revivalproject

WHO: Tony, Donatello, Lestat. Let me know if you want one for ✨you✨
WHERE: The agricultural building and the beach
WHAT: Checking up after a couple of different traumatic events.
WHEN: July
WARNINGS: Lestat, there will be blood. Might be following up on any relevant Calibrations traumas with Donnie.

a. greenhouse [for Donnie]
It was even hotter inside the glass building. There was a dark cloud on the horizon that Tony looked to with longing, willing to weather whatever nuclear-level storm this planet could fabricate for them for a little rain to cool down the shimmering street, only to decide once inside that humidity was actually exponentially worse. DATA was entirely unconcerned, tapping away on his spindly legs down the aisle and brushing through the lush greenery that practically burst out of every bed on either side of them. The robot didn't have to struggle through a thick breath of dense air. He wasn't waiting for Tony to keep up, either, and rounded a corner into the thicket while Tony tugged at his cuffs to push them impatiently up his already damp arms, where there wasn't even a breeze anymore to cool them.

"Hey," Tony complained, but was already alone and released all of that pressure in a sigh with a droop of his shoulders instead of the argument he had puffed up with for being abandoned. He didn't want to spend any longer in here than he needed to, and definitely not wandering around lost, so he had to muster the willpower to jog after DATA before he had entirely disappeared. He was the one that knew where Donnie was.

Tony hadn't properly warned the kid about what that tunnel really was, and even a month spent scavenging berries was preferable to being stuck in that nightmare. He might have been a little thin and bruised, but at least Tony had gotten a tan. In his time since being violently deposited back at the fountain, a few anxious days prodding around the tunnel did mean a lot of time for Tony to have designed a new suit that may have had something to do with the boots swinging from his hand. Tony might not have deserved forgiveness, but Donnie did deserve a little freedom.

b. waterfront [for Lestat]
The arguments in favour of becoming nocturnal were mounting. Not that Tony was getting much sleep at any time of day, but he could see the benefits of being completely unconscious through the height of the relentless sun and only coming out of wherever Lestat was storing himself in the relative cool of the night. The raucous birdcall wasn't as pervasive, either, leaving the beach clear and attuned to the meditative lap of the water that slipped away from the sand silently. Not that Tony was very good at meditating, either. Or waiting. He filled that gap with his own voice then, sometimes mumbled, sometimes snatches of song, up toward the stars as his hands worked just as busily at nothing just over his stomach, fingers tapping at the air as though he sat at a keyboard rather than sprawled on his back in the sand where he could dig his toes into the cooler layers below. When the noise he made wasn't quite enough to drown out his own doubts, it would get quieter still, fading out into occasional mutters if he wasn't biting his lip, until an idea was distracting enough that he wasn't consumed with the crushing weight of its ultimate worthlessness. They were all stored on the servers back in the library, anyway, blueprints and equations or more ephemeral sketches for Tony to sort through when he returned to the workshop, maybe find something that Jon could make an approving noise at.

While he worked, his head was pillowed on his silk jacket, shoes abandoned beside him, one of them holding down the corner of the blanket where a basket and small box waited. In the stillness between each wave, while the water seemed to hold its breath, he could still sometimes smell the sticky sweetness from the picnic, reminding him every time to check his messages in the back of his mind as though he could miss a notification. Two more minutes, if Lestat didn't show, Tony would leave, and no one had to know he had been tricked into wasting his time out here. He could have been wasting his time at home.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That drew a very real- if surprised- grin, a sentiment Lestat could honestly appreciate.

"They do," he acknowledged "Eternal life...youth...power. One of those usually appeals." He fixed Tony with a look as though he were studying him, "Freedom?" he broached, "If you're chasing death down I can deliver it. And release you from all those mortal worries that weigh you down."

That study might have revealed a tick of interest in Tony's face for power, his eyes narrowing and head tilting with his own scrutiny, shamelessly searching down Lestat's full height like he could see what that power meant just by looking. Freedom almost made him laugh, a short, sharp breath and brief smile before he was quick to dissuade, "I'm not worried, I'm very light, I'm doing really well, actually, thanks, so..." On paper, that was true. Which was a frustrating enough reminder that Tony had to continue talking to shove that out of his chest, "You can't go outside. Or eat grilled cheese. I don't know how free that sounds."

