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But his manner wasn’t the entire horror. It was the havoc he was leaving behind him, the utter disregard of everything he used. And his utter disregard of me.
— The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice.
Hate and love, forever swinging back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, are a pendulum of eternal longing, prolonged even further by immortality. When one loves someone— and has been doomed to continue living forever— it is certainly difficult to reckon with the knowledge that a shift from the feeling of adoration will always be a wretched transformation, will always be a shift into the feeling of hate, but they must always reckon with it anyway. They must reckon with it, because indifference is a far worse thing to feel than either consuming love or consuming hatred.
Armand has known the simplicity of indifference— of staring blank eyed at catacomb walls, of no longer having the will to care about what was done to bring him underground, of monotone responses as he listens to the screaming that waxes and wanes in the dying embers of a fire— and he has known it well. He has known it better than he has known most things. Armand has felt wretched holiness and wholly indifference most days for the past many years, but for the first time in a very long time, he has felt a spark, a rekindling of fire he thought was forever gone.
The fledgling's name is Lestat de Lioncourt.
Armand wants him. Armand wants to kill him. Armand wants him to want him.
But the strength of emotion can be unbecoming when it has been so long since one has felt anything at all. The last time Armand can remember feeling anything at all was when he felt the warmth of his beloved Riccardo’s body fading away in his arms. He wiped his mouth of the guilt of it, and when he did, he must have somehow wiped away any ability he once had to feel angry. It almost felt like being in the brothel again, retreating into himself and becoming nothing but a body in the process, but no, it has been different these past few centuries. No, he must have felt something, even if it was disinterest. Even if it has been difficult to remember himself at all.
It is a staggering thing to know love and hate so strongly and so swiftly. They sway between each other— love and hate— and they are never fully gone. The indifference still coats Armand’s hands and no amount of bathing will relinquish him of its hold, but for now, it has been momentarily pushed aside. Day after day, as Armand explores a world he has been told to despise and be incurious about, it feels like it is being pushed further and further away. And sometimes, Armand almost dares to hope, even through his rage over Lestat's ruination of his children.
Around Armand, candle wax drips.
The room— the library in Lestat's Nicolas' apartment, that is— is ablaze in the warm light of the candles Armand has set fire to. It’s ritualistic, and Armand finds a quiet sort of comfort in the glow, the reminder of the sort of burning he has become so familiar with, so accustomed to, over the long years beneath Paris’ surface. Over the years before Paris and of the years before that too, when the Palazzo burned.
Around Armand, in Nicolas' now-abandoned, now-vacated home, various trinkets accompany him, lying in a random disarrayed assortment.
The musician's sheet music lies scattered across the carpet, and Armand has taken it upon himself to empty all the drawers that he will no longer need, in a state of vampirism that will certainly not last for very long. He has stripped the sheets from the mattress, torn the curtains from their hooks, and left them all on the floor to rot. An assortment of coins and keys are revealed in his search, and Armand is almost tempted to hide one of the coins with a particularly appealing texture in the folds of his clothing. He refrains from doing so, but for a moment, he is so very tempted, rubbing his fingers over the grooves as if the world is still real. As if it never burnt, crumbling to ashes around him, at all.
And of course, around Armand, all the books have been removed from every shelf.
He was the one to do that, stacking books all around him, careless of the indentations his nails left on their covers. The piles are spread across the room in an organizational system that Armand would not be able to explain to an onlooker easily or with much rhythm, but there is a method to the madness nonetheless. Shelf by shelf, stack by stack. Names paired with how nice the book feels grasped in his hands. A hue shift of glorious colors paired with how nice the syllables of the names sound when they roll around in his head, having been read in rapid succession. Subject matter paired with the perceived age of the pages. Which is not to be confused with the age of the subject matter or the reverse chronologically of publication. Those would be in a different stack.
Oh, but needless to say, it is difficult to feign indifference now, flipping through pages as fast as he can. His eyes scan the pages, the text scattered across them, rapidly and without much hesitation, and they feel a bit like they are buzzing. In his quickness of reading, he tears a few pages, but not as many as one may expect. Momentarily, Armand worries that his eyes will buzz right out of the sockets of his skull if he stops reading for even a moment, though that is of course a foolish, ridiculous thought to have.
Armand scans page after page, making his way through book after book at a speed that he would not have been able to achieve in his mortal lifetime. And it is gratifying in its own way, isn't it, to know that such a feat would no have been possible by a weak willed human. Entrenched in concentration, Armand finds himself gliding through the variety of subjects more thoroughly than he’s sure the owner ever has. He worries, halfheartedly, that the books will vanish from his grasp if he looks away from them for a second, experiencing spontaneous combustion and bursting into flames. But of course, nothing can ever last forever, not even in immortality.
Near Armand, there is a vampiric presence watching him with horror-filled eyes.
He, of course, knows that the fledgling Lestat is watching him. Lestat, the last fledgling that the deserter Magnus would ever make before making himself scarce, leaving no time at all for himself to regret his choice of a child before throwing himself into the deadly heat of the fire. Lestat, the fledgling who has intrigued Armand so thoroughly and destroyed his coven, leading Armand’s children to their doom. Lestat, this young one. Lestat, Lestat, Lestat. Armand thinks he hates Lestat more than he has ever hated anyone else already. At least with others, like Santino and Allesandra, he knew he could grow to love them, but with Lestat, it is a sick sort of fascination that has overtaken his senses, unlike anything he has ever felt before.
