Littlelost Updates

[littlelostfic]

Dusting this account off that I'd made a bit ago for random writing updates! I'll probably only post here if I remember to for brand new fics or fic event stuff.

Or, more realistically, when I have something overly complicated to overexplain about my writing choices that feel like it's too long for an author's note.

Definitely feel free to follow!! But please know I don't really expect to post here all that much, tbh.

[littlelostfic]

Hi fandom friends! If you're reading this it's because I've managed to figure out how to create a series and then add an existing work to it.

I might be overthinking some people's interest or reaction to this, but I assume some of you may have questions about what this means. This post will likely be longer than it really needs to be, because I am chronically bad at determining what information is really necessary or not, so. Without belaboring this, let's get to it.

(Putting this in Q&A format to help me organize my thoughts)

Why is CotW part of a series now?

This is a little hard to answer because of the nature of how fanfic and headcanons work. The clearest answer I can give is because the CotW story has (almost) always sort of sat back to back-to-back with some other spn stories, in an interconnected fanon of my own making in my brain. These ideas had been floating around for a long time separately, but at some point (I don't even remember when, but definitely a while ago) I realized they all fit into the same sort of "good spn that lives in my brain" universe. And could potentially lead to the same "good spn ending that lives in my brain" destination. (In theory, anyway.) I've headcanoned them all as existing together in the same "universe" ever since. Even though they don't necessarily fit together in a traditional fanfic format. Not exactly the way a lot of people conceive of fanfic series chronology, which is that you usually must read the earlier one to read a later one, or that an earlier story isn't complete if you don't read later entries in the series, etc etc.

Does this mean that CotW won't be the end of the story?

This is where I also have a hard time answering, although I might just be overthinking it and making it harder on myself (and you) than it actually is. Basically in my head as of this moment, the series would have 5 (maybe 6?) potential installments. But the first three all are meant to function entirely as standalones, where you would not need to read any other in the series to enjoy them or feel that they are complete. Then (if I even get around to writing and actually posting all three - big if!), the last installments would pick up from there and be chronological. With those first 3 early stories coming together in the 4th as if they all did happen in the same universe.

So the answer to "will CotW not be the end of the story?" is sort of dependent upon 1. if I ever actually get around to writing the ambitious amount of stuff I'd like to (again, BIG if). And 2. if you would personally be interested in reading other stories in the series (which you do not and should not need to, in order for CotW to be considered fully complete in your mind).

So, who should subscribe to the series and keep reading, and who maybe shouldn't?

CotW and early things I'd put in the series are all true standalones. And as you can probably tell from my writing and the series title, I'm a multishipper who doesn't see much need to make the characters totally monogamous. If you like the idea of reading about Sam romancing other characters (that aren't Gabriel), which can be read either as part of the same continuity, or as just a standalone? Please do! Feel free! Provided you have patience and know that, as ambitious as I am, I may never realistically be able to upload all the SPN fic I want (slow writer + don't like to upload things until I'm pretty sure I'm done with them + busy non-fandom life + lots of other fandoms I love that I also want to write for + writing what I want when I want to make sure writing stays fun).

If you just like my writing, or the way I write Sam/spn themes? Sure, give the series a follow.

If you are very much a Sabriel-is-my-OTP monoshipper, I definitely recommend just reading CotW and letting that be a one and done experience for you.

If you are a multishipper in the sense that you enjoy all sorts of different ships but not necessarily all in the same continuity, you might enjoy reading the first three entries in the series as unrelated standalones. But not be interested if I ever write stories that connect everything back together in the same timeline.

If you're tempted to follow along just because you want to see aspects of CotW potentially show up in later iterations in the exact same way... you can. But for all the reasons listed above, iiiiit's probably best to temper those expectations a bit.

But yeah, if you like this story for more than just the Sam/Gabriel ship of it all, and like the larger character arcs and dynamics and themes and way I engage with canon elements in my writing? You're probably the best candidate for who might enjoy all the future works I could potentially post in this series.

The series name is sounds kinda silly. Is the rest of the series going to be as serious, or more tongue in cheek?

The rest of the series will overall be just as serious as CotW in tone. With some exceptions, I'm a pretty serious - one might even say angsty - writer, lol. The title of the series came to me as just a random phrase a long time ago, a recurring theme I noticed that ran across a lot of my main Sam-centric ships. Then I decided to make Crowley state it out loud in that one CotW scene. Even if it is a more cheeky title, I couldn't conceive of the series title ever being anything else :)

Is the rest of the series already written, or even actually likely to be written?

The next two works in the series have a decent foundation to them, but there is a LOT of work to do. I have absolutely no ETA on when I might be finished, or even which of the two I might start posting first if/when I finish. Probably whichever one I finish first, which will be whichever one feels most fun to work on until it's actually close to finished. I'm not exaggerating when I say that if I do actually get around to posting them, it could very well be years between the end of CotW and me posting another longer spn fic at all. Also, none of the later stories have started to be written yet, or even seriously outlined. I have no idea if those would be shorter stories or really long ones. I just have a couple clear ideas for each, and nothing else. Which is why I'm like, yes this is a series that very much exists in my head. No, don't get too attached to the idea that they will actually even ever come to fruition, as much as I'd like them to. Or be available anytime soon.

Why wasn't this a series from the beginning/why not leave it until the end of CotW to announce that it could be a series?

I don't really remember why I didn't put in a series right away, because. My memory is bad. But I'd guess I wasn't quite as sure that this would be a series instead of just a bunch of standalone ideas. And I also didn't have nearly as much work done on either of the next stories at the time as I do now. So the idea that this could realistically even be a series probably felt like a much longer shot than it feels like now.

