| Fan Fiction |
| By Lidia: |
| My Kind Of Joy |
| +My Own Kind of Joy+ by Lidia Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me, but to Anne Rice. Some of the lines may have been extracted from The Tale of the Body Thief as well. Spoilers: The Tale of the Body Thief Rating: PG for now, but in the next part, or third there may be violence. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "No. If you meant to do away with me, it would already be done." "Don't be so certain. I'm not myself, and yet I am, and then I am not again." --Lestat de Lioncourt and Louis de Pointe du Lac--The Tale of the Body Thief ~~~~~~~~~~ He was right, I thought as I walked down the cracked sidewalks of my ever-familiar New Orleans. "Why do you love me?" "You know, you've always known. I wish I could be you. I wish I could know the joy you know all the time." The joy I have known? Ah, but I am sure to one such as Louis I must be the most joyful of creatures. So I smile, so I enjoy the thing that I am...does that mean that I cannot be regretful...that I cannot feel his kind of pain? Does he purposefully forget the fact that I had no choice in this life as he had? Ah Louis, how you underestimate me. Of course I feel joy, but not all of the time. Oh how could he even insinuate that my joy is continuous? Never ceasing. He must realize the error of his words. Every frown from his pretty little mouth, every rebuking word that lowers his respect for me, every careless brush off from him stops my joy like turning off a faucet. "Think on it," he had whispered. "Could you make another, after all that's passed? Could you work the Dark Trick again? Ah--you take your time before answering. Look deep inside you for the truth as you just told me to do. And when you know it, you needn't tell it to me." Could I make another? Could I really do it? I tried to imagine that I could, and it hit me. I could, what was stopping me? Oh, who cared for those rules of the coven? Had they really expected me to listen to their irrelevant rules? I had finally made it to my day-time lair and headed inside. I found my resting place quite easily and laid down, ignoring the feel of tiny insects crawling over my hard skin. David was the last thing I thought about before I feel victim to the plagues of the death sleep. ~~~~~~~~~~ I had woken early this evening and immediately began my long flight to Barbados. The cold air rushed over my body, bathing my skin in cold sensations for nearly two hours. When I landed, I knew that David was still here. He was here...in a hotel by the sea. It had been weeks since I had seen my friend, my David. I had watched my flat being restored step by step with my dear Louis. Even here to see David, my mind always wandered back to the focus of my universe. Though I try not to think on him, I cannot help but wonder what he is doing right now. Is he thinking of me like I am thinking of him? Louis is my love, never could I replace him, but now would be my chance to try. Louis had slipped from my grasp more fully than he had ever done with his refusal. But my bruised heart still felt compelled to take him back, to hold onto him and never let go as I have wanted to do for centuries. I have never admitted this to him in person, and after tonight, I think I may never be able to do so anyway. It is my full intention to change David. My mind was set on it since I opened my eyes the first time this evening. My reasons are jumbled and not yet fully formed, but I know David will love the Dark Trick. Even as he fiercely refuses it, he will be the vampire that I will come to admire. With the patience of Mon Louis, and the audacious character hidden deep inside that rivals my own spirit. Even if he feels pause to show it, I know it is there. I can see it in his chocolate eyes. With his new youthful body, he is perfect for life in the savage garden. But even as I pictured his eyes, my mind tried to change them to green. Louis' words kept coming back to me. 'The joy you feel all the time.' Even as it made me smile, it stung. Did he think I never considered the consequences to my actions might hurt me? I fully realized what might happen before most of my actions. Just because my mind doesn't grasp it...doesn't mean I don't know. I do, oh...I do. I walked along the porches beside the hotel rooms. The roofed verandas and the bungalow rooms. Such memories now as I remembered the nights spent with David, readying myself to take possession of my body again. I spotted David now, sitting down at his desk, typing. Tonight would be the decision. Would David take position as my new companion. Could I do it? Tonight I will answer Louis' heartfelt question. And I needn't answer it just to myself, I will show him...as well. ~~~~~~~~~~ I stayed on the porch of the hotel room. The aroma's of David's mortal skin wafted up and filled my nostrils. I inhaled greedily...one of the things I had sorely missed while in that body. The enhanced senses that allowed me to see the beauty of things as mortals never could. Oh how David would love it. Love it more than Louis did. An intense