It is startling, the unfamiliarity of this feeling, but Armand knows Lestat is intrigued by him too. Horror and intrigue, wrapped together tightly, in his staring eyes. Armand can feel the questions on the tip of Lestat’s tongue, the need to know more and the aching want of reassurance, every time he looks to him, but he does not let the words spill from his mouth, perhaps repulsed by Armand's display of knowledge. Repulsed, perhaps by something else altogether.
Either way, Armand does not look up from his book, only watching Lestat from the periphery of his vision. He feels it, a thrum going through his oldened blood, when Lestat enters the room. Even with Lestat's new, enhanced abilities from Magnus' blood, Lestat clumsily makes his way through the house. He is loud to Armand’s ears even when he tries to be quiet, sneaking into Nicolas' abandoned apartment. Still, Armand does not look up, engaged with the books. Perhaps he will when he’s finished making his way through them all, but for now, all he can think of is his very own maker, who could once be considered well read. Lestat does not remind him of him, not exactly, but the last time he was around a fledgling that felt alive—
Well, it makes him think of his own maker, forced into the fire against his will despite all his power, is all.
Armand often wonders, because there is a lot of time left for wondering mindlessly in catacombs deep beneath the world's surface, if his maker would’ve eventually come to regret it, turning Armand into one of his, or if he would have stood firm in his decision, even knowing it was the shovel that would lead to him digging his own grave. He doesn’t know, and he isn’t sure he truly wants to know either. He finds himself at an utter loss of what he’d do if the question churning in his brain was finally vanquished, made clear one way or another. He doesn’t know who he’d be. Who would he have been to his children, if they knew he'd always been unwanted. Who would be now, to this terrible fledgling. While the answer Armand seeks eludes his clutches, not being one he will ever be able to find in this accumulation of books, he finds comfort in thinking about it anyway. He has spent many years finding comfort— or a semblance of it, at least— in thinking of his maker coming to rescue him from Paris’ catacombs, and he continues to find comfort in thinking of him now, coming for him and swooping in and saving him from himself, even if he has been dead for longer than Armand ever knew him. Even if—
Oh, but it doesn't matter. Not anymore.
Wondering has never changed nothing. That was among Santino's first lessons.
Armand throws yet another book, a book with now shredded pages, to the side. Already having picked up his next read, he finds himself careless of the clattering sound it makes when it crashes into whatever it has made an impact with. He turns the pages quickly, scanning over the array of words, absorbing them, before he tosses it away too.
Then, Armand picks up a newspaper, but he still does not glance up, even when he glimpses Lestat’s form in the corner of his eye. Lestat remains unaware of the fact that Armand knows he’s there, has known he was there since he arrived a block away from the premises, but Armand finds no need to rectify this quite yet. At least, not until he’s finished the last of the books around him. There are only a few left, now.
Lestat shifts, as if considering leaving.
In his prior watching of the young one, Armand has picked up on an odd trait of his. Sometimes, Lestat begins to laugh and does not seem to be able to stop. It escapes Armand’s knowledge of why exactly he does this. It’s not unheard of, for a fledgling to go mad so shortly after being created, but this doesn’t seem to be that. He does not think this trait can be entirely attributed to the conditions of madness in vampirism. Armand has not had interest in humans in a very, very long time, but he can't help but suspect that Lestat behaved just as strangely in his life too. Armand does not think he hates the sound of Lestat's laugh, not always, but—
Well, it's no matter.
Lestat does not laugh now.
He's started to back away slowly.
Lestat seems to be aghast, and the stolen blood in his veins is heated with horror and confusion alike. It is almost as if he doesn’t know what to make of Armand, an oldened one. It is almost as if he doesn’t know if he wants to do more; continue watching Armand make his way through all the books or run back to the safety that can only be bestowed upon him in the tower that formerly belonged to his maker. The safety that is merely a ruse, because Armand could break into it at any point he wishes to, that is.
Armand discards the last book, sensing the way Lestat flinches when it makes sharp contact with the floor.
Then, he turns around.
Facing him is a glaring Lestat, which could be laughable if Armand could remember how to laugh. In any case, Armand doesn’t quite understand why it matters to Lestat that Armand is here, given that the place has been abandoned and could no longer be considered a home by either vampire who once lived here. And even it hadn't already been abandoned, it is only fair, isn't it, that Armand takes too. Lestat took from him, destroying the life he has always hated, and now he’s taking back, taking the knowledge offered to him in these newly published books.
Lestat does not blink, as if looking away for even a second will make Armand disappear.
As much as Armand would like to say he hates Lestat, already with his two terrible fledglings, he cannot deny that he feels similarly. He cannot. He feels more strongly for him, he thinks, than he has for anyone else for so long. He loves him more than he loves himself, and he hates him more than he hates himself. He hates himself for loving him, even after all these years of nothing but dirt and grime and endless fire, but he is as helpless in his apathy as he is in his love. Perhaps he wants to hate Lestat more than he actually does, already. Perhaps he is mistaking his hatred for love, as he has done before.
In any case, Armand lets his voice flow to Lestat’s mind, dancing through the air and echoing through the room. He takes on an inviting tone, letting the words curl like smoke and crackle with tantalizing electricity.
He speaks to Lestat, unable to keep his voice clean of contempt:
“Do you love your silent children? Do they love you?”