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Chapter Text

In retrospect, the first warning should have been obvious, a familiar gesture performed in miniature: Lestat’s peevish purse of his lips and slight tilt of his head echoed in Claudia, a slight narrowing of eyes as a hint of a storm to come from his daughter, displaced from her perch on his lap to allow him to hold his new nephew. 

“Grace-” He begins to protest. Well-fed for Claudia’s safety or not, he’d rather not test his willpower with his sister’s nine-day-old baby, warmth radiating through warm, tissue paper skin and blood beating close to the surface in tantalizing little thrums of young life. 

“Hush, you,” his sister says without concern. “Been holding him for hours. Give me a moment to go powder my nose.” 

He gently nudges Claudia back when she attempts to duck under his arm to reclaim her place, and from the corner of his eye, he sees her scowl. Before he can fully look at her, though, little Ezekiel is in his arms, and adjusting his nephew to rest better takes his attention as Grace gives him an encouraging–and slightly challenging–smile in response to his doubtful look before she steps away, flexing her arm to stretch it out. 

“He looks all scrunchy,” comes Claudia’s lofty judgement, delivered with all of the gravitas a seven year old can manage. “He’s kinda ugly.” 

“Claudia,” he says sharply, glancing up to ensure that Grace isn’t in earshot to hear his daughter’s commentary on her cousin. 

The only response he gets to the reprimand is an irritated little click of her tongue before Claudia flounces off, not even glancing back. 

It’s the under her breath grumbling in French that serves to finally give Louis a hint that he’s to face a reckoning. 

*

Lestat meeting them three blocks away does nothing to improve Claudia’s stark refusal to so much as look at him after they leave Grace for the evening, his daughter marching along like a little soldier after snatching her hand away from his attempt to hold it with enough force that it’s a surprise she didn’t pull something. 

Her other guardian, predictably, makes much of her bruised feelings. 

God forbid the man ever miss a chance for a performance. 

“-like a common vagabond,” Lestat continues, Claudia perched securely on his hip and giving her best performance of big, pathetic eyes as she nods along, appeased by the attention she’s receiving from a sympathetic audience. “How could you be so heartless, mon cher?” Lestat’s question–delivered with clear relish at the melodrama of it all–is punctuated by a wobbly-lipped little look from Claudia. 

Even knowing that it’s fueled by unfounded jealousy from a child as unused as her other parent is to not being the center of attention, Louis does feel an unwanted and absurd pang of guilt. 

“Flinging our poor little orphan-” 

“Ain’t nobody been flung-” 

“-to the floor,” Lestat says, patting Claudia’s back in a conciliatory manner.

“To the floor,” Claudia echoes, an obliging little parrot in this performance of her great injury. 

Louis rolls his eyes and walks faster. 

*

“You’re both being ridiculous,” Louis tells Lestat a week and a half later when the other vampire joins him in their chamber after settling Claudia into bed. Louis’s hope that Claudia’s fit of temper would be a brief thing has slowly faded with each night she’s flatly refused to let him tuck her into bed on charges of “‘cause you don’t love me anymore,” an accusation that’s patently false but delivered with all of the conviction of a Hollywood actress giving her best performance in a tragedy. 

Unconcerned, Lestat flings his robe over a chair before pulling the chain to seal the door shut. 

“An accusation fueled by jealousy, no doubt,” Lestat judges, and the way he’s still obviously enjoying himself as Claudia’s chosen parent at present is immensely annoying. Louis dodges the kiss he’s offered, and Lestat sighs but doesn’t pursue him, instead retreating to his own coffin. “She’s a sensitive little soul, our Claudia,” Lestat starts with a sanctimoniousness that makes Louis want to throw something at him. “Really, mon cher, how you could be so very heartle-” 

Louis snaps his coffin shut. 

*

“-move to California,” he hears Claudia saying emphatically from upstairs two weeks later when he arrives home after hunting. 

