshly, holding her up like a child holds its stuffed plush-toy. Her eyes flutter open, half lidded gaze on her husband when he pulls her up against his chest, carrying her over to the bed that was so rarely used by the three of them. He lies her down on the plush sheets, face holding the same expression as one would have when dealing with throwing away trash; a tedious, everyday chore that must be done.
Claudia enters the bedroom again, bare feet padding over the floor in silent steps as she watches with big eyes, taking in the many faces that the married couple seemed to have. She watches Lestat sit on the edge of the bed, his dark silk pyjamas contrasting the light pink silk his wife wore, eyes half lidded and breaths shallow when she watches her husband seethe his fangs into his wrist and then firmly pressing it against her parted lips.
Seta whimpers faintly, brows pulling together at the sudden action but, hungry as she was, she drinks. Her throat moves, dainty fingers curling around his wrist and hand when she feeds. He had fed not long ago, she could taste the sort of man he had fed from - the hints of something tobacco and rum noticeable in the aftertaste. Her fingers at his hand hold his, his own curling around hers when he watches with a hint of silent satisfaction of her indulging with greedy gulps, their darker gazes locked.
Claudia watches from the corner, lips tightening and brows pulling together at the dynamic and hunger visible between two, at how Setareh seemed to keep herself alive off her husband. Louis joins, walking back into the room. His steps falter at the scene in front of him but he walks towards his closet, gaze lingering on Seta who pulls back from Lestat's wrist after a last swallow. She parts from him, fingers uncurling, lips red with his blood and parted in breathlessness. "Merci." She murmurs when she sits up on the bed, his gaze locked onto the blood her tongue flicks out to lick off. "De rien, chérie." ("You're welcome, dear.")
She looks at him with those big brown eyes, like a deer caught in headlights at the way he looks at her and she scoots away some before getting off the bed altogether as if too flee the suddenly ravenous and questioning look that had flashed in his eyes. He silently bristles at the passive decline of his silent question, watching after her when she whispers past Louis and Claudia to get to her closet and behind her paravent to dress.
Louis quirks a brow at Lestat, trying to bite back the amused smirk on his lips while Claudia's gaze lingers on the paravent, as if trying to peer through it, trying to gauge what the situation was between the three elders.
After another hour and shaking from hunger, Claudia drags Louis off to go take her feeding, hands clasped around his when she pulls him out the front door. "Come on! I'm so hungry!" The girl's face tightens with desperation as pulls at Louis's hand.
"Give me a minute. Goddamn!" His own faces frowns up slightly when he throws her a look, nearly stumbling a step at the sheer force she seems to carry. His only and last goal before leaving was to say his goodbyes to Seta who was walking down the staircase, dressed in light coloured silk and inky silk hair twisted up. She raises her brows slightly at the scene in front of her, reaching the downstairs while he reaches out for her waist, wrapping his own free arm around it and at least pressing a hasty kiss to her cheek. He glances over her shoulder at Lestat who stood at the top of the stairs, watching with a cold smirk on his lips, hiding the feelings of hurt he most certainly carried.
"I'll see y'all later." Louis tells Lestat and Seta, not cowering under the cold stare his lover shot him after another kiss pressed onto Seta's cheek. Louis and Claudia leave the townhouse like a whirlwind, the door flying shut behind them and Seta can hear the fading giggling of Claudia when she drags Louis with her.
The silence feels oppressive when she stares at the shut door, fingers clasped at her front. Lestat's steps down, each step deliberate and threatening as they make the wood creak and groan under him. She flinches ever so slightly at his hands grasping her shoulders behind her, eyes widening as much as she kept her face neutral, the dread and fear were evident in her eyes. It were always the eyes with her.
She lets his hands wander down her straight but stiff back, lets one hand move to the front of her throat and wrap around in a firm grip, the other moving to wipe Louis's kiss off her cheek in a rough, slap-like wipe. She winces slightly, eyes shutting briefly in dreaded anticipation of what he might do when silently wounded like this. The hand around her throat tightens when he tugs her back against his chest and her lips part when she feels some of her breath being constricted. And yet, she does not lift a finger to defy him, she does not dare to speak back to her husband or to lay bare his own sins that are monstrous compared to the innocent and pure kisses shared with Louis. He was her husband. He had claim over his wife. She had nothing.
