Finn, we don't have to do this. I want this with you. I was struck again with that feeling of newness with him. It felt like stopping time. As if they had been waiting a lifetime to be noticed by him, my wings shiver. It feels like I could have him right in my mouth and still crave him closer. Please...
Loustat short comics - There is nothing else until the storm is over - Interview with the Vampire TV Series
text transcription under the cut ⬇️
Fake magazine illustration
Page 1
Daniel : So, tell me... Did you see Lestat again?
Page 2
Louis : When he's not on Tour, he would occasionally visits.
Page 3
Daniel : So you're what, now? Friends?
Louis : [Hello Lestat.]
Lestat : [Hello Louis.]
It would be too simple. You know us.
Louis : [ That's new. Still enjoying the glitz and glamor?]
But there is this arrangement we are both fine with.
Page 4
When two people hurt each other so deeply, what is left afterwards?
Page 5
Things like that, it seals doors once still unlocked at the time. Can time really heal everything?
[Mets moi dans mon cercueil, Louis, Louis...]
Page 6
[Stay down chéri, I don't want to fight like this. I'll stay. I'll stay, I'll never leave you ever again. I promise. I'll be happy. For you. For her. Please please please please]
Some things were flipped over to show the truth. Others, I learned to see differently. I faced my wrongs.
[I'll be anything please please please please please please. I didn't know it was a gift. I wore it like a curse. I was selfish. I wanted you to suffer. Because I was. Suffering. I came to thank you.]
Page 7
Do we love each other still? Yes. Can we live under the same roof, share the same spaces, the same bed, for an extended period of time, again? No. But this raging, all devouring passion, it is now replaced by something that can never be altered. Is this the price we had to pay to finally be equals?
Page 8
We have never been more understanding of each other. A shadow of something that could have been from the start. Friendly jokes. Bickering I will never admit enjoying. Respect. And then, the always surprising softness. So eerie after all that happened. Yet, we always welcome it.
Page 9
Daniel : [How dramatic. Not ready to live together again, yet he's all over your coffee table.]
Louis: [I didn't buy these.]
Daniel : [Sure. Will you let me know the next time he passes by?]
Louis : [Well I can't. This is his safe place. You will have to find him by yourself I'm afraid.]
Daniel : [Of course. He can't make anything easy. As if he didn't have enough safe places with his ten properties.]
Page 10
Louis: [Nice chat. Bye, Daniel.]
Lestat : [Only when I'm not on Tour, hm?]
Louis [Approximately.]
Lestat : [Thanks.]
Louis : [Did you really just say thank-]
Lestat: *kisses Louis* [...too soon?]
Page 11
Louis : Almost a century is enough waiting.
Something I love about confronting Cazador is how he obviously never processes that Astarion has friends until it's too late.
Petras and Dalyria must have mentioned that Astarion wasn't alone when they met him, but when you read Cazador's journal? He's 100% fixated on Astarion. How Astarion stood in the sun, how Astarion was willing and able to disobey him. And when Astarion shows up, Cazador barely acknowledges the party at all - and sure, that's partly because this is Astarion's moment in the narrative, but Cazador doesn't so much as ask why these random strangers are there! They're not part of his plans, so they don't exist.
And then they immediately save his errant spawn from the ritual and start beating his ass.
Just. What must have been going through Cazador's head when that fight starting turning against him? 'Is that... the Blade of Frontiers? Why is a monster hunter - and is that a cleric? - helping a vampire spawn? An undead? Ah, but they must be treating it as a necessary evil to have a chance to slay me, of course - hold on, why is the cleric healing Astarion? Why does that wizard keep Counterspelling everything I'm casting at Astarion, why waste the spells when I'm not even targeting him? Did... did that druid just cast Daylight on Astarion's weapons? And that brute of a tiefling - that's not just disgust in her eye when she looks at me, it's fury - and she keeps putting herself in front of Astarion, why in the hells would she - she's running right at me- '
I hope that one of the last things Cazador ever knew was the choking realisation that Astarion didn't just come back strong, or free. Astarion came back loved.