singillatim | I need new clothes, I need somewhere to stay

The notice could only be about Chloe. She was wearing red, and has a long ponytail. The playful tongue sticking out is indelible. But Louis is suspicious of a person offering a reward for information on the friendly woman. He doesn't usually take things at face value--except for the blood on the paper, which he knows is real. He'd like to do some investigating of his own.

He doesn't know this person at all, so he simply leaves a note next to the notice to be in the Community Hall on a certain evening. It turns out Lalo is easier to pick out than Louis thought: He has an obvious injury.

"Mr. Salamanca, I'm guessin'?"

Louis sounds cultured, Southern, calm. He wears a 3-piece suit from the late 1930s. His eyes are very green. (His nostrils flare slightly with the smell of blood and ointment. He very carefully does not look at his bandages.)

An American. A calm tone of voice. The suit he wears is interesting; both the fact that it's obviously not modern, and the fact that he bothers to look dressed up even in this situation. How he takes care of his appearance says a lot about a man's character.

Lalo, too, is as dressed up as he can manage, a fashionable men's hiking jacket over a button down and some jeans. None of that disguises his injury, of course. Not the appearance or the smell. Lalo notices both the flair of the nostrils and the way Louis avoids looking at his injury - interesting! - but he makes no mention of it.

"That'd be me," he says casually. "And you are?" A faint smile plays on his lips, and there's a twinkle in his eye. Lalo is sitting down, and he seems relaxed. He pats the empty seat next to him with his good arm. "C'mere! Sit by me. What can I do you for?"

What can he say, first impressions are everything, and he wants to give a good one, or at least a disarming one, whilst he's out on business. But he wears it well, familiarly, a man used to being in suits most of his days (nights). It feels like home. Louis forgives Lalo for opting for comfort; he's injured.

"Louis de Pointe du Lac."

The hand he offers to shake is confident but not interested in a firm machismo grip. It's very cool, though one could forgive a Southern man his poor circulation this far north. He seems to have a funny manicure, glasslike nails lightly pointed. Overall, his complexion is unusually smooth and clear.

Louis settles into the chair with grace but no pomp. He falls into the casualness of the man easily, crossing his legs and leaning one shoulder back--though his sensibilities are Southern manners over typical American flair. He is Creole first, after all.

"I saw your advertisement. You lookin' for a woman?"

He smiles slightly, a little joke between men. Of course a red-blooded man is looking for a woman. Why wouldn't he be? (Louis is not looking for a woman. He never has, not really.)

This man is intriguing. It's almost uncanny how much he reminds Lalo of a younger version of Fring. The suit. The mannerisms. The buttoned up nature of the way he carries himself. He even speaks with an accent, although it's Creole and not Chilean.

Of course, he's friendlier towards Lalo than Fring by a country mile, but that's like saying someone is cuddlier than a grizzly bear - in context, it means very little. There's a fluidity to his movements, too, that Lalo can't envision Fring ever managing.

He still notes the resemblance, though more as an amusing superficial resemblance than a sign of anything significant. For now, anyway.

Louis might notice Lalo staring at his nails for just half a second too long, with a puzzled, questioning expression. Like he's noticed they're unusual and realizes that is significant, but can't figure out exactly what it means.

He laughs at Louis's joke. "Ayyy, you got me," he says. He leans in, almost conspiratorially. A joke between men. Of course. He gets it. "You know her?"

It's carefully manufactured to move within different circles as a social chameleon, but enough life imitates art that it becomes true. Louis does feel comfortable inhabiting a sphere of Southern manners learned at his mother's knee and easy masculine style. If some of his personal preferences make their way into one of the many hats he wears, all the better.

(His mother stared at his nails too, though she's more skilled at hiding her staring. She disapproved, loathing the thought of her son coming home soft like certain men since he was hanging around that Lestat.)

Louis dissembles, giving himself just a little time: "Do I know her? 'S'cuse me fella, I am a gentleman." He smiles wider, but enough joking for now. "Hard to tell when everyone's gotta bundle up, but I think I seen her around. Not the most flatterin' picture for you to draw though, and posted on the board for all to see... That's no way to court a lady."

He's never seen her act like a lady, but he wonders what Lalo thinks.

For a moment, the resemblance to Fring is absolutely uncanny, in spirit if not in exact appearance. But the differences show through the cracks quickly enough. Louis's air of Southern manners has an easy charm to it that Lalo knows Fring could never even hope to aspire to.

Still, it has a way of making Lalo feel seen-through. He doesn't give a shit if Louis is a fairy. He takes for granted that Louis is a fairy, the same way he takes for granted that evergreen trees have pine needles and the night is dark. But he wonders if Louis knows that about him, too, and he feels slightly ill. Lalo's wound throbs psychosomatically, and he shifts his wounded arm away from Louis. He does it as casually as he can, trying not to seem afraid.