hate crept up then. All that I had given Louis and he still scorned me, still refused me, being stubborn when I needed him most. I barely heard the words exchanged between David and myself, it must have been usual greetings. He seemed to notice the wave of fury on my face...or perhaps I was too still for a long period of time. I couldn't read his well guarded thoughts, so I would just have to assume. "What's the matter? Why the dark face? Why are you angry?" "I don't know. I don't really require a reason to be angry these days." Louis just makes me angry a lot these days my dear David, must I remind you of that? "And I ought to be happy. I will be soon. Always happens, and after all--it's an important night." His beautiful eyes didn't seem to register what I had in mind, or perhaps he did. Maybe he was trying to tell himself that I couldn't possibly mean what deep down he knows I'm thinking. "Come inside." he said, his eyes still trying to fathom what I had meant. His well kept thoughts constantly scanning, classifying, and cataloging what was around him. What a perfect vampire he would make! "Why not sit here on the porch in the shadows? I like the breeze." "Certainly, as you say." Why did every one of the people I began to love have to be so damn agreeable all the time? Those impeccable manners were charming...sometimes. ~~~~~~~~~~ He went to get a drink...that horrible scotch again. Really, how could he stand the stuff? I seated myself, well, almost tossed myself into one of the chairs that looked directly over the sea. The view was delightful. Had I been mortal, I might have enjoyed to live here. I only comtemplated the picture of the vast sea before me for a few seconds before turning to David. Mon David, so beautiful now. The elder version of himself so perfectly placed within this youthful body. By far a much better sight than even the sea. "So what have you been doing?" I asked, rather snidely. I could hear my own voice, how it was filled with malice. I mustn't be so hard on David. With his British ways he may interpret that my anger was directed at him. I always found the British to be quite enchanting. "Ah, where to begin." The lithes of his accent flowed smoothly from his tongue. As if he had been born with it. Really, he seemed to mold perfectly into this youthful form. "I've been writing about it continuously--trying to describe all the little sensations, the new discoveries." But David, you were mortal before? Why now must you know all these discoveries? It is time you discovered the sensations you will be feelings for hundreds...perhaps thousands of years to come. "Is there any doubt that you're securely anchored in the body?" "None." He stopped to take a drink of that dreaded scotch. I found my eyes fastened to the bobbing adam's apple in his throat. It took a few seconds to tear my eyes away. "And there seems to be no deterioration of any kind. You know I feared that. I feared it even when you were in this body, but I didn't want to say it. We had enough to worry about, didn't we?" I found myself enticed when he turned from the scene of the ocean waves crashing together and smiled at me. "You're looking at a man you know from the inside out." "No, not really," I said, "Tell me, how do you deal with the perception of strangers...those who don't guess. Do women invite you to their bedrooms? What about young men?" I really should stop torturing myself and just make him now. Such useless trivial nonsense. Really. All I could think about was Louis, and how he had betrayed me. How could he have not noticed how deeply I hated that mortal body, and then refused me, refused me to rot as they say. "You know the answer. I can't make a vocation of those encounters. They mean nothing to me. I don't say I haven't enjoyed a few safaris into the bedroom. I have more important things to do, Lestat, far more important things to do. There are places I want to go--lands and cities I always dreamt I would visit. Rio is only the beginning. There are mysteries I must solve; things I must find out." "Yes I can imagine." I had begun to run my fingers lightly across my lips. How I wanted to drink from him now. How fast I was tiring from his talking. I wanted to bring him over. Never did it cross my mind that I was merely doing this to scorn my never-to-be lover. I wanted to make Louis jealous. But could I? Would he merely show more patience? Shock I and the coven again with his unending supply of almost unbearable patience??? I listened to the next long sequence of words with a glazed look on my face. I found my eyes fastened to the pulsing vein in his neck. How I wanted him. But was it so very different from how I wanted my prey each night? When I had found Louis, when I had taken him, it had been somehow magical. I knew he would be my fledgling the first minute I saw him. The blood taking had been special and represented something to me...un-ending love. But I couldn't really tell if I felt the same for David. "I know." I said, really not paying attention. I hadn't one idea of what he had just said, nor did I care. "There