I did think about not "announcing" the series until CotW was complete and the last chapter was posted. But I'm worried that could really throw people off and confuse them about how they're supposed to feel about the ending. I really don't want that at all, because again CotW at it's core was meant to be read as a standalone. So I don't want people feeling like they're missing an important part of the story if they don't keep reading. That just is not at all how I've written CotW.

I also thought about not making this a series at all until I had a second story to actually add to it. But unless I really misunderstand ao3 functionality... The issue with that is people who actually really like CotW and may have really liked the idea of other stories like these may never know about it, unless they are constantly rereading/checking the status of CotW even long after it's finished. And lots of people don't engage with fanfiction that way.

Alternatively, they could subscribe to my ao3 account directly. But as someone who writes pretty scattershot and follows wherever the hyperfixation demons lead across a wide variety of fandoms, many people might not necessarily think to or want to do that. Which is very valid!

But for anyone who is potentially interested in my future spn fics in this universe? Hopefully now they can just subscribe to the series and not have to worry about managing alerts for anything else I post, if they're only here for supernatural fics.

What sorts of things are you hoping to have in the rest of the series?

So like I said I'm a multishipper in a lot of fandoms, and my personal feelings about spn are that it has excellent multishipping vibes.

The first one is obviously what it is (a standalone canon-compliant kripke-era Sam/Gabriel fic).

The next one likely to be posted in the series is (not going to surprise a lot of people paying attention) a... sort of canon-compliant-ish Sam/Lucifer fic. Written in such a way that I'm trying to keep to the literal letter of being canon-compliant, while writing Lucifer as his s5 iteration only. It's been done before, but... it's difficult. But I'm pretty sure I'm one of the last standing hardcore s5 Lucifer/Samifer girlies (gn). I am trapped thinking about all their wasted potential and jossed characterization for all eternity. And constantly trying to fix it in a way that's canon compliant. Feel free to follow along if that sounds interesting. And again, it won't be necessary at all to have read CotW to read that, or read that to understand CotW.

The third story will be about Sam and another angel, and very much a rarepair. For some reason I feel like being coy and not giving it away. I think because it will be the one that is least canon compliant? And I don't want to give away what the big canon divergence will be before I've actually got it all ironed out and make sure the plot actually works. There is always a chance that I could post this before the Samifer fic. Depends on which story is more fun to write more quickly.

The next (4th) story will be a very late-seasons-divergent ending that directly pulls from aspects of all of the above. Because they are all important to the good spn main story lore that lives in my head. I plan on borrowing some of the large narrative strokes from the later seasons canon, and completely changing up almost everything else. There is... a lot more specific planning that would need to go into making this happen as a workable plot arc though. And I haven't even started working on it yet, because even as I really like the idea, the actual execution is just way, wayyyy off in the distance.

Chronologically following that one would be the "real" ending to the story. Sort of like a long epilogue? A "what actually comes after The End" deal. Aspects of it have been in my head for a very long time. It wasn't until fairly recently that I realized it can fit together with everything else, and potentially bookend it all really well. (I mean, in theory. Once again, that's... very far into the future. Far enough that it might be a nice idea that unfortunately I don't ever actually get around to executing.)

Oh, and last but not least, I have headcanons about Dean, Dean's relationship to his own queerness and his role in the show, and specific ships I've always wanted to write more for. I just have not remotely decided what that would look like in story form, despite having written a lot of random free-floating scenes over the years. Or if any of that actually would need to fit into this Sam-centric series at all. Maybe. Maybe not!

(Also also, I do occasionally have ideas for individual scenes that could fit into a later story. Or might not go anywhere, and might just be a one off. I have a very particular Gabriel scene, for example, where he meets up with [redacted for spoilers]. It lives in my head rent-free, and I know it goes in this timeline. But it has nothing specifically to do with the CotW arc. And I just have no idea where else exactly it would go. For now...)

Are you going to be sad/mad if I don't subscribe to the rest of the series, and choose treat CotW as a standalone?

Not at all! Again, I wrote it that way for a reason. In fiction just as in life, two things can be true at once. In my head, this story was always meant to be read as a complete standalone that has it's own clear beginning, middle, & end, entirely self-contained. The fact that I can also fit it into this other workable timeline of my own headcanons doesn't undo any of CotW's very intentional standalone qualities.

If you don't think the other stuff I will might put into the series sound interesting, I will not be upset. I very much believe in fanfiction/fandom as communities of equals. I'm not trying to be a "content creator" where I need to strong-arm people into continuing to follow or give me engagement for clout/money. I'm writing all of this for myself first, and I don't mind sharing with people who might also enjoy my little headcanons and ideas. But you're also not hurting me in any way if you don't like other stuff I do.

Nor do I want to pressure anyone into engaging with something that's not their cup of tea. Your storytelling tastes are your own. Follow them where they lead, and stop when you get to a good stopping point for yourself.

...and that's it folks! Thanks for reading (or more likely, skimming!) this post, if you were curious enough to pop over! Hopefully it explains what I'm thinking and planning, and gives you enough information to decide what you want to do about the series subscription option.

And a million times over, thank you for reading along with CotW! It's been so fun to have you all along for the ride!

[littlelostfic]

Not sure anyone would think to check here, since this is a new account and I haven't linked it to AO3 yet. But in case any intrepid readers go looking for updates on Corner of the World?

Yes, there continue to be more delays. I apologize for that!

For one, I just... I really thought my last draft had ironed out all the issues, after months of intense work. Only to read back through and realize a lot of it doesn't really make sense. And instead of being a continuation/wrap up of the story, it just reads like a bunch of random scenes strung together. With no real throughline between them or individual justification for being included.

So. That's cool.

Not entirely back to the drawing board. But I'm not feeling enthusiastic about the amount of work it's going to be to try to fix (again).

But secondly and more directly logistic: I am sick and have been told to really take it easy for the next month. Writing is a fun hobby, but uses up a lot of my spoons, so I think it's a hobby that's gotta go on the back burner for September.

