He'd been pushing down as hard as he could on the pedal. Right off the ledge, if necessary. He was going to stick the landing even if it snapped his ankles like a teenage gymnast being abused by a Russian trainer at the Olympics. Distantly, making a mental note to make a real note eventually, he was curious about why they seemed so hype on dinner. But it was nothing. Everything was taking Armand off the proverbial ledge with him.
And now,
He thinks of memories, mismatched, revealed. He looks at Armand crumpled against the floor, sitting sullen and disheveled beneath his Armand-shaped dent in the plaster, and he thinks of his own Daniel-shaped hole in the plaster of Louis' boytoy apartment in San Fransisco. He had sat there a mirror of this, also disheveled. Not as sullen. More terrified.
Clickclack, tick, far-away sounds of Louis extracting himself from the unit, the building, and maybe their lives. His words of protection feel laughable. Daniel is going to die anyway, what's the big deal? He can't call out, can't message his clandestine lifeline, not with his burning laptop— Ah, shit. A sigh, and he turn from the vampire. Grabs a cushion, heads for the fire. What a way to go it'd be. Not Parkinson's, not the creature he's now exposing his back to, but fumes from burning plastic. C'mon.
"You okay back there?"
He doesn't know why it comes out of his mouth. It just does. Thwap, he taps at the tiny fire, smothering it.
If not for Daniel, maybe Armand would stay here for some time. Not just in this room, but here on the floor. Maybe he would sink the last few inches down and lay in the dust and consider the absolute totality of the void that has now suffused his whole self, from somewhere cold within his gut and bleeding out to the edge of his fingers. He has much to contemplate. He has nothing to contemplate.
And then there is Daniel's voice, like it's coming from the end of some long tunnel. He lifts his head, first, and then adjusts. Folding his legs into a sit.
The death he considers granting Daniel is far from easeful. He could do like every other fucking vampire on this miserable world and tear what upsets him into furious pieces. The urge is there, certainly, naturally, and he can lift it up like a jewel and consider its facets.
Alright. Well, that's good, probably. He does wonder, slightly hysterically as he otherwise very calmly begins to salvage notes, papers, photographs, if Louis left Armand alive out of affection, or because he's simply not capable of killing him. But as soon as he thinks it, he lets it leave him— none of it matters.
Strange. He doesn't know what to feel. After an interview it's just over, usually. Each party awkwardly says their goodbyes and packs it in. Daniel can't leave under his own power, here. He's been managed carefully for the entire stay, and Louis, apparently, is going to call a car for him. Eventually.
—Are you sure?
No, no. Don't ask that. Don't poke him, you've poked him enough. You left holes, man.
"Alright."
Armand may not deserve the courtesy of avoiding any further antagonizing while he's down, but Daniel can't think of a great reason to carry on, either. He won. A stylish end. No need to cringe it up with a childish victory lap.
—What was dinner about?
Don't ask that, either. Interview is done. Just try to turn your fucking reporter brain off.
"We're both packing. Anything I can help you put together?"
Okay, too much brain was turned off. Bad. Overkill. At some point (this point, here) courtesy becomes a little mocking.
Is it Louis' final command of him, that has him put away that tempting jewel? Near to final, if we're being pedantic, but regardless, he has been told not to hurt the man. There is no asking or making, only the finality of a thing. Not an unappealing finality.
And Daniel's thoughts are even clearer than his voice. Are you sure? Armand draws in a long breath. What was dinner about? Breathes it out again.
Which isn't to say the words out loud don't penetrate.
Slowly, he stands. A graceful, borderline unnatural way of going from criss-cross applesauce to light on his feet.
"You barely understand what you've taken apart," he says, and now he sounds a little less far away to himself, turning to look at Molloy. Molloy who is not running, but then, where could he meaningfully go? (Louis is leaving. He is by, now, in the private lobby. His mind is busy. Frantic. Armand can't make out anything from the noise.)
The distant direction of his eye narrows, focuses. The smell of burning plastic, heated metal. No need to address that, as far as the information on the device is concerned. Daniel has everything backed up. Daniel is prepared.
He drops his stare on the items Daniel is scraping together. Packing. Absurd. As if any of this is worth anything.
Nope @ all of that. What he's taken apart doesn't matter, because it's apart. It's done and Armand had damn near eighty years to sort it out on his own anyway, to come clean, to get therapy, to go tie up the loose end and murder Daniel none-the-wiser. Instead he yes maitre'd his way right to this moment.
And obviously, Daniel is just going home.
So:
"I know you do art, this is the business you're running, curating and dealing. You have an unbelievable collection. Do you like it? Just— this isn't an interview, I'm just asking."
