#monstroum

[prescitia]

@monstroum asked: that was wrong of me , and i know it . / from louis !

"Suddenly he is a man of reason." Inexorable! Obstinate! Inconsiderate! Selfish! Pietous! He questions the very foundation they have built upon. Lessons he has graciously imparted on a disobliging mind bear no fruit. It rots at the roots.

"You continue your impulsive acts thinking only of yourself. Damn the consequences and damn me!" Breath drawn and held until the throbbing in his skull subsides, exhaled in a lofty sigh.

"We will clean your mess together. Comme d'habitude."

[heunmoor]

@monstroum INQUIRED: are you ready for the real party ? / from santiago !

𝐚 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐬𝐡 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐬 , almost akin to a chortle as smoke trapped itself in the base of his throat and silenced any words that may have come to his tongue . TAKEN OFF GUARD IN THE BACK ALLEYWAY , lax form transforms into a taut arch before loosening once more . santiago . creeping in the shadows , 𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚋𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚜𝚘𝚏𝚝 𝚐𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚖𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚕𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 . just santiago . no golds , or blues , or crimson spewing from neck to blooming white cloth . santiago . santiago . not ..... not him .

" i didn't know there were any festivities going on after the show ? " he posed it as an inquiry , fingers twitching once before allowing the cigarette to fall to his feet and smolder away . SERENE SILENCE NO LONGER WALTZING THROUGH HIS MIND . an edge now set at his throat , keeping him on his toes . careful , louis , don't slip now . " 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚐𝚞𝚢𝚜 𝚍𝚘𝚗𝚎 ? "

[lechroniques-archived]

@monstroum : “You're just very bad at explaining.” from Ferris.

“Did  you  ever  consider  that  perhaps  you’re  just  incompetent  in  the  realm  of  listening?”  Lestat  is  a  spitfire  with  a  temper  that  paralleled  his  own  father  at  times,  though  he  shot  back  with   ᴵᴿᴿᴵᵀᴬᵀᴵᴼᴺ  thinly  veiled  in  a  layer  of  calm.  Silent  agitation,  a  tilt  of  the  head  paired  with  lips  pressing  into  a  thin  line,  the  corners  of  his  mouth  sliding  upwards  into  a  forced  grin.

“Your  heightened  senses  are  clearly  useless,  and  rest  assured,  I  won’t  continue  to  waste  my  ᴮᴿᴱᴬᵀᴴ  when  it  does  nothing  but  fall  on  deaf  ears.”  Petty.  Catty,  even.  Though  he  cared  very  little  about  being  polite  when  the  other  was  nothing  more  than  a  crude,  pedantic  individual  in  the  eyes  of  the  vampire.  The  stench  of  disrespect  made  his  nostrils  flare  as  he  sucked  in  his  breath.  

“Find  someone  else  to  assist  you  if  you  insist  on  behaving  like  an  untrained  dog.”

[soothfog]

@monstroum  for  mr. memphis

some days—more than you would think, yet never enough—amount to nothing. today, nothing that matters will happen. these days feel different. or, lee feels different on these days. less loose. less altitude. memory can be lifted, unweighted. leaving his mind as open and full as a valley folded between two mountains. someone will propose, surely, an intern will order the wrong coffee for their boss, your mother will die and it will not end the world. which feels harshly dishonest. but would you want it to, if you could choose? there is profound internal value to the blood of life that migrates to the heart but does not stop there, cannot stop there. i’m sorry, the physics of staying are unbreakable laws.

now it is 11:58pm. tension sweats out of lee. not in the human way. it sweats out of him like an envelopment. like beads of tea through the porous walls of a teapot: something that ought to be held—isn’t. he is trying, very hard, to sleep. if he can sleep for long enough, he might be able to stall out tomorrow like a dead car left running through the night. ruminating on the process of sleep only pulls him further from it.

lee rolls over onto his stomach (midnight, the red light of his alarm clock imprints in the dark air, he sighs) and turns his bedside lamp on. he grabs a fistful of the bottom of his plain white t-shirt and wipes the sweat from his face. he hears a soft clatter on the rusty fire escape outside his bedroom window. he stands to look.

a man in a black suit is lying there. he seems drunk, maybe. or wounded. or both. and so indistinguishably a part of yet apart from the night. like a small fat of the night calcified. lee does not die here because he remembers when he will die. still, he fears. he taps on the glass of his unopened window, peering down at the body.

          “hello? are you hurt? how did you get up here?”

[ohsunshine-aaa]

continued from here. / ( @monstroum )

What it is that compelled Armand to take a walk down memory lane, he'll never know. It was the same thing that drove him to wander the deserted halls of art galleries to seek out familiar pieces, a dozen different versions of himself rendered in a dozen different settings and poses, looking down at the person he's become in this century.

This month, it was seeking out old theatre posters. Some might accuse him of being stuck in the past; it wouldn't be an entirely unfair assessment. He missed the days he had a place and a purpose. He resents giving it all up for someone who'd, in the end, cast him aside like he was nothing.

It still stings. The rejection still occupies every waking thought. The posters aren't as easy to come by as he'd like.

He feels him, Santiago, before he sees him. Armand makes no attempt to avoid him, and allows himself to be cornered in a small, stuffy shop. The items lining the shelves are too new to be considered antiques. Even Santiago, older than some of the objects, seems young to him.

