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Louis doesn't sleep. While everyone else does — while they shut their eyes, slow their breathing, fall into a gentle rest — Louis wakes. (Maybe he's always awake. How can one wake if they never sleep? Such questions don't ever occur to the Dreamlord. He just is.)
Being the Lord of Dreams has come with its long list of strange happenings. He's grown, changed, and morphed into something new, but that is the nature of the Endless. Ever shifting, ever existing, only ever as stable as time itself. And time is quite the fickle thing.
"It's been getting worse," Lucienne followed him in little hurried steps through the palace, "it was just a small nightmare at first. A little thing in the corner, nothing much — but it's getting out of hand. It drains them, my lord. Even the scenery around it has begun to change."
Louis listened without replying. There was a Nightmare running amok in his realm, and only a few million years ago, he would have ended the thing's existence with a quick snap of his fingers, or trapped it in a shiny bauble to be tossed aside somewhere and forgotten. But there was something in the air telling him to go look at it. Something's different about this Nightmare. Something's all wrong.
"Where does it reside?"
"It's made a residence quite a distance from here. But there's a place, a pretty physical place. Are you sure it's a good idea to go alone, my lord?"
"Quite."
It was a Nightmare's residence through and through. It was a little house in the middle of nowhere, an old thing in the style of New Orleans houses, charred at the edges like it had been burnt at some point in time. The ground was black with soot and grey with dirt, broken up by the odd orange flowers occasionally blooming from the wreck.
Louis didn't hesitate. (He never did). There was something in the air again, beckoning him in — no doubt the Nightmare's trap. But there was also something off, something very wrong.
He opened the door and stepped into the charred house.
It was cluttered on the inside. He could tell from this that the person this Nightmare belonged to was many things; anxious, judging from the mess. Studious, from the books scattered around. A musician, from the music notes floating in the air, barely there but still permeating the air. And blonde, judging from the Nightmare itself.
It was sitting on an old red sofa, torn at the edges and clearly victim to some violence. The Nightmare was tall, with long legs that took up the whole sofa. It had quite a square jaw, which was currently shifting as it hummed the kind of tune one can never remember when they wake from a dream. The jaw was framed by gold, smooth and slightly wavy, falling down the strong forehead to the thick shoulders. Down the shoulders and following strong arms hidden by red satin were big hands like paws, ending in sharp claws of glass. When it turned its head to face Louis, its eyes were some shade that shifted somewhere between blue and violet.
"Excusez-moi, maître. Do I know you?"
"You should. I made you."
The Nightmare laughed. "You didn't make me. The little boy in the waking world did." Its laugh was like bells, and Louis could practically see the musical notes leave its mouth. (It sounded like an E sharp, then G, then C. It laughed like there was a piano in its throat.)
Louis stepped, slow and graceful, around the mess on the ground until he came to face the sofa. The Nightmare didn't move, only tilted its head with an easy smile.
"Do you have a name? What sort of nightmare are you?"
"I am the Nightmare Lestat. And I am many things, Dreamlord." The Nightmare Lestat's voice was deeper than his laugh. It rolled like a purr from his throat, and Louis shook the tendrils of it from his mind. A cheap trick from the cheapest kind.
"You drain this realm, Lestat. Do you know what happens to Nightmares that get so out of hand?" Louis was immovable, a marble statue in the midst of the soot and tendrils. Lestat hummed in thought.
"I've done nothing of the sort. It is your fault alone that I have done as much damage as you claim. I drain one man — that's the duty of a Nightmare, isn't it? That's what I was made to do. You made me to keep him company, and I get to feed on the beautiful contents of his mind. You should see my waking companion, Dreamlord."
Louis frowned. "You've made a corner for yourself in my realm. And this corner is dying, rotting, wilting before my very eyes. And you expect to play coy, to pretend yourself to be nothing more than a bad dream, and be let off the hook? You are a night terror, Lestat."
The Nightmare smiled. He moved slowly, rising languidly to his feet like a cat stretching. Glass claws dragged on the sofa as he rose, standing taller now than Louis. The Dreamlord held the violet gaze unblinking.
"Come. Let me show you something, my lord."
There was an oratory behind the house. Next to it was an incinerator. Both structures were covered in weeds, crawling grey plants that claimed and claimed and claimed. Louis tilted his head, frowning slightly at the sight.
"This is where I was born. This oratory, this house, and this incinerator. Thrice, I was born, each time more ghastly than the last." He laughed, a quick sneer. "Nightmarish, even."
The Nightmare stepped towards the oratory. The ground sunk beneath his steps, decaying and giving way beneath fine leather shoes. He held a hand out, touched the cold stone, and turned to look over his shoulder; he flashed a toothy smile, two marble fangs poking from beneath curled lips.
"Come to me. Feel it dying, Dreamlord."
Against better judgement, Louis did.
He followed in the blackened steps, and where his slow-moving feet stepped, the ground regained some freshness. The soot clung to his soles, but he cared little for it. Once he was close enough, the Nightmare reached out and held his hand, guiding it to the oratory wall — Louis wasn't sure which was colder, the cracked stone or his hand. He shut his eyes for a moment.