Maybe I'll be able to get back to it in October 😕

[littlelostfic]

Loumand Microfic Event 2025 Date: Aug 16 22 Prompts: mirror/stranger Goal: 180 words 1107 words @loumandmicrofic

A Night Without End (1107 words) by littlelost Additional Tags: POV Louis de Pointe du Lac, no armand directly in this it's really more about louis than anything, Suicidal Thoughts for just a minute there, canon-typical killing and draining of a human victim, (spoiler: human victim looks somewhat like armand), lestat ghost mentioned but not actually present Summary: “When I return? You need to be gone.” Louis leaves the penthouse, and finds himself a drink.

“When I return? You need to be gone.”

Louis’s voice had sounded calm in his own ears, through the rushing of something like wind screaming through his head.

He didn’t have a direction planned, he didn’t know where he was going. Out, out, into the night, warm as the penthouse had been cool.

If people looked at him, he didn’t notice. Half of him thought to find a plane, get on it, go. Go anywhere. The penthouse was his, his home, his whole life now for decades, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to return. If he even could.

For the first time in a long while, Louis wanted the ghost of Lestat there beside him. Because he wanted someone, and the real someone he wanted just now was the wrong person to want. And always had been, probably, maybe, who the fuck knew. Sure as shit not Louis. But the phantom had abandoned him, and Louis was left alone with the truth that at least, in this moment, it wasn’t really Lestat he wanted to return to. Wasn’t Lestat who’d become his constant companion, who he’d gone to with his low-stakes grievances, all the trials of his nights. His triumphs, his laughter, his sorrows.

When his brain became too terrible a place to exist in, to navigate alone?

It wasn’t Lestat.

He hated Armand.

He wanted Armand.

He couldn’t imagine going back to Armand.

He…

Louis had kept his eyes on the walk ahead, navigating, unseeing, lost in his thoughts.

He didn’t realize he’d been hunting until he caught sight of the boy.

He looked like Armand, from behind. Dark curls, tall, deceptively slim-waisted. He even had something of the way Armand moved. Graceful. Too graceful, too suave. Too unbearably confident.

And alone.

Louis was on him before the boy understood what was even happening, dragged into a hidden corner out of sight of people or cameras. Louis’s teeth were in his throat before he had time to scream.

The taste was wonderful, and awful. It tasted like guilt, somewhere far away, trying to beat against the glass. But Louis’s anger and grief were bigger, they were living things, growing to encompass everything else. Breathing all the air, taking all the space. Drinking all the blood.

The boy was already dead when Louis let go of him. Slid to the ground, head hitting it too hard. Small comfort, that he wasn’t alive to feel it.

The blood was heady, intoxicating, overwhelming. It sang in Louis’s veins, hit a chord Louis had not heard but had been missing for long, so long. But it was cruel, not kind; made his eyes widen and his ears ring with the tiniest, farthest-away sounds, the whole world a vampiric cacophony again. Blood remade him into the thing he thought he was better than, even as it made him a better him, too.

It made all the feelings bigger. The anger, and the grief. Blood flowed through him in a wave, that loud pump-clench of his heart even faster now, stronger. It was good he didn’t need to breathe. Or terrible. His gasps could hardly keep up with the rhythm.

Louis stared at the dead boy on the ground. Horror overrode all else, even satisfaction. Even guilt.

He got rid of the body. Old practices taking over, though he did not know this city, his home now for so many years, in that way. He’d not had to.

Armand would’ve been angry. Armand wouldn’t have thought it was clean or safe or careful enough.

Armand was a hypocrite.

Fuck Armand.

When he was done with the body, he needed to clean himself up. He wanted to; didn’t want to return to his home covered in blood. Certainly not smeared across his mouth, like a monster in the dark. Like some fucking newborn.

He felt the life of the human boy inside him.

The guilt finally caught up, choking, as he stumbled into a public toilet.

He tripped up to the sink, grasped the sides. Head hung, he panted into the space between his arms.

It was dark, but when he raised his head, he saw himself.

He looked exactly how he expected, and also like a stranger. The blood on his mouth was familiar, nostalgic, and utterly unlike the person he’d attempted to become these last two decades. The expression on the man’s face in the mirror was lost. A killer. A victim.

Louis didn’t want to be any of those things.

He stood there staring at himself in the mirror for a long time. The stolen human blood kept him warm and alert. Didn’t let him shy away, from the all the things he had to face.

He must’ve stood there for an hour. Staring into his own eyes. Before he straightened up. Began the work of cleaning. 

No hiding from it. No hiding from this.

He had to go home and face the shambles of what had been a comfortable, stable life. Only a few hours before.

He thought, for an instant, about ending it. Staying here all night, until the sun peeked through the door, and then…

But the wheels kept turning.

He thought about everything. His memories, his life. He thought about his younger self, the one he’d not contemplated in this way, not in years. Since long before the interview. The young man who’d wanted something better. Who’d deserved something better than all of it.

Thought about how Claudia had deserved better, too. And how she wouldn’t get it.

Unlike her, he still had options. Not to help her, and that was a bitter, hateful taste on his tongue.

But he, Louis, still did have options. Nonetheless.

The vampire’s story wasn’t done being written yet. There was still time for a better ending.

For new beginnings.

Ironic, in its way, how much he had to be grateful for, when it came to time. The monsters in his own stories were lovers, too, and he could take the time he needed because of them.

It didn’t make him any less angry at Armand.

He hoped Armand wasn’t there when he got back.

He hoped, and he didn’t. And he hoped again.

Either way. It didn’t matter. With or without Armand? Something had needed to break. And now it had.

And vampire lives were long. Either sooner - much sooner - or later? He would be seeing Armand again.

Louis cracked open the door and looked outside.

