𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐖𝐎
for whom the bell tolls'

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LESTAT WATCHED A RIBBON OF RED RISE ABOVE THE COURTYARD, IT'S SPINE OF FABRIC TWISTING IN A RIVERLIKE FLOW AGAINST THE CURRENTS OF THE AIR. He trekked it as it dipped low and disappeared into the mass of humans, camouflaging against the red they wore. Lestat's eyes darted between each individual, taking in their ignorance and excitement, the way their saliva gleamed against the plastic fangs they wore, the sweat on their brows and the flush of their cheeks.

In moments like this, he was often reminded of his preceding humanity. Of when there was blood in his veins, a certain dryness to his palms and a constant, innate awareness of being prey. Long gone were the days stinking of fear and submission, now his existence belonged to stalking one's shadows and flaring up the fight or flight of his former species, of fixating on the fragility of their breath, ignoring the pangs of loss in their still chest.

A morbid sector of him found it humorous, that despite glaring differences, mortals and immortals were bred from the same Monster, born from the same Mother and suckled from the same teat. Both were capable of committing familiar atrocities. Yet, every version of the narrative ends with the mortal under the jaws of the immortal. A skull concaved in, its gore dripping from a stone. Cain and Abel, vampire and human, predator and prey.

Lestat cocks his head at the human woman standing behind a highly polished mahogany desk, eyeing the thin film of perfume slicking to the nape of her neck and inner wrists. Her pulse strikes a rhythm of tension that she strives to mask, manicured nails clanking over a keyboard under the pretence of being busy. Gianna, the name tag reads, a name he lets roll off his tongue placidly as he approaches the desk, a pale hand reaching up to unclasp the cloak around his shoulders, "I am Reverend De Luca. I don't believe we have met?" He drapes his cloak over his arm, slanting her a cordial smile.

He assesses how her shoulders loosen in relief, her smile mellowing as she sights his ornate robes, and the rosary around his slender neck, as if the sign of his faith was a definitive reason to trust. As if something within himself wasn't divinely wrong, the lack of normalcy that shrouded him wasn't anything but frightening. From his sable hair to the lack of white in his eyes, that flickered around her face, intrinsically seeking out the faintest murmurs of life beneath dark skin. Near fanatic, bordering on fanatic. Instinctively, he swallows venom.

"Pleasure to meet you," Gianna begins, moving her body gracefully to face him. Bright green eyes respectfully take him in, as if she were placing him into a tier, whether he was principally a sheep or a wolf, or a mutated version of both. A perilous game to play within Volturi walls. "I've been recently employed under Signore Aro, around a month."

"Ah," Lestat mused, "My work is in the San Gimignano, it is not often I come by Volterra. Only when called upon." Like a mutt scampering back to its Master, salivating at the feeling of finding a home within cracked ribs. Licking the sweat soaked leather clean. An iron-thorned voice mocked in the back of his mind. He maintains his thoughtful expression, "Do come to visit, dear Gianna."

"There you are," A familiar voice effuses, light and leaden with exasperation, "The Master's having been waiting."

A pale hand snakes under and weaves around his bicep, elegant fingers digging into the black robes, scrunching up the delicate silk pattern that blossoms over the fabric like vessels. Lestat slanted Corin a mild look, but the mirth in his dark eyes was unmistakable. His pale hand comes to gently rest over hers, fingers slotting in the divots of her knuckles. "Apologies Corin. I was telling Gianna about home."

"Nonsense, you are home," Corin responds, without a hitch.

An indescribable expression crosses her delicate features. She glides him with a weighted look and Lestat doesn't miss the ethereality that begins to knit across his subconscious. Her grip tightens, a thumb brushing over the silken pattern and his face dips down, nose cresting along her hairline. She smells of incense, blood and something almost clinical. She smelt of his sanctuary, of indecipherable yearning. His lips met her ear, his breath ruffling her brown curls as he whispered, "I would have you remove your claws."

After a moment's deliberation, Corin's face inclines to him, sheepish crimson eyes meeting his flared ones. He breathes outward sharply and taps his index finger between her brows, "I thought you knew better." The warning was clear, cloying over his words like stifling mugginess. The feeling trickled from him, leaving a sense of emptiness behind. If he rapt his fists against his chest, he was certain he would hear a wretched echo.

Turning back to Gianna, she doesn't miss the look of discomfort at the exchange between the two of them. "My San Gimignano is charming in the Spring. It would gladden me to see you there."

Gianna only gives a wavering smile.

Corin spun on her heels, her sundress weaving around her thighs as she maneuvered him down the ornate hall. The short walk to the cavernous room was spent in a charged silence. Corin never removed her hand and Lestat's fingers dug into hers. Their hands' carapaces into which mutual destruction rests on the surface like an undomesticated beast, shielding a softness that had long become stale. Two sides of the same vile coin submerged in heat, melting down to mould into a refuge for their dark tenderness and manipulation. A tithe, a tenth of their efforts for complete complacency.