Big bright eyes seem to burn that little bit brighter as his words are swerved past, as another item is shoved forward. His hands curling at his sides, his posture perfectly tense, poised, heedless of plaster dust greying his sweater, dusty in his hair. The scrapes on his face are already healed, leaving behind dry blood.
"It was Louis' passion. I maintained it."
Was. A slip, maybe. What does Louis have passion for now? Or maybe, was, in that Louis isn't here, Louis is a figment.
Armand steps nearer.
"Your point, Mr. Molloy? Do you wish to itemise the list of all the nothing I have left?"
He is quiet, but not. A speaking voice, but one that fills the room a little oddly. Puts pressure on the air.
Daniel's book signings attract an interesting, diverse crowd. Perhaps most pleasing, a scattering of people who would have purported to being fans of his work prior to Interview with the Vampire and were genuinely intrigued with his latest offering, what might be interpreted as a sort of avant-garde commentary on the state of biographical writing these days, this being a genre he had already left behind, or perhaps? Real, somehow?
Then, the intellectual fans. Those who like the book for what it is, a metatextual artifact that invites a state of suspended disbelief in a world of cynicism and science, a strange and perverse gothic romance told in the brisk and efficient, often comedic tone of an award winning journalist. Fans who gamely ignore the question of is this real, because if you have to ask, you're not ready for the answer.
Or something.
For them, the book is about homophobia during a specific period of time, processed through modern sensibility. It's about the AIDS crisis, which is obvious if you have read Molloy's work. It's about abuse, about forgiveness, about love. It's about the grief of time and parenthood. The vampire is a metaphor. The vampire is not a metaphor.
Younger fans, in it for the romance, who would like to know if Daniel ever met Lestat, if he still talks to Louis. Full conspiracy theorists and skeptics alike, sharing a row of cheap seating set up in the innercity bookshop.
And then, there's Armand.
Dressed a little like he imagines people should dress for a book signing, in a warm forest green cardigan, full sleeved and cosy, over simple greys, glasses with a very dim tint to take away from the brightness of his irises, and hair tidied into a bun like any modern young man might in this corner of the world. He sits with a leg crossed over the other, a copy of the book balanced on a knee.
The questions are good, lively. He hasn't decided if he intends to raise his hand or not, content to listen to the proceedings, the murmurs of thoughts from the audience, and occasionally impatiently glance towards the podcaster who is graciously hosting Daniel any time he acts particularly sycophantic and familiar.
The picture of innocence, otherwise. Interested and engaged.
These events are corny and small-time, but Daniel still loves them. He found so much inspiration as a kid from them— somewhere, he has a beat up copy of The Martian Chronicles dissected with his own high school notes, and a long, rambling 'dedication' in the flyleaf from Bradbury, who had hung out in a downtown bookshop for its entire operating hours one Saturday in March, and who finally caved to offering personalized writing advice the third time Daniel had waited in line. A formative experience despite the fact that his own work eventually evolved past routine undergrad classics, never able to stick to fiction, far more enchanted with digging at the thing he was writing about than the writing itself (though, still, the writing).
It was just that novelists did more of these than journalists. So he does them, and they're usually half full even in tiny little stores. Now it's a bit of a mess, but it's a fun and interesting mess.
Even when there's a wild animal sitting in the fifth row. Strange that no one else notices. Do wild animals make eye contact? Between two sets of tinted lenses, can either of them tell?
The host is cheery and a fan, a BookTok girl who has used Interview with the Vampire as a gateway drug to reading some of his other work and recommendations and who now feels like an intellectual powerhouse compared to her peers. Which, to be fair, she probably is. Molloy has caught some heat off more established review circuits for engaging with short form media this way, but he doesn't get it. Never has. What if Bradbury told him to go fuck himself? (Well, he did, but he was laughing about it and laughed harder when Daniel stood in line yet again. Angles.)
Questions roll in. He says he can't comment on if he still speaks to anyone mentioned in the book, regarding them as sources who he has a professional duty to protect. He says the best way to get into journalism is to be nosy and take debate classes and do karaoke at crowded bars. Lose your fear. He says he doesn't mind the mixed reaction to his recent book because it's a new experience.
Is the very innocent creature in his cozy sweater and tidy bun going to ask a question as they close out this section, or meander up to a queue?
Absently, Armand flicks through the book in his lap, not reading, just feeling the texture of glossy pages, the photograph inserts, all the while listening. This is not a copy he has read, picked up instead from the special display they'd stacked by the door, but he has, of course, read it.
He certainly has questions.
