Claudia's Papa stood locked out, just in a robe and slippers. While gossiping on the phone in the garden, Claudia took the opportunity and locked the sliding patio doors.
She could see the little vein on his forehead start to pop out when he got angry, but she remained resolute about not letting him back in. That's what he got for calling her a big baby. She was five years old and a big girl now—he knew that!
AO3 ver. here Little I by Liz Green
word count: 2,683 category: GEN rating: general audience fandom: Interview with the Vampire ship: Lestat de Lioncourt & Claudia tags: one-shot, lesclaudia, lesdaughter, human au, unholy family, domestic fluff, comedic bickering, healing generational hurt
a/n: i lied about this being the last one-shot i will post, sorry! can't stop writing iwtv one-shots! after tvl EP5 i wanted to cheer myself up because i know EP6 is gonna rip me apart. cute lesdaughter shenanigans!
Little I
'Okay, fun is over. Open the door.'
'No.'
'Claudia..'
'NO!'
'I'm going to count to—'
'NOOOOOOO!'
Claudia's Papa stood locked out, just in a robe and slippers. While gossiping on the phone in the garden, Claudia took the opportunity and locked the sliding patio doors.
She could see the little vein on his forehead start to pop out when he got angry, but she remained resolute about not letting him back in. That's what he got for calling her a big baby. She was five years old and a big girl now—he knew that!
'Claudia!'
She stuck out her tongue and began to walk away.
'Hey! Hey! Don't you—CLAUDIA, STOP!'
Her little beads click-clacked as she stopped and looked over her shoulder at her increasingly flustered father.
'Listen. I'm willing to forgive and forget because you are, as far as I'm aware, my only child, and I am a man of infinite patience and compassion. Open the door, and I promise,' he crossed his chest, 'that we can disregard this minor spat and go and acquire some delicious frozen yoghurt from the fro-yo place you like so much…for some reason.'
Claudia turned and walked towards the window doors.
'My name is Claudia, not "Hey!"' Something her Papa taught her.
'Of course.'
'I want an apology.'
'Pourquoi? Clau—'
'You need to say sorry for callin' me a big baby and a brat. Then I'll think 'bout lettin' you in'
'You want me to apologise…,' he started to laugh and ran his fingers through his blond mane, 'YOU ARE A BRAT!'
'THEN YOU CAN DIE OUT THERE!'
'CLAUDIA!'
'AN' DON'T YOU BE THINKIN' YOU CAN GO ROUND THE FRONT NEITHER!'
'Elle a jailli toute forme de la cuisse de Jupiter, hein?! Enfant gâté! Gâté! Gâté! Gâté!'
Claudia usually switches off when he starts to rant in French. Half the time, he talks so fast that it all slurs together, and she doesn't understand what he's saying anyway. Watching him bark at her was like watching a small lap dog yip at the door. "Clauwdia, Clawdeeya!" sounded like "yip, yip, yip" to her.
He suddenly stopped and took a deep breath in. This is a new thing he's trying now. He's regulating his emotions like what she learnt in school.
'You're in big trouble.'
'Not from where I'm standin'.'
Her Papa suppressed a smile there, but she caught the dimple.
'You've got ten seconds to open this door, or I'm calling Daddy.'
He looked at her all smug. She didn't want that because, unlike her Papa, her Daddy was a serious person. She started to sulk, which only enriched her Papa's smugness.
'So, you'll listen to him but not…of course. Open this door.'
Claudia walked over to the door handle but stopped to stare at it for a while.
'You can't terrorise me, Lestat!' and she took out the key and threw it across the room.
It was the first time she ever saw him speechless. He stood there, frozen in time, and for a while, she thought a glitch had occurred. Then he blew.
'AHHHHHH! I'M CALLING YOUR FATHER!'
'CALL HIM THEN!'
Claudia dropped to the floor and crossed her arms and legs in front of him.
She watched him pace back and forth as the phone rang. A little fluttering in her tummy, but she was steadfast.
'AH! You finally decide to answer your phone! Look, look at what your daughter did!'
He turned the phone around and slammed it against the window. Claudia waved.
'Hi Daddy!'
'Hi, baby! What..what's happening?'
'Nothing! We're playing a game!'
'SHE LOCKED ME OUT!'
'He's lying!'
She watched as her Papa screamed down at his phone, and she could hear her Daddy try to pacify him on the other end.
He walked up to the window and turned the phone over.
'Claudia, you know what you did is wrong, right?'