"You are hungry." Corin hums contemplatively, her thumb cresting over his bicep as if soothing a skittish stray, "It took you longer to throw me off. You're becoming rusty."

"Must you always greet me with ulterior motives?" Lestat's tone was almost upset. He narrows his eyes in irritation, a hard gleam in darkened irises. "Has Volturi hospitality been forgotten?"

"We are simply preparing you."

"I am in no danger. Rest."

"Without us you are. You're barely feeding-"

"Corin." Her name is darkened between his pursed lips, "Enough."

She brings her free hand up to the baroque panelling and slides it aside to reveal a familiar wooden door that would lead to a familiar antechamber. She pauses for a moment, sending him a flat look that held a weight that seemed to buckle under the pressure of her silence. As if the intensity of these questions would cripple her, snap the daintiness of her shoulders.

Pressing a disarming kiss to her forehead, he murmurs against her skin, "This is not for you to fret over."

Corin was the first to step back. She refuses to respond, nodding briskly as she exits through the doorframe, leaving Lestat to ponder the disastrous calamities the afternoon might hold.

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Lestat feels his transcendent touch upon his throat, the Nephilim's thumb traces the crack in the porcelain. His nail seems to dig into the fissure, an attempt to carve out the fragility, dip his talons into the endless emptiness and whisper his verses so that echo would rebound. Lestat would feel the vibrations behind his teeth for a millennia.

He turns his head, observing as the Spring light wanders through the panels in the ceiling, illuminating the Nephilim's cheekbones and his wingless shoulders clad in a black robe. Aro's incarnadine eyes are jarring, a contradiction to his touch that still whispers over his neck, fingers spanning to overlap his jaw. Phantom pains erupt and Lestat barely holds back a hiss.

"Ah, you've finally returned, il mio Santo." A quiet triumph floods his alluring features, his lips parting. "Like the prodigal son." The mania in his eyes speaks volumes about his true thoughts, of the ire he wrought simply from dwelling outside Volterra. Aro's thumb swipes over his neck once more, intensifying the action.

"You called." Lestat murmurs, keeping the raw edges from his otherwise reverent tone. He turns his body so Aro isn't pressed against his back and tilts his head to chastely kiss the vampire's algid cheek. He doesn't miss Aro's fingers loosening to allow the movement or the way they weave tighter once settled, like a snake wound around its prey. "How can I be of service, Master?"

"Nonsense, I didn't call upon you for business, Lestat," Aro muses in a hint of amusement, mania slipping away to make the path for an ill-tinged softness, "It's been too long. You must be starving." Aro's hand travels up, cradling the length of Lestat's face as his thumbs rest amongst the divots beneath his eyes, caressing the shadows that lingered there. "It pains me to see you withhold from the fruits so...graciously given."

"Over-indulgence leads to overt reliance." Lestat's dark hair tumbles off his shoulders as he shifts backwards breaking their contact. Lestat ignores the way his skin tingles, like tiny pinpricks. A part of him expects Aro to yank him back, like an owner to a disobedient dog, but Aro only allows his hands to hover in the open air for a second before he clasps them together, bringing them to his curved lips.

"Such little faith," Aro rasps, head cocked inquisitively. "Pride is a vice too il mio Santo, although I am to believe not as severe as gluttony?"

Lestat swallowed back his retort and replied with a languid hum, "Our vices can be ambitious."

Aro's lips begin to shift into something almost uncanny behind his hands. Face splitting to reveal the beast that prowled beneath his surface, a nuanced danger in captivity, pawing at the iron bars. An all too familiar expression, one that Lestat had learnt meant that he'd garnered the attention of Aro - an awareness he vowed to never fall underneath again.

The sound of ungainly footsteps echoing causes everyone's heads to snap in the direction of Jane, who leads a small party into the antechamber. The effect was immediate, there was no ignoring her. Aro surges forward, a morbid excitement emanating from him. Lestat took the opportunity to hover back and carefully observe Edward's near-feral angst.

The bronzed vampire's arm was a band around the human's waist, practically fusing her into his side. The once sullen vampire in his office was long gone, replaced by a creature who knew running was futile. That the hollow beat in his heart was potentially the only driving force in preventing the agony that would carve into her pale flesh.

Felix peels off and disappears down the hall and Lestat fights the urge to join. It was inevitable how this interaction would pan out. For all of Aro's aristocracy and fine breeding, the innate urge to play with food never quite lulls. A sombre instinct to feel the rattled bones crumble under pressure and the stench of despair to cling to one's throat like phlegm, it was almost addictive. A pack mindset, a hunting strategy. Lestat has long since gone rogue.

Instead, he drifts to dwell near the wooden thrones near the edge of the spacious room. Tilting his chin up, he observes the tendrils of white rays beam through the windows that spanned the circumference of the ceiling, dappling the stone floor. The undulating pleats of light reflected off his kin's skin, a kaleidoscope of colour that would've been captivating without the tension grappling the air.