Luckily the sun wasn’t up yet.

He still had plenty of time. For everything.

Louis swiped a leftover bit of blood from the corner of his mouth, and headed back toward home.

[littlelostfic]

Loumand Microfic Event 2025 Date: Aug 15 Prompts: altar/sacrifice Goal: 42 words 1681 words @loumandmicrofic

All Saints and None (1681 words) by littlelost Additional Tags: POV Armand (Vampire Chronicles), Religious Content, Grief/Mourning, references to armand being in a cult and to being forced into a christian cultural framework, grace de pointe du lac's death mentioned, references to their book versions and what philosophies they each represent Summary: Louis and Armand remember their dead, and ponder what comes next.

They had driven rather than flown. Easier to keep the coffins in the back, true; but really it was for the simple pleasure of doing so.

Armand enjoyed driving, especially with the windows down and the sun roof open to let in the moonlight. Louis enjoyed riding, and playing with his new video recorder, though his past foray with cameras made him reticent about showing off his work.

The Colorado community they’d stopped at was expensive and comfortable; the monastery was a bastion of privacy, which worked well as a place to pause and take it in for a few.

Louis and Armand had different feelings about churches and deities these days, though they always had. But unlike most things, these differences did not vex them. Ironically, philosophy and doctrine were still some the easiest, most engaging things they could talk to each other about, even as their ideas kept growing, evolving. It was common enough to find them lying together in the coolest part of a given summer night, pressing down the grass beneath starlight. Watching the world turn, and wondering what it all meant in any sort of grander scheme, where it all would eventually lead. Together.

Even for Colorado, it was an early snowfall. They got trapped longer than they meant to be, though their monastic hosts were gracious and understanding of their “unique schedule.” The blizzard meant, they, too, had interrupted schedules, and were unlikely to get out as much. 

Armand so rarely slept these days. It had only been a light slumber, barely beyond twilight, when he came awake in his separate coffin. There would be no return to sleep, he could feel it, so he pushed open the cover and stepped out.

The face of the simple clock on the wall showed that it was 6:30pm; the little calendar by the bed they did not use said it was almost the end of the first of November.

Armand stared long into the dark, then began to dress.

The monks were not yet asleep in their chambers, but most of them had squirreled themselves away with some reading or study after mealtime. Armand made sure they would not hear as he picked his way through the dormitory, out onto the lawn still covered in feet of snow. The windows of the church were all dark as they would not typically be so early, but that didn't bother Armand. 

Everything inside was empty except for shadows. His footsteps were soft enough that no human could have heard him, though they echoed in his own ears.

He still half-expected to erupt in flames when he entered such a place. The cult’s influence had their hooks in deep, and he wondered if he would ever be able to get them out. Christian churches had been cultural staples for the bulk of his long life. Inescapable, one way or another. Yet he felt out of place in them, and knew he always would.

Even more terribly, anything from before was something he barely remembered, and could only grasp at and comprehend in retrospect. Never truly felt like he owned that, either. Though lately, with Louis's encouragement, he'd been trying. 

He stared down the nave, to the quiet, unlit altar at the far end. Chapels such as this held unavoidable things with meaning to all the people around him, all the people he’d known since he’d drunk that first cursed drop. Rituals which had been forced upon him, and symbolism that he could never figure out how to shed, like an old, unwanted skin that clung too tight. Suffocating, at times. At others, sickeningly familiar. Like a half-remembered home.

Even as a boy, he’d fallen a little in love with the candles. The singing. The stained glass.

There were no candles lit now, but Armand knew what to do with them. He meandered toward that section along the wall, where they always left the candles cloistered. The ones for those not forgotten; for those who could not forget.

He was about to set the first alight, when he heard the smallest creak of the floorboards.

Louis was here, standing in the doorway. Looking somber, and uncharacteristically lost.

“It won’t bite,” Armand offered, smiling ruefully, glancing up at the chapel ceiling. The architecture was simple enough, but still looked a bit like whale ribs.

Caught in the belly of the beast.

Louis didn’t start, but his eyes flashed up, until they landed on Armand. “I didn’t even hear you. Didn’t expect you to be here.”

Armand stepped away from the candles and turned more fully toward Louis. “Nor I you. Perhaps I should have?”

Louis let out a measured sigh, rubbed absently at his chin. Stared down the space between pews. “It’s All Saint’s. For just a few more hours.”

“It is,” Armand agreed.

Louis kept standing there, so Armand turned back to his candles. Lit the first one with the fire gift. Then picked up the candle lighter, and did the rest the old way.

He was engrossed in his work, and didn’t immediately notice Louis appearing at his side. “You celebrated it?”

“La Toussaint,” Armand said, lighting another. “We were forbidden, of course.” He smiled to himself. “But it was the one day a year when God came to us anyway. The graveyard,” he added, though Louis nodded like he already could’ve guessed. “We were meant to terrorize the faithful that day, as much as any other. Though we had to be more careful than usual not to be caught.” He paused. “A pity. Even vampires had people they’d lost. Graves they might’ve liked to visit.” He turned back to Louis. “You celebrated, I assume? I regret that I’ve never thought to ask.”

“Yes,” Louis smiled, but there was no laughter in it. “It was a big holiday in New Orleans. Busy, bustling. Everyone turned out.”

He held out his hand for the lighter and Armand handed it over.

Louis held it to the wick of an unlit candle until it joined the others, a somber glow in the dark. “Didn’t matter who you were, on that day. Death made everyone equal. Death, and grief.” He pursed his lips and lit another. “It didn’t mean so much to me, until my father died.”

“And your brother,” Armand volunteered gently. Louis had made more of a point to share his past with Armand after Paris, for reasons that felt too little too late. But Armand received it as the olive branch and oath that it was, and had made a point of making sure to commit every tiny detail to memory this time. Olive branch and oath in kind.