“And what would we do in California, ma petite?” Lestat asks, tone indulgent. There’s the sound of a page turning and then a slow picking of keys as Claudia resumes what must be a piano lesson. “Especially without your daddy to keep us company?” 

Louis raises his eyebrows as he shrugs out of his jacket, tilting his head slightly to hear better. 

“Daddy Lou wants to play with the dumb baby,” he hears Claudia say, her playing veering forte under the force of her declaration. 

“Ain’t even seen the baby in weeks,” he calls upstairs. 

There’s the sound of small hands slamming against the keys followed by the stomping of little feet and the slamming of a door. 

Louis sighs and leans against the wall, eyes flicking up at motion to find Lestat leaning over the stairwell, looking far too pleased at the show. 

“That went well,” he comments. 

Louis flings a hat at his head. 

*

“Claudia, enough,” Louis says a week later, pressing against her door with carefully-measured strength as his daughter tries to evict him from her room, putting her whole small weight into the effort. Frustrated at her lack of success, she screams, a sharp, piercing sound, and he gives her a look. 

She gives him a look right back. 

“Are you murdering her, then?” Lestat calls up, sounding unconcerned. 

Louis doesn’t bother responding, though he jerks back when Claudia tries to bite his wrist.

“Enough,” he says, a snap in his voice, and Claudia pulls back, clearly resentful but unwilling to press her luck further with physical violence. 

“Go tell the baby goodnight,” she challenges, turning on her heel and stomping to her bed. 

Louis exhales heavily, glancing upwards and sending a vague prayer for patience to a God he may or may not still believe in. He graciously ignores the kick that’s aimed at his hip when he sits down on Claudia’s bed, his daughter giving him an uncannily Lestat look before she flops down and tugs her blanket over her head. He rests a gentle hand on her back that’s immediately slapped, the blow muffled by cotton but very clearly meant to hurt. 

Not for the first time, he wonders if choosing to parent a child with Lestat de Lioncourt was the wisest choice. 

“You gonna be mad at me forever?” He asks. 

“Yes,” comes Claudia’s decisive answer, muffled by her blankets as it is. 

“I ain’t even seen the baby in weeks,” he reminds her. 

“You been thinking about the baby,” Claudia accuses. “And how you wanna hold him and not me.” 

The potential humor of the drama of the moment is tempered by the genuine hurt he can read in her mind, fueled by the little story she’s been telling herself about him looking to get a baby of his own to love instead of her. He shuffles himself back, resting his back against her wall and ignoring another kick he gets to his knee. 

Claudia growls like a feral thing when he picks her up, blankets and all, shrilling another screech for good measure in her frustration at being manhandled, but her earlier pouting works against her when it leaves her tangled in her blankets. The look she gives him when he gets her face free is fierce, but she’s currently bundled too well to hit the way he knows she wants to, ferocious little thing. 

“I ain’t replacing you with a baby, Claudia,” he says, shifting to cradle her better. 

Despite her clear annoyance, she rests her cheek against his arm. 

“You made me move for the baby,” she accuses. “And you pushed me away, too.” 

It’s an exaggerated retelling of what actually happened, but he can read in her mind that it feels real to her, his gentle nudge remembered as an active rejection when she was trying to snuggle close again, not used to not being on his lap at Grace’s house and feeling abandoned as a result. 

(Really, it’s a wonder she isn’t somehow biologically Lestat’s, he thinks with equal parts exasperation and affection. God help him when she becomes a teenager. It’ll be a miracle for the ages if Rue Royale remains standing with two drama queens in their prime in residence.)

“You’re my only baby,” he says, voice deliberately warm. “And always gonna be, too.” 

Claudia huffs out a little disbelieving exhale, but he can sense that she’s tempted by the prospect of no longer being at odds. Savoring her melodrama or not, he can hear in her mind that she’s missed their time together, and he rests back accordingly, cuddling her closer. She snuggles in a little tighter, almost despite herself. 

“You gonna stop being mad at me now?” He asks. 

“You gonna hold the stupid baby again?” She challenges. 