"Tu bois mon sang et pourtant tu le laisses t'embrasser." ("You drink my blood and yet you let him kiss you.") He murmurs against her neck, inhaling the scent that lingers inside that thundering pulse of hers, her heart pumping wildly like a cornered gazelle. "Est-ce qu'il sent mon sang couler dans tes veines ? Est-ce qu'il aime que tu sentes davantage mon odeur que la tienne?" ("Does he feel my blood running through your veins? Does he like that you smell more like me than you do of yourself?") He continues, fangs grazing her skin and making her squirm in his grasp and whimper, hands shooting up to his around her throat. The worst he could do was rid her of the blood he had given her. It would leave her unconscious and even more weak than before, and both knew it.
He drags his teeth along the side of her neck, lips lingering against one spot before he roughly releases her, as if suddenly having decided against it. She stumbles forward a step, feeling more discarded than anything when he turns to take his coat from the rack. He barely spares her a glance when he speaks, opening the front door to step outside with his usual feline grace. "Claudia a besoin de plus de vêtements et d'autres choses. Je vais aller les lui chercher." ("Claudia needs more clothes and such. I will go get them for her.") He shuts the door loudly behind him, his steps fading away in the usual deliberate stride he always had.
She stands there for a moment, unsure of how to feel since she had been both nearly hurt again and yet pushed her away before it could happen. She never knew what to expect from him, never knew why being discarded sometimes hurt just as much as when he would put his hands on her.
Because, after all, was her husband bite not also touch?
Lestat returns before Louis and Claudia do, much to Seta's dismay, who sat curled up on the chaise with her book in her hands. She looks up when he saunters inside, hanging his jacket up on the rack and placing down a single shopping bag on the floor.
He does not speak nor look at his wife when he strides towards the bar cabinet to pour himself a drink. She blinks at his back before glancing towards the single bag.
"Bonjour... Un seul sac?" ("Hello... only one bag?") She asks slightly stumped. Lestat was not the type to only buy one thing but rather half the store. Both his and her closet were prove of that.
He gives her a glance over his shoulder, smirking at her with a one shouldered shrug, the amber liquid sloshing in the decanter he holds.
"Bien sûr que non." ("Of course not.") He muses dryly, a small scoff escaping him. "Je suis censé porter tous les sacs comme une mule? Le magasins livrera les articles ici." ("Am I supposed to carry all the bags like some mule? The shop will deliver the things here.") He explains to her with a shake of his head, since both knew she knew him better than that.
She gives a nod in reply at his words. Because, of course, the man who had once killed an entire pack of wolves could not be bothered to carry multiple shopping bags. The duality of man.
Both watch each other while he unhurriedly strides to sit on the couch across from her, sipping on the amber liquid inside the crystal glass. He was calm, quiet, a slight tug at the corner of his lips which she had no idea of how to interpret. He crosses a leg over the other, barely blinking when he stares right back into his wife's doe eyes.
And then suddenly, shot like a bullet: "Comment aurais-tu appelé notre enfant s'il n'était pas mort dans ton ventre?" ("What would you have named our child if it had not died in your womb?")
Her face frowns up immediately, a soft look of hurt flashing over it at the question and the way he asks the question, with quiet ridicule. As if he too had not cried over his wrongdoing.
The child that died in her womb the first time he had beat his wife.
Her fingers tighten around her forgotten book, breath hitching at the sheer absurdity and disbelief she felt. "Comment peux-tu être aussi cruel?" ("How can you be so cruel?") She whispers in a small voice, the sound breathy past her pouted lips and hurt gaze.
He lets out a faint huff through his nose, corners of his lips pulling up when he shurg a shoulder, as if talking about the weather than a dead child. "Je ne suis pas cruel. Je suis simplement curieux." ("I am not cruel. I am merely curious.") He replies lightly.
She cannot believe that this is his revenge for how Louis and her are around each other. She cannot believe that he would stoop this low, would have even preferred a striking hand over this.
She looks away from him and down at her book, biting her quivering lower lip when she does not reply to him or the game he was playing.
Just before he could demand an answer, Claudia's giggles interrupt his inquisitive cruelty, the front door opening when a chuckling Louis follows her, shutting the door behind him. His gaze falls upon Lestat and Seta, seeing how the latter does not look up and seems to be slightly distraught.
