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Regina's new regular is a tad creepy.

The first time she saw him, he came in in the middle of the night. He sat down in a booth in Emma's section, where he stayed for approximately five minutes in which their eyes met twice while Regina served another table, and then when she turned towards him again he was gone.

Okay, it happens.

Sometimes customers look at the menu and decide the prices are too high for how shitty the place is, they realize they're not quite as hungry as they thought, or they realize they're more hungry than they thought and can't wait for their food to be made fresh and instead seek out the Burger King around the corner. There's many reasons why someone might get up and leave without ordering, so Regina hadn't questioned it.

He comes back a few nights later, this time sitting in her section.

He's a painfully, stinking rich posh guy with a warm smile that plays on his lips when he orders coffee and a donut. He sits there in his designer clothes being stingy and there's something so clearly off about him. Nothing that makes her feel uneasy. There is just something about this man that makes her feel. He exudes sadness like he bathes in it, seeping out of his inner, most fragile core and spilling over onto everything surrounding him. and he is looking at Regina like she might be able to fix it.

Regina gets these customers from time to time.

She sees plenty of lonely people that come out in the middle of the night when the diner is empty but the doors are still open. They want the company, but can't handle the crowd of people, the noise of the day. This little diner in the middle of the night gives them a glimpse of what normality might be like. They get to talk to someone that isn't themselves, they get quiet outside of their own suffocating apartments.

This shitty diner is not the place Regina would choose for company, but that might just be because she works there.

The man drinks his coffee black and every item of food he orders remains untouched, for Regina to send back to the kitchen and get scolded for as if it's her fault that he didn't eat, and, worse, he doesn't even tip. Cheap bastard.

One day, when he needles her about where her accent's from, she snaps.

"My arse ain't on the menu, but it does cost, so tip better! You can afford it." He tells her it's not like that, he's spoken for and more importantly gay, but Regina isn't quite sure if she fully believes him. Either way, he drinks exactly two cups of coffee before he pays and this time he leaves her a tip way too generous for what he spent on his order.

For about a week he comes in every single night. He doesn't talk. He just smiles at her, orders his food, which he doesn't eat, and his coffee, which he chokes down. It's subtle, but Regina can tell by the twitch of his eyebrow that he does not enjoy the bitterness of the coffee, and the first time he came in he pulled a face so atrocious she thought the coffee was burnt and offered to make him a fresh pot. He declined, and then he left.

Regina often feels his eyes following her as she moves around the diner. They linger on her, and every time their eyes meet he ducks his head again, his face scrunched up as if he's been struck by sickening guilt.

He is cute, and it's somewhat endearing that he can't seem to hide that he has a bit of a thing for her, but it also makes her feel like a piece of meat. The man is doing nothing to make himself go unnoticed.

He must be about ten years older than Regina, give or take. She'd place him in his late twenties, early thirties. His smile is bright with adorably crooked teeth, his eyes — vibrant green unlike anything else Regina has ever seen — are framed by thick, long lashes, and one day when he pulls off his cap, pretty black coils of hair show themselves to her. He's fine and technically polite if you ignore the staring. And he tips well, now that he knows she won't put up with it if he doesn't .

Every night, like clockwork, he comes in shortly after she does. He sits in the same booth every time, the table seemingly always available just for him. A few times he's brought a book that he stares at while drinking his coffee, taking too long to turn the pages. 

Something tells Regina that it isn't because he’s a slow reader.

Like every night, she refills his cup and asks if she can get him anything else, and like every night, she expects him to say no and leave it at that. But tonight the handsome stranger with the staring problem goes off script.

"It's awfully quiet, isn't it?" He grins at her, a crooked little thing. "Don't you get bored?"

His voice is rich and smooth and for some inexplicable reason the first comparable thing that comes to mind are the cream and butter loaded mashed potatoes on their menu. Or strawberry cheesecake. Maybe she's just hungry.

"Yeah, it can get pretty boring around here. But I like the night shift and the people I meet. You don't have the same clientele during the day." She doesn't tell him that she'd rather be at home creating content for Only Fans right now. She's been slacking on uploads and her wallet is painfully aware of it.

Regina holds the pot of hot coffee close to her chest, almost hugging it, while the man picks up his cup and takes a slow sip, nodding in approval even though she can see his brow twitching again.

"You sure you don't want creamer or something sweet with that?"

She doesn't know why she winks at him. She curses herself for winking at him. It will only raise his hopes.

But amusement paints his handsome features. He chuckles and shakes his head while he tells her "Nah, I'm good. But thank you." and it's a good look on him. Much better than the grave expression he usually wears while nursing his coffee.

If the man doesn't want to make his coffee more enjoyable she won't force him to do it. Let him drink his bitter bean juice.

The sound of her grumbling stomach makes heat rise to her cheeks. She should've at least grabbed a protein bar before running to catch her train. All Regina can do is pray that he didn't hear it. It's embarrassing enough that she winked at him.

"Uhm… Do you need anything else, sir?"

Maybe she can convince tonight’s line cook to spring some fries. Probably not, but it's worth a try. Anything hot and salty would do. And a slice of that strawberry cheesecake. She might even be able to sit down to eat, with how quiet it is tonight.

When she looks down at her new regular he’s looking at the menu with furrowed brows. He's biting his lip, chewing on it like a nervous tic, when he closes the menu and looks back up at Regina.

"What would you recommend to eat 'round here?" And when she opens her mouth to tell him the items they're always told to push he holds up his finger. "And I don't wanna know what y'all are told to tell customers. What do you, Regina, order for yourself?"

Oh it's like that, is it?

Right now she wants to order the entire menu. Everything sounds good, except for the scrambled eggs. The thought of eggs makes her somewhat queasy. Regina cannot tell this man that the entire menu is good. That's not exactly helpful when he is specifically asking her what she would recommend.

Although she is a little tempted to push something expensive. He can afford it.

She's still dreaming about fries and cheesecake, so that’s what ends up leaving her mouth. He smiles at her warmly and asks for exactly that, and Regina leaves the pot of coffee on his table before she makes her way to the kitchen, because if he wants to chat and to eat he might also want a third cup of coffee tonight.

While Henry, the cook, drops the potatoes into the fryer, Regina grabs a plate and makes her way over to the cake stand. She gets the man the biggest slice. He deserves it for many reasons. Like the fact that he's always so sad, and that he leaves her such big tips, and that despite the way he looks at her he hasn't hit on her yet. Giving him the biggest slice she can offer is the least Regina can do.

On her way back she picks up a bottle of ketchup, and the man looks like he might enjoy mayo with his fries as well so she also grabs that. Many people frown at the combo, but she likes to put people onto it. He seems like someone that might be able to appreciate these things.

"Here's your cake," She puts the plate and a fork down. "and here are your condiments. I'll be right back with those fries!" Regina sees that his cup is refilled. Good thing she left the pot.

The fries are piping hot and she can see the salt glistening in the oil. God, the smell is mouthwatering. She should've asked Henry for that portion of fries immediately. Why didn't she?

Her fingers brush against his when she hands him the plate. They're colder than she expected them to be. Not that she’s thought about his fingers before.

"Thank you."

He smiles again. There's an intensity in his eyes that she doesn't like, something heavy that might pull her under if she looks for too long. It doesn't feel good. Regina tries to shake it off.