"My friend," A euphonious voice rasps from to his left before a companionable pressure settles on his shoulder. Marcus's mellow face greets him when he turns, crimson eyes dull but a spark of pleasure curls around his irises, smothering the melancholy that claws at the surface. "It gladdens me to see you."

"Likewise." Lestat breathes out and turns from the windows, sliding into place next to Marcus's throne, mindful of Corin, who watches the exchange with satisfaction. Marcus's dark head tilts to Lestat, his lips pursed, but the question rings loud. Lestat only hums in response, his blackened pupils watching as the human girl looks in their direction, apprehension rolling off her in waves, heightening her fragrant scent. "She is a lamb."

"A lamb to the slaughter," Marcus somnolently added, his posture slackening in his throne as if all strength had left his body. His body angles towards Lestat, whether consciously, and Lestat busies himself with removing the leather glove that encased his left hand. Pale fingers settle on Marcus's wrist, and Lestat allows the sensations to broil within. Warmth, unfiltered heat spanning across hedonic processing. A sigh of honest relief leaves Marcus's lips, "Prophetic."

Lestat doesn't bring it up nor dwells on Caius's disapproving glare. He filters out Aro's enthusiastic conversations and lets his mind wander. Carefully blank, an empty canvas. Adrift in the simplistic tides of his thoughts, buoyed by Marcus's fingers slanting through his, cresting along the familiar waves of duty. Yet the storm on the horizon commands submission, and soon the salt embeds within his molars, stinging fresh cuts and crystalising on the palate.

"Il mio Santo?"

Aro's voice pulls him from his musing. He watches with a level stare as Aro holds out an inviting hand in his direction, fingers curling towards his palm marginally, a non-verbal sign for him to come. With a slight inclining of his head, Lestat uncurls his fingers from Marcus's and glides over to the patriarch of the Volturi. He feels the group's eyes on him, the female human's one notably. When he drags his blank gaze to hers, her cautious interest drops into nervousness. Sacrificial lamb, perhaps we are kindred souls.

"Master?" Lestat asks, voice low and notes the fleeting triumph in Aro's expression.

"Our friends here are members of the Cullen coven," Aro appraises him with an intense stare, "You would agree that young Edward here puts Carlisle to shame? Sweet Isabella, la tua cantante."

"Carlisle was always a patient teacher," Lestat reassures, "It is no surprise Edward has blossomed under his guidance." Edward's eyes flash impatiently as if he were tired of the preliminaries. Lestat slants him with a reassuring smile and looks towards the human girl. The desire to soothe her fears, release the tension that wound around her shoulders, like a clockwork dancer, twists until she sings a sweet tune. Her fear stunk, bubbling her blood.

Swallowing the venom flooding his mouth, he observes when Aro surges forward and clasps Isabella's fragile hand in his, smoothing his hands over the dips of her delicate wrists. His delight quickly flattens into incredulity before transforming into a serpentine friendliness. Calculating eyes flit over Jane and Lestat is quick to act. Edward's snarl rebounded off the walls as Lestat felt the human's softness beneath his palm.

Her pulse thundered beneath her fragile skin, the vibrations ricocheting off his porcelain skin. He brought her closer, wrapping an arm around her front, locking her tight to him before murmuring against the shell of her ear, "Breathe," Isabella's frantic screaming at Edward's painful contorting against the marble floors caused him to smooth a hand down her bicep in reassurance, "Isabella, the longer you resist, the more entertaining it becomes. Breathe, it will be over soon."

He registers the pixie-like vampire flit over to Edward's writhing body, a thunderous expression pinches her delicate features. Aro's delight never wavers, only intensifying when Jane's pleasant expression shifts to the twitching human in his arms, cruel amusement crackling like flames.

Imperceptibly Lestat draws her even closer and smooths two fingers onto her small chin. Knees slightly bending, he prepares to lower her at the first violent twitch of pain, and then shove his fingers between her teeth to prevent her from tearing through her tongue. He sees Isabella clench her teeth, screw her eye shut as if to gather every iota of bravery before a fearful determination crests her dark eyes. And then she stares down Jane.

The air hung heavy, leaden with a cruel expectation. Lestat's throat throbs plaintively. He eyes Jane's furious glare and blocks out Aro's bewildered cackle. Isabella had confounded them all. Releasing the girl from his embrace, he stands back as Edward quickly replaces him, shooting him a clipped look.

Fascinating.

Beside him, Alice steps up, her lithe shoulder brushing against the fabric of his robe. In his periphery, she spies her clandestine eyes on him. Even worse, her anticipatory smile. He doesn't return the look, instead, he keeps his eyes trained forward. He would not tempt what fate had in store for him. Deep down, he knew that if he met this little clairvoyant's knowing gaze, he would refuse to believe anything else. 

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𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞

in every universe, alice is a shit-stirrer. also, let's not bring up the cast change. anyway, aro stays being a little creep.  also lowkey, how I envisioned the volturi. i know smeyer said caius was hitting 40s but i'm ignoring that because its called creative liberty. aro will always be ben until someone takes my fancy <3