How is it a gift, exactly? Endless night, endless days, the loneliest existence I could imagine. Vampires living hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years with no reprieve. Story goes most throw themselves into the fire, walk out into the sun, anything to stop existence for a mere minute. So maybe you didn't create this cascading problem, but you didn't prevent it.
I didn't choose this. I didn't know what was being offered to me. It's not my nature, not who I am. Maybe what I need - since I've been built like this. I need the blood now to survive. Rats, rabbits, squirrels. I'm lucky at home to have those who offer willingly, but the guilt.
How do you reckon I'm supposed to hand you my guilt? My dirty, bloody part in your mistake? I blamed the devil plenty growing up - was told my whole life he'd be at my heels. No one told me he had a pretty face and played cards dirty - might have prevented this mess all along.
[ it wouldn't have. there would always be lestat, new orelans, the church, god's rebuke, the eternal darkness. nothing would have changed. ]
what, being fast and strong and fierce is nothing to you? living a long life with the freedom to choose how you do it? just who exactly do you think you're talking to about loneliness?
( this is the same dewinged, plucked, torn apart, incarcerated, trapped, hidden, forgotten, lucifer who was banned from the only home he ever knew to live in the dirt with the mortals. who would know loneliness better than the person ostensibly turned the first vampires as a cure for his own? not that it worked, obviously, but there you have it. before vampires, he tried witches. after vampires came the lesser demons. none of them filled that empty, holy space inside of him. )
you aren't a mistake to me, louis, beloved biter. i don't regret your beautiful life. would you trade your vampirism for a mortal life? today. all you are and all you have been for the past hundred years, for a few boring decades as a man. what would you do with that time you were given? get a job, find a wife, make a baby, eat a hamburger? you are what you are from every thread of your body, and what you are is a vampire. the only thing you need to be complete is acceptance. i've accepted you. i love you. what more is there?
[ has his long life been full to the brim with the freedom to choose? has his strength and speed been any benefit to him other than a vessel for his anger? a vessel for his grief?
but, ah. yes. he's speaking to lucifer, burned in fire and brimstone and cast off. he'd seen it briefly in the chaos of the man's mind - had known the moment he saw him who he was, and yet louis still sat down at his table. still played cards as though neither of them could see what the other was going to do. the text hits him like a freight truck, like the crack of cobbles he met on the great fall in new orleans. the fall that shattered him apart in more ways than one. ]
I couldn't go back to a mortal life. Not after this. Not after everything I've done. But I can't erase the mortal conscience. I can't erase my love for humanity, for the life I could have had, for everything I wanted. It might be easier if I could. I prayed about it for weeks, months, years after I was turned. No answer.
[ a long pause, then: ]
How do you manage it? The loneliness. The grief. Everything that's made me what I am these hundred and some odd years. The dark thing that waits with all of it. I can't breathe with it sitting in my chest. Can't think. The sun doesn't burn here, and when I sit out under the warmth of it I can close my eyes and be someone else. Feel real again.
( don't is the answer. loneliness is the thing that lives on after your wings are pulled from your back, after your father locks you away and tosses the key. the one thing luci, who has lost everything, can never lose is his companion in the dark, the crippling, chilling loneliness that lives in the periphery, tainting everything he does. all luci's actions feel so desperate when looked at like that — a yipping dog begging for its master's attention, an abused son waiting for his father's apology.
the real answer: forget about loneliness. gives yourself a swiss cheese brain and put all the bad things in the holes, and live in a vague state of confusion at any given time. sometimes, have the blissful reprieve of forgetting who you are entirely, because when you're no one, you can be anyone. unblemished, whole. )
i create. i have purpose. i have a wife. so i don't know. take a thousand lovers. break a thousand hearts. find that thing that makes you happy for small, crystal moments, and cling to it. the enemy of an eternal life is boredom. never get comfortable, louis. when things are easy, they're monotonous. make problems to pass the day. that's what i recommend. it would be pretty thematic if you made a vampire army to rage against me your creator, for instance.
[ eerily comforting, the devil. why he turned here for it, louis doens't entirely know, but he reads the messages over and over again. the being who made them, adoring them, finding beauty in what they are.
it makes it slightly easier to visualize himself for who he is. a vampire. a creature of the night. ]
I have a husband, an eternal companion. He tries - I try. It's not easy. Probably best that it's not. Means we gotta work on it - makes the years feel a little faster. There's a mortal, too. Perfectly imperfect. But I'm not in the way of breaking hearts. Not on purpose. I'd much rather do that though than start an army. World's got enough vampires as it is. Probably some making an army as we speak.