"All good?" She asks, when he looks down at his fries with a frown. Then at his slice of cake where a forlorn syrupy strawberry is sliding off the top. Then he looks up at Regina again.

Fuck, did she get his order wrong?

"This is gonna sound strange, but I’m actually not hungry at all… must've gotten something mixed up in my head before." He bites his lip again. "Would it be totally weird if I offer this to you? I mean I could hear your stomach growling earlier. Better than to throw it out, wouldn't you say?"

It's an incredibly weird offer, yeah. Who the hell orders food at a diner just to decide that they don't want it after all? He pushes the plate towards her.

"I'm like the only guy here. You can't seriously get in trouble for sitting with me if you have no one else to tend to, can you?" He nods at the chair opposite to him with a little smile, but it falters. "Please tell me if I'm being weird, I don't mean to freak you out. I'm just thinking you deserve a little break."

It's pushy and crosses a few lines, but Regina isn't gonna say no to free food and those green eyes. She puts her hand on the back of the chair to pull it out, but doesn't sit down yet.

"I will take you up on that offer. But first, you gotta tell me your name."

The man with the pretty green eyes smiles bashfully and lets out a little chuckle.

"Yeah, that's fair." He holds out his hand to her, and when she takes it in her own he has a comforting, firm handshake.

"I'm Thomas."

Thomas. It doesn't fit.

He watches Regina when she pulls the plate of fries closer to herself and pops one into her mouth. They're good. Hot, greasy, salty. Comforting. A little ketchup joins the fries on the plate.

"So, what brings you here every night, Thomas?"

It's perfectly clear what brings him in. The same thing that makes so many other people walk through those doors in the middle of the night. The loneliness is loud and the sadness dulls his pretty eyes. The poor man wants company, and has decided that Regina will give it to him.

"You enjoying the food?"

He continues asking her questions while she eats. Polite small-talk like how she's enjoying her work, did she grow up in London, how did she find her way to Brooklyn. Things like that. Regina first notices that he didn't answer her question when she sinks her fork into the soft cheesecake.

It's fine. She doesn't need the details.

Thomas' face lights up while they sit and talk. Regina doesn't dislike her job. Doing something to make his night a little better, even if that something is as simple as sitting down with him and eating his food, feels good. Even if it might just encourage his weird behaviour.

It becomes a thing. Thomas comes in, sits at what Regina has started to think of as his table, orders whatever she recommends to him that night, and then claims he isn't hungry after all and offers it to Regina, who gladly takes it. They talk and then he pays for her meal and still leaves her a considerable tip.

He is fucking weird, but he is interesting to talk to and it's worth it for the money.

Thomas is easy to talk to in the sense that he isn't very talkative and prefers for Regina to hold the conversation.

Thomas is an open book, but the pages are written in code. She knows absolutely nothing about the man.

One night Regina comes in wearing blue eyeshadow, and Thomas walks out before she even has a chance to say hello to him.

She looks him up on google one day. Just out of curiosity because the amount of money he leaves in her pockets several times a week is frankly ridiculous. And look at that, Thomas Pitt, 566th richest man in the world. And yet he stumbles into her diner, night after night, to choke down horrible food and talk to her.

He's sitting at the bar with his laptop open, glancing down at his phone with a sceptical look, and Regina can't help but bring it up. He comes here every night, and she has her theories for why but she'd like to know for sure. Get her ideas confirmed. He grins, clearly amused by her digging, and it's cute. "Am I?" He asks and he seems endeared by her and she can't help but chuckle.

And then he asks what her financial situation looks like and the laughter dies in her throat. Thomas knows she works in a diner most of the week. That should really be answer enough. She can't exactly tell him what she's doing on the side so she can stretch out her meager tips to cover rent because this job pays so badly and most people don't tip. What an insane system that the American service industry is built on.

"Put it like this," Regina starts while drying a glass. "ceiling tiles fell off the ceiling in my flat and like… mice fell out."

Thomas laughs and tells her she’s lucky it wasn't rats and it's hard to believe that he knows what he's talking about. Everything about the man says generations of wealth. What does he know about poverty and rodents?

Regina continues bitching just because she can. It's not often that she gets to complain about how shit everything is, and Thomas sits and listens so nicely, nodding and smiling even when she basically calls him disgustingly rich.

"I've got a mixed set of holdings." He says with a laugh, and Regina replies that she's got a mixed set of customers and yet Thomas is the only one that's watching; let alone watching her so closely and with such interest.

His face falls quickly and it's almost satisfying to watch him scramble for something that is a mix of an explanation and an apology, talking about how he didn't want to make her uncomfortable.

"You've been helping me. Just being you." He's lonely and he's sorry and he doesn't want to put this on her, but Regina stops him. He's here and he's here often. He doesn't really care about what he is putting on her and how heavy it is for her, he just cares that she is here for him to be around.

"I remind you of your sis?"

It's a good guess, the one Regina's been rotating around her mind for the longest time, right alongside "he wants to fuck me real bad." Thomas deflects. Instead of answering he writes 500 (five-hundred!!) into the tip slot on the receipt, talking about how they need to take care of her mice problem. “We need to take care of it” he says, as if he is involved in this.

Regina makes a cruel comment, and Thomas just laughs, tells her she won't be able to guess why he's there. For a moment he's quiet, looks deep in thought, and then he asks if she's really asking.

Chef is shouting for her in the background while Thomas stares off into nothing before he hits a few keys and turns his laptop towards her.

"You know this book?" He asks, and the red cover rings some bells, but she hasn't read it. Some gothic horror romance, all kinds of fucked up if the TikTok reviews are to be believed.

Thomas tells her the book is real.

"There's a girl in it." He says, and his voice is unsteady. He's looking at Regina like he's on the verge of crying, but when she dares to ask what happened to the girl in the book he believes to be real, he freezes. He just stares at her for a few moments, and then he picks up his pen, scribbles the 500 out, picks up his things and leaves with a rushed apology.

That went just great.

It's nice to have Thomas as a regular, but he just does these things that make her skin crawl a bit.

When Regina was sick and had to call in, Emma sends her a sneaky picture of Thomas forlornly sitting in his booth, and she tells Regina that he left without ordering anything. When Regina goes back to work the next day Thomas grabs her wrist as she passes by and asks her where she'd been; he was waiting for her he says, she'd never missed a shift before.

His tone is drowning in concern, but there's something else buried underneath it. Panic almost. Fear.

When Emma makes a joking little comment about Regina's stalker she feels a need to defend Thomas, but when she does ask her friend to elaborate Emma confides that Thomas doesn’t come in when Regina isn't working. He’s only here during Regina's night shifts, he isn't a nightly customer like Regina thought he was.

Thomas cares for Regina, that much is clear to her. He's a little pushy with it, but Regina thinks she can live with that.

"You really shouldn't be smoking those."

Thomas' voice is scolding like a father’s and he pointedly looks at the pink vape Regina slips into her apron pocket. She quickly glances around, but Thomas seems to be the only one to notice, so she puts her hands on the table and leans down until their faces are inches apart.

"You gonna tattle on me?"

She grins at him and he frowns, but she can see the corner of his lip fighting to not move.

"It's not that you're doing it while working that I'm concerned about. It's more the whole lung cancer thing. Smoking isn't good for you!"