'No.'
'Lestat, why don't you just grab the spare key?'
'"Why don't you just grab the spare key?" You don't think I haven't thought of that?! The demon hid it!'
'HE CAN'T SAY THAT, DADDY! THAT'S A BAD WORD!'
'Oh, there's more where that came from!'
'Lestat!'
'I'm gonna call the cops and tell 'em THERE'S A CREEPY WHITE MAN SCREAMING AT ME OUTSIDE MY HOUSE!'
'THAT WON'T WORK!'
'A WHITE MAN WITH AN ACCENT!'
'OH-HAHA! IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?! HUH?! YOU WANT ICE TO COME AND TAKE YOUR PAPA AWAY?!'
'Lestat, we spoke about using ICE as a threat.'
'This is your fault!'
'Now, how's that?'
'Filling her head with concepts like confidence and self-respect and not reverence and fear!'
'I seem to recall that being your idea, Cicero.'
Claudia was getting bored with listening to her parents argue, as they usually did, and had developed a habit of tuning them out. She thought about where the key could be hiding. Then she thought about what she could have for a snack. There was some string cheese in the fridge. Maybe some apple slices and peanut butter? Now Claudia thought she'd actually like to have some frozen yoghurt.
She got up and walked off, and the tapping on the window from her Papa pulled her back to reality.
'Are you going to look for the key?!'
'Maybe. I don't know yet.'
'Maybe?! Did you hear her?!'
'I'm gonna have to call you back.'
'What?! No wai—' Daddy hung up.
Looks like Claudia might not be in trouble after all.
'I hope you're wearing sunscreen.'
Claudia walked away, ignoring her Papa yelling after her.
It wasn't just because he called her a brat. It was who he said it to.
The other day, she didn't want to leave the park because she wasn't finished playing with her friends. And it was still light out, and she reckoned they could have a late dinner—what was the big deal? But of course, her Papa was hearing none of it. He had become really impatient with her lately, and he was always so snappy in ways he wasn't before. So, he told her no, and she fought back.
In frustration, he turned to her friend's mama and said, "God, she's such a brat!"
He's never done that before.
They drove home in silence, and she hardly spoke at the dinner table.
God, she's such a brat!
It rang in her head over and over again. She didn't understand why it did that.
Lestat sat on the patio chair and sulked. He couldn't believe he had been locked out of his own home by his own daughter. Is this what parenthood was? Just a constant game of Tom & Jerry?
He searched his robe pockets for his vape and took a pull.
Claudia's behaviour was becoming increasingly troublesome. He didn't know how to handle it. He couldn't look to his own parents for help. If he talked to his father the way he let Claudia talk to him, he'd get his teeth knocked out, and, in all honesty, he couldn't ignore the heaviness he felt in his own hand whenever she got smart with him. He had to remind himself that he was an enlightened parent who didn't believe in corporal punishment, no matter how easy it would be to just give a quick pop to the mouth and call it a day. Breaking the cycle, as they say.
They were so close before. She was his little angel. Okay, "angel" might be stretching it.
He took out his phone again and saw the notification.
LE MARI: On my way
About goddamn time, he thought. He took another pull. He looked at his screen's wallpaper, at his little Claudia, pulling that silly face that always made him laugh. He caught himself smiling, and he briefly forgot he was angry at her.
He turned back to the window and couldn't see her anymore. Great.
Who could he talk to about this? Everyone says that this is normal. That it was one of many phases that she'll go through. Well, he hated it! He wished she would go back to being his tiny, cooing baby whose only thoughts were eating and shitting.
Louis was no help. He'd let her get away with bloody murder if he could. It was like he couldn't see it. He thought everything she did was amusing and precocious. But he wasn't there for the tantrums and the crying and the fighting over silly, inconsequential things. His near pathological desire to work all the time, even when he could afford not to, shielded him from all of it.
He couldn't call his mother. She'd only laugh. He remembered her disappointment when he told her they were having her. It seemed unfathomable to her that they would "ruin" the wonderful double-income child-free life they had with a "squealing anchor".
"At least you won't get fat," she said once. Typical Gabrielle humour. He instantly regretted telling her at all.
She laughed similarly when he told her he had eloped with Louis, a year after it happened.
Trying to get advice from her that wasn't "put her up for adoption then" was unlikely.
His vape was low on battery and finally petered out. He could break something, but all he saw was plants and rocks in his Zen garden.
'I found it!'