Hasn't landed on exactly which one when he does raise his hand as the floor reopens, and several other people do. It is nothing at all to steer the attention of the young woman hosting the event to call upon him, already lowering his palm when she points him out.
"I was curious about the experience itself," he says, tone mild, not even too privately amused. "Interviewing vampires. Were you ever afraid for your life, Mr. Molloy?"
There is the predictable murmured chuckle in the room when someone tosses in a question that takes the premise seriously, but all focus honed forwards for the answer regardless.
Maybe this is the sequel. The Vampire Armand. Daniel retells the experience of being tortured in 1973, in full detail past what Talamasca wanted him to expose (what he felt safe exposing— Louis, a serial killer in two countries, Daniel couldn't bring himself to state it all so directly), and the mind games in Dubai, and then a series of encounters.
The creature that kept torturing me, that struggled with his desire to kill me versus save me, sat politely in the audience and asked if I ever felt like he might go through with it.
A little smile. What the fuck is wrong with you. (Oh, are we playing a game, again.)
"Yes." So there's that. Another ripple of laughter in the room, because of course, of course. "A vampire could kill me. Easily. So could a gunshot to the head or a bus hitting me, though."
More audience chuckles.
"I like my life." Echo. Still. He looks at Armand. He knows he is dead. He liked his life before, in the 70s. He did not like it very much six months ago, something he told 'Rashid'. Did you have a restful sleep. Funny. Horror, perhaps: he likes it again, now. "It's not that I don't care about risk or that I think I'm untouchable. I just acknowledge it and try to get on with the work anyway, and then it fades away, because I care about the work. The unsettling thing about the threat of death from a vampire versus the threat of death from a Boeing CEO or whatever," the host goes Oooooo at that around more audience reactivity, topical!! stop assassinating people, Boeing, "is how death doesn't mean the same thing to a vampire as it does to a CEO. If I look at a vampire, and I did, and I think 'This guy is going to kill me', do I even know what that means? What's the experience of death going to be like? Am I changed, in those final moments? How changed? If I die, permanently die, was I a different person for a few seconds? Is the vampire who killed me changed, through me?"
And what if he didn't die. What if the vampire let him go for fifty years. What if the same vampire came back, and killed him, and changed him.
"Art is immortal, and climate damage is immortal, microplastics, vampires. It's an intimidating concept to grapple with while trying to take notes on somebody's love life. So— yeah, I was afraid, in there. In that way."
and he remembers that stubbornness, how much work it had taken to have Daniel fold into him. Armand remembers it as having finally succeeded, but he is no longer certain. His own gentle, relentless convincing, winnowing willpower right down to the edge of itself, and then in that final moment, had he simply reached in and forcibly pulled Daniel's heart out through his chest?
The taste of his blood. He hadn't been hungry for anything it offered save for some other ineffable thing, something he had been trying to discover all week. Maybe he could take it into himself, and be changed by it.
It's a good answer. The audience, drinking it in. Save for one, and Armand turns to look after the sound of a quiet scoff. The sound isn't for show, quiet, only drawing his own attention and that of the woman this audience attendee is with, who lists her shoulder into his to encourage him contain himself. A skeptic who is almost angry at the level of bullshit being spun.
He smells like laundromat soap and synthetic vanilla, and she, some kind of flowery hand cleanser. Armand's attention flicks back forward, offering a small smile that indicates he is content.
It's an answer that plays well with believers and intellectuals, and middling with others; Daniel only tries a little to make it not specifically for Armand, and wonders at himself, incredulously, if it wasn't easier to talk like this. A buffer between them. The performance of it, as Armand likes to fall back on.
How much have I changed you?
He notes the way the ancient vampire's attention shifts for a brief moment. Daniel considers reaching out, dipping into the mind of the attendee who pulled it, but doesn't. Let it be a surprise to ask about later. And let him wrap up this Q&A section without risking a superpowers fumble. The host follows through on his meditation on fear and death, asks him about how changed he feels in terms of his career, and his social circle. Levity and seriousness. She's not doing half bad. Another question from the room about the balance of research versus creativity, then a final one, about an older book, and his thoughts on how the oil industry has carried on without any meaningful change. It detours them a bit, and the host is more clumsy about cutting them off to wrap up, but Daniel is gracious about it. She spends a while with him during the transition, all bright smiles, taking photos and little videos for her TikTok, and Daniel indulges her.