are many things I want to ask you. I've been plagued with questions." That was about all I could stand. I didn't want to be asked questions. Why was I always being asked questions. Before he could open his beautiful mouth again, I had stood and pulled him from his chair. I wrapped my arms around him and opened my mouth lightly against his neck. "David...I really am in no mood for your questions." I heard his strangled gasp as I bit into his neck, feeling the hot gush of blood rush into my mouth. ~~~~~~~~~~ "You are mine now, and I will make you like me." I whispered against his throat as I pulled my bloody fangs from his neck. "No." he said weakly, his lips shivering, his lids hooded as he fought to keep his eyes open. "No, Lestat..." he trailed off against as I again pushed my fangs through the small holes in the skin of his neck with the precision of a surgeon. David struggled against me. Ah so strong. Would I finally have my equal. But this whole time David wasn't on my mind. As I held his body close to mine, pressing against his fragile, caramel skin, my mind was on my ivory skinned beauty. How I wanted him, but I would never get him. My mind dove in David's soul then. Never had I descended into a soul I knew so well. How thick and wondrous the images that enveloped me: the soft beautiful sunlight slicing through the mangrove forest, the crunch of the high grass on the veldt, the boom of the great gun, and the shiver of the earth beneath the elephant's pounding feet. It was all there: all the summer rains washing endlessly through the jungles, and the water swimming up the pilings and over the boards of the porch, and the sky with lightning! Beneath this I felt his fear, his overwhelming fear that I would turn him into something in which he was torn between loving. The love of being a hunter as he was born to do, to have enhanced senses, to be able to live an eternity beautiful and to see things that would never be seen! Ah, but to kill fellow human beings, to live in this dark world with no sunlight. But he loved me, trusted me, and I could read his soul. He would have gladly traded his mortal life to spend an eternity with me. Layers of feelings for me. The feelings that I was an insolent child which needed help, the feelings that I was an elder, who had seen more than he would ever be able to see, and then just the lust. The lust that one feels when strongly attracted to someone for everything that they are. The lust I have only ever felt once, and never thought I would feel again. The lust I never have felt again. For it is so wonderous...so wonderous that you can only experience it once and know that it is true. And it was not the person in my arms that fit the description. He was not the one meant for me. And as I drained David, I knew that I couldn't do it. I couldn't make another fledgling. What would David be for me? An eternal friend, eventually to wander away in the night? Possibly lovers at first, but he would come to realize who I held my love for. It would never work, and I would only wound him and myself in the process. But I couldn't just let him go now. Not now, when I had drained him. If I were to leave now, he would die. And I love him too much to leave him to die alone...but not enough to bring him to me forever. I heard him whisper that he loved me almost inaudibly. He still thought that I was going to bring him over, give him the Dark Gift. What a nice feeling he had, that he was going to be alright. I pulled my teeth from his neck for the second time that night and looked down into his pale face. "And I love you." He never realized that I was going to let him die. I let him think he was going to come to me until his last breath. I let his body drop from my arms, the carcass hitting the floor at ungainly angles and finally coming to lay at my feet. "Why do you love me?" "You know, you've always known. I wish I could be you. I wish I could know the joy you know all the time." What did those words mean?! Why were they coming to me know. I continued to look down on David. So much promise for a second life...ripped away from him by me. Another action, but this time, it had taken the life of someone dear to me. I felt the tears splash down the front of my face. But what would I have done had I really created him? Louis and I would never be together as we were meant to be. David would have always been the wedge. My relationship with Louis and eventually David would have been in ruins... "I couldn't do it Louis." I whispered, once more looking down at the body of my old friend. The consequences of my actions always caught up with me, they were always the part that seemed to come to me when I didn't need it. "This is my kind of joy." And I think that at the moment, I felt a flash of the kind of depression and pain that has plagued Louis his entire existence. Perhaps I felt more than he ever did just in that one moment. I had killed one of the only true friends of my life. This is my kind of joy, I thought again. I started to laugh, for I really had no idea...what that meant. The End Fan Fiction Home |