Louis’s face took on a dry expression. “Hardly went to see Paul again, after that first night.” He gave a small, ironic hmph. “My mother always resented me for that.” He swallowed. “My sister…”

Armand did not interrupt. Tentative, gentle, his hand found Louis’s in dark, and Louis clasped on, surprisingly tight.

“I looked up my sister, earlier this year. Tried to track her down, see what had become of her,” Louis said. His voice broke. Armand remembered Louis had been making phone calls he hadn’t explained; sending letters. It had put Armand distinctly on edge, but now everything made more sense. “It shouldn’t have been a surprise, we were already both in our sixties when I left New Orleans, and that was…”

The better part of four decades ago, he did not have to say it. It would have been almost impossible that she was alive. But, even so.

Louis’s eyes were red but did not spill over. One by one, he lit the candles. Armand realized it was for each of the relatives he’d left behind. And one extra.

Armand did not have to ask who that candle was for, either.

Louis handed the lighter back to Armand. Armand took it, and finished his own remembrances. Then blew the flame out.

They stood there, staring at the small congregation of flickering candles, huddled against the night.

“You know we’re doing this wrong,” Armand murmured. “It’s supposed to be a day to honor Saints and those certain of a place in heaven.”

Louis was running his thumb against Armand’s, and Armand wondered if he realized.

Louis scoffed. “I think the real sacrilege is probably us two being in here in the first place.”

A muscle in Armand’s cheek twitched. “Because we are damned souls?”

“Because we’re murderers,” Louis said simply. “Not that it matters. Recently I’ve been thinking, I don’t know that there’s a heaven for anyone, really. Vampire or not.” His face twisted. “Maybe hell is that we get away with the things that we do. The evil that we’ve done. The devils walk among the mortals and take what they like when they like it without reservation. Maybe hell is here.”

Armand clutched Louis’s hand tighter. “Ironic, I’ve been thinking recently: There has to be a heaven.”

“What makes you suddenly so sure?”

“I think there has to be redemption. I think there is no point if there is not.” Louis’s thumb never ceased its stroking. “It would be too cruel to create all this, all this beauty, and all this horror. If there is no chance at being saved. To salvage the good from from the terrible. To change one’s self, and one’s destiny.” He set his jaw. “There must be a heaven. I believe it to be so.” He rubbed Louis’s hand back, made his voice go light. “That is what I believe for today, anyway. It fits with the holiday.”

Louis glanced back at him, soft and fond. “So, a heaven for everyone, even murderous vampires?” he asked. Like he wanted to believe. But couldn’t.

That was all right. Armand could believe for both of them tonight. “A paradise for all of us.” He smiled, and turned toward him. Threaded his arms around Louis, and Louis pulled them even tighter together.

A candlelight vigil of two, for mortals and monsters long dead.

Armand smiled. “Let’s keep a little faith, Louis. Maybe we’ll find heaven yet.”

[littlelostfic]

Loumand Microfic Event 2025 Date: Aug 14 Prompts: teeth/mouth Goal: 138 words 956 words NOTE: Probably NSFT @loumandmicrofic

Blood and Ghosts (956 words) by littlelost Additional Tags: Blood Drinking, Paris Era, Power Dynamics, depending on how you interpret this it can be lestat's shitty influence hanging over them, or loumandstat if you squint, sexy blood drinking Summary: Louis and Armand in bed, in Paris. Blood sharing as intimacy, give or take a ghost.

Paris, when things were still new.

Louis lay in bed, Armand beside him.

Armand’s slicked-back hair had come undone, unraveled in the throes of falling into each other. They’d been speaking about jazz, which turned into a general conversation about the value of modern artistic trends and their sources. That led into a brief discussion about Josephine Baker, then that had somehow turned into Louis asking if Armand had ever visited Stein’s infamous salon, and finally they had arrived on the subject of Hemingway and whether or not he was as unpleasant as his writing suggested (“Worse,” Armand had laughed).

And somehow all of that had ended up with both of them necking, passionate but surprisingly chaste, before falling into bed.

Things were not what they would later become. There were no Maîtres or Aruns yet in the room with them. But it was becoming clear to both that Louis preferred a more active role in the bedroom and Armand was actually happy to oblige.

And now, after, Louis lay with his head against Armand’s bicep. Running his hand down the length of that strong, slender forearm, across the bridge of Armand’s knuckles.

He shifted to look up at Armand’s face.

He liked him like this. Soft and ruffled, hazy-eyed and fond.

Tucked away as they were, Louis could almost forget that Armand was Maître, out there. He was starting to understand just how much Armand enjoyed forgetting, too.

Yeah, Louis could almost forget.

Almost.

Tentative, Louis raised his hand up. Passed it back up Armand’s arm, over the planes of his chest. Across his chin.

Armand let him. Curious, and unafraid.

Louis placed the tip of his finger to Armand’s lips. “You never drink from me.”

It had taken a while before Armand would allow his own blood to pass Louis’s lips. He had not said why, but Louis thought he understood. Blood was power, blood was vulnerability. As vampires, it was who they were, in the most literal sense of the term. Louis’s fangs had come out without him even realizing, one night while they were together, and instead of turning away or going blank-faced, Armand caught sight of those fangs. Ran a hand up along the back of Louis’s neck. Gently pressed Louis’s lips down against his own neck.

Louis didn’t have much experience drinking from other vampires, and he’d not known to expect something so different from Lestat. Lestat had been thick and rich, with a strong metallic aftertaste Louis had had to learn to get used to. But Armand? Armand had been something else, maybe something better and worse all at once. Like venom, but headier, and somehow sweeter, too.

It was not every time that Armand would offer his own vein. But Louis always took to it with relish.

Now, though, as he ran a finger along the outside of Armand’s mouth, he couldn’t help the question. “Why don’t you drink from me?”

