rebness

And Louder Sing

I was reading this article yesterday and couldn’t help but imagine Lestat as the kind of poor loser it decries. The result is this light-hearted fic. Thanks also to the people at little_details for advice on team killing in videogames.

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David and I have often talked on this: it's an ongoing debate, as it were. My brother is firmly of the opinion that every wretched second of one’s mortal life counts. He points to Armand, deeply intelligent, but with a teenager’s questing; to my beloved Claudia, may she rest in peace - she had the cold, woman’s wrath wrought by vampire nature but the childlike form, the mixed emotions.

David prefers to counter my snort of ‘fledgling’ with expositions on why I can’t understand certain truths about mortality and life that a seventy-year-old man feels entrenched in his brittle bones. For instance, I never looked into a mirror in prolonged horror upon noticing the first crease in the skin around my eye – the first wrinkle in legions.

Too, he points to the tiresomely frequent arguments between me and my maker. To him, they’re not the simple fights of good (me) against pure, malevolent evil (Lestat), but the caterwauling, high-adrenaline lack of acumen and self-restraint so evident in today’s troubled youth.

It is at this point that I usually point out that at twenty-five, I was the master of a plantation, head of the family, an excellent bookkeeper and society gentleman whereas in his seventy-fourth year David’s annual achievement amounted to being published twice in the letters page of The Times, the first extolling the virtues of having a wormery for kitchen waste and the second time to complain about some travellers who had descended on the Cotswolds with their ‘sassy’ attitudes and ‘baffling’ music.

It’s somewhat disconcerting, for Lestat and I do show our real ages sometimes: we sometimes use words antiquated to even David. We too dislike strip lighting, loud cellphone conversations and revisionist history, but sometimes I do wonder if my brother has a point about the inherently different outlook our mortal ages must give us.

For example: David hates ipods. Lestat loves to collect them in every shape and size and colour. He watches obscure European films on them, dances to the most appalling trashy music and downloads everything he can think of so that he has four days’ worth of listening to entertain him should he ever be trapped beneath a house. I have one trusty, good model that pleasingly blocks out the world when I so wish.

Another example: Lestat hates the seventies. I am at a loss to explain exactly why. For David, they are a fond remembrance of change and hope in Britain. For me, it was a decade that, like so many others, rather passed me by whilst I waited for Lestat.

For Lestat, they are a ‘bell-bottomed, wishy-washy, hippiesh, moustachioed, soft-focus nightmare’ that he is glad to have missed by a few years. He is convinced that the modern world as we know it was born in the eighties and that Rubik’s cube, The Vampire Lestat and Back to the Future mark the beginning of this grand adventure, which is rather useful – as it is, he can easily pass for any self-obsessed child of the eighties. This shall of course become a problem in another few years’ time.

This is my latest thought on this topic and I share it with my companions one night in the parlour.

“And you,’ says David, leaning back in his chair, “You can’t think of any little quirks indicative of your own rather immature outlook on the world?”

“Immature, David?”

He smiles. “Let me rephrase that: anything typical of a man in his twenties?”

“He’s an emo ass,” pipes in Lestat.

“Emo?”

I scowl. “Ignore him. He’s just in a bad temper because he’s losing yet again.”

Lestat laughs. “I think you’re wrong, Pointe du Lac. In case of point: Mario is about to kick your goalkeeper through the net.”

Ah, yes. Lestat and his new video game.

I turn back to the game and deftly block his attempts. He huffs and throws himself back onto the couch as I take my turn, blasting his goalkeeper with a shell-shock. Lestat is pounding on his controls as hard as he can, but it makes no difference as my character, with slow, delicious ease, nudges the ball pa—

WELCOME TO THE LOBBY

Your opponent has quit the game

I gape in surprise at the screen, turning to Lestat. He has his arms folded, a defiant smirk plastered across his features.

‘You… what happened?’ I choke.

‘I was bored,’ he says.

‘I was winning!’ I splutter.

‘Not according to the game.’

‘You didn’t let me!’ I throw the control down in helpless, impotent fury. ‘You always do this!’ I cry.

‘Do what!’

I refuse to be cowed. I count his litany of sins off on my fingers, shooting him green hatred as I do so. ‘When we play Grand Theft Auto, the second things start going wrong, you beat me to death with a baseball bat!’

He narrows his eyes. ‘You had one simple task, Louis – to drive the getaway car. And you drove the wrong way!’

‘It was an accident!’

