#if not for nicki then why would Lestat tried to recreate what he had with Nicki when he met Louis?

[elvesofnoldor]

it makes me sad whenever i see Lestat suggested that Louis was a greater love than Nicki, when Nicki was actually the the truest of his loves. VC literally never had one (1) single wholesome romances, it was literally never a love story, except! of course a romance that occured between two characters when they were still living human. But Nobody could see this because everybody was busy not understanding why Nicki and Lestat's relationship fell apart and why Nicki was mentally ill/depressed.

Honestly it's partially Anne Rice's fault, she made Nicki talked like in abstracts in his break-up scene with Lestat. He was all "your light" and "darkness in my heart" and shit, he spoke like a depressed tolkien character so how is anybody supposed to know what he's talking about. Plus, because Lestat never knew why Nicki was miserable in the first place, he couldn't make the readers understand either. But all the clues are there, it's not hard to piece together the whole picture.

Nicki was the son of a wealthy merchant, despite not being born of aristocrat blood, he lived a life in luxury and was afford the best education. Hell, his family was rich enough that with his allowances Nicki could afford lessons with Mozart. the best of best musicians of his time. Fucking Mozart. He was educated to become a lawyer, a respected member of bourgeois class. Now, Nicki's racial coding is very vague, but he had curly hair and dark skin, which made me wonder if he had Romanian heritage, but that doesn't have to be the case. Either way, to belong with the higher society of French European bourgeois was probably considered a great privilege for Nicki. But then he decided to pursue a career as a violinist and ran away with Lestat to Paris and threw all of that out of the window to live in poverty with Lestat. Now, consider how scandalous what all of that would have looked to his rich Parisian friends and his family, he eloped with his lover (another man) to pursue a doomed career in the arts, can you imagine what sort of vile insults were being said behind his back and into his face? Lestat mentioned that Nicki's friends actually visited Nicki once, and they never even bothered to speak to Lestat. Do you ever wonder why they visited Nicki in the shitty apartment he shared with Lestat? Is it simply social calls? now, life in poverty wasn't that big of a deal with Lestat, since his failure of an aristocrat family wasted most of their family wealth away and they mostly just lived in a shitty broken castle, all title no wealth. Lestat already experienced much hardship in life from a very young age, and doing lowly manual labours to survive isn't that big of a drop in quality of life for him. Of course Lestat loved the luxuries that Bourgeois enjoyed: the frock coat, the pretty jewelries, but frankly he enjoyed those things the way um, a poor gay kid from 1980s dressing up for balls enjoyed jewelries and designer clothes. He was never part of bourgeois class nor had he ever wanted to be part of it, not the way Nicki aspired to actually belong in that society or cared much for high society's rules. Nicki told Lestat once that he enjoyed "sin", at that point in their conversation, they were talking about arts and theatre, so yes im sure "sin" was partially about Lestat's love for low brow arts. However, it was also quite obvious that he was actually talking about their relationship. And yeah honestly it's just Nicki's internalized homophobia talking. I don't think Lestat agreed, probably cause his mom always told him it's not a bad thing to be different and to be "an outsider", but Nicki probably did not have parental figures or friends in his life who taught him to believe in these things.

Yet Nicki was still very much in love with Lestat, Lestat made him very happy. I know what he said in a heat of passion and despair afterwards, but Nicki did not come to Paris cause he harboured some sort of nefarious intentions. He simply believed that being in love with another man was inherently sinful and bad, because you know, internalized homophobia. Being in love with Lestat made him happy, so he believed that the happiness he felt must also be bad and sinful. Basically he felt that being happy is a symptom of moral corruption, he only deserved to be miserable and live in guilt at all times. When Lestat could not understand his pain, it made him feel even more alone and miserable. Yet despite all of that, when Lestat could not understand his perspective, he retracted to himself because he did not want to burden Lestat with his misery. Lestat was with him, and to Nicki, surely he could ignore his own pain a little longer, a little better because of it! Except that of course Lestat would leave him very soon. Lestat soon confided in him that someone was stalking him, and shortly after Lestat went missing and has gone AWOL for months! months! Lestat was told that Nicki was worried sick, and i think in fear and in paranoia and grief, Nicki started to suspect the very worst and most bizzare. Months and months of horrible grief only for Lestat to gift he and their friends a luxurious apartment and their theatre. Nicki felt abandoned, he felt insulted that Lestat thinks material wealth is more important to him than his company. Lestat was the only thing that made life bearable for Nicki, and it broke Nicki's heart that Lestat thought he could have a life without him. So when Lestat came back to him dead and wrong, all Nicki's love in his heart turned into hate, and he lashed out at Lestat. Lestat has made him feel so miserable and alone, so he intended to hurt Lestat back. In fact, at that point his grief and paranoia probably led him to convince himself that Lestat either never loved him or didn't love him anymore. Again, Nicki thought that one person who made life feel like worth living, that one person that gave his life any meaning at all, just didn't want him anymore.

Lestat spent 60 years in a painful relationship with Louis but he had so little self-love that he considered 60 years of pain better than 6 months of bliss. All because what? Nicki coped with being dead and the existential despair that it caused in a very diabolical and theatrical way and Louis coped with being dead by being a spiteful little bitch pretending to be more human than Lestat like it's a competition? idk man at least Nicki actually loved Lestat.