Chapter Text
Auvergne, July 2028
“Are you almost done? I’d like to get started soon.” The journalist asked.
“Just one last touch-up,” the makeup artist murmured. She added a little concealer to the side of his face, fluffing his hair for him one last time, giving his shoulder-length curls some more volume. He gave her a quick smile to dismiss her.
The journalist smiled at him, holding out her hand. “I’m Jesse Reeves.”
Lestat took her hand gently, kissing her knuckles. The tips of her ears went red. “Enchanté Jesse. Je suis Lestat de Lioncourt.”
She cleared her throat as she sat down across from him in the plush hotel armchair. Lestat reached next to him, picking up his coffee as Jesse flipped through her notepad. She clicked her pen in the same manner he once did. Lestat hid his light distress by taking a sip of the bitter drink, made worse by how it was brewed.
“Your surname includes de. Are you nobility?”
Lestat barked out a laugh into his coffee. “No, but my ancestors were, right here in Auvergne. We sit on their land in fact. Victims of the revolution.” He took a sip, smirking as her face went white as a sheet, horrified at her misstep.
“Oh,” She stuttered. “I apologize, I didn’t mean to offend.”
“You didn’t,” he eased. “They probably deserved it.”
Jesse cleared her throat again, leaning down to her laptop on the coffee table that separated them. The hotel suite they were conducting the interview in was pure white. White couches, white table, white carpet, white pillows and duvet. Minimal. Sterile. A reminder of the life he left behind. Lestat wanted to throw his disgusting coffee all over that pristine bed, to stain it with the bitterness that curled inside him. Jesse pressed a button on her laptop, and started to record.
“This is Jesse Reeves, with GQ Magazine , print edition. Today is July 18th, and I’m here in Auvergne, France with Lestat de Lioncourt.”
“Hi,” Lestat called out, bored.
Jesse chuckled slightly as she continued. “Lestat has just released his second studio album, The Witches Place, which was incredible might I add,” she glanced towards him – he smiled and shrugged. He already knew it was good. “He is set to start his European tour in Paris in a couple of months.”
“Lestat, your second album comes just a year and a half after your self-titled debut, which took the world by storm, rare for the jazz genre these days. Where did the inspiration for this album come from in such a short amount of time?”
“Unfortunately, my own life.” He deadpanned.
She laughed awkwardly. “Could you expand on that?”
He was quiet for a moment, on the verge of being self-deprecating as always. He stopped himself, not wanting to disrespect what he poured into this album, this deeply personal tale of his. All the love he felt, still feels, to this day.
“I wrote some of it with the first album’s material,” he starts. “The pain was…too raw at that time, to include on the album.”
Jesse sticks her tongue on the inside of her cheek, mulling his words over like she could taste how acrid his pain was. “But you came back to it.”
“Of course,” he murmured. “It kept calling to me - it made for good art.”
“Is that all you saw your pain as in the end? A conduit for good art?” she challenged.
“No.” he said firmly. “Anyone can turn their pain into art. Most of it is probably bad.” He stops himself. “Scratch that from the record.”
Jesse smirks, scribbling in her notepad.
“What I mean to say is that, sometimes the pain drives you, nay, demands you to make something worthy of it. It is such an earnest emotion, pain,” he murmurs. “Earnest in that it can be worth it. The heartbreak.”
Jesse regards him. “What was the source of this heartbreak, if I may ask?”
“Love. What else would it be?”
“That’s a very French answer,”
Lestat chuckled, leaning forward in his armchair. “Well, only the French can understand it, I’m afraid. This is a tale of seduction. Of pining so visceral, your fingers ache with longing, to touch something just to make the aching stop,” he murmured, making use of that low purr that always made Americans blush. The journalist turned red, just as he predicted. “It’s a tale of yearning. And a tale of secrets, most of all.”
He leaned back against the chair, his heart rate rising. Jesse was scribbling furiously in her notepad. He looked out towards the open window, a gust of cool morning breeze enveloping him with a delicious shiver. He could have sworn the scent of soap and orange blossoms wafted through with the breeze.
“I’m assuming this is a tale of lost love?”
“Mm,” Lestat murmured, putting his chin into his hands. The breeze was always a reminder of him. It was why he always slept with the window open now. He was certain that he smelled orange blossoms now. He thought back to the moment they first laid eyes on one another, ages ago.
“Most certainly.”