Work Text:
Love Me
By CC
March 2024
I don’t own Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, or the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. I am borrowing them for a while.
Love me. You have destroyed everything! But if you love me, it can all be restored in a new form. Love me.
Armand, in The Vampire Lestat
I wanted to leave Paris with Lestat and Gabrielle, but they would not take me. I was afraid to be alone. Allesandra had escaped the coven, though she managed to convince me that she had jumped into the fire. Just like Santino did later to escape his own coven. She had been with me for centuries, and she had left, awakened by Lestat’s words and Gabrielle’s independence.
I was left with the mad fledgling, Nicholas, and in time I learned to love him, but his fate had been sealed since Lestat gave him the Blood. Poor Nicholas, so brilliant, and so insane. I never thought he would choose the fire, and still now I look over my shoulder, thinking that he is back like Santino and Allesandra.
I threw Lestat off a roof because he came looking for Louis and not for me. I tried to give Claudia a new body, I covered my blunder by leaving Claudia and Madeleine under the sun. It was better that Louis thought I had killed them out of spite, and not the suffering Claudia went through.
I am a monster, a vampire, a creature who needs to drink the blood of mortals to survive. I will be a different kind of monster when I reach Marius’ age, but I might not survive. I have never gone into the earth to sleep and die or replenish my will to go on.
I lost Daniel to Marius. I lost Benji and Sybelle when he transformed them. I even lost Santino, my ancient tormentor, when Thorne destroyed him after Maharet denied Marius the right to kill him.
I am troubled and sad, and I have lost Lestat and Louis again. They have gone to France. I no longer own the Night Island, but I keep my manse there. I cannot see the sun, though it has burned me badly when I tried to die and go to Heaven.
This is the story of my life, and after hearing it, do you still want to stay with me?
Rúmil smiles, and nods, his golden hair shining under the museum lights. He is an Elf, a being from another time. He has told me about his old home, and his brothers. We shared blood, though I will not turn him into what I am.
We sit on a bench to admire an ancient painting, and he places an arm around my shoulders and pulls me closer. So warm, so beautiful, and accepting of what I am. We are alone in the museum, and I find myself wishing I could see him in daylight.
He smiles, and kisses me softly, and I close my eyes. I never asked him to love me, but he does. He loves the young man that I was, and the monster that I have become. He thinks that one day we will sail together to another land. I have told him that I would never be allowed in any land called “blessed”. He runs his finger through my hair, and whispers in my ear.
“Then we will stay here until the end of Time.”