“You never offer.”

“And you never ask.”

Armand shifted, minute, a tell that he was uncomfortable Louis had learned so recently to read. “I do not crave blood the way I did, being older.”

“That’s not what we’re talking about here.”

Armand took too long to blink. Another tell. He swallowed. “If you want to give it to me, you will.” He stared somewhere off in the distance. “I have no wish to offer my fangs to those who do not really wish to take them. Unless I have to,” he said, meaning humans and food and life again. Not the other thing.

Louis felt the ghost of something in the room with them, running chill nails down his spine. A ghost that was distinctly Lestat-shaped. Wondered how Lestat could have left so many broken things in his wake.

He ran his fingertips again along Armand’s lips. Armand let him press them apart.

“Hold out your fangs,” Louis meant to say, but it came out a mutter, closer to a question.

Nevertheless, Armand complied. Brown-gold eyes watched Louis with avid interest, the whole time.

Louis ran the tip of his middle finger down one. It was pretty much the same as any other vampire fang, his own or Lestat’s, in the weight and sense. The sharpness of the point. The difference was that it was Armand’s.

Louis pulled back, let his own fangs loose. Ran fingertips across the sharpest edge, until blood beaded up.

Then ran one of his fingers, again, along Armand’s bottom lip.

Armand blinked, a quick measure to cover how his eyes went to roll back.

Louis bit his own lip without meaning to.

Slow, Armand stuck his tongue out, lapped at his own lip.

“What do I taste like?” Louis whispered.

Armand ran his tongue across his lip again, an involuntary motion, and let his eyes flutter shut. “You taste,” he murmured, “like life itself.”

Louis frowned, unsure if Armand was trying to be coy again.

Armand opened his eyes. “You taste like... rich brandy and dusty books. You taste like the blood of humans, if humans tasted like anything but food.” He looked at Louis, whose heart was pounding though he did not know why. “You taste unique. Like something I’ve never known before.” He gave a wry smile. “A vampire with good taste. That’s rare enough.”

Louis didn’t know what to say to that. Pleased. Charmed. 

And still not sure he could trust, fully, that he wasn’t being managed. Somehow.

The candle guttered.

Lestat’s shadow ran long across the wall.

Wordlessly, Louis pushed each one of his still-bleeding fingers, one by one, into Armand’s mouth. Perhaps to shut him up.

Armand’s eyes crinkled with a smile and fell closed. Warm tongue lapped at Louis’s edges.

Yes.

Just to shut him up.

[littlelostfic]

Loumand Microfic Event 2025 Date: Aug 11 Prompts: recognition/misunderstanding Goal: 101 words (So I went a little bit over. Again.) @loumandmicrofic

ao3 link: Heart (898 words) by littlelost Summary: Lestat's concert is about to begin. But Louis finds himself distracted.

The venue was massive and dark. Louis hadn’t drunk human blood in decades, but he’d also rarely been so tempted. The crush of bodies all around him, all turned out for Lestat, was intoxicating.

He and Lestat weren’t back together, but they weren’t… Well. They were talking, anyway. It was something.

Lestat said this was going to be the end of the world. Make or break moment, for vampiredom. Louis had heard the rumors, and worse, in the ambient noise of vampire chatter that hung around his head, ready to tune into whenever he wished.

Louis didn’t get why Lestat was doing any of this, really. To “bring them all together,” he’d said. To make the world burn, more like; in his own image, based on precedent.

Louis hadn’t bothered with seeking other vampires out for companionship, not in any larger sense, in the better part of a century. Lestat seemed to think there would be other people here tonight, that this would be a rallying cry, that they would come. Louis was skeptical about that, too. He didn’t know why any of them would show. This put a target on all their backs, seemed like the kind of scenario they’d avoid if they were smart. Louis wasn’t even sure what he was doing here.

He was only vaguely aware of the reputation of the warm-up act. On the rise, but hadn’t made it yet. The lead was a woman with a smooth, angelic voice. Male vocals backup. A heavy baseline vibrated the air all around them, while the crowd danced and screamed and swayed along.

Louis joined in. Because why not. He wanted to. He wanted to live, but he wasn’t scared to die. Not in a “go into the fire” kind of way. It was just that he had... a feeling. He would be around, to see however this chaos resolved itself. All the way to the end.

The music and human scent washed over him, a unique tonic all its own. He let himself go, got swept up in it all. Let himself feel loose, free. Strong, in the vampire way he’d only truly just come to appreciate in all its fullness.

It hit him, with a suddenness he could not explain. Recognition, that could only come from preternatural vampire senses, and the familiar rhythm of a single slow heartbeat. A beat Louis had listened to for almost eighty years.

Armand.

Armand was here.

His own heart pounding, Louis turned and twisted, tried to crane over the audience. It took a moment, but finally he found him there. Just standing. Further down, to Louis’ left, nearer the stage.

So close.

For the first time since Dubai.

Lestat had said he would come.

Louis wouldn’t have let himself believe it.

He had no thoughts, no justifications as he surged forward. Tried pushing through the crowd, barely holding onto the presence of mind to be careful with their fragile mortal frames.

Armand was here. Louis had to get to him, had to go to him-

Except the closer he got, the clearer that picture became.

Armand was standing there in the crowd.

Not alone.

Daniel, of all people, was standing beside him. Loose-limbed and vampire-eyed, as enthralled with the energy in the room as Louis had been just a moment ago. He stared, transfixed, pupils wide, at the stage. Seemingly suddenly overcome, he threw up his arms. Looped them around Armand. In a distinctly… unfriendly way.

And Armand didn’t seem angry, or even annoyed. His hand moved up. Rested gently, damningly, at the small of Daniel’s back.

Louis froze, as suddenly as if he’d run into a brick wall.