Book signing. An employee sits behind the little folded out table with him, occasionally taking a photo for social media and making sure no one gets Extra Weird. A global pandemic lingers, and so it's not so strange that Daniel wears gloves for this bit, the way items are being passed back and forth. A young couple has wandered in behind the one that annoyed Armand, navigating around chairs being put away. 'I wonder what we missed', 'I think it's the vampire guy', 'Oh woah, sick—' Enthusiastic, they discuss grabbing a copy and hopping in line, drawing an annoyed look from Mr Scoff.
Mostly apart, then together, meetings that begin to stretch. Lessons that work out, activities that turn into arguments. Harm done, here and there. Armand skipped the part he didn't like, and Daniel has never had to grow to resent his maker; he started there. He thinks they're both surprised when they realize they're going backwards, and that it's effective.
He makes a deliberate decision to give Armand house keys and a garage door fob in between trips to Belfast and Dublin for an IRA poet thing he's working on (Molloy, Molloy, that's one of ours, you should look up your genealogy, lad). His maker has the room with the biggest windows that catch all the warmth from the sunrise, where the cat likes to curl up when he's not kicked out. Peanut is an oversized Siamese mix of some kind, the same strange sandy-grey color all over with too-long limbs and a weird, perpetually frightened expressions in green eyes, even when he's winding around ankles and fearlessly sliding down curtains. A freak of a cat. He fits in.
The kitchen is an art studio, the living room is a library. There are other rooms that could be properly allocated, but Daniel only has so much time in this 'life' left, and he likes working. His work will sprawl and take over common spaces like fungus. Best to leave it alone, unpruned. Teaching Armand bad habits, maybe, with charcoal smudges all over a fridge that only holds selected options for the cat.
Daniel has a suite in the basement. It includes a regular bed, because he feels insane without it, but he sleeps in the coffin, mostly. Dead-lizard brain says it's safer, and he's too young in this unlife to have shaken free of the instinct just yet. As such, the former serves many purposes, including flat sofa, flat filing cabinet, and flat book shelf. Presently, Daniel is moving folded laundry off of it, away from Armand's knee.
"Did you end up liking any of those crime shows?"
Winding down for the morning. Sometimes he's here, in Daniel's space; sometimes they curl up together and sleep, like they had when Armand was recovering. Other things, now and then. They'd argued bitterly in Milan and Daniel had anticipated flying home alone, maybe not seeing him for months (not unusual, but he felt a pang about it), but Armand had shown up in a seat beside him anyway, and rested his head on his shoulder for the duration of the flight. Sometimes they lace their fingers together. Sometimes. But they don't drink from each other, and they don't talk about it.
The way Armand makes himself comfortable in this space is different to how he did in Dubai. Given to control, tension, precision, even while sharing a bed, and while not all of that is gone—here, he sits against the headboard, a leg folded beneath the other, unself-conscious as he peruses the thick coffeetable type book spread open in his lap. Julie Mehretu's abstracts, and he's currently occupied in an analysis of her early sketches.
He hadn't had Louis' gift for finding young talent, but he can appreciate the work of the established, and so this doesn't truly feel like some form of reaching back for something. If he doesn't sleep the whole day away with Daniel, he will go upstairs and take charcoal into hand, and refuse to wonder what Louis might think of whatever he does next.
Soon, hopefully, the past won't be an act of negation. It simply won't matter. For now—
He turns a page as Daniel speaks, looking up and keeping the corner of glossy artbook page pinched between his fingers. His wardrobe has adapted too, a soft T-shirt and sweatpants, albeit both items criminally expensive.
"I like your commentary," he says. "Is that the same thing?"
In mortal life, if he were ever in a holding pattern like this with someone - near impossible to imagine, but going with the thought experiment - he'd have burned it down ages ago. Forced the issue, explain or get out.
What's the rush, now? He hasn't figured out what this is, and there's no one to ask. No two beings in existence have been in anything even like this situation. Dead or undead. So he proceeds with no expectations, and prunes away unhelpful mental wanderings with better efficiency than he applies when selecting meals. Experiencing it one night at a time, and unpacking things when he's alone. Armand is interesting, and dangerous, and beautiful, and smart, and Daniel is comfortable with him (somehow). Armand wants men like Lestat, and Louis, and a fucked up ancient Roman painter that Daniel hopes has gone into the earth to never return; Daniel sees women sometimes, once then never again. Reconnecting with his body is his business and not something any other vampire he knows can or will understand. He handles it away from them, and shuts it off at home.
"It's something," he says, wry humor. "I'll keep trying." A habit by now, to chuck DVDs at Armand. Another holdover from recovery, during which Daniel didn't know what to do, just put random shit on during the day when he was passed out so that the house wouldn't be silent. Like Armand might slip away into some severed vampire coma he couldn't be woken from, and then Daniel would have to contend with why he didn't want that to happen.