‘You got my guy shot!’ he howls self-righteously. ‘If I’d had my gun right then—‘

I continue: ‘And Halo. We were doing just fine, working as a team. We’d almost made it to the last level when you started pistol-whipping me.’

He sighs. ‘I was bored.’

‘Bored enough to teabag me?’

‘To what?’ interjects David.

‘In the game,' says Lestat quickly. 'It was too tempting.' He turns back to me. ‘You’re just not cut out to play with me, that’s all.’

‘You never give me the chance!’

‘Well, what are you going to do about it?’ he says belligerently.

‘That does it!’ I say, ‘Don’t come near me for a week!’

‘I… beg your pardon?’

‘You heard me.’

‘You’re going to withhold sex from me for a week because you lost a game?’

‘Au contraire! You lost the game!’

‘I don’t recall seeing any words to that effect.’

‘Because you quit!’

‘I slipped!’

‘You quit!’

‘Are you calling me a liar?’

Lestat is really working himself up. I realise, with a sinking feeling, that this is going to go on all night. That’s when David snakes his arm around Lestat’s and asks if they should go hunting now. It’s just a game, after all.

Lestat makes a huge show of disdainfully placing his controller away. He’s just so bored of childish games, he says. Thankfully, David’s there to let him experience the important things in life.

I cast my brother a grateful smile as they leave the room. David turns back at the doorway. ‘Oh, and Louis?’

‘Yes, David?’

‘I think we found your age indicator.’

‘No, it’s not like that,’ I counter, ‘It’s just that Lestat has the marvellous ability to reduce those around him to the same level.’

‘Oh,’ says David, smirking.

‘It was all his fault!’ I snap as he leaves.

***

I’m not given to immature displays, but I lock the door to my room that night.

Lestat is given to immature displays, so I’m not surprised to find him curled up against the following evening. And I do so love him, immaturity and egotism aside. I respond warmly to his kisses and caresses, but when he begins to move further down my body, I push him back gently.

‘What is it?’ he asks.

‘Six more nights,’ I say, moving away from him and off the bed before he can react.

He throws a pillow at me with surprising force. ‘Go rot, Louis. You’ll break before I do!’

***

When I return from my nightly hunt, I find Lestat and David deeply absorbed in a game of chess. I greet them both, but only David answers. I pick up the Dumas novel I had been reading and settle comfortably on the couch near them, accompanying the reading with some gentle Satie on my ipod.

The atmosphere is pleasant and I am soon lost in the story, only vaguely aware of Lestat excusing himself from the game to leave the room for something.

‘Good book?’ asks David.

‘Mm-hmm.’

‘…Good.’

‘Mmm.’

‘I must say,’ he murmurs finally, ‘I think you’re being remarkably immature about this.’

‘This?’

‘The Lestat thing. The blasted game tape.’

‘I have to teach him a lesson, David.’

‘By cutting off your nose to spite your face?’

I shrug as Lestat returns to the parlour, glaring at me. Doubtless, he’s heard every word. ‘I was twenty-five when the brat entered my life,’ I say. ‘Studies show the male libido decreases year-on-year after seventeen. I’ll be all right.’

‘Evidently so does intelligence,’ snarls Lestat.

‘Lestat, enough!’ laughs David good-humouredly. ‘It’s your move, I believe.’

He stares down at the board, then back at David. ‘Did you change the position of some of these players?’

‘No,’ says David, sounding offended, ‘I most assuredly did not.’

‘Louis, did he?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I say, ‘The world’s not always out to get you.’

He scowls. ‘I just think I was in a much better position before and now I return and there are things all around my queen.’

‘Those things were always there, Lestat,’ says David. ‘Or at least they have been since you conveniently sent your knights up to the wrong part of the board.’

‘Hmph.’

‘Anyway, as I said: your turn.’

Lestat considers the board for the longest time. I can’t resist watching him. He looks deep in thought – he is – but I can see that he is agitatedly chewing on one finger. He coughs. He moves forward; pulls back. He hums to himself. He stares at the pieces, at the chequered squares. He is the picture of a gentleman deep in concentration. He looks so devilishly handsome that I want to kiss him, but then I remember my six-night rule.

Eventually, he reaches forward and moves his bishop. He hits each square with solemn, determined precision.

David smiles. ‘Chec—‘

I brace myself, unable to stop the smirk spreading across my face as I hear the chessboard flipped over, the pieces raining upon the floorboards, clattering as David berates Lestat. ‘You’re so childish! For Christ’s sake, Lestat! How can you be so very immature—‘

I return my attention to my book, reach down to my ipod and turn up the sound.

The End.