Claudia skips over towards Seta, crawling onto the chaise to wrap her arms around her shoulders, glancing between Lestat and Louis. Seta wants to get out of the sweet grip, the brutality of the scent of blood clinging to the girl making her stomach churn. But one look at Claudia's big eyes and sweet smile has Seta lying her book to the side and wrapping her own arms around her. She lets the girl cuddle to her side while Louis steps inside, gaze lingering on Lestat in silent question.
"Uncle Les, did you get clothes for me?" Claudia asks Lestat with an eager expression, his own turning uncharacteristically parental.
"Oui, mon petite. The shop will send everything over by tomorrow." He replies calmly before he rises from his seat on the couch, hand lingering on Louis's shoulder when he passes him and walks back towards the bar cabinet once more.
Claudia turns her attention back to Seta, arms tightening around her shoulders from the side nose bumping against the elder's cheek with how much she invaded Seta's space. "Did you get dresses too?"
Seta shakes her head with a small and tender smile, hiding how struck she had been by her husband's cruelty. "Non. I stayed at home." She replies, a hand reaching up to sooth over hair.
"Why didn't you come feed with us? It's boring being at home all the time." She says when she lets go off Seta, small frown on her face when he leans back, feet not even touching the ground as they dangle there.
Louis steps up to sit beside Claudia, hands behind him when he smiles tenderly and warmly at Seta, who returns it weakly but not less genuine. "She likes being at home a little too much." He tells Claudia calmly, gaze flickering between the girls. "But we'll take her out tomorrow, do something as a family. No need to stay in all the time. Right, Lestat?"
All three of them look over to the man of the house, who had been in the middle of pouring himself another brandy. He meets their gazes, and for a moment, as those three pairs of eyes look over at him in silent question, he feels an odd sense of responsibility for each of them.
Because yes, they were family now. And he was the one who had brought them all together.
Only, if it was to his fortune or misfortune, he did not know yet.
He only knew he probably deserved the latter.
The next evening, her fingers curled into Louis's suit, his lips hover near her own and yet he does not kiss her, even when their bodies are pressed together. She voices her breathy worries, confides in him about the paranoia that a parent would have for a child whenever it set foot outside.
"Stop worrying so much. She's fine. Everything's fine." Louis's voice is a reassuring cadence in the midst of her loud mind, her gaze flickering up the staircase as she waits for Lestat and Claudia walk down and join them.
"Stop. My God, stop. Listen to me," Louis chuckles faintly, cupping Seta's sweet and worried face, making her look at him. "We gon' be fine. We're gonna go out, we're gonna dance, listen to music you like, we're gonna have fun. She's gonna have fun. Ain't nothin' gon' happen, alright?"
She looks at him with those unsure eyes of hers before nodding reluctantly. He did not take her worry as offence, nor did he get annoyed by it. He can only image what staying inside so much could do to a person, knows how she got into her head and worried, especially now that they had Claudia to worry about. Sweet, impulsive Claudia.
As they speak of the little girl, her hurried steps fly down the staircase, coat clutched in her hands before she throws her arms around Seta's waist, hopping in place. "Are we goin' now? Can we go now? Please?" She asks impatiently, big eyes looking up at Seta as if she had any say in anything in this house.
She only nods her head, fingers uncurling from Louis's suit when her hands smooth over the curly and pulled back hair. Before both her or Louis could reply, Lestat walks down the stairs, tone as unbothered as usual.
"Claudia, stop clinging to your mother like an octopus." He chastises when he strides past them and towards the front door. While Claudia untangles from Seta and follows after Lestat who steps outside, Seta stands there as if shell-shocked.
The word 'mother' rings through her head, gaze fixed on the backs of Lestat and Claudia. Had this become decided now by her husband? Has this been alright with Claudia? Was Seta herself even alright with it? She cannot move nor speak while processing.
Was she mother to a child she had not given birth to, a child she had condemned to hell the second she had not defied her husband when turning her?
Was it the right thing to be called her mother?
Louis snaps her out of the trance, knowing how much it must have caught her off-guard. The same way when Claudia had first called him 'daddy Lou'. They were parents now, in a sick sense, parents to a child they had cursed. His arm wraps around her waist, pressing a lingering kiss to her cheek in silent support before tugging her along to leave with the others.
A quartet now, they were as much family as people like them could be. Bound by one maker, the same blood thrumming through their veins.
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