revivalproject | Venez à Moi

Entry tags:

Venez à Moi

Who: Lestat de Lioncourt, Open
What: Arrival
Where: Temba
When: End of month (during calibrations, so limited to those who are outside atm)
Warnings: Blood, vomiting, violence, Please reply to Opt IN/OUT" post

Even Lestat's hyper acute senses couldn't quite catch where the change had happened. One moment he was facing down the ultimate betrayal, and the next he was outside in some utterly unfamiliar and strange looking place, Loius, Claudia and Antoinette no where to be found. He couldn't smell a trace of them on the air- air that was thankfully dark, he realized- looking up at the strange stars with a snarl. His insides churned, and vomited up more blood, looking quite the bloody mess. Despite this and all the more pressing issues, his eyes landed on a strange...orb, and he staggered towards the thing with purpose. He could feel the hold it had over him, but couldn't fight the urge, hissing at the orb or whatever force was inside his mind, before surrendering to the compulsion to touch the thing. It spoke all sorts of things to him, and when he finally pulled back with wide eyes he was panting, feeling weak and vulnerable in a way he hadn't experienced in a very long time.

The poison in his veins distracted him from any further thoughts into the 'how and why' of things, doubling over to empty up more blood from his stomach, crawling along the ground and trying to scent out a source of blood- any blood- that wasn't his own.

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"Putain de bordel de merde!" Lestat hissed in frustration, and leveled a glare at the man, "You think I did this to myself??" he snapped pointedly, slapping the water and pushing unsteadily to his feet.

"You. You have some sort of magic-"

What the guy did or didn't do to himself was his own business. It was the biting and clawing and then topping it off with insults like magic that had Tony widening his eyes and glancing around like there was anyone else in this city that could explain what he had done to deserve this now. It couldn't have been that hard to come up with something, there was a pretty substantial list of transgressions he had to answer for. "Me?" he demanded, more offended than by the physical aggression, which maybe he should be dealing with by at least pressing one hand to the torn skin of his neck. "This is 100% science, baby," maybe didn't deserve to be declared with so much pride when that all natural, no hexes body was bleeding out. "If you're looking for a magic snack, you could have just asked, I might know a guy."

"You did this to me-!" Lestat growled, magic- science, he doesn't care which. He tried to lunge for the man with that inhuman speed, shoes catching on the slick bottom of the fountain and he fell with a rather violent splash, cursing loudly.

Maybe he meant the blood that was all over him, that did seem like something Tony might have done, but before Tony could ask any illuminating questions the guy was throwing himself back into he water. That one kind of looked like it hurt, and after moment of hazily staring at this new development as the water sloshed over the stones, Tony tried to gather himself as quickly as possible to crawl closer again and make sure Louis the Fourteeth hadn't cracked his own head open. "Hey, hey," he encouraged, free hand out to search for a way to help keep the guy's head up out of the water, "If I promise not to laugh, will you stop biting me?"

Utterly humiliated, if Lestat had been at full strength he would have torn the man to shreds by now and left his viscera floating in the damned fountain. As it was he still planned to kill him eventually, bearing his teeth but very reluctantly grabbing onto that arm for a hand out of the water.

"...I need to get inside."

"Uh-huh, okay," Tony muttered, mostly just to hear himself as he struggled to dredge up more words through the effort of clambering to his feet and hauling the man out of the fountain, equal parts helping pull and using him as leverage. When he came out in a flood, drenched clothes spreading water across the square swirling with mud and blood, Tony crashed against his shoulder to sling an arm around him, keeping his other hand pressed against his bleeding throat. Inside was, in itself, not a terribly difficult proposition; they were rich with options. As close as it was, though, they couldn't go to the library, not like this. Besides, Tony rationalized, the more immediate option was the hotel, that was logical, that was efficient, Lark had needles in there.

"You have to admit," Tony started as he gave a tug toward the tower, "it was, listen, if you had seen it, you would still be laughing, I've never experienced this kind of self-control. It's not really my thing, historically."