“Stupid ain’t a nice thing to call somebody,” he tells her, and the look she cuts him is one that’s usually delivered with blue eyes and not her hazel. He returns it evenly, and finally she huffs again, tucking her face against him. There’s quiet for a moment, and then she tilts her head, one eye peeking up at him. 

“You promise you ain’t ever gonna get a new baby like Aunt Grace?” 

“And who do you think I’m gonna be having babies with, huh?” He asks, jostling her once teasingly. 

Claudia seems mildly appeased by the question, going a little more lax. 

“Promise you ain’t ever gonna have a baby with somebody,” she demands, and it’s an effort not to laugh. 

Really, of the things he’s promised in his life, this is one of the easier ones to swear to. 

“I promise,” he agrees. 

Claudia holds out for another moment, but finally she sighs, tucking her face against him again and nuzzling until she’s comfortable. 

“Okay,” she agrees. “You can be my daddy again, then.” 

He rolls his eyes skyward but doesn’t comment. 

Really, with the person he’s raising her with, what else could he expect? 

Chapter Text

Her first warning is the borderline-saccharine “remember when?” texts, pictures of old shoes and toys and a couple of hair ribbons, usually artfully framed in the photo composition because Daddy Lou is a photographer at his heart even if his main focus these days is curating other people’s art. 

Remember these? is the message attached to an old pair of Mary Janes, the leather faded with time. They’re probably antiques at this point, shoes all the way back from her girlhood. 

She’s equally touched and amused that they’ve survived so many moves. 

why do you even still have those? she sends back, glancing up as her Uber swerves in traffic but looking back down when she confirms it was just to go around a slowpoke in front of them. God help her if she gets into a traffic accident now after she had to talk Papa Les down from sending a limo. 

They’re your baby shoes. Of course I still have them. 

She smiles while rolling her eyes, holding the phone up for Madeleine’s inspection when her wife tilts her head in question. Her wife smiles and kisses her on the cheek before returning to her own phone, still busy bullying her underlings as they make Claudia’s outfit for her next concert. 

more like my five year old shoes

Still a baby to me. 

you’re sappy as fuck 💕

Love you, too. 

*

Her second warning is the day she goes backstage to find Daddy Lou with her tour manager’s toddler–Cami–on his hip, bouncing her idly while still on a phonecall, likely a new argument with one of the artists he’s trying to sign to his new studio in Tokyo. With as many degrees and stints in law schools as she’s racked up over the years, she ends up drafting most of the contracts for their family’s various businesses, so she knows firsthand which diva has been causing problems, sending her perfectly good terms back red-inked to hell and getting greedy with Daddy Lou’s perfectly good offer. 

(Really, if Daddy Lou hadn’t already told her and Papa Les to stop eating his artists to drive the prices up back in the 80s, she would have done away with the motherfucker months ago.)

“Magnificent as ever, ma petite,” Papa Les says, and she grins while she hugs him, riding high on the applause she can hear still happening and the residual post-performance adrenaline. “Purely because of my tutelage, naturally-” 

She feints a punch but lets herself be tucked under his arm as he steers them back to Daddy Lou, who’s now swaying in place for Cami’s benefit, the toddler giggling softly as she tries to take Daddy Lou’s phone from him. They’ve come to a compromise about Papa Les consistently wearing shirts again, and if the balance of buttoned to unbuttoned still isn’t quite right on this one, she decides she can let it go. 

(After all, if they didn’t exit the show on time, they’ve at least been equally scandalized by her chosen pose for the night.)

“Hey,” Daddy Lou says after hanging up the phone and stepping forward for a half-hug, which Cami takes advantage of to get a hand around the strap of Claudia’s costume, delighted by the sparkles. “Hey now,” Daddy Lou says, tucking his phone in his pocket and gently peeling Cami’s fingers off, “that ain’t yours.” 

There’s a tone to Daddy Lou’s voice that makes her pause, something soft, sweet. 

Something she usually only hears when he’s speaking to her. 