"You smoke at least one, sometimes up to three cigarettes before you come in here. You roll them yourself like the old man you are. Don't deny it, I see it with my own two eyes every night. You're a little hypocrite!"

Regina looks around again, but the diner is mainly empty, her coworkers all hiding away in the kitchen to gossip. She pulls the vape out again and holds it up, offering the mouth-piece to Thomas.

"Come on, it won't kill you any more than your cigs will. Give it a try."

Regina challenges him with a raised eyebrow and he stares her down with an unimpressed look. She's about to pull the pen back when Thomas finally leans forward and wraps his lips around it, breathing in the artificial raspberry vapour. He holds it in his lungs for a few moments before blowing it up into her face, causing Regina to honest-to-god giggle.

"I prefer my cigarettes, thank you. That was disgusting."

Thomas lifts his hand and uses his index finger to tip the pen away from his face and towards her own. Regina hits it a final time before dropping it into her apron pocket again. She got what she wanted.

They share one of his cigarettes the next evening when Regina catches him before he steps into the diner. She wordlessly holds out her hand and he places his lit cigarette between her fingers, lets her take a deep drag before plucking it back. They pass it between them and the entire time Regina smokes Thomas' gaze is glued to her with a longing, as if she's the most perfect thing he's ever laid his eyes on.

Regina pulls on the hem of her yellow dress, the mandatory uniform, while Thomas lights another cigarette for himself.

"I'll go put on a fresh pot of coffee, just for you, yeah?"

He smiles at her and nods.

Regina spends her free time making content and reading the book Thomas showed to her. Interview with the Vampire by Daniel Molloy.

It's a surprisingly good read about a man named Louis navigating vampirism in an abusive relationship, while trying to keep his daughter safe. He nearly kills the girl, takes her home and has his lover, Lestat, turn her. Lestat grows jealous of Claudia, the daughter, over time, and Louis encourages her to run, which she does until Lestat the lover forces her back.Lestat nearly kills Louis and flees and then it is just Louis and the girl. He parentifies her, treats her like a partner rather than a daughter. It's an incestuous mess and in Regina's opinion Lestat was right to be sceptical.

"Date, huh?"

Thomas grins at her and leans back, his arms crossed over his chest. There's a twinkle in his pretty green eyes and Regina's tummy swooshes with something.

"Yeah, a cute guy from the library asked me out for coffee, and it went pretty well I would say. He even brought me flowers!"

"Good… Flowers are good. Does he have good grades? And what about a job?" Thomas asks and he seems entirely sincere. They're ridiculous questions, something she might expect to hear from her father.

Regina can't tell if he's being protective or jealous.

The more she reads the uneasier she grows. Louis and Claudia kill Lestat and run off into the sunset. To Paris, the city of love of all places, and then Louis falls for the next man (Armand, who seems to be based on someone that the author is terribly in love with). Louis neglects Claudia, treats her both like a little child and pays her no mind at all, depending on what fits his mood. The new lover is cruel to the girl. The book ends with Claudia murdered for mere the crime of existing. Louis obviously loved her but he treated her horribly over the span of their time together, and if Regina thought the book was a work of fiction she might say that Louis deserves at least some of the pain he suffered as punishment for what he put that poor woman through.

But Louis is clearly based on Thomas. And the girl, Claudia, is clearly something he sees when he looks at Regina.

His daughtersisterwife.

The back of the book, Regina discovers, holds a series of historical documents. Things Molloy compiled to prove that it is a real nonfiction memoir and not a horror romance like most people believe. Documents like birth certificates, death dates, newspaper clippings, financial records, and photographs.

The photographs are what Regina is captivated by. There's grainy pictures of two young black men dressed in 1910s fashion, the text revealing them as Louis and Paul de Pointe du Lac. The taller one of them is Thomas, there is no doubt about it. A little younger than he is today, his eyes dark, but still, unmistakably Thomas. And there's more pictures of him. Some with his dark eyes, together with people identified as his siblings, sometimes with his mother.

And then the pictures change. His eyes go lighter, when they're not hidden behind small glasses, and Regina knows it's the green she's gotten so used to. His posture has changed, his clothes are finer. There's a white man next to him in some of the pictures, light eyes and what appears to be blonde hair, wavy and shoulder length. Lestat de Lioncourt, the lover.

Turning the page knocks the air out of Regina's lungs. Because it is a picture of her.

Or, it isn't. Not really. Her nose isn’t quite right, her curls are looser than Regina’s has ever been, and most notably, her eyes appear almost light in the black and white photographs. 

It's a young girl wearing the same late 1910s style of clothing smiling into the camera, Louis on her right, Lestat on her left. The caption identifies her as Claudia de Lioncourt.

It takes everything in Regina to not throw the book across the room. The pictures of Thomas could easily be fake historical documents, edited pictures to make them appear old-timey. But the girl, the daughter that looks almost exactly like her?

That is too much to explain away.

And Regina really doesn't want to believe that Thomas is actually a nearly one hundred and fifty year old vampire obsessed with her because she looks like his dead daughter/sister, but what else is she supposed to take from this?

Regina takes the bottle of gin she's stored away in the back of her closet and takes a swig straight from it. She can’t be sober when looking through the rest of these pictures.

She drinks until she feels a buzz and only then does she feel courageous enough to open the book again. Claudia stares back at her like a mirror. She's younger than Regina, but not noticeably. According to the book she was turned at age fourteen, but she could pass as older. Not twenties, but late teens with the right costume. Which she seemingly found out over the years.

There are many pictures of Claudia. Some in New Orleans, taken by professional photographers, alongside some amateur shots from inside their home, which were mainly taken by Louis. There's a gap which must be their Europe tour, and then the pictures pick back up in and around Paris.

A young woman in fashionable clothes, hair and makeup done. Claudia seems happy in Paris. Her grin is full of life and hope and hunger. There are a few pictures of Louis, taken by Claudia, and there are two pictures of Armand. Claudia takes up a majority of the pages.

Regina wonders if Louis requested for her to be immortalized in these pages. A gallery of his daughter's life.

Her eyes are glued to a picture of Claudia and Louis in front of the Seine at night. They're lit by the full moon and Louis is standing beside her with his arm around her waist. Her head is resting on his shoulder and he is looking down at her with so much love in his eyes that it hurts Regina, bringing forth an unbearable longing for love. It tears something apart in her chest to see it, see how much he loved this girl, even if he treated her like shit. 

Thomas (No, Louis) is already sitting at the bar when Regina rushes in, two hours late. He looks at her hopefully, but she just walks past him, she cannot deal with this right now.

But her mind is on him while she's getting shouted at in the backroom. On Louis, who's life was horror for decades, and more importantly her mind is on Claudia, who had it even worse. Claudia the innocent young vampiress who should have gotten to live a long and happy undead life.

Regina promises Emma to Zelle her her tips as an apology for leaving her alone to serve a full diner, and then she walks behind the bar to start clearing dishes. Louis immediately starts talking to her, asking if she's okay, telling her he's worried, all the things Regina doesn't want to hear. She wants to just forget about it all, have Louis never show up here again, have him never look at her again. He does not see her, not like she so foolishly had hoped he might despite how much he’s freaking her out. She is nothing but a Claudia replacement.

"You're the one in the book."