The vampire seemed almost hypnotized by that tantalizing throat, so close, blood dancing in the air just waiting. But he didn't want another dip in the fountain just yet, forcing restraint as he did his best to walk. The bit of blood he's drunk has helped a little, just enough that he can muster some strength to move towards this towering ruin.

"It will be your thing if you want to remain standing," he warned drying, gesturing up towards the hotel, "Is this...a church of some kind?"

Muttered and clearly not expecting an answer, Tony grumbled, "Hey, who's keeping who up? Big words for the guy in the middle of a bender. I found you in a fountain," though it wasn't so easily discernible just who was more steady on their feet as Tony led them across the square.

The question had him squinting up at the hotel, trying to see it from the angle that gave it some kind of holy polish, and couldn't make the connection. Someone was going to have to explain that to him some day. "Why, you gonna melt?" he teased, and tossed his head in lieu of flapping his occupied hands. Maybe it was a little soon to be making vampire jokes. "It's just a hotel. Somewhere to get you cleaned up, sleep it off."

A hotel. A grand one then, it's in prime. Though everything here was so tall. Maybe these people had prospered beyond any of the civilizations Lestat had viewed in his lifetime.

"Like in that foolish novel?" he asked, scoffing. Such strange ideas he had put out into the world.

Those kind of connections were very easy and loose when you were drunk, and very baffling when horrifically sober, and left Tony furrowing his brow and trying to figure out which singular novel to hit the presses ever had a hotel in it. Or maybe just the kind of hotel that one slept in. Ridiculous.

"Yeah, sure, sweetheart, we're living the fantasy," he encouraged, bundling them into the lobby where he had to linger unsteadily for a moment as he tried asking DATA where exactly Lark's room and thread were. Wordlessly, he was tipping his head back, squinting at the ceiling like he could see through it as the whole structure was mapped for him. Abruptly, he announced, "This way," dragging the man along again with impatience, like he hadn't been the one to slow them, only to slow his step again with a tugging at the other man's shirt to give him the time to insist, "And--keep your voice down." Feeling like he needed a convincing reason for this mandate, and provided with the untarnished materials of someone who didn't appear to know what a hotel was, he produced, "They'll arrest us for being in here."

The man seemed to be having some kind of...fit, staring off like he could see through stone, and Lestat found himself wondering if he ought to try again. Tony's saved a third attempt on his life for now with that abrupt and assured announcement, the vampire looking unimpressed with the threat of being arrested until he remembered his current state. It might not end well.

"Our captors?" he asked in a hushed voice.

As man and vampire make their way to Lark's room, a feeling settles over the building. A feeling that may still be familiar to Tony even if not in this particularly oppressive density. It is of course the feeling of being watched. Heavy and concentrated on Tony and the toothy newcomer.

That Tony has managed to stumble over someone willing to hurt him without hesitation doesn't really surprise Jon anymore. But he is determined to have some stern words with both as he makes his way over to the hotel purposefully and enters the building. The faint, yet steadily increasing crackles of static may give his presence away, but the Archivist has never been known to be stealthy anyway. And at least for Tony it's a fair warning to get his excuses sorted out ahead of time.

Already getting paranoid about being caught looking this vulnerable, Tony tried to dismiss and repress that crawling feeling that had the hair on the back of his neck standing up. He hurried them on, resolutely looking ahead and not at every lurking shadow, dragging the drunk along to Lark's door. It was only when Tony's resolve broke and he looked over his shoulder for those eyes he could feel boring into his back that he accepted this might not be an entirely self-made anxiety. Maybe that crackling in his ears wasn't from the hunger.

Excuses were not going to be as effective as looking very in control, so with a sharp breath he pressed his ear to the door like he meant to listen for any movement, but the only thing he could hear was the hammering of his own heart and that hiss in the air. Maybe that was why his hand shook when he finally took it away from his neck, too, and the blood that he smeared on the door handle was incidental as he practically shouldered the door down in his rush to get in and buy them some time. "Yeah, they're coming," he breathed, feeling his way through the dark to deposit the man in a chair and free him to plan his convincing presentation.

Extremis was back online. A glint of gold slithered up his neck, smoothing over his skin and polishing away every bruise under the nanoweb. Good start.