He turned to the little voice by the window and saw her holding up the key.
'C'est bien. Maintenant, ouvrez-le.'
'Ouvrir quoi, Papa? La door?'
'Claudia…'
'La window, la door, le cabinet? You could mean anythin'—là'
'La doo—The door, Claudia! Open the door, pourriez-vous s'il vous plaît?'
'Ummm…'
'Claudia!'
'La door? You want me to open it?'
She was obviously trying to kill him, or she had her own death wish.
Lestat threw up his hands and sat back down in the chair.
'Have your way, Claudia Ottavia. I give up! I'll just live out the rest of my days here forever. Just burn under this unforgiving sun or die of starvation. I'll have to eat Mojo now, I hope you're happy. I HOPE ROME IS HAPPY!'
She was quiet now, and Lestat got a weird satisfaction from it. But then he could hear sniffling, and he turned to see her face turn red and her eyes streaming with tears.
'What is this? Stop that.'
'YOU'RE SO STUPID!'
'You wouldn't be the first to tell me that.'
'STUPID AND MEAN!'
'Great! What else? That I'm a tyrant, a despot, a dictator?!'
'AND YOUR QUICHE TASTES LIKE SHIT!'
'HEY! DON'T FUCKING LIE—I MEAN—FUCKING SWEAR!'
'LIKE SHIIIIIIIIIT-TAAAAH!!!'
'PUTAIN!! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU! YOU DRIVE ME CRAZY!'
'WHY DO YOU HATE ME?!'
Lestat was caught off guard. Hate? Where did she learn that from?
Claudia was wailing and choking now.
'You hate me! I know you hate me! You wish I wasn't born!'
'Claudia, what are you talking about? Will you stop crying!'
'You told Maddie's mama that I was a brat!'
'You can't be serious?'
'I heard you on the phone sayin' you gon' put me up for adoption!'
Ah, so that's the real reason why he's standing outside in his house clothes and slippers, fighting with his five-year-old on the other side of the door.
It was a joke, of course; he didn't mean it. His mother said it about him all the time. She also said he was an accident, and you should never count on Plan B.
'First of all, you shouldn't be eavesdropping on grown-up's conversation, and secondly, it was a jo—'
'EAT SHIT AND DIE!'
Claudia continued to wail, really wail, and it was tearing Lestat apart. He hated to hear her cry. Not because it was annoying or grating, but because it clawed something inside of him. A child should never be left crying. It kills something in them. Something that once gone, you can never get it back.
He walked over to the window and dropped down to her level.
'Claudia…'
'Why do you hate me? What did I do?'
Like a knife to his heart. He never wanted to hear the words that once came out of his own little mouth come out of his little one.
What did he do? When did she start to think that he hated her?
The key to the front door turned, and Claudia ran towards it. Lestat was left alone to think.
He could feel his own eyes well up and cursed himself for being so damn sensitive.
He turned around and faced the garden and remembered one time when Claudia ran up to him, crying. One of her hair ribbons had come loose, and she couldn't tie it back. He picked her up, sat her on his lap, and rubbed her back.
'Shall I tie it up for you?'
Claudia nodded, holding onto his shirt for comfort as she sometimes did. His mother sat across from him, tutting.
'She's a crybaby, just like you were. What do they call it? "Little I"? Hmm…Claudie, are you Lestat's "Little I"?'
Claudia was too young to understand what she meant, and she nodded, burying her face into Lestat's chest.
'Mini-me,' he corrected.
It wasn't the first time he ever felt anger towards his mother, but that day, it was the first time he felt he really could kill her. He could kill for Claudia without any hesitation.
'Don't let him in!' Claudia begged her Daddy, but he patted her on the head.
'Where's the dog at, cher?'
'I don't know?'
But he didn't seem to register the answer. Claudia felt like sometimes her Daddy's head was always in the clouds. Like Jack and the Beanstalk.
'Let's let the dog in.'
'No! No!'
He was gonna kill her; she knew it. Maybe not kill her. But he was definitely going to put her out.
Maybe locking him outside was a bad thing to do; maybe she did take things too far.
But he needed to know that his quiche sucked, and if that was the last thing she told him, then she was fine with that.
She heard her Daddy laugh at Papa by the window. She couldn't hear what they were saying because of her ears ringing.
The door was unlocked and slid open, and she saw her Papa finally step inside. He stared down at her in that scary movie way he sometimes did when she was in trouble.
'Come.'