"I was created here, all those years ago. A little boy who dreamt of being a priest." Lestat began, letting his hand fall from Louis'. "That dream was taken from him. The Devil can't be a man of the cloth, after all, and they called the boy many worse things than just Devil. So I was born, his haunting conscience, the taste of sin and the weight on his chest at night. I was well-fed, but little more than a nighttime torment."
"A nightmare of guilt, then?" Louis asked quietly. His hand traced a crack in the stone and he watched it slowly merge itself back together, as strong as if it had never broken. The Nightmare frowned at that, and turned briskly.
"Guilt can only keep me fed for so long. He found something else, that boy. This house is where I was born again as a different nightmare." He looked out at the charred house, and the twinkle of his C minor laugh came again.
"This beautiful house! The hurt that came out of here, all so deserved. He fell in love in that house. I fell in love too, with the despair of that love. Tell me, Dreamlord—" Lestat turned, grinning, "—you know the pain of loving, don't you? But do you know the pain of loving one that only comes to you in the night, when he wants a sly kiss and a shaky shoulder to hang on? The horror of waiting those unbearable hours of sunlight, hoping you could shoot the damn sun out of the sky to bring forth night, just for a chance to see him… That beautiful Adonis of the night."
"Love is a feeling for the waking world. I do not dabble in love." Louis spoke quietly. Despite the visions of Hellscapes and mortal flings in his mind that said otherwise.
"Trust me — we know." Lestat grinned. Before he could stop it (or perhaps he could, and simply allowed it), the Nightmare grabbed both his hands and walked backwards into the house. The door opened and he led the Dreamlord upstairs. The stairs smelled of ashes and blood, and Louis followed those steps without looking.
They came into a bedroom. Lestat finally let go then and made his way to the bed, sitting on it with a self-satisfied smile.
"Here we are. The place where my waking self first met his Adonis, and then myself. He always came first. They never dabbled, only talked, and my waking self thought him a muse. The music that came from their meetings, the poetry, the art…!" Lestat's smile faltered, and his nose twisted like an angry beast. A painting crashed down from the wall and shattered into pieces of paper, and somewhere a sharp organ note played off-key. Louis didn't flinch.
"An artist's worst nightmare… that he could never capture that love in any form. It slipped from his fingers through the music, the words, from between his own eyelids. I fed off of that despair. And then… he began to blame himself." Lestat laid back on the bed, arms stretched out. "He knew deep down why his lover stopped visiting. My waking self is simply too much for anyone to handle — dreaming or awake. He was obsessed, raving, on the brink of madness, and it was no one's fault but his own. His obsession drew his lover away, and he stopped seeing him. The night became empty… made space for me."
"You took the place of his dream." Louis said simply.
Lestat laughed. "It's the natural procession of things. All dreams end in nightmares, if you sleep for long enough."
"Perhaps for a nightmare. But that is not always the case." Louis gathered the papers on the ground. They were blank, but he gathered them anyways. "If you sleep for just a little longer, that nightmare could become a dream again. All things are possible in the Dream Realm."
A growl sounded from the bed, like a great beast stirring. "You've grown soft, Dreamlord. We don't remember you with this… unyielding optimism. It's unbecoming."
"I've changed. As dreams do." Louis put the papers down on a nearby desk. Lestat huffed from the bed, pushing himself to sit up again.
"This white cloak and the humility, the god-damn gentleness… It isn't like you at all. You have that glimmer in your eye, but you're all wrong. All different."
"Would you prefer me in all black?" Louis quirked up an eyebrow.
The Nightmare barked a laugh, a single, cruel 'hah!'. "At least it would reflect the black void inside of you. This is a cheap mask you wear now, Dreamlord. Like a wolf dressed in lamb's clothes."
"You would wish me to be cruel, then?" His feet moved slowly, soundlessly, towards the bed. "The Endless change, as all things change. But I am still Dream. I am still the Dreamlord. I am still your maker."
The Nightmare snarled. Louis stopped in front of him, standing regal and tall in between Lestat's feet. His eyes glimmered like little stars against a dark sky.
"I am a gentler sleep now. But if that won't get you to speak — to respect your maker…" Louis bent down, hands outstretched. Lestat tried to scramble back, pressing himself against the sheets that smelled of fire, but the cold hands of the Dreamlord came up to hold his face. How cold his hands were — it forced the Nightmare to shiver.
"… it is night, my Nightmare, and you are within my realm. Let's see just how much torment you hold."
He kept pushing. The bed began melting, shifting, and the two figures sunk down into the sheets like bodies on quicksand. They toppled slowly, sinking headfirst into a black sea, and all the while, Louis' hands never left the Nightmare's face. Lestat thrashed, legs kicking, futile.
When his back hit solid ground again, they were at the old New Orleans home again — only this time, it wasn't burnt yet. The streets around it were of a truer Louisiana, stained pink by the hues of a gentle dream about to turn sour.