Armand turns on his heel, and looks Santiago slowly, up and down. What would their lives have been like if Lestat hadn't saved Louis? Would they be a coven, still, or would something else have come along to disrupt that? There was no way of knowing.

"Santiago." He ignores the former actor's request and steps a little closer, almost into his space. "It took you much longer than I thought it would to find me." Armand paused, considering, then added, "It's good to see you." Not quite a lie, and something he suspects that Santiago might like to hear - or, would have liked it once upon a time, anyway.

"There are no lingering rules between us anymore, you can speak freely." An allowance that he was sure to regret. "What brings you here? Do you often find yourself dwelling on the past and what might have been, too?"

[arcticrime]

are you going to kill him? / from hannibal

he halts his furious pacing, leaning hard into his cane as he does so. there are spots of color high on his cheek bones where suppressed rage has risen to the surface, the rest of his face whitened, as though struck. by the doctor’s question, perhaps, which is remarkable not for what it is but the way he seems to say it, with that remote clinical interest that has characterized most of their interactions thus far.

❛ what an idea. ❜ it comes out somewhat breathy, not with laughter but anger. steam released from a furnace. oswald’s mouth, previously pinched and bloodless, pulls itself into a hollow, up-turned shape, his eyes glittering. ❛ why, if i said yes, would you try to talk me out of it? ❜

[absensia]

THERE COULD BE NO LYING TO OR HIDING FROM THAT ABSENCE THAT LIVED WITHIN HER; THE GOOD DOCTOR'S OBSERVATION DID GIVE THE VESSEL PAUSE. WAS IT MEANT TO BE A THRILL? A DELIGHT OR A GOOD SIGN, PERHAPS... THAT THIS BODY COULD BE PROVEN AS REAL, AFTER ALL? OR WAS IT A SIGN OF TROUBLE? INDIGNATION, EVEN, THAT SHE SHOULD ONLY BE REAL WHEN SHE BLEEDING, DYING, OR BOTH?

BLOOD WAS ESSENCE; BLOOD, IT SEEMED, WAS ULTIMATELY LIFE ITSELF. THE LOSS OF IT RENDERED HER PALER THAN USUAL AND THE COLD SUNLIGHT THAT PICKED APART HER IMAGE, DECAYING IT BEFORE THE DOCTOR'S EYES, HARDLY HELPED.

Yet outwardly, Charlotte did not pause nor hesitate. Not for a moment did she indulge the doctor with a look of surprise or shock, for she had come bearing other gifts and those would have to do. Her smile only grew, warm and friendly, as if she expected nothing less from the extraordinary man laying, wounded, in the hospital bed before her. There were no hard feelings, she'd hoped, for what were a couple of murder attempts between friends who understood the value of curiosity, satiation, and the art of trial and error.

From the light that bathed her, she pulled out her gifts: twirled about her right hand was a pretty, silky ribbon, pulled taut by the helium - filled balloon floating near the ceiling. The balloon was perfectly puffed and the exact shade of sunny yellow that no one save for little children could love. It smiled down at the doctor. In her hand, or rather, in the crook of her arm, was a handsome teddy bear in a chef's uniform, no less. This, Charlotte sat at the foot of Lecter's bed so that it, too, could smile at him.

" I won't die from mine, " she replied, making quick work of tying the balloon string onto the arm of a nearby chair. " You might've from yours. . . but you didn't! Even if you did get close. Did you get close? Did you see the light? Or, uh, what's the other one. . . feel the flames? "

Without waiting for an invitation, for it was a fool's errand to wait for something which would assuredly never come, Charlotte hopped up onto the bed, seating herself at the doctor's feet. The bed had been raised high enough that she had enough space to allow her legs to dangle. The agent began to kick her feet at a languid tempo. " When do you think we can try again? " she asked, gaze flickering down at his sewn - up forearms. / @monstroum, CONT.

[tahtalard]

CONTINUED FROM here ! @monstroum

a bad habit of appearing as a GHOST, hovering about in the periphery. leadership had stripped armand of his white sheet, of the critical distance he so desperately craved from these whining crowds! louis's salvation ( a FIRE & BRIMSTONE salvation. the tormented screams of his lover armand's sole companion most nights ) returned him to the exile of a quiet haunt.

an unblinking, watery stare through thick eyebrows. blank expression replaced by something much smaller & younger than his age or position should allow. sharp shoulders slump as he sits on command. louis's cries echo in armand's mind; is he himself so BLINDED by loving devotion, his power guided by something silent? affection, so secret a deux ex machina that even armand, affection's keeper, stood silent & shocked as they carried affection's object away.

but no such power carried quiet feet out the dressing room. an effort was made, a turn of his heel before the groans carried up from manufactured hell, but so easily did he sway into mutiny. skeletal fingers curl together in his lap. responsibility abandoned armand, but even in his misery could the ancient vampire find aesthetic opportunity. ❝ we are a horror theatre. ❞ & he must bite his tongue from dropping maitre too soon, from laying on his flattery too thick. ❝ subterranean crypts echoing the HOWLING DEAD may be atmospheric. ❞