He does laugh approvingly, and points, when Louis says he's a gentleman. "Yeah, well, what can I say?" he says. If he sounds genuinely appreciative, it's because he is. Lalo loves a good sense of humor. He even laughs at the unflattering appraisal of his terrible art skills. "Yeah, well, you got me there," Lalo admits. "You think she'll forgive me? It would break my heart if she didn't." He winks.

Edited 2024-02-11 23:19 (UTC)

Hiding his arm like a wounded animal... Well, it's not as though they're best friends. (The smell of blood is slightly less cloying now.)

"Just hope it don't break your other arm... What happened, Mr. Salamanca?"

His tone is that of a mildly concerned acquaintance, but his eyes are unblinking. Louis sees Chloe as resourceful, like a lady adventurer in the papers; half of him wouldn't put it past her to injure someone giving her grief.

The unblinking eyes make Lalo feel almost hypnotized. He stares back into them. But a shiver runs up his spine. He blinks first. His eyes dart towards the exit, but he doesn't make a move to leave.

He seems even more like a wounded animal now. He feels like he can't not tell Louis what Louis wants to know.

"I was attacked," Lalo admits. "I was, uh, traveling with the old guy. Methuselah? Wolf came outta nowhere. We fought it off, but it got me pretty bad. Kinda worrying, if you ask me. It wasn't rabid, so it must have been desperate for food." A bad sign, for reasons he doesn't need to explain.

Lalo clears his throat. Looks away and back. "The lady, uh, your friend? Chloe? She broke into my home. Stole all my food while I was out." He snorts, like he's amused and only mildly annoyed, but part of him feels like he can't help but confess the truth to Louis. It's not something supernatural, but the feeling of eyes on him that feel like they see through him to his soul.

Louis realizes he forgot to blink and does so too late. It has the effect of an owl or a cat doing it slowly and infrequently whenever the mood strikes instead of by necessity.

"The wolves have gone a bit crazy," he allows. "They don't usually mess with humans." Louis is even sympathetic, if it's true. The wolves are dangerous. He makes a mental note to corroborate this story with Methuselah in the most casual way he can.

"Miss Chloe ain't my friend. I don't want you to get the wrong idea. Most of us, we've only known each other a short time. Them as I call friends are small in number. I'm sorry about your burglary troubles. She really broke in? If you were gone, how did you know it was her?"

He looks faintly amused, eyebrows lifting, like someone told him they found a raccoon getting into their trash. Usually if he has a personal beef with someone, he doesn't bother with public notices or whispers in ears due to the nature of his personal life. He just marches straight over to the person in question--all decorum be damned.

Edited (area man is very normal) 2024-02-18 03:56 (UTC)

If Louis resembles a cat or an owl, Lalo can't help feeling like a twitchy rabbit. A twitchy, wounded rabbit, who feels like a snake is slowly coiling around him.

He grabs his wounded arm, remembering the way the wolf had latched on. "I can show you," he says. "The teeth marks. You wanna see, eh?" He's not sure what made him offer that up. Louis doesn't seem like the kind of guy who wants to see someone's bloody wound. Lalo, still hiding his wound by angling his arm behind him, doesn't give off the impression of somebody who's genuinely looking to share. He feels compelled to offer anyway.

For a moment, his reverie is broken, and Lalo throws up both hands apologetically when Louis says Chloe isn't a friend. "Of course, of course," Lalo says. And shrugs. Friends few in number. Interesting. That by itself says a lot about a person. But Lalo moves on without commenting on it.

"Between you and me, she's been in there before. I've walked in on her rummaging through my shit." Lalo just shrugs his one good arm. "Dont worry. I'm not going to do anything hasty. I just wanna talk to her. I mean... who wouldn't want an excuse to talk to her, am I right? With an ass like that!" He laughs, and mimes spanking the air.

His stomach hurts despite his casual demeanor. Lalo wonders if there's anything else Louis wants to know. Lalo is afraid he might tell him.

Louis knows what the unadulterated smell of blood would do to him. He'd salivate, maybe feel his fangs lengthening behind his carefully closed lips. (Even when he speaks, he has a way of smiling so they don't show.) He'd sit in a quiet private turmoil, exchanging pleasantries until Lalo puts the damned thing away. Louis can feel the room becoming slightly brighter. His pupils must be widening.

Because Louis hates himself, he says, "Sure. Let's see that battle wound. You been had twice by a thief, possibly the same one, but I won't hold it against you."