The words leap out of her mouth. She needs it confirmed, because it sounds mental. Louis tells her he can help her, he can explain. But she tells him she understands. Tries to deflect. Either this man is insane and paid two-time Pulitzer winner Daniel Molloy to write a fictional version of his sad fucked up life, or…. or the book is real like Louis and Daniel and that blonde bloke fronting for The Vampire Lestat claim. And Louis is a vampire. And is convinced she looks like his dead daughter, resulting in him haunting Regina.

She tries to keep busy by stocking up on the small condiment pouches, answering his words in a trembling voice. Louis scares her. Whatever version of things it is, he is dangerous. Vampire or not. She can feel his eyes stalk her and she knows how desperate he is. Desperate men are dangerous men.

"I can't stay anyways." He tells her when Regina tries to put a stop to the conversation by saying she's busy, and god, the sun will rise soon.

"That's mental." She says again. It is. What the fuck else is she supposed to say? 'Oh great this is so fun and interesting, thank you for stalking me and potentially being a monster!' doesn't seem to be it.

Regina can't help but flinch when Louis takes a step towards her. He lifts his hands as if to signal that he means no harm, but that gesture does not slow Regina's heart down in the slightest. He's been here since one-thirty he says, he just wanted to make sure she's okay. And then he hands her a wad of cash. A thick one that feels very heavy, definitely over two hundred dollars, and makes Regina feel like a whore being paid for her time.

She throws Louis out of the diner.

She doesn't want to have this confrontation inside, in front of other customers and her coworkers, but they need to talk. She needs to put a stop to this. Louis scrambles to put on his coat and rush to the door while she continues to tell him to "Get out!" and he pushes the door open for her.

Regina's anger is threatening to boil over when she waves the wad of cash at him, demanding to know what the hell this is supposed to be.

And Louis tells her he could help her, wants to help her. He confesses to her that he looked her up (stalked her, more like) and found her Only Fans and her criminal record and the debt she's accumulated over the years.

The Only Fans thing sticks with her the most though. The thought of him finding it, subscribing to it, seeing her like that makes her sick to her stomach. He can pretend as much as he wants, that he sees her in a parental light or some bullshit and that he just wants to keep her safe and make sure she's alright. But Regina can see through his facade.

He doesn't listen when she tells him to fuck off and to leave her alone, instead he looks at her like a kicked puppy and tries to reason with her. He's trying to make it seem not so incredibly insane, what he is proposing. Louis says he'll pay her debt and get her an apartment, clean her criminal record. He wants to keep her like a songbird in a cage, like some sugarbaby. Regina knows these things come with a price.

"And what? Put on a yellow dress and sit in your lap?" He wouldn't be the first man to want that kind of thing from her. He is desperate, grasping at straws trying to calm her down. "No, no! None of that!"

It doesn't work. Regina's voice grows louder and she can see some people passing by gawking at them. She does not care.

"Yeah all of that! 'Here's the money. Get in my escalade. Be my dead daughter!'"

His face falls and Regina feels her body start to enter fight or flight mode as she continues shouting at him. You should not raise your voice at individuals with an unstable psyche. It might end ugly.

Louis turns around and simply leaves.

Regina fights her way through the rest of her shift, but her thoughts remain on Louis the entire time. He's been stalking her for weeks now, using an alias and lying to her just because she reminds him of his dead fucking daughter. It's fucking terrifying and it doesn't matter that he's offering her a thousand dollars just for sitting in the diner and talking to her about her day.

The cash is burning a hole through her pocket.

Regina barely gets any tips all day and when Emma clocks out she shoves a hundred dollar bill into her hand as an apology for fucking up her day. The rest of the money goes into the inner pocket of her jacket, close to her body so she doesn't risk anyone snatching it on the train.

The apartment is loud and cold when she gets home. Her roommates are loudly bickering about something to do with groceries and a bathroom schedule, and there's a chair blocking the way to her tiny, sad bedroom.

Regina is above these things. She will not take money from a random guy by pretending to be his dead daughter.

She sees the dildo laying on her bed, and her eyes wander to the ring light.

Could it really be worse than this? Thomas Pitt is the 566th richest man in the world. Louis de Pointe du Lac is Thomas Pitt. A grand is nothing to him. He is desperate enough to agree to any price she names. And Regina is desperate enough to take the money.

Her own apartment, a clean record, debt free.

She can put on an accent for that.

Louis stays away for a few nights, probably afraid of angering her even more. Part of her wishes he would stay gone, but she knows he won't. And of course he doesn't. He sits in front of the diner in his car, staring inside like a creep. Regina waves him inside, already annoyed by his self-pitying antics. He has money, she keeps telling herself as he walks up to the door and pulls it open. He has money.

Louis sits down in his booth, folds his hands and looks down at the table, trying to keep his eyes off her.

"In the neighbourhood?" She knows he wasn’t.

"No."

"Can't stay away?"

He shakes his head and he looks seconds from tears when Regina lowers herself into the seat opposite him. Grateful is the word she might use to describe the look on his face.

"Yeah…"

At least he's honest now. Regina tells him what dish is being pushed, knowing full well he won't order it. She has a hard time looking at Louis. She's pissed, she is. But it is incredibly hard to not feel pity for the man. He’s clearly very unstable and is trying to cope with horrible things, and he seems to care for Regina, even if it is because she reminds him of his dead daughter.

There isn't a world in which Regina would be able to hold back the apology leaving her lips. Some little voice in the back of her mind is telling her to hug Louis. She does not. She does however ask him what he'd be willing to pay her.

There's a lot of guilt about using a broken man like this, when his voice breaks as he answers her. There's even more guilt when she demands five hundred thousand dollars from him. She pushes it down. 566th richest man in the world. Multi-millionaire. This does not hurt his pockets. It might just hurt his already fragile psyche. But this is the kind of money you cannot turn down.

She practiced the New Orleans drawl at home, sitting on her bed and staring at the wall while listening to the YouTube vocal coach. She highlighted the pages in the book to get the girl's mannerisms and vocabulary down.

Regina tilts her head towards Louis, whose green eyes are shining red.

"What now, Daddy Lou?" She asks in a pitched voice, and the poor man's lips begin to tremble. He tries to school his expression, but fails desperately. Regina's stomach turns when a red tear threatens to spill from his eye.

Fuck. What the fuck has she gotten herself into?

"Why don't you tell me about your day, Claudia?"

Regina gives him that night in the diner, slips into the accent, into the role of Claudia and tells him about work and how it's interesting to interact with humans on a nightly basis and that it is a good way to gauge who to hunt. Things she imagines Claudia might say.

She's just pulling shit out of her arse, but Louis is lapping it up like a cat with a bowl of warm cream. He sits opposite her nodding along to what she's saying with a watery smile on his lips until she is pulled away, since technically she's still on the clock.

Regina sees the moment Louis snaps out of the illusion. If she listened closely she would have been able to hear his heart breaking she thinks.

She's apologetic when she stands, running her hands over her skirt to smooth it down and to do something with them. They're shaking slightly. She has to suppress a yelp when Louis grabs her wrist.

"Thank you, Regina." He squeezes it and his hand is cold. Because he is dead. Warmed by feeding on blood. Louis drops her wrist as if burned and it dawns on Regina that the book mentioned mind reading. Fuck. She thinks a quick apology and hopes it arrives in his mind.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to keep you from your work. Please get back to what you were doing before I came in."