Before she can investigate, however, Madeleine is there, and further investigation about why Daddy Lou was holding Cami in the first place is put on hold for the sake of a post-show hunt. 

*

“I’m telling you,” she tells Daddy Lou on one of their father-daughter evenings out, usually spent at museums or jazz clubs or wine bars, all of the places that Papa Les always calls dull which is why she’s always the one who goes to them with Daddy Lou, “Vietnam’s great. I mean the clothes market stalls alone would keep you busy for years.” 

“I don’t doubt it’s great,” Daddy Lou says good-naturedly, steering her towards a jewelry counter with his hold on her, her arm linked through his, “but we just settled here-” 

“Almost twenty years ago,” she fakes around a cough. 

“-and ain’t everybody looking to bounce around all the time,” he says, bumping shoulders with her before they part before the sales clerk wanders over. 

(A tragic side effect of only looking slightly younger than her father: everyone assuming they’re a couple unless they make an effort to look as platonic as possible.)

“Don’t you ever get bored, though?” She asks him before looking back to the jewelry on offer. “Can I see those, please?” She directs to the sales clerk with a tilt of her chin in indication, the man obliging her immediately and setting out the tray of earrings for her to look over. “What about these?” She asks, holding up a pair with citrine that’s almost the same color as Madeleine’s eyes. She tilts her head and holds one near her ear for Daddy Lou’s inspection. 

And I’m sappy? He sends mind to mind, subtly raising a brow after catching the reason for the appeal of the color in her mind. 

You wanna discuss that sapphire bracelet of yours that looks an awful lot like Papa Les’s eyes? She sends back in challenge. 

He smiles faintly in the offer of a truce before he asks to see a tray of rings. 

*

“I dunno,” she calls past the dressing room door, turning side to side as she studies the finish of the velvet against the glittering embroidery. “I think it’s a little too much for a fancy-fancy thing. Can you go grab that green silk? I think I changed my mind about it.” She pauses, still studying the cut of the dress and trying to decide if some darts at the side might make it a little less uniboob-ish. Spoiled by her wife as she is, she knows Madeleine could make her something if she asked, but with an hour to kill before they’re set to meet with their usual Hermès associate anyway, she’d decided to try on a few things at the boutique anyway. “Louis?” She calls. “Hello?” She lets out an annoyed breath when the only response is silence. God forbid her father just stay put and play personal shopper with her. She pokes her head out around the edge of the dressing room door and finds only an empty couch and their abandoned champagne flutes. 

She rolls her eyes and downs hers as she passes. 

She finds Daddy Lou about halfway across the store and moves to join him, half toying with the idea of startling him as revenge for ditching her to-

Look at tiny lace-edged baby dresses? 

What are you doing? She asks, and even without intending to, she makes him jump. She tilts her head in question. 

His face goes soft and squishy the way it usually does when she’s dressed up, even all these years later, and she graciously doesn’t mock him for it, instead offering a spin for his inspection. 

“Beautiful,” he says, and she rolls her eyes despite the way she feels her face heat pleasantly. He’s been telling her she’s beautiful since she was five, but it’s not the kind of thing that ever gets old. Still, she glances back at the dresses until he follows her gaze. 

“Think those might be a little small for me,” she says dryly. 

“Just a little,” he agrees. “Think you could still pull ‘em off, though.” 

She snorts and lets herself be steered back to the dressing rooms. 

*

“For the love fucking Christ,” she complains after letting herself into her parents’ house a few days later, “can you please tell papa to stop dry humping the mic sta-what the fuck are you doing.” 

The question comes out flat, but finding Daddy Lou holding up wallpaper samples in various shades of pastel in one of the spare rooms knocks the inflection right out of her. 

“Just thinking,” Daddy Lou says, and the attempt at an innocent tone has her on alert at once. 

“About how there’s no way Papa Les is gonna let you put up-” She snags one of the samples and frowns at it, cutting him a look. “-daisy patterns?” 

“Wouldn’t be for him anyway,” Daddy Lou says, taking it back. 