Louis stepped away from the Nightmare and walked slowly around the house, steps practised and unhurried. He's walked this path before, somewhere in a different dream. He comes to the back of the house, to a white backyard with an incinerator.
There's a man there. A man with blonde hair and hands like paws, arms shaking and carrying pages upon pages, all filled with assortments of musical notes, small drawings, words strung together to form verse and chorus. Louis watched the man as he choked back a sob.
He staggered over to the incinerator and opened it, and blinked baby blue eyes against the gust of hot air. The Nightmare's voice echoed in the air, thick as ash.
"This is where I was reborn for the third time. The despair of loneliness, of the art never good enough, the destruction of love. He'll put too much lumber into the fire soon, too many papers, throw instruments into it too. The flame will spread and grow beyond his poor, human hands, and his house in which he met his Adonis will catch fire. This Destruction is the sweetest feast for a Nightmare — the highlight reel I devour every night."
Before the blonde man could toss his works into the incinerator, Louis carefully shut the iron door. The man jumped, stepping back in surprise.
"What—?"
"So the nightmare always ends the same. Why do you keep doing this?" Louis asked gently. The man stuttered, face twisted in confusion.
"This— who are you—? Am I dreaming—?" His eyes, so wide and gentle, so unlike the frozen tundra of his nightmare, studied Louis' face for a moment. "Do I… know you?"
"Maybe not this visage, but you know me. Come, Lestat. Step away from the fire."
"Why should I? All of these… they're useless." The man looked down at the papers in his arms. He sniffled. "So much work, and for what? For someone who isn't even real. A dream. All of this, for a stupid dream."
"You would call this Dream stupid? Watch your tongue, boy." Louis' tone would once have held aggression for this insult. But now, his voice came playful, light as air. The man frowned, seeming puzzled at his words.
"What's so good about dreams, anyway? They never last. They're just empty hopes, silly cravings. Beautiful things that you can never touch."
Louis tilted his head. "You wish to touch a dream, then, Lestat?"
He reached for his hands. Lestat struggled for a moment, but his hands gave way easily, fingers intertwining with Louis'. The shuffle of white sleeves was almost too loud in the sudden silence, and Louis' ragged smile was like a hit to the chest when he flashed it at him.
"It seems you can touch dreams after all."
Crying and running feel the same in a dream. Like the movement is just at the edge of your limbs, but your body is suddenly made of lead. Tears welled in Lestat's eyes, the rims going red and puffy. Desperate little gasps tore his voice and he pushed through them to open his mouth.
"… It's you, isn't it?"
Louis touched his forehead to Lestat's. The man crumbled, falling to the ground.
Louis went with him. He moved slowly, steady as a dream can be, fingers ever entwined in Lestat's. He pulled the man close, holding his trembling frame and braving the violent sobs tearing their way from his chest.
The Nightmare Lestat was holding onto his back, violet eyes cutting through to the Dreamlord. He didn't flinch.
"This isn't your dream, Endless. This despair, this pain, it's all mine — it's ours. The more you hold him, the more pain you cause. You are a vicious being, and you feed me with my waking despair."
"Is it Despair that he feels? You seem to have gotten the wrong sibling there, my Nightmare."
He squeezed Lestat in his arms. Lestat was floating. Everything was smooth and white like clouds, and the being's skin was dark and free of imperfection, the most perfect bed of mahogany wood to settle him. Breath came easy now, and he felt himself lose control of his limbs. He should have been scared. How could he though? How could he be afraid of his limbs turned to jelly, floating in a gentle stream that felt like the first kiss of snow on virgin skin?
To Louis, he was in the dark again. No longer could he see the incinerator, the house, and the pink New Orleans streets. He was alone, on his knees, cradling a small Lestat against his chest. In his hands lay a little red glass, with a curious shape that one could try but never quite replicate after waking.
The Nightmare thrashed inside the glass, a mass of violent flame and teeth. Louis smiled again, accustoming himself to the feeling of smiling.
"You are my creation, in my realm, in my command. Silly boy, sillier nightmare. Let him rest now."
"Have a good morning, Lestat." The woman said from the table, cradling her mug in her hands. Lestat circled the table, evaded a chair, and kissed her hair.
"Thank you, mother. I'll be back for lunch, it's just a small recording session." He smiled and adjusted the guitar bag hanging from his shoulder. He rolled his keys in his finger once, then stuffed them into a pocket and into worn black denim.
He stepped through the hallway, heels clicking just slightly. He pulled the front door open and jumped back.
"Hello, Lestat."
The man standing at the door was a stranger. Or rather—
— there was something about him. The specific shade of his skin, the curl that rose a little too much to the left, the smile like he'd never learned to smile before.
"… Sorry, do I know you?"
"Not in waking. Yet, at least. Would you mind if I accompanied you to your destination?"
Lestat was floating. His voice sounded like a dream. (Maybe he could get him to feature on a track? Can he sing? Who cares, he'll sing now!)
"Yeah, absolutely. You are—?"
"You only know me as a Dream. Please, call me Louis. We have a lot to catch up on."