Louis pulls out a pen from his coat pocket, scribbles something onto a napkin which he tucks into her apron pocket alongside three tenners despite not ordering anything and thus not needing to leave a tip. Later when Regina looks she finds that it's his phone number and a little note telling her to let him know her terms.

Instead of texting him what she wants out of this, Regina requests a meeting. A restaurant, not her shitty place of work. She pulls out her highlighter and copy of Interview with the Vampire, and studies Claudia as if she's being graded on it. Before her meeting with Louis she purposely tries to find an outfit that she thinks won't evoke too many Claudia emotions, some football jersey. She needs him focused so they can have a very in depth discussion about boundaries.

Louis is beautiful where he sits waiting for her. Dressed impeccably, his green eyes tracking her like a hunting dog as she crosses the room.

"Hi." He smiles shyly and gestures for her to take a seat. She lowers herself into the seat opposite of him and rests her chin on her hand, looking at the strange man.

"Hi." Regina replies. "So… how do you wanna do this, posh boy? How were you imagining this going?"

"I don't know. Looking at you, being near you was enough. But then you offered me so much more, things I hadn't even dreamed off. I know it's unhealthy and not the way to do this, but I don't know what else to do. I can't move on, I can't forget her." Louis' voice is terribly hoarse as he speaks. "I need her. Please." He adds quietly.

Again, and not for the last time, Regina feels guilty about this. She isn't sure if she'll ever shake that feeling when Louis looks at her with those eyes. But she will not back out. Not now. She squares her shoulders and looks him in the eye.

"My only rule really is that I'm not gonna fuck you. We can discuss that if you're willing to spring some more cash, but right now that is off the table. Otherwise I'm game for pretty much anything you want from me."

"I do not want to fuck you, I promise! Not that! I just want my sister, my daughter, my Claudia. Just for a little bit, just for a few hours a week."

Louis sets his rules.

Around Louis, Regina is Claudia. She arrives in character, she leaves in character. Any communication as Regina happens over text so as to not break the illusion. She will look for an apartment and show it to Louis for approval, and then he will pay the deposit and the first few months of rent. As a gift of sorts. He will also make sure her criminal record disappears.

Regina can do what she wants to in her free time but Louis does vocalize a distaste for her Only Fans account.

"I hate to think of you degrading yourself . You have so many other options."

"What, like this?"

Louis grimaces at the reminder of what he is doing, and Regina is sure he carries a similar shame to herself. Two desperate people using each other. What a pair they make.

Regina will not receive the 500k in one go, instead Louis will pay off her debt, and what is left of the money she will receive in smaller sums after a weekly meeting. He doesn't say it but Regina knows that Louis is doing it like this because he’s afraid that she'll just take the money and bail on her end of the bargain. He doesn't seem to remember that he is a fucking vampire and could easily hunt her down if she did that. Regina did. She briefly considered it, but the thought was banished from her mind pretty much instantaneously. 

"I will provide clothes for you." Louis tells Regina when she asks if Claudia requires any costuming. "I'll try to make sure it's items you can repurpose and wear in your day to day life after this, but for now I will provide a wardrobe and I ask you to use it for our meetings only."

"And how should I address you then? Daddy Lou?"

"That works. Louis or just Lou is also fine, any variation of brother works as well. Claudia was many things to me but most importantly she was my daughter and my baby sister. You can use them interchangeably. You're a smart girl, I’m sure you can gauge what will be appropriate for the situation."

They discuss the little things like how they will schedule their meetings, what happens if Regina gets sick or otherwise incapacitated, and how payment will be handled.

Regina goes home satisfied.

It's simple really, there isn't much to it. Once a week Regina is going to get dressed up and meet Louis in a neutral setting of his choosing. She will sit down with him for one to two hours and play his little girl. No touching except the occasional hand holding or linked arms as they walk. It's totally innocent. It's easy.

The first thing she does is go online and look at apartment listings. Louis has given her a price-range and a preferred neighbourhood, and he has the final word in it, but overall Regina has a lot of freedom to find something. If possible he said he would like it if they tour the places together, but Regina put a stop to that quickly. She needs her own place. It's already a lot that Louis is going to be financing it, she doesn't need him on her heels while touring.

Five days after their meeting in the restaurant a box arrives at Regina's front door.

"Did you win the fucking lottery or something, why is there a massive box outside?" Regina's roommate brings it inside, asks her how she can afford to go on a spending spree but not buy new milk for the fridge, and Regina snatches the box, storming off into her room without a word.

Inside are clothes. Timeless pieces with 30s and 40s vibes but still wearable in the 2020s without raising too many questions. Pleated pants, flowy dresses and skirts, blouses, cardigans, and sweater vests. Anything the heart desires is spread out over her bed and when Regina lifts one of the dresses she sees it's in her size exactly. She tells herself that it does not matter how Louis made that happen. She will be out of this horrible house and that is worth all the creepiness.

On the sixth day several text messages ping through.

LDPDL: Tomorrow, Central Park Boathouse, 11:30 PM

LDPDL: Food for you and then a stroll through the park afterwards.

LDPDL: Sound okay?

Regina scoffs a little at the proposition, since the request was to not break the illusion, so why would she be eating? But she sends a confirmation. No way she'll turn that down.

ME: sounds okay

ME: package arrived yesterday

ME: any specific request for the outfit?

LDPDL: The yellow dress would be nice, I think. I have something for you that goes along with that.

LDPDL: I'll send a car to pick you up.

Of course he would choose the dress that'd remind him of what is probably the worst day of his life. Although when Regina thinks about it, he might have chosen the yellow dress as a way to trick his mind into thinking that Claudia escaped unscathed and has come back to him. The comment, however, is ominous… What could Louis have for Regina that'd go along with the dress? But it doesn't matter. No point in giving herself a headache trying to figure it out.

Tomorrow comes faster than Regina would like. Louis shoots her a text when the car is downstairs, and the ride is quiet and intense. Regina has paired the yellow dress with a pair of brown Mary-janes and minimal makeup. Her phone and keys are stored away in a small leather cross body bag and in her nervousness she forgot to bring a jacket. Things are getting off to a great start.

The car (a private one, not a taxi) drops her off at some place called Terrace Drive, right at the east side of Central Park. The sun is sitting low on the sky and doesn't reach underneath the shade of the trees, and Louis is sitting on one of the green benches, not far from where Regina is left by the car, staring down at his hands. And because he can sense her, he stands when Regina starts walking towards him.

A few deep breaths, and Regina is pushing herself into character.

"Daddy Lou! I hope I didn't make you wait!" Her voice is forced into that unmistakable New Orleans accent and she prays that it’s close enough to what Claudia actually sounded like. Louis didn't complain that night at the diner, but she's still worried.

Louis comes to a stop in front of her. Takes her in and his emotions are unreadable when he holds out both his hands for Regina to take. She does, and he squeezes them.

"Don't worry, Claudia. I took a little stroll ‘round the park and did some people watching. You're right on time." He starts out hoarse but quickly snaps out of it, appearing as calm and collected as ever. "Come on, I have a reservation over by the water. I always wanted to see what that's all about."

He holds out his arm for her and after a moment Regina links his arm in his, and lets him lead the way.

"So, what have you been up to, Lou? Any interesting business ventures you wanna boast about?" She prepared topics to talk about during the car ride, but everything Regina had gathered seems to have slipped her mind, so now she just pulls whatever she can think about out of thin air.

