The crowd still echoes faintly beyond the heavy stage doors—stomping feet, shrieking fans, the unmistakable hum of adrenaline and leftover heat from too many bodies crushed together. You wait in the wings, pressed into the shadows beside a stack of equipment cases, where the stage lights don’t quite reach and the smell of smoke and sweat lingers like a second skin.

Backstage is chaos: roadies threading cables, someone shouting about a missing mic, a woman with glittering eye makeup laughing too loudly as she stumbles past with a drink in hand. It's loud, frenzied, theatrical. Him in every sense. And you’re still not quite sure if it exhausts you or just makes your skin itch.

Then, like a storm parting the sea, he appears.

Lestat.

Shirt half-unbuttoned, curls damp from sweat and clinging to his temples, eyeliner slightly smudged from the heat of stage lights and whatever fevered emotion possessed him mid-performance. The crowd had loved him—of course they had. He’d fed on their attention like it was air, each note of the final song sung like a prayer and a dare. And now he walks through the backstage crowd like he owns the earth it’s built on, silk shirt catching glimmers of purple and gold under the fluorescents.

And when he sees you his whole expression softens.

“Chère,” he says, voice still thick with stage charisma, though there’s something else now too. Something real. “Did you see it? Were you watching when I hit that high note? I nearly passed out. Felt magnificent.”

He strides toward you with the confidence of a man who never expects to be unloved, tossing off rings and bracelets as if shaking off a skin, offering you a crooked grin that might be sincere or might be for show. His head tilts at the look of you. And how he looks at you; still family, even with lights and screaming.

“Tell me, be honest. Did I make a fool of myself?” His eyes sparkle, daring you to say yes. “And if you say yes, I’ll probably believe you. But I’ll still say it was worth it.”

Behind him, someone calls his name. His manager, maybe, or a mortal hang-on. He ignores it.

“So? How does it feel?” he asks with a glint of amusement, lowering his voice just for you. “Having a father who’s a god with a microphone.” The question isn’t fair. But neither is Lestat.