#this song makes my twelve year old nicolas de lenfent muse wake up and start screaming

[ronsenburg]

For Sgarrista, forever ago. Ignore this.

Elements

You show up like a hurricane, all hungry-eyed and weather-stained

The clock forgets to tick and I the same.

I died the day you disappeared, so why would you be welcome here?

Ride the wind that brought you back away

You can't come in.

No, you can’t come in.

Nicolas has become so used to imagining the sight of golden hair glistening in the sunlight as he turns the corner to his flat that he almost doesn’t notice the day he actually arrives. The violinist is already rummaging through his pocket, looking for a set of antique gate keys with his eyes fixed somewhere near the sidewalk, when realization suddenly dawns upon him and he is acutely aware of what he has seen. Nicolas raises his glance slowly, so very carefully, as though looking too quickly will chase the figure before him away.

But he is there, dressed impeccably in a well-cut collared shirt with the top buttons conspicuously undone, long strands of blonde hair curling faintly where they fall over his leather jacket-clad shoulders.

Nicolas stops dead in his tracks.

Lestat removes his sunglasses, elegantly long fingers tucking them away in the inner pocket of his jacket, a confident smile curling along the edges of his full lips. “Nicki,” he says and it sounds like a greeting, an apology, and a command all at once.

Nicolas drops the violin case in his hand, fingers shaking too badly to maintain his grip.

The clasps fail as it tumbles to the ground, bursting open with enough force that the instrument is displaced, the varnished wood glistening between them in the sunlight, bearing witness.

“Nicki,” Lestat repeats as he takes a step forward. His tone is so familiar, amused and full of warmth that Nicolas cannot help the desperate, pained sigh that escapes his lips. “Invite me in.”

He cannot.

Nicolas can barely breathe as he takes in the expectant expression on Lestat’s face, anger rising from deep within him. He turns, fighting the overwhelming feeling of nausea that threatens to overtake him, leaving the violin sprawled on the ground as he hurries away.

  When Nicolas burst through the front doors of Louis’ silent mansion he is seething, hands clenching and unclenching rhythmically at his side. He doesn’t know why he comes, already certain of the answer to every question he wishes to hurl in the other man’s face... but he cannot stay away. Louis stands quickly, crossing the distance of the room in three long strides with a concern that turns Nicolas’ stomach again. He spies Claudia splayed across a chaise on the other side of the room, fingers thumbing through the pages of a magazine with a frustrated disinterest that betrays her.

“He’s back.” Nicolas spits, voice desperately keening and furious all at once. He is already pacing, his feet wearing a pattern into the freshly vacuumed rug of the parlor floor.

Louis stands still in the doorway, hands dropping limply at his sides as though he wishes to reach out to Nicolas but cannot. “I know,” he affirms quietly, and a strangled noise of pain escapes Nicolas’s lips.

“You told him where to find me.”

Louis is too easy to read, the guilt and pain splashed across his face plainly when he replies, “Yes.”

“Is he staying here?”

Louis doesn’t immediately answer and Claudia laughs from the chaise, though the sound is bitter and unkind. “One happy family,” she mocks and Nicolas finds he cannot breathe.

“He won’t stay.” and he is practically shouting, so desperate to make Louis understand.

Louis will not meet his eyes.

“I know.”

  Nicolas returns home far later, the taste of alcohol lingering on his tongue as he stumbles under the piercing lights of the street lamps.

He turns the corner to his apartment with baited breath.

Lestat is gone.

Relief and disappointment and misery and rage wash over him all at once.  

He turns quickly to the edge of the street and is quietly and thoroughly sick.