He wasn't thinking of doing so, but look how magnanimous he is being anyway, when Lalo is being so brave about his wound. (He isn't.)

"Aaaaaaahhh!"

Lalo laughs out loud, and grins at him. He reaches over to lightly and playfully swat Louis on the shoulder, when Louis says he's been had by the same thief twice.

Then he agrees to see Lalo's wound. Lalo sees Louis's eyes dilate and feels even more like a rabbit being slowly choked by a snake. Lalo can't remember what compelled him to offer such a thing.

Lalo's eyes widen too. In fear.

But he remains otherwise merry. "Sure thing!" he said cheerily, and he unwraps the bandages. Leans forward. To show Louis. "What do you think? Nasty, right?"

Edited 2024-02-24 00:18 (UTC)

The dilation of his eyes is a quiet little thing, easily overlooked unless one is making eye contact. Something just slightly off. Louis takes the little swat in stride but makes no move to return camaraderie in the same fashion. He remains locked in that same close-mouthed smile as he stares overlong at the dried blood and discolored skin. The smell of ointment assaults his senses as well.

"You look a right mess, Mr. Salamanca," he finally murmurs in a voice too quiet to carry. "Careful you don't get an infection. I've seen some nasty wounds in my time."

He then forces himself to blink, which he has not done since Lalo unwrapped it. He leans back in his seat as if pulling against a gentle but insistent string. He looks slightly dizzy or queasy. He's not, but pulling himself back from thirst looks like it.

When Louis slides back into his seat, looking sick, Lalo feels a whoosh of relief. Just some Poindexter trying not to vomit all over himself at the sight of blood. Lalo should've figured.

But that doesn't explain the terror he'd felt, in the pit of his stomach, at hearing Louis speak low enough for only the two of them to hear. It doesn't explain why he'd felt compelled to offer such a thing in the first place.

Because Lalo remembers, in that moment, as he slowly wraps up his wound again, covering it in bandages once more, how Louis had spoken to him in a low voice, how it felt like he was going to die. No. Not die. Lalo isn't afraid to die. It felt like something worse was going to happen. Like he was going to be tortured, slowly.

That seems hard to believe now, looking at Louis trying not to be sick. What had he been so scared of, only a few seconds ago? His fear had been obvious, too. Eyes widening. No shaking, no obvious physical cues, but the energy of sheer terror had practically jumped off of him even without Lalo doing anything obvious.

Now, though, it seems replaced by mostly confusion. He doesn't understand the power this man holds over him. Louis is attractive, sure, and genial, two qualities Lalo always appreciates, but typically, he bends to no one, no matter how charming their Southern accent is or how sharply they're dressed.

Lalo forces himself to snap out of it. "Hooo, you should've seen me before," he says, only a little absentmindedly. "Before the old guy patched me up, I was sure I was a goner." He sounds genuinely amused by this, more than upset, but there's still clearly something weighing on him. He even looks distracted as he waves a hand in the air. "Right. Infections. Got it. Any tips? You look like an educated man. I'm sure I can trust your judgment."

Lalo tries to remember what they'd been talking about before. How this conversation started. For a brief moment he's forgotten about Chloe. Also unlike him; he's a dog with a bone, usually, when he has his mind set on a thing or a person.

There are moments when Louis acts as the predator observing prey, as though there is no other outcome beyond either feeding off him or sparing him, always within that binary of violence and mercy. And then there are moments when Louis seems adverse, disgusted, or guilty about this. Either way, he deals death quickly. The torture remains metaphorical and only for himself.

Lalo takes comfort in talking about his battle scars. He survived, so it's something to laugh at. Louis can see the flood of his fear ebb away slightly. He doesn't need vampire senses to know it. It's not fear exactly that piques Louis's interest, but the results of it: the sweat, the hunger, the chase, the taste of skin against his mouth before he breaks it--

He waves a hand dismissively. "I'm educated, but I'm told I'm several decades out of date. I just read the instructions on the first aid kits I found. Rubbin' alcohol, ointment, change bandages as frequently as the wound will allow. The worst is over for you, at least."

He forces himself to look at him again, and the little friendly smile doesn't reach his eyes.

"I wouldn't tangle with Miss Chloe." Short and succinct. No Mr. Salamanca this or that. "Even outside of your present... condition."

Lalo is about to say something else when Louis's smile stops him cold. It's not the first time that Lalo has witnessed someone smiling like that. The cartel is full of men with small smiles that don't reach their eyes. But something about makes Lalo feel sick again, his relaxation starting to ebb away get as quickly as it had come.

Something in the back of his mind whispers that he should listen to Louis, and Lalo immediately resents the voice's good sense. He can't bring himself to outright submit so easily, even when he knows it might be the smart thing to do on paper.