Armand’s gaze, however, was elsewhere. And intense. Drawn up to the balcony on the opposite side from Louis. Louis followed that gaze, toward where another group of vampires Louis did not recognize and had not noticed before stood.

One leaned over the balcony, a drink in hand. He regarded Armand with a friendly, appraising eye. Smiled down with a look that was distinctly flirty. Raising his cup in a silent toast.

In a moment that shocked Louis, in ways he could barely put a name to? Armand returned that same coy, appraising look. Favored the gentleman in the balcony with a soft, open smile.

Louis knew that look. It was the kind Armand had used on their joint playthings and victims countless times. Except then, it had only been a ploy. The dangerous beauty of a Venus flytrap. Nothing genuine.

The authentic kind of flirtation, bedroom eyes and come-hither glances, Louis had only truly ever seen reserved for one person.

Himself.

Louis wasn’t stupid. They hadn’t been together for a while now. Of course Armand was a free agent.

But as he backed away, numbed, and turned to head for the entrance, to get outside, to find anywhere that wasn’t here? He had to admit:

Maybe he had never really contemplated it before. Not really.

What his world would look like. Once Louis was no longer at the heart of Armand’s.

Because he turned and fled, he did not get to see the way Armand stiffened imperceptibly, mid-raised bottle. Tilted his head, as if listening for something only he could hear.

Spun, lightning-quick. Expression betraying faint hope and desperation, locked in quiet conflict.

Louis missed the way Armand’s face crumpled. When he caught sight of Louis’s retreating back.

[littlelostfic]

Loumand Microfic Event 2025 Date: Aug 10 11 Prompts: stars/moon Goal: 514 words (So I went a little bit over. Again.) @loumandmicrofic

ao3 link: Prefer the Stars (1955 words) by littlelost Summary: Armand has not seen the sun in hundreds of years. That has to change sometime.

Armand knew, of course, that there came an age when sunlight would no longer hurt.

If you were one of the very lucky few who lived long enough.

If he’d been paying closer attention, he would’ve had to admit there was… something he’d been feeling, inside himself. For a while now. Wasn’t sure when it quite started. Unlike the way it was for Louis, “Paris” was too broad of an epoch; he’d spent so many of his long, lonely years there, deep in darkness.

It may have started there. While he was still maître, and the others had gone to coffin, Armand found himself sleeping less and less. A mockery of human aging, a warped mirror-image becoming. The eldest of the humans bodies, still so much younger than he, were winding down. Sleep did not come easy to mortals in their twilit years.

Armand wasn’t naive enough to let himself be certain, beyond any doubt, that he was the oldest living vampire. When he listened very hard, he heard the voices of others far off. He couldn’t always tell specifics, but he knew there were many voices. A small symphony. Not small enough, but still, he was the oldest one he knew of. And that had been true for a long time now.

Elders were stable, but powerful, and therefore the most dangerous. And so it was a mixed blessing; that there was no one that could help. No mentor, to guide him as things changed. When his skin grew colder, more noticeably stonelike. As his limbs slowly lost their human need to twitch and fidget. To move at all. His thirst slowed. He felt the hunger for blood less year by year, as his own humanity bled away, irrecoverable.

If there were elders, they were not here to help him with any of that. Tell him how to slow it or soothe it. Explain to him what to expect as time slowly changed him ever more into the thing he’d already become.

That included what to do, when sleep became harder to come by.

He would often go to coffin with the others, only to struggle to sleep. It happened so often he began getting up in the near-sunrise. Sometimes he would hunt, but now his hunger was too easily sated, and for too long. The predator’s instinct he’d carried for centuries abandoned him right before sleep did, and he found himself often with nothing to do in those long lonely nights but walk.

He didn’t keep track of how many years this had become habit. Maybe because he never went far, and mostly stuck to a routine once he’d found it. He walked the riverside. Occasionally he visited the catacombs, or sneaked into the churches. Lit candles for damned souls he’d known once. Some he had killed himself, but at least he held no claim to their damning.

Lonely years passed in tedium with the coven Lestat had saddled him with. A coven Armand was too afraid to leave. Afraid for his loneliness, and afraid for them, of their increasing recklessness, as his apathy grew over time. Just as it had with his first Parisian coven. He felt the emptiness yawning before him again, long years with nothing to look forward to.

He kept staying out late, then later.

Couldn’t help but think, on those nights that drew perilously close to dawnbreak. In those last few years before Louis had arrived, made something come awake and alive again; shaken him out of his monotony.

Before that happened, though, he would still wonder: When would it be his time.

When would he see the sun again.

He did not think about it, once Louis arrived. It wasn't really important.

Until one night, years later. They’d been driving in the cool dark, a small two-seater with the top down. Parked in one of the little towns that dotted the coast, in an empty parking lot, and loped their way towards the California shore.

The fog had lifted. Light pollution was no match for vampire eyes; the whole grand arc of the Milky Way spread out above them. The moon was huge, a bright, blood-orange stone hung close to the horizon.

“Does it still hurt you?” Louis asked.

Armand was just happy to have a night to themselves, one which did not end in the need to visit niche clubs in specific downtown neighborhoods. The question took him aback. “Does what hurt me?” he asked, cautious. Worried they were playing some game he’d not learned the rules of tonight.

But Louis only looked out across the water, nudged his chin at the muted echo of the sun reflecting off of a cold, empty circle floating in the sky. “The moon.”

Armand blinked. “No,” he answered honestly. It had been so long since he had felt the slight, harmless burn of a bright moon. Even longer since the barely-there kiss of the stars. Centuries, perhaps.

Louis nodded. “You think it’ll be your time soon?” He didn’t have to elaborate.

“I haven’t thought about it in years,” Armand admitted honestly, frowning.

For so long, he’d forgotten.

Everything had been Louis, only Louis.