Claudia panicked and bolted in the opposite direction. It couldn't have been that quick for him to catch up to her and grab her by her pyjama collar. He was getting faster.
But he didn't throttle her. He didn't scream at her. Instead, he hugged her. Claudia was confused. She turned around and saw that he was crying.
Claudia couldn't make head or tail of what he was saying, and she was confused about why he kept kissing her on the cheeks and hugging her tightly.
'I wasn't really gonna keep you outside forever. You gon' get burnt up otherwise. Like when we went to Saint-Tropez, and you fell asleep out in the Sun and turned into a lobster, and it was so gross.'
He loosened up a little and stared up at her. His eyes were all red and sparkly.
'Hey. Listen to me. I would never ever put you up for adoption or send you away ever! Okay?'
Claudia nodded.
'And I don't hate you.'
'Then why are you always mad at me?'
'I'm not always mad at you.'
'Yes, you are!'
'I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Claudia. Do you forgive me?'
'You swear you don't hate me?'
'I swear it!'
'Okay.'
Claudia hugged her Papa, and he started crying again, which made her cry too.
'Let's go get some fro-yo.'
'Yeah, let's go!'
Her Papa lifted her up into his arms and swung her around, and she couldn't help but squeal in laughter.
'You two do this every time.' Her Daddy said.
He lifted the plant pot by the door. 'The spare key was here all along, Lestat.'
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 3/3
Fandom: Interview with the Vampire (TV 2022)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Lestat de Lioncourt/Louis de Pointe du Lac
Characters: Lestat de Lioncourt, Louis de Pointe du Lac, Lestat de Lioncourt's Brother(s), Magnus (Vampire Chronicles), Mojo (Vampire Chronicles)
Additional Tags: Human Lestat, Dysfunctional Family, Occult, occultism, Halloween, Rituals, deity worship, angel worship, formerly Catholic Lestat de Lioncourt, Mythology, altered mythology because Lestat is blending ideas, Luciferianism, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Paganism, Demon Summoning, Demon Deals, True Crime, True Crime elements, mentions of serial killers, Magnus is a serial killer, which should be no surprise, Partying, Drunkenness, Strippers & Strip Clubs, brief graphic descriptions of corpses, I APOLOGIZE, I have a terrible fear of corpses and yet I wrote those descriptions, but they are really brief I swear, and it's really not worse than anything you'd see in canon, I shouldn't have watched so many true crime documentaries before writing chapter two I apologize lol, Smut, Fluff and Smut, Making Love, Angst with a Happy Ending, Happy Halloween!
Series: Part 1 of I'm Gonna Lure You Into The Dark
Summary:
Overworked, underappreciated, and the youngest member of a deeply dysfunctional family, Lestat de Lioncourt turns to the occult to give himself a taste of power.
Instead, he meets the Devil in a three-piece suit.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
This is last year's fic, but only because I didn't have time to write more for this au yet.
“And the only sound in the empty snow-covered valley was my own breathing and the rattling shriek of my dying mare who lay yards away from me.
I'm not sure I had my reason. I'm not sure the things that went through my mind were thoughts. I wanted to drop down in the snow, and yet I was walking away from the dead wolves towards the dying horse.
As I came close to her, she lifted her neck, straining to rise up on her front legs, and gave one of those shrill trumpeting pleas again. The sound bounced off the mountains. It seemed to reach heaven. And I stood staring at her, staring at her dark broken body against the whiteness of the snow, the dead hindquarters and the struggling forelegs, the nose lifted skyward, ears pressed back, and the huge innocent eyes rolling up into her head as the rattling cry came out of her. She was like an insect half mashed into a floor, but she was no insect. She was my struggling, suffering mare. She tried to lift herself again.
I took my rifle from the saddle. I loaded it. And as she lay tossing her head, trying vainly to lift herself once more with that shrill trumpeting, I shot her through the heart.
Now she looked all right. She lay still and dead and the blood ran out of her and the valley was quiet.”
Well this was a fail. I joined all the failures together. I especially like the last one, because it was like 8am & the cleaner who I chat with walked down the corridor & saw/heard me & exclaimed happily “Oh! It’s Tuesday!” And laughs. I don’t know if you can hear her. Anyway, I stood stock still & silent for a bit & smiled for her… (she might have come in the room as she sometimes does) BUT I had been trying to play music for a dying horse & she was like “Ooohhhh, HAPPYYYY!” 😭💀🫠🫥