Don't mess with Chloe, huh?

"Oh?" Lalo asks coolly, as dispassionately as he can muster. "Why's that, if I may ask?"

Edited 2024-03-02 21:16 (UTC)

Chloe has the confidence of someone who's seen adventure, and Louis believes she comports herself capably in all ways. (Louis has never seen her recklessness in action.) Louis shouldn't just outright tell a man that he truly thinks Chloe could mess him up good. Men start fights over less.

"This here's a quiet town. You start beef with someone that clever, it's goin' make noise. Things get messy. You strike me as a smart man. If she's as much trouble as you say, then let it alone. And get better locks."

The corner of his mouth quirks upward to briefly stretch his smile with a flash of real humor. In purely selfish terms, Louis depends on the people in town to live. He can't survive on his skills alone, so he must trade what he can. And, should things take a turn for the very worst, humans are emergency rations.

In terms of his moral aesthetics, he just doesn't like violence. He never took to it the way Lestat and Claudia did. He's too human, and other vampires would see that as a flaw, a weakness. Louis constantly exists in the turmoil of these conflicting natures.

Lalo isn't the kind of pathetic manchild who gets pissy and start fights because someone offers him advice about who not to mess with. Oh, sure, he's not necessarily going to listen, but his ego just isn't fragile that way. He's a completely different type of manchild whose ego is fragile in completely different but equally annoying way.

He's also not worried about Chloe. His read on her, he thinks, is pretty solid. Unlike Louis, he's got good reason to have pegged her as reckless, and confidence means nothing to Lalo. Lots of people are confident. It's necessary to get anywhere in life, especially if you're gonna be a criminal.

Doesn't mean they're a match for him.

No, it's the atmosphere between them, and the tiny quirk of Louis's smile, that sets Lalo on edge, far more than Louis's actual words. But that's part of the game. Saying what you need to without saying it; letting your body language and the atmosphere you create do the talking for you. Lalo, of all people, understands why they can't say these kinds of things blatantly. Why they have to talk around what they really mean.

"I'm flattered to hear you think I'm smart," Lalo responds. "That's kind of you." He looks Louis up and down, determined to hold his ground despite the growing knot in his stomach. It had dissipated when Louis looked like he was going to be ill, but now it's slowly coming back.

"Could say the same about you, you know. Miss Chloe is lucky to have such a protective friend. Clever or not, she needs it. You should probably talk to her too. For her own good. Even if I 'let it alone,' like you want" - and Lalo is not going to promise that he will - "she's bound to get somebody else on her tail if she doesn't learn to keep her hands to herself. You can trust me on that."

Edited 2024-03-05 18:47 (UTC)

His skin crawls when Lalo looks him over, for similar reasons Lalo's stomach twists. He feels seen. But you couldn't look weak on Liberty Street. Louis allows himself a slightly larger intake of breath, which just makes him look like a large cat or snake coiling to spring while preserving a predator's stillness. He is sitting rather still, lacking the easy human movements of earlier.

Someone else, someone like Lalo. Well.

"She ain't my friend," Louis reiterates softly, half-captivated by the atmosphere himself. "I meant what I said, and it's a virtue for a man to speak simply," says the man who doesn't and who recognizes the absence of Lalo's agreement to keep the peace.

He rests a few fingers just barely at the edge of Lalo's bandages, unsettling because it's hardly a touch that could become a touch. His nails shine like glass.

"Rest up, Mr. Salamanca. Be a shame if you came down with somethin'."

Then he's up in one smooth motion, brushing down his lapels even though they don't need it and buttoning his suit jacket in practiced but perfectly ordinary motions.

"I'm openin' up the General Store soon," he says more briskly. "Come 'round sometime."

It's equal parts shock and rage that course through Lalo when Louis lets his fingers just barely kiss the edge of Lalo's bandages. Who the hell are you? he thinks, and finds no answer. Everything about Louis is uncanny; Lalo feels like he should be able to intuit more about him, but can't. He can't figure Louis out.

It makes Lalo angry, but it fascinates him too. Makes him even more curious. Why does he care so much about Chloe if she's 'not his friend'?

Louis is up quicker than Lalo had anticipated, although it's hard to say if that's because of Louis's natural quickness or because Lalo is still in a state of relative stupor.

But all Lalo says is, "Sounds great! I'll see you soon."

And he smiles back. Cordially. Of course.

"It was lovely to meet you, Louis. I hope we cross paths again someday. When I'm feeling better, of course."

And with that, a wink.

I need new clothes, I need somewhere to stay

C

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cw: homophobia mention

cw: the homophobia continues

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cw: vampire thirst

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cw: vampires eat humans and are weird about it

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