The alarm at the back of her mind starts ringing a little louder. 

“Y’all moved somebody else in I don’t know about?” She ventures. 

“Just thinking,” Daddy Lou says, still with that fake nonchalance. 

She decides to cut to the chase and lets herself into his mind, knowing he can feel it because she doesn’t bother to hide her presence. At once, he shoves some shields into place half-heartedly-

-but not before she picks up that he’s been thinking about how this particular room would make a cute nursery. 

She stares at him. 

Just been thinking- He starts, mind to mind, but she cuts through the placation. 

About a new kid? She asks, disbelieving. The idea is so left-field that she doesn’t even fully know how she feels about it. 

Though she knows her knee-jerk response is “Oh, fuck no.”

“Baby-” He starts, but the petname is salt in the wound, and she turns on her heel and storms out, knocking a stack of paint samples off of a side table as she goes. 

*

“I would venture that you probably have five more rejected phonecalls before Louis breaks the door down,” Madeleine says a few nights later, curling up next to her on the sofa. She takes a sip of her wine, swirling it thoughtfully. “Perhaps six, if the other one’s Instagram post of snorting coke off of a groupie’s tit ends up on his feed first and he’s angry enough about that to be distracted for a bit.” 

Claudia gives her a withering look, and Madeleine tsks, leaning forward to kiss her. 

“You will have to speak to him at some point, you know. We’re still using their Netflix.” 

“We can pay for our own fucking Netflix,” Claudia grumbles, flopping to her side and pulling a blanket over her head. “He can go fuck himself.” 

She hears the click of Madeleine putting her wine down on the glass-topped coffee table, and then she feels the familiar weight and warmth of her wife settling down behind her. Against her will, she feels her muscles go a little looser. 

“You’re being very silly,” Madeleine tells her, but her tone is soft enough that it doesn’t prickle at Claudia’s already-raw feelings. “He was just playing with the idea of a nursery, treasure. It doesn’t mean he has plans on actually doing it. He had that entire notion of having a vineyard that never happened, remember?” 

“A new baby ain’t a hobby,” Claudia grumbles, wriggling her head free and closing her eyes when Madeleine takes it as the invitation it is to nuzzle at her neck. 

“And it isn’t a reality, either,” her wife says, squeezing her waist. “Maintenant, ça suffit,” she says briskly, rising and slapping Claudia’s ass affectionately. “I have let you mope for two days now, but we need to do the final fitting for your new costume.” 

Claudia complains with a whine as she’s leveraged up, but she obeys. 

Fittings usually end in an activity she knows almost always improves her mood. 

*

“Why now?” She asks the fabric at the top of their canopy bed the next night. The house they’re in currently is usually a rental in their family’s real estate portfolio, but with renovations being done to their unit attached to Papa Les and Daddy Lou’s house, they’ve been using it as a residence for a few months now, which means most of their furniture has made it over, including their bed with its thick velvet curtains, heavy enough that light wouldn’t get in even if the window wasn’t pasted over with black paper as an extra precaution. Madeleine makes a sleepy noise in response, clearly half-gone already with sunrise so close, but her wife still turns over to give her her–drowsy–attention. Claudia turns to face her, tucking a strand of hair back from her face. “A hundred years of just me and suddenly they get baby fever?” 

“Hm,” Madeleine says, yawning and resting a comforting hand on the curve of her waist. “Your other father is currently engaged in a stripper stage. Perhaps this is simply a normal part of vampiric middle age.” 

“They couldn’t just buy a Corvette and get frosted tips like normal people?” Claudia asks dryly, turning over to tuck herself in as little spoon in Madeleine’s embrace. 

“I think we’re twenty years past frosted tips for even people’s fathers,” Madeleine says, sounding amused. 

“And they’re a hundred years past needing a kid to raise,” Claudia says, knowing she sounds whiny even as she says it. She doesn’t even know why she hates the idea so much. Maybe it’s just the natural consequence of being a one and only for almost a century. 