But Louis takes the bait and tells her about a painting he's trying to sell and Regina can spend the walk just nodding her head and giving small comments here and there.

She's never been to the Boathouse, prefers the smaller Brooklyn parks over Central Park. Regina tries to avoid Manhattan as much as possible in general. But here she is, standing a step behind Louis as he tells the hostess his name for the reservation. It's a pretty place, looking out over the water where she can see a few swans swim laps.

Turns out Louis has invited her to a wine dinner. They're seated and immediately poured wine, and Regina doesn't want to know what the price per person is, but the three courses and dessert sound heavenly. She feels incredibly out of place.

"So, what's with the food? I know you like to choke down something from their world once a week, but do I really have to join in on that torture?" Regina mentally pats herself on the back for that. The question simultaneously asks what she wants to know so badly, while still keeping the illusion up. Claudia du Lac making fun of her father for his ridiculous habit of consuming human food.

Louis smiles at her.

"I just thought it'd be a good experience for you, is all. I know you think it's stupid and I know it is beneath you, but I am still of the belief that you shouldn't isolate yourself from them as much as you do. Eat the food, just today, just for me, yeah?"

A perfectly timed waiter walks up to them and places down their first course.

Okay so Louis was thinking about Regina, and not just Claudia. He wants her to experience nice things, get something good out of these meetings as they're happening, like good food. And god, the food is good. The courses are perfectly balanced with the wine, and it's very hard to pull disgusted faces while eating. But Regina is nothing if not committed to playing a vampiress who tastes nothing but gross paste when consuming this beautiful meal.

While they're eating (and Louis tries his best to conceal his own disgust to not be rude) they continue talking about everything and nothing. It's nice enough, Louis relaxes through the night and watches Regina with soft eyes. It's incredibly fucked up, but it seems to be doing him good, to have a dinner with his dead daughter.

After dinner Louis offers Regina his arm again, and they stroll along the water. It's as dark as it ever gets in New York City, the sky above them black, but polluted with bright lights. The faint sound of sirens accompanies the rustling of the trees around them.

"I'm so glad that you could make time for me, Claudia. I gotta admit I missed you a whole lot, so it's real nice to have you here." He bumps her with his shoulder as they walk, and Regina smiles. Louis has some serious fucking issues, needs real therapy and not just and old man writing him a book, but he’s sweet enough. She feels for him. Maybe this won't be so bad.

"I'll always find time for my big bro." Regina says into the quiet night. "I missed you too, Louis. More than you can imagine."

They stop by the edge of the water, and Louis fumbles with something in his jacket pocket. Nervous energy radiates off him when he turns towards Regina, a black box in his hand.

"I found these in some desk drawer and it's not like I'm gonna wear them. You want 'em back? I'm sure you already missed them." He hands her the box, and it must be what is supposed to go along with the dress.

When Regina opens the lid her eyes fall upon a pair of earrings, and a matching necklace. They are beautiful, something any girl would love to receive. Tahitian pearls set in gold. She doesn't want to know if they're real or not, but there's really no world in which they're not. Regina chose not to wear any jewellery today, nothing she owns matched what she saw Claudia wear in the photos so it was safer to just forego it. She picks up the earrings one after the other, and puts them on. Then she holds out the box to Louis again.

"Do you wanna help me put on the necklace?"

His fingers brush against her neck as he pushes her hair to the side, rising goosebumps where they touch her, and he fastens the delicate pieces of jewellery around her throat. It sits cold against her sternum, the light of the streetlamps catching in the precious metal.

"You're so beautiful, Claudia." Louis pushes some of her hair out of her face to admire her properly. His hands cup her cheeks.

Regina tells herself that she's shivering because of the cold. It has cooled down a lot in comparison to earlier in the evening when they walked towards the restaurant, and Regina is cursing herself for not having remembered a jacket. She won't do Louis any good if she's stuck in bed with a cold.

That Louis can read minds hasn't fully set in her head yet. She startles when he wraps his jacket around her shoulders and tells her to warm herself up. "We gotta get some blood in you, sweet thing." He tells her, rubbing his hands over her arms to try to warm Regina a little more. "Pick up a jogger or something on your way home, yeah?"

What a morbid thought. Regina wonders if that's what Louis will be doing. She's full from dinner herself, but she knows it's done nothing to satisfy Louis' hunger. Regina tries not to think about it.

Just like she tries not to think about many things lately.

To keep up the illusion, Louis speaks as if Regina is supposed to walk home and hunt, but the agreement was that he'd order her another car to safely transport her back to her shitty Brooklyn apartment. Pick up at the same spot as drop off. They say goodbye at the shore where they're still standing, and Regina makes her way back to the entrance of the park. She's sure that Louis is following her closely to make sure she's safe.

The necklace around her neck feels like it's choking her the entire car ride home.

Regina finds a thousand dollars wired into her account the next morning.

The yellow dress on the foot end of her bed, and the jewellery on the nightstand stare at her in judgement, but the relief outweighs the shame of what she's done. Her Only Fans stats for the month aren't promising, but the cold hard cash Louis can provide her is. Life is expensive for those amongst them that aren't over a century old rich fuckers.

Regina spends her day in bed scrolling through apartment listings while the Interview with the Vampire audiobook plays in the background. It’s read by Molloy himself and the guy has a surprisingly calming voice. Good speaker. She feels like she's back in high-school, studying for her GCSE with the way she's latching onto the information, trying to retain as much as possible, even rewinding the chapters to take notes here and there.

It's been a long time since Regina has been this serious about a job. But when your boss has no qualms about killing you, there isn't a great deal else to do. It's easy to pretend that Regina chose to be at that park last night. But the reality of the situation is that she's flat broke and she’s sure that Louis wouldn't have taken no for an answer. He would have sulked and walked, but he'd be back sooner or later. It is easier to just give him what he wants, what he thinks he needs, instead of waiting for him to escalate.

Regina's days have always been pretty bleak and monotone, go to work during the nights half of the week and during the day the rest of the week spend her time planning for Only Fans and hoping that her roommates are gone for a few hours so she can record, interact with subscribers, and then maybe go to the library.

Now something interesting is happening. With the money she got from their date she goes out and gets her nails done for Louis. Long and sharp, painted a wine red colour. Vampire claws.

She sends Louis links to apartments for rent but he tells her to keep looking, there's something better out there for her. Despite Regina's wish to find herself a place to live, it ends with Louis sending her places and her picking one of his choices. He hires her a moving crew and for their second daddy/daughter date Louis and 'Claudia' go furniture shopping.

Regina wears his jacket over a floral blouse and pleated brown pants, the jewellery shimmering in the light. Louis hugs her extra tight and tells her to keep the jacket, so now it is part of her Claudia costume.

It's good. Once a week she sees Louis and is his daughter. He looks at her with sickening amounts of love, holds her hand, tucks her hair behind her ears. Once he even kisses her forehead and she lets it happen. They hug, and as she walks outside Louis' line of sight she shakes off Claudia and leaves her with Louis, where she belongs.

Regina cares for Louis. She does, she can't deny it. He stirs warm feelings in her stomach, and, despite everything, he still manages to make her feel safe. There is still a looming sense of predator when she is with him, but when he holds her it fades into the background. Being Claudia is good. 

She enjoys the love and attention she's getting even if it's not directed towards her.