Clothes go where they go, a few books next. Daniel is wearing an oversized long-sleeved shirt, soft pants. Shorts when he's alone, more coverage when Armand lingers. Barriers out of— respect, privacy, something? Daniel is a substitute, he's pretty sure. Though for what, who fucking knows. Maybe Armand is still crafting the role, like a sculpture perpetually still in the blobby clay stage.
"What— oh." A slipper robbed from the foyer, wedged halfway under his dresser. Peanut crimes. Daniel yanks it free and goes to chuck it upstairs to be collected later (or just stolen again by the lurking beast). "Are you staying down here?"
Armand is free to; Daniel would say so if not. Has before.
I'll keep trying, a little like the quiet part spoken out loud. The sense of Daniel trying to bring Armand things, things to capture his interest or spark his joy or occupy his time. He has had the thought before—something to throw into the hole that is him, shape it into something, what do you like spoken to highlight his own emptiness, but,
early discomforts. Not gone forever, perhaps, but not present now. Some sense of him assured that Daniel does not consider him dull, a complete freak of nature, an alien being in need of acclimation. At least, not so much that he finds it insulting, not so much that they can't exist in each others spaces.
In Daniel's space, initially, now also his. And Peanut's, who Daniel has walked in to find in Armand's arms, chin buried in soft fur as if to absorb the rumbled purring, at least once or twice.
"Yes," he says. He has turned another page but has taken to watching Daniel when he is certain the other vampire won't notice.
With a soft impact, he closes the book. "I took the liberty of downloading more of Bakshi's films, if you'd like to see them too." He had done so a little while ago, actually, but it seems pertinent to offer in light of I'll keep trying.
Can't a guy just want to find things that cheer up the eldritch horror Botticelli angel that turned him into a vampire when he didn't ask?
It's fucked up in here. It always will be. Daniel hums confirmation to that 'Yes', does some beep-beeping on the security system panel near the door to the stairs (Armand will know how to use it, if he gets sick of being asleep during the day and wants to bail), and then—
"I'd like that." Still pleased with the success of that suggestion. Somewhere in the dark depths of his storage unit is an American Pop laserdisc, but fuck only knows where the laserdisc player is (not that he couldn't get a new one) (of any of these items) (wealth does not break all habits). Digital is the solution. "Thinking about a specific one?"
He'll listen to the answer while he brushes his teeth in the en suite, out of sight but easily connected. Still no satisfactory answers from anyone about dental work, by the way. What a world, what a world. For a moment, when he meets his own gaze in the mirror, he thinks again: It's fucked up in here.
Yeah, well, he tells himself. Kinda interesting, despite that.
"I had it in mind to view his first one. Fritz the Cat?"
The Mehretu is set down, placed on one of the side tables, and Armand drags himself a little ways off the headboard, coming to sit in a loose-cross legged posture nearer the middle. He either does not brush his teeth or does not allow Daniel to witness it, or perhaps just does so infrequently—after his occasional meals, one imagines.
"Unless you have a preferred title."
But probably at least somewhat an element of privacy, where Daniel allows himself to do domestic things in Armand's presence, laundry and tidying and grooming, Armand holds himself in more reserve. Still enjoying finding a space for himself in the routine of existence. Considers the bed, considers the coffin, considers the sound of water in the drain pipes as he loops his arms around his knees.
Anyway, he has found he likes cartoons of a certain brand and mood. Adult, complex, satirical, dark. The eternal impulse towards comparison, and equally resisting it: Louis "The Plays Were Weird" du Lac would have no patience for them. They did not even have a television in Dubai.
Attached, the clearest headshot that Talamasca has of the female vampire labeled 'Eimear' — she seems to be frozen in time in her mid-thirties, medium height, slender build, a hard expression framed by long, straight black hair. The quality of the picture makes it difficult to see what color eyes she has, but Daniel remembers near-glowing pastel green.
Just assumes tabs are being kept. Does not explain. Sends it, along with:
Armand considers some responses, automatic instincts suggesting to him that he ask why Daniel is asking, where did he get this image, and so on, create the illusion of more distance. Knows better.
Not personally. Marked for death on the British Isles for sedition, drew focus as one of the earlier and more authoritative voices under the Conversion movement some years back. Is she still at large?
He is not far. A block or so down, keeping his own tabs after all that noise. Mostly lurking about the minds of Louis' security detail, his assistant, rather than being too direct about it. He is also not calm, replying quickly, but at least the medium of text message affects a kind of neutral monotone.
The Conversion? That's interesting