The hell was happening? Lestat hadn't felt this sort of foreboding presence since his mortal life when he was being stalked in the shadows before his kidnapping. He tried to reach out with his mind, that strange static making him wince and scowl as his eyes darted about.

He hardly understood when exactly he came to be deposited in this chair, or where they were, watching that gold slide over his would be snack with fascinated eyes.

"What is this?" he demands in a soft hiss, and he could be referring to some many things in that moment.

While Jon isn't actively hurrying to catch up to the two, his pace is still one of determination. Lark will need a better lock to prevent further breeches into her private space in the future. And Jon has no intentions of withholding these information to her.

But that's for later. Now? He makes his way up himself, approaches the door and- Knocks politely.

"A hotel, I told you," Tony whispered back, like this was the standard hotel hospitality package, including the way he snatched a pillow from behind the man roughly to have something to start wiping blood on. He could pay to replace that later. It might not have been an entirely effective tool, Tony couldn't really see in the dark or keep his hands very steady anymore, but he went from trying to dab at the claw marks opening his cheek to the mess the blond man had made of himself as he continued, "I'll get you some water, don't move, don't even say anything, everything's fine, this is very normal--"

The knock had him freezing, clutching the ruined pillow and staring blindly toward the door. Then he flung the pillow away like he could hide the evidence, which clearly knocked something over in the dark, and his instinct to cover the ensuing thump and clatter was to call, "Just a minute!" Which was clearly stupid, and he turned back toward the biting man with a grimace and hands up as though to ask why he did that.

Moments later, after a deep breath and grit teeth, the light from the hall was spilling into the room as Tony swung the door open in one determined move, then almost passed out. The mounting dread was broken briefly like it was cleansed by that dazzling light, and Tony's relief to see Jon's perfectly unimpressed frown had a smile softening the knit of his own brow before he realized his vision wasn't really clearing, and his heart was still pounding, and the incredibly casual lean he meant to drop against the doorframe became heavy and loadbearing, and crossing his arms became more of a hug around himself to painfully squeeze the disarming smile out of a dry well. There was a lot more he meant to say, he was pretty sure, and it all came out as, "Darling."

Oh dear, that's a lot of noise. And it leads immediately to baying of a dog on the other side of another door in the room Tony brought Lestat to. Little Bear was awake, and with his wakening... Well, moments later the door was opening, spilling more light into the room from a second angle. An older woman in a dressing robe, slippers, and a look of annoyance, looked into the room.

"Tony?" she asks because she sees him first, and then past him, "Jon? Mila bless, why are you all in my work room at this hour?"

And that's when she notices the other person.

"And who have you brought? I hope you all intend to clean up after yourselves."

Very normal. Clearly. Lestat huffed in his chair as Tony fussed, that strange feeling growing worse, and then there's a knock. And whatever it is on the other side of the door, it prompted a hiss from the vampire once Tony had opened to door to it.

And then of course there came the barking. Animals never did take well to his kind. And they must have made quite the sight, a mess of blood between them, Lestat's fangs bared towards the door. It was a chaotic scene.

"*C'est quoi ce bordel?!" he demanded.

(*What the fuck?!)

Jon's eyes remain locked with Tony's while the dog begins to bark and Lark joins the scene. He raises a brow at Tony, then casts a nod in Lark's direction. A mixture of greeting and apology.

"I would also like to know why you are bringing a vampire to Lark's private space, Tony." He says at last. His voice is measured and controlled, the faint crackling of static rippling through the reality of the place more a warning to the supernatural being that already displayed its intentions. Jon points up at the covered wound on Tony's neck. "And that needs to get disinfected."

He barely finishes those words when his eyes dart over to Lestat, causing the oppressive sensation of being opened up and put on display to increase greatly.