Louis and Regina communicate via SMS.

So when Regina is curled up on her couch, watching TV while playing on her phone, and her screen is lit up by an incoming call it raises alarm bells. She saw him just a few days ago so her first thought that she somehow missed a meeting falls flat. She picks up the call.

"Louis? What are you calling for?"

There's shaky breathing on the other end. Louis tries to speak, but his voice breaks. He clears his throat.

"I need you. I'm sorry, I know you're busy, but I can't. I need you, I need to see that you're okay. Please. I'll pay you double, pay rent for two more months, buy the fucking apartment for you. Anything, just please let me come over."

Falling into Claudia is like putting on a coat. The accent wraps itself around Regina's vocal cords as she sits up and pushes her feet to the floor, her toes sinking into the soft carpet Louis picked out for her. She is alert.

After the initial times Louis showed up at her work he's always been calm. The erratic, scared voice on the other side of the phone is unusual and worrying. She wants to help.

"You wanna tell me what's going on, Lou?" Regina makes her voice soft as she roots through her Claudia closet for something quick to throw on, and Louis hiccups.

"I'm having a shitty fucking night. I am sorry, I know we agreed that we do this once a week, but I need it tonight. I'm begging you. Do you want a car? I'll buy you a car!"

Regina shrugs her sweatpants off, pulls her t-shirt over her head. Then she slips into a soft pink dress that is close enough to looking like a nightgown that it makes sense for Claudia to wear this early in the night. Her hair is already tied up in a silk scarf.

"Come to me, Louis. It's okay."

It shouldn't surprise her that there's a knock on her door pretty much instantaneously. Of course the man is already here, sitting in her hallway like a kicked puppy. At least he had the decency to wait outside and not force his way inside. If things had been worse he might have done just that.

Regina opens the door, and Louis is towering above her, his head hanging and his phone still to his ear. She hangs up the call and tilts her head.

"How long had you been standing here before you found the balls to call me?"

He grimaces and shrugs his shoulders. Louis isn't dressed as impeccably as usual, instead his shirt is crinkled and his shoes are stained with something Regina tells herself is pomegranate juice. She does not want to know. She holds out her hand for Louis to take, and his hand is big and warm in hers. He must've picked up lunch on his way.

"Come on in, Daddy Lou."

Slowly, she coaxes him over the threshold and lets the door fall shut behind him. She's still holding his hand when he toes off his shoes, and for a few moments they just stand in the hallway, looking at each other.

Louis breaks the silence first.

"Regina, I'm sorry. I shouldn't be here, I can go. What do you want as compensation? I was serious about that car."

"I don't need a car, Daddy Lou. Won't do me good in the city, and I have you to chauffeur me around if I really need it, don't I?" She squeezes his hand and pulls him deeper into the apartment. Her nails dig into the skin on his arm and she hopes it might ground him a little.

Louis' pretty green eyes are wide as he tracks her movements through the open space. Regina shuffles towards the sofa to find the TV remote, shutting off the documentary she had playing as background noise. She lights a candle, something with cinnamon and a milky note. And then she draws her curtains closed.

Louis is right where she left him, standing in the middle of the living room, just watching her.

"Daddy Lou, sit down. Making me nervous when you hover like that, like you're about to bail again."

He's quiet when he nods and walks towards the sofa. His hand is lifted and stretched out towards her, beckoning Regina to come closer.

"My Claudia, come here, let me look at you." She steps up to the sofa, finds herself trapped between Louis' open thighs. His hands cup her cheeks, thumbs softly caressing her. "You're so beautiful. I regret a lot of things, but getting on my knees for Lestat that night is the most selfish thing I have ever done. You should have died that night. You should have died a human."

Red flows from his eyes. Tears running down his face as he stares at Regina's face. His hands trail over her shoulders down her side before his arms lock around her waist, pulling her closer. Regina is forced to steady herself on his shoulders so she doesn't topple forward, and then Louis' face is buried against her stomach. Muffled sobs. Her hand finds the back of his head, holding him close.

What a broken man.

It feels natural to hold him, dig her fingers into his coils and gently scratch his scalp with her claws. Louis melts into the touch, but his sobbing doesn't subside.

"Shhhh, it's okay, sweetheart. You're okay." With gentle fingers she holds onto Louis' head and tilts it back so she can look at him. He looks wrecked. Regina uses her sleeve to wipe blood off his face, and it doesn't feel as strange as it should. Everything in her just wants to take care of Louis.

His hands are still holding onto her waist as if he is afraid that she is going to run if he lets go, that maybe Claudia will disappear into a cloud of smoke. Regina winces. Bad choice of words, but luckily Louis is so occupied with staring at her that he didn't seem to pick up on her. "Claudia, Claudia, Claudia." He repeats the name over and over, whispered like a prayer, lips against Regina's tummy.

"That's right, Daddy Lou." Regina doesn't know what makes her do it, but she lifts one of her knees up to the sofa. She's half straddling Louis, half trapped between his thighs. "It's Claudia."

His neck is strained as he looks up at her, chin still resting against her body. Pitiful is what he looks like. Utterly pitiful. There are bloody tears staining her nightgown.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Please forgive me, my sweet girl. I failed you and hurt you, and you should never have been, and yet I would do it again and again, because you are the best thing that's happened to me. Your love is what has kept me alive. Your love."

Louis tries to smush his face into her stomach again, and Regina still doesn't know what she's thinking when she lifts her other leg and rests her knee on the other side of Louis. She is successfully straddling him now, sitting in his lap and guiding his head against her collarbone.

His hand clutches the necklaces, fingers sprawled out against her bare skin.

"I'm sorry." Regina tenses when he kisses her throat. Close mouthed, innocent. But it happens. Her hand wraps around Louis' nape and she tries to steer him away, but he is stronger than she is. She feels the apologies whispered against her tender skin more than she hears them, Louis' arm is around her waist in an iron tight grip.

"Forgive me, please. I tried to kill myself to join you, but he saved me. I was a coward for so long."

Regina's thumb draws small circles over Louis' skin where she can reach. Her stomach clenches when she leans down to whisper into his ear. Voice soft and the accent practiced.

"It is alright, Daddy Lou. I don't blame you. So don't blame yourself."

When he starts weeping all she can think to do is hold onto his face with her hands, and gently push her lips against his. Is it different from kissing any other client?

Probably, given that she is pretending to be Louis' daughter. 'Put on a yellow dress and sit in my lap. Be my dead daughter!' but despite the position she is in, something tells Regina that that isn't how Louis sees it. It's not a lust for Claudia that has him kissing her like he is starving.

It is an aching longing. A pain that threatens to rip his insides apart. It is pain unlike anything Regina will ever experience in her lifetime. Her grip on Louis' jaw tightens as she deepens the kiss. He sobs into her mouth, clings to the front of her dress like a man drowning. There's a metallic taste to his spit and Regina is nauseous. It's fine.

And then Louis pushes her away. Gentle but frantic, his hands on her chest. Big green eyes stare at her.

"Why'd you do that?" His voice is wrecked.

"It helped, didn't it, Daddy?" Guilt is screaming inside her, but this is the only thing she knows to do with the man. "Shhhh, it's alright, don't fight it. Doesn't have to mean nothing, it's just a way of comfort, right? Feels good? Makes that heavy black hole in your chest a little lighter? Nothing to be ashamed about, Daddy."