Maybe it’s that it just seems like it came out of fucking nowhere. 

“I don’t know,” Madeleine says, tucking her arm over Claudia’s waist securely. “They did an excellent job with their first. Maybe they should be allowed a second, too, as a reward for their achievement.” 

Claudia elbows her softly but doesn’t fight further, snuggling down into the mattress and closing her eyes, letting her heart begin beating in sync with Madeleine’s as sleep claims them both. 

*

She knows who it is before she opens the door even without the seven missed calls on her phone and the three texts she saw come up on Madeleine’s phone before she went out for the night, and she pauses for a long, long moment with her hand on the knob. 

Please, Daddy Lou sends, and she picks up the sensation of his hand resting on the cool wood of the door. Let’s talk. 

She takes a breath and then opens the door. 

*

“-just an idea,” Daddy Lou finishes, both of them relocated to the garden and Claudia nursing her third Gin Rickey of the conversation. 

“An idea you had wallpaper samples for,” she says, focusing only on her drink as she swirls her ice around with her straw. She looks up. “Seems like you’ve been thinking that idea for a bit.” 

Daddy Lou shrugs, sitting back and resting his elbow on the back of the wicker couch to prop his head against his hand. 

“I missed you,” he says. “That was a long honeymoon, you know.” 

Claudia makes an exasperated noise. 

“Okay, everyone can’t just keep blaming losing their goddamn minds on me going on a honeymoon. You had Daniel back for round two of breaking vampiric law, Papa Les turned into a whore, and Gabrielle appeared out of nowhere after decades all because I didn’t answer my phone for a couple of weeks, supposedly. We’re at capacity for blaming things on me.” 

“Not blaming it on you,” Daddy Lou says, extending his leg to kick her foot gently. “Just saying I missed you.” 

“So what? I take a little R and R time with my wife, and you start getting baby fever?” She asks dubiously. 

She growls when Daddy Lou moves closer on the couch, but she lets herself be tugged in to lean against him, head on his shoulder. 

“Just missed you being a little girl and around all the time, that’s all,” he says, voice soft, pressing a kiss to her hair. “I promise, I’m not looking to go run out and sign adoption papers. It was just an idea I was playing with when I was being old and maudlin.” 

“Is that different than your default state?” Claudia asks innocently, laughing when it makes Daddy Lou dig his fingers in right where she’s ticklish on her side. She cringes away until he stops but doesn’t pick her head up from his shoulder. 

It’s harder to be mad about the idea of being an older sister when faced with Daddy Lou in person. If anyone deserves to be a dad, it’s him, and it’s not like he’s wrong about her not being around all the time. They spend more time with her parents than not, but they do tend to splinter off at least every few months, Daddy Lou and Papa Les content to settle down and stay in a way she and Madeleine aren’t. They always start out with her parents, and she enrolls in universities almost everywhere to earn a new degree or two for her collection, but she and Madeleine do like their travel. 

For the first time, she considers what it might feel like, being the left-behind part of the equation. 

“Listen,” she starts, not meaning the words even as she starts to say them, “if-” 

I ain’t looking to make you a big sister, Daddy Lou interrupts, thoughts warm. I promise. I was just playing around with the idea, that’s all. You were gone and your Papa Les was busy starting his career, and the house was just a little too quiet some nights, that’s all. 

She searches his thoughts, and he lets her, and she feels reassured by what she finds. The idea is there, yes, the memory of a little her in his arms, a tiny hand in his, a trusting little face tucked next to his throat at night, curled up together in his coffin. He enjoyed it, raising her, but the desire for it is mostly rooted in nostalgia, the wish for recreating something and not creating something new. 

Thank God. 

“Besides,” Daddy Lou says, sounding amused, “got enough to deal with trying to wrangle your papa right now.” 

“Did you see his new post about Taylor Swift?” She asks. “I think his publicist took his phone away and deleted it, but I’m pretty sure you’re gonna get a cease and desist for it soon anyway.” 

She grins when he tilts his head back and groans.