The next time, it was half a decade later, and they’d gotten carried away with themselves. The thick fog of the Bay Area had scrolled back once again, unusual in its swiftness, and they’d been left scrambling for a temporary asylum to bunk down, dodging early beams of sunlight.

Louis has to be all right, Louis has to be all right. The only thought pounding in his head.

They found a metal shed behind a house with a For Sale sign. Armand only just managed not to rip the whole door off the hinge in his haste. Didn’t bother with pretenses of weakness, just wrenched Louis in front of him, and shoved him inside. Only then did he follow. Slammed shut the door behind them both.

It was not ideal. There could be people, too many people, and- oh, God, Louis.

He turned to see if Louis was okay.

“It’s all right,” Louis panted, the shadows no match for Armand’s preternatural vision, or the dazzling light of Louis’s eyes. He held up an arm. It smoked, looked painful, but it would heal quickly as long as it wasn’t exposed again soon. Could’ve been much worse. They’d both seen, and felt, much worse.

“Are you…?”

Armand glanced down at himself.

Louis’s voice had a strange tone to it. “You’re not hurt at all. Not even a little burned?”

Armand’s skin felt smooth and whole. Completely untouched. “Not even a little,” he said, breathless.

“You have to do it,” Louis insisted, not long after that.

Whatever Louis liked to say about losing the sun being a kindness, Armand knew better. Louis missed it.

That must be the only reason he was so insistent.

Armand refused to entertain any other reasons why Louis might urge Armand to expose himself to unfettered sunlight. Held at bay any anxieties that plucked at him.

But Louis was right. He might be right. Somewhere in between surviving and living, the time had finally arrived.

Probably.

“All right,” Armand said. With all the confidence he did not feel.

The day Armand chose, they didn’t go anywhere. Just stayed at home.

“You sure you don’t want me to stay up?” Louis asked, voice weighted with concern.

Armand couldn’t be entirely sure it wasn’t for show. He swallowed. “I’ll be fine.” He ran a hand down Louis’s arm, let himself indulge in the way their fingers twined together. “I’m just going to step outside. Even if it doesn’t completely… Well. I’m old enough I won’t collapse instantly; I’ll just turn around, come right back in, and go back to coffin. Not much fun,” he said lightly, “But I’ve been there before. And anyway, if it works…”

Louis’s mouth was pressed in a concerned line, but his eyes were bright. Hungry, though for what, Armand couldn’t be sure. “And if it works, you won’t want to come right back in, I get it, I get it.” His face was serious but with his free hand he clenched Armand’s shoulder. His grip felt… uncertain. Nervous. “You should enjoy it.”

Armand stared at him. “Of course,” he said. “And you’ll be here when I get back.”

Louis’s eyebrows did something complicated. “Of course,” he said, pressing in close. “Armand, come on. Of course.”

“Of course.” He squeezed Louis’s hand, and pushed it gently away. Leaned in to press a kiss. “I’ll be here, when you wake,” he said, keeping his voice light.

Louis’s eyes searched his.

It was a tense moment, and Armand thought they both were aware of it. Some sort of an end. Or a beginning.

Louis swallowed, nodded. Ducked and returned another quick kiss to Armand’s lips. Stood there for a moment as if searching for something else to say, but coming up empty.

Then he whirled and strode deeper into their home without a backward glance.

Armand waited until he heard the click of the bedroom door shutting, the sound of the coffin lid easing open and then shut.

The light was beginning to make the windows glow.

A thousand fears, all well-earned, competed in Armand’s head. What if this was not about evolving, but about just desserts. What if Louis had become tired of him, after all these years? What if all Louis really wanted was to be rid of Armand without having to do it himself, for Armand to burn in the sunlight. What if Armand did burn? Or what if he didn’t, and he spent all day in the sun. Only to return and find Louis’s coffin and all his books and clothes gone from their home, and Louis with them?

He stood on the inside of the door. Stared at it for a terrifyingly long moment, as sunlight began its slow crawl through the windows and across the floor.

He was so afraid.

Armand imagined Louis’s face if he awoke when night had fallen again. And Armand was still just standing there.

He took a small breath. Reached for the front door. For the handle.

Opened it.

Armand stepped out into the first dawn in five centuries.

It was glorious. Remarkable. A miracle.

Surreal, like something from a film, or out of Revelation.

He walked all day, not knowing where to go. It wasn’t even cloudy, or foggy; the day was preternaturally bright.

Armand walked all day and he did not burn.

Any yet. It was an emptier victory than he could have anticipated.

Because he had no one to share it with.

He approached home that evening, the setting sun at his back, already below the horizon. He approached home with a trepidation he could not shake.

Opened the door. Walked inside. Trudged toward the bedroom.

There were two coffins in the room. His own, and Louis’s.

He raised the lid of the second.

No one was inside.

Armand stared at the empty coffin, unblinking.

“What are you doing?”

Armand whirled.

Louis stood in the doorway, still in his sleep clothes. He looked rumpled, but his eyes were utterly alive. He rushed at Armand with the largest, most boyish grin Armand thought he’d ever seen on Louis’s face. Grasped him by the shoulders, as if to check that he was real, and then pulled him into a crushing hug. “It’s late. You had me worried for a minute there,” he said, low, but his voice was full of nothing but joy. He pulled back. “You have to tell me everything. Don’t leave out a single detail.”

Armand smiled, and gazed into Louis’s face. “All right. But I must admit, at least for now? I think I prefer the stars.”

[littlelostfic]

Loumand Microfic Event 2025 submission Date: Aug 9 Prompts: ancient/modern Goal: 128 words (So I went a little bit over. Or a lot.)

AO3 Link: Still Wonders (1284 words) by littlelost Summary: Sometime after Paris. Louis and Armand contemplate the value of nostalgia.

@loumandmicrofic