Thank you. I guess I needed to know that all this - the endlessness of time and what comes with it - It's a little more universal than I thought. I'm sorry for that. For both of us.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cw: talk of self harm/suicide
I didn't choose this. I didn't know what was being offered to me. It's not my nature, not who I am. Maybe what I need - since I've been built like this. I need the blood now to survive. Rats, rabbits, squirrels. I'm lucky at home to have those who offer willingly, but the guilt.
How do you reckon I'm supposed to hand you my guilt? My dirty, bloody part in your mistake? I blamed the devil plenty growing up - was told my whole life he'd be at my heels. No one told me he had a pretty face and played cards dirty - might have prevented this mess all along.
[ it wouldn't have. there would always be lestat, new orelans, the church, god's rebuke, the eternal darkness. nothing would have changed. ]
no subject
just who exactly do you think you're talking to about loneliness?
( this is the same dewinged, plucked, torn apart, incarcerated, trapped, hidden, forgotten, lucifer who was banned from the only home he ever knew to live in the dirt with the mortals. who would know loneliness better than the person ostensibly turned the first vampires as a cure for his own? not that it worked, obviously, but there you have it. before vampires, he tried witches. after vampires came the lesser demons. none of them filled that empty, holy space inside of him. )
you aren't a mistake to me, louis, beloved biter. i don't regret your beautiful life.
would you trade your vampirism for a mortal life? today. all you are and all you have been for the past hundred years, for a few boring decades as a man. what would you do with that time you were given? get a job, find a wife, make a baby, eat a hamburger? you are what you are from every thread of your body, and what you are is a vampire. the only thing you need to be complete is acceptance.
i've accepted you. i love you. what more is there?
no subject
but, ah. yes. he's speaking to lucifer, burned in fire and brimstone and cast off. he'd seen it briefly in the chaos of the man's mind - had known the moment he saw him who he was, and yet louis still sat down at his table. still played cards as though neither of them could see what the other was going to do. the text hits him like a freight truck, like the crack of cobbles he met on the great fall in new orleans. the fall that shattered him apart in more ways than one. ]
I couldn't go back to a mortal life. Not after this. Not after everything I've done. But I can't erase the mortal conscience. I can't erase my love for humanity, for the life I could have had, for everything I wanted. It might be easier if I could. I prayed about it for weeks, months, years after I was turned. No answer.
[ a long pause, then: ]
How do you manage it? The loneliness. The grief. Everything that's made me what I am these hundred and some odd years. The dark thing that waits with all of it.
I can't breathe with it sitting in my chest. Can't think.
The sun doesn't burn here, and when I sit out under the warmth of it I can close my eyes and be someone else. Feel real again.
no subject
( don't is the answer. loneliness is the thing that lives on after your wings are pulled from your back, after your father locks you away and tosses the key. the one thing luci, who has lost everything, can never lose is his companion in the dark, the crippling, chilling loneliness that lives in the periphery, tainting everything he does. all luci's actions feel so desperate when looked at like that — a yipping dog begging for its master's attention, an abused son waiting for his father's apology.
the real answer: forget about loneliness. gives yourself a swiss cheese brain and put all the bad things in the holes, and live in a vague state of confusion at any given time. sometimes, have the blissful reprieve of forgetting who you are entirely, because when you're no one, you can be anyone. unblemished, whole. )
i create. i have purpose.
i have a wife. so i don't know. take a thousand lovers. break a thousand hearts. find that thing that makes you happy for small, crystal moments, and cling to it.
the enemy of an eternal life is boredom. never get comfortable, louis. when things are easy, they're monotonous. make problems to pass the day. that's what i recommend.
it would be pretty thematic if you made a vampire army to rage against me your creator, for instance.
no subject
it makes it slightly easier to visualize himself for who he is. a vampire. a creature of the night. ]
I have a husband, an eternal companion. He tries - I try. It's not easy. Probably best that it's not. Means we gotta work on it - makes the years feel a little faster.
There's a mortal, too. Perfectly imperfect.
But I'm not in the way of breaking hearts. Not on purpose.
I'd much rather do that though than start an army. World's got enough vampires as it is.
Probably some making an army as we speak.
Thank you.
I guess I needed to know that all this - the endlessness of time and what comes with it -
It's a little more universal than I thought.
I'm sorry for that. For both of us.