"I'm outside now," Lestat pointed out with a glance around them, "And I *can*," he added, though with how his nose wrinkled with distaste it didn't seem like it was a pleasant experience.

"It's your choice, of course," he dismissed, "I haven't had much success with my fledglings, so perhaps it is for the best."

This was easily the strangest vampire Tony had spoken to. It really did seem like an open offer that Lestat was making, instead of the brutal, parasitic way the covens of New York grew. It left Tony studying him again skeptically, lips parted and not sure what to say and eyes narrowed, until he had to breathe a laugh and press, "Fledglings?"

He didn't like being laughed at, smile growing tight.

"Well what would you call it then? You seem familiar enough with vampires, and still surprised with half the things I say. What do you call a young vampire then?"

It wasn't something that Tony ever had reason to think about, and even thinking now he didn't look convinced that there should have been particular language for it, and certainly nothing so evocative of birds. "I don't know--vampire," he produced. "I don't think I've ever met one that cared much about what happened after they turned someone, definitely not enough to consider how 'successful' it was. And if they can turn into anything, it's bats, not birds. I've never looked that close, I guess."

That...tracked with his own maker at least, something which helped bolster Lestat's feeling that he was a kinder maker to Louis and Claudia than he really was at times.

"It can be applied to bats as well," he noted absently. Not that he could turn into one. "I suppose some might turn others more indiscriminately."

"You wouldn't do that," Tony had to clarify, hand out flat to level this exchange, because he still wasn't entirely sure what he was dealing with. Lestat didn't make it sound like his experience with vampires was wrong, and it was Lestat that was somehow set apart from them. "But you do think it's ideal, to be a vampire." That seemed pretty in line with how Tony thought vampires would behave, and he could understand the logic in turning vampires 'more indiscriminately' in that case.

"Mm," Lestat shook his head with an appraising smile, "No. I give most humans as much thought as you might give a pig or a cow. There's only a few that are worth my attention, and fewer still I think would be ideal companions."

The logic made sense in a vacuum, Tony could understand that there weren't a whole lot of pigs that he would count as friends, but they were very much not in a vacuum and Tony flipped his hand open to give Lestat the chance to revise this explanation before he was charging in anyway, "I don't have a lot of conversations with pigs." They shared a language and a culture, and Tony did not have the power to turn a pig into a man; it was not comparable. "And I don't think I'd consider most people 'ideal companions', either. That's just...that's really normal, to only trust a few people."

"And if you could, would it make any difference? They're smart creatures. Emotional. And knowing this, humans still choose to eat them." That wasn't really the point Lestat cared to make though, and he shrugged a shoulder dismissively.

"I've turned exactly three people in my time, one by choice, and two by necessity. It's not a matter I take lightly."

Lestat went on as though he expected a different answer, but Tony very confidently and immediately replied, "Yes," and looked baffled that there could have been an alternative. In the variety of life on Earth and beyond it, there had to be some distinction between society and animals, and being able to pursue a conversation had so far been a rational one. "Is that what this is, necessity?" Without a coven then, if Lestat felt like he was surrounded by animals, the future here must have felt very lonely.

Lestat didn't look convinced but didn't argue. It wasn't a moral judgement. Everything needed to eat. Nothing wanted to be eaten. Whether they could communicate that to one another didn't really matter much.

"Mm..." he nodded a head in allowance, "Mostly."

"Okay, well, listen, I'm not used to being someone's last call desperation pick, I'm already on to the afterparty, so you're really not selling the appeal here," Tony said, shifting in the sand so he could look out at the water and not at the guy who thought he was a pet worth teaching a new trick. "It might be worth a shift in perspective. You're on a new planet, where we're learning new rules every day. You've got Lark, you've got Jon--he's just--give him time, you'll love him."

The ruffled feathers seemed to amuse Lestat, who didn't shift his gaze from the man as he looked away.

"Somehow I doubt that," he said with a smirk, in regards to coming around on Jon. "But I'm sure the feeling is mutual."

Wilt

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