Louis whines when Regina rolls her hips. Either he's small or he's only barely chubbed up. Most likely the latter, the emotional turmoil too high for his body to react to the stimulation. But it makes him feel good, just the same.

His claws dig into her hips as she continues grinding against him softly. She whispers sweet encouragement against his lips, dries his tears and kisses his face. He cheeks, his eyelids, his brows, his lips. Featherlight kisses painted on his crying face.

"It's alright, Louis. You're allowed." She speaks as Regina, not Claudia. But she doesn't know if Louis knows the difference anymore.

Louis' hands shake when he slides them down until they’re on her knees, his wrists pressed against his own abdomen, so Regina wraps her hands around them and guides them even further down. Her fingers are tangled with his and it takes them a few tries before she gets the buckle open, and Louis frantically pushes it to the side to get to the button and zipper. He pushes his jeans and boxer briefs down just enough for Regina to get his more-soft-than-hard dick out, and then his hands grab back onto Regina's thighs.

It’s as if a flip has switched in his mind.

He pushes her dress up around her waist. Stops for a beat, stares at her, swallows. Then his finger hooks into her panties, pulling them to the side. She puts her hands on his shoulders when he encourages her to lift her hips and shuffle closer.

The hot, silky soft head of his cock brushes over her entrance, and Louis freezes up. He stares at her like a deer caught in the headlights, shaking his head ever so slightly. He is terrified of what he’s doing, Regina can see it in his eyes, so she holds his face in a tender embrace and brushes her lips against his. 

“It’s okay.”

Louis screws his eyes shut as he sinks in with difficulty. He uses his near painful hold on Regina's hip to guide her to meet his gentle thrust upwards, until he is buried to the hilt inside of his daughter.

Regina's breath hitches. Louis grinds his hips upwards, and even mostly soft he manages to rub against all the right places. It's driving her insane. With her hands on his shoulders she helps herself upright, gently wiggling in his lap, small moans leaving her mouth.

Louis is crying again, one hand remaining on her hip, but the other cups her cheek. He pulls her down and kisses her lips, wets them with his blood.

"Claudia--" He moans into her mouth, breathy and broken.

They don't fuck. There are no words for what is happening between them. With foreheads pressed together they're breathing each other's air. Hips moving in maddening, small ways. They're quiet; small moans leaving their lips, which are all but pressed together.

"Daddy Lou, I forgive you." Regina's voice trembles as she tries to keep the accent in it, but it's hard to think. Louis is slowly growing a little harder with the way she is clenching around him, hot and soft and wet where she rocks in his lap.

And suddenly Louis’ arms lock around her waist, and Regina finds herself underneath a predator, laid flat on her sofa. Louis hovers over her, eyes wild and his pupils blown so wide that there's barely any green left.

"Fuck, baby, you smell so good." He groans, before pushing his nose into the crook of her neck. Regina whines when he pulls out leaving her empty and clenching around nothing. She's dripping wet and dizzy.

Slowly Louis crawls down. Down down down, his hands trailing along her body until his hands hold her thighs open for him to settle between. He hooks his fingers into the waistband of her cotton panties and slowly peels them off. He helps her lift her legs so her feet are standing on the cushion below them, helps her remove the piece of clothing from around her ankles before spreading her thighs apart.

He groans at the sight of her, pushes his thumb between her slick folds, careful to not nick her. The sound is obscene. Regina's heart speeds up when she sees a glimpse of white fang shimmer behind his lips.

During one of their dates he flashed them at her in a playful manner and it took everything in her to not scream. That was what solidified reality for her. She was courting a vampire, pretending to be his dead daughter, and now this vampire is about to eat her out. Regina is going to die. She's sure of it.

And then Louis' mouth is on her and she might actually die right then and there. He licks a broad stripe between her folds. The tip of his tongue trailing her from hole to clit with a filthy moan. He laps at her like a dog, licking her cunt like he's starving.

Regina's fingers tangle in his hair, holds him close as he hips grind against his face, her clit catching on his nose as he fucks his tongue inside her with an appreciative groan. It's as if he's trying to lick her cervix and it drives her insane. It's messy, incredibly unskilled and it makes sense given that Molloy labelled Louis as a gay man in his book.

She’s had her doubts about it. But having Louis between her legs errases whatever doubt she had about him being gay. He might genuinely be. 

But what Louis lacks in skill he makes up or with enthusiasm. He's licking her so deep, pushing his tongue against the walls of her pussy, letting Regina use his pretty nose as a grinder. And the entire time he's crying into her, heartwrecking sobs vibrating against her cunt, the noises muffled by his own soft moaning as if she's the most delicious thing he's ever tasted. 

When he lifts his head to look at her she realises why.

The bottom half of his face is soaked in blood and he licks his maw with pleasure. At some point during the night Regina had started her period.

"Please, Daddy Lou." Her voice is thin, trembling between moans as she tries to gently steer Louis' face back between her legs. "Please make me cum, have I not been a good girl, Daddy? Don't you think I deserve to be spoiled?" She must be insane. Losing her fucking mind to have these words come out of her mouth.

Louis' mouth closes around her clit. He suckles on it, runs his tongue around it, teases it like he might with a cockhead. He clearly has no idea what the hell he’s doing, treats it as if he's blowing Regina. It melts something inside her. Her whines grow louder as she digs her nails into Louis' scalp.

"Thank you, daddy. Being so good for your little girl. Treating me so well."

Watching him sob and whine with her thighs around his head is what pushes her over the edge, her hole is fluttering, screaming to be stuffed as she's coming. Maybe Louis will fuck her again if she asks nicely. He must've heard her thoughts because he slowly slithers up her body again, leaving a trail of bloody kisses over her abdomen and throat, before finally he kisses her lips.

Regina tastes her own blood and it's sickening. Heavy, metallic and salty sweet. She tries to pull away but Louis grabs onto her hair, holds her in place as he continues kissing her like she's what's keeping him alive. Regina lets it happen, letting him whisper "Claudia." against her lips again and again.

Louis pushes his pants off, till they're hanging somewhere around his knees, and he is still only half hard when he guides his cock inside Regina again. It punches a moan out of her as he pushes himself into her sensitive pussy, still twitching from the orgasm that barely just died down. His face is hidden in her neck when he starts thrusting into her, and Regina hears his sobs right against her ear. She holds him close, whispers sweet words to him as he fucks her like it hurts him.

"You're doing so good, Daddy Lou. Filling me up so nicely. Can you feel how nice I am hugging you, how good you're making me feel? I love you, Daddy Lou."

"My Claudia. My beautiful, sweet Claudia." He's kissing her again, and it breaks Regina's heart. She's going to hell for taking advantage of this poor man. But what else is she supposed to do? He started it, he preyed on her, cornered her and pulled her into this.

And then Louis is coming. Hot wetness fills her, and for the first time it occurs to Regina that she has no idea if vampires are fertile or can carry STDs. If she catches something it's karma. Louis is clinging to her, sobbing into her hair as he fucks her through his orgasm, dick soft from start to finish.

"I'm sorry, Claudia. Please forgive me." He whispers against her neck, and Regina locks his arms around him, pulls him closer against her chest.

"You didn't do anything wrong, Daddy Lou. There is nothing to forgive." Regina kisses his forehead. "Now sleep."

She'll deal with the fallout tomorrow.