It felt like Tony should have already known, "You have a dog?" Maybe that wasn't very important right now. Maybe five minutes ago, when Tony thought he could sneak into Lark's space. Without being perceived by the god of perception. Tony's focus dragged back to him in time to catch that accusatory brow, leaving Tony's mouth open without a good apology yet ready. The blond man was not helping, and Tony had to unweld a hand from its tight wrap around his chest to try a sharp, quieting gesture behind his back, even as he complained, "You have to stop accusing people of being vampires, we'll introduce you to some real vampires some day, I promise."

As discreetly as he could manage, he kept his weight against the doorframe as he rolled over to better turn toward Lark, because that seemed like a fine enough segue to introduce...His one freed hand hung in the air, fingers splayed toward the hissing guy with the big teeth covered in blood who bit him, and he frowned, tongue to his own teeth. "What did you say your name was?" he asked, like their introduction had all been perfectly polite and Tony had more apologies to make for being so forgetful. In his defence, he was starting to forget how to keep his knees locked, too.

"Language," Lark says reflexively when Lestat curses. That's just not appropriate, especially given the mess he's made of her space. She returns a gracious nod to Jon and then sweeps into the room with all of her serene grace to open a cedar box. Though not before closing the door to shut said dog out. Which earns more barking and whimpers because Little Bear is NOT OKAY with leaving Lark near such danger.

She does not see it as danger though. She can feel Jon being... testy. She figures that has to do with the state Tony is in.

"Yes, Tony, I have a dog, and come here," she directs him. "I haven't delivered the latest batch of spelled cloth to the hospital yet with all of our healers out. I should get one over wherever you're bleeding from. Your poorly tempered guest can wait. Jon, would you be a dear, there's a chair just in the corner here, would you bring it over?"

Yes, Lestat has clearly behaved poorly enough to earn being ignored until someone she cared about was addressed first.

That sensation makes Lestat's hair stand on end, exposed and vulnerable and were he at full strength he might have darted away with that inhuman speed, or pinned this...being to the wall with his inhuman strength and torn his throat out for daring to turn that eye on him. But weakened and still poisoned, Lestat was rooted to the spot, glowering back the thing in the doorway. Whatever it was, he was sure it wasn't human.

He didn't understand why Tony tried so hard to smooth things over. Perhaps it was out of fear this thing held over him, and he couldn't help a dry smirk. "...Lestat," he supplied graciously.

He arched a brow at the woman and he admonishment, but seemed far more insult by her ignoring his presence after that moment than anything.

“Listen to her, Tony. You are about to fall over.” Jon grumbles, his attention shifting back to the wounded man and he places a flat hand between his shoulder blades to gently but firmly push him in Lark’s direction so he can step past and fetch the requested chair.

“The entire hospital staff has been pulled away to the Calibrations area. Your timing is impeccable as always.” But at least he is back in the city. Which Jon feels glad about despite everything. Tony being here with his mess at least means Jon can deal with it properly. He can be useful and help. As much as he has become a being of observing, Jon prefers having a more active part.

The reason they were here was to make use of Lark's tools, though there were a lot more eyes on them now than Tony was hoping for and he hung back reluctantly long enough to startle anxiously at the touch to his back. Ideally, he could sink back into it, he would be floorshow new if he could just rest his head on Jon's shoulder for one second. Instead, he pinched his own ribs to drag away from that touch before it could linger, forcing him to actually do as he was told in the limited space and options. The stubborn out would be going nearer to the new man instead, whom Tony was increasingly sure might have actually been a vampire. Tony splayed a hand with widened eyes as he passed as though to ask why Lestat would not have just told him this before they were in this mess.

"Pleasure to see you, as ever, sweetheart," he mumbled as he came unsteadily alongside Lark, realizing he should maybe get a little politeness in because he was about to continue seamlessly with his hand out and without much room for patience, "Some thread, and a needle, too, please, thanks, bill me."

"And why could you need those at this hour and not just ask me, Tony?"

She gives Jon a grateful smile and continues to pointedly ignore Lestat. Tony wasn't bloody for nothing, and she expects this stranger is correct. Then her hands open the cedar chest and she brings out a roll of cloth. She takes it to Tony and gestures for his neck.

"Sit there my dear, and bare your neck for me. The bandaging will help it seal better and reduce infections."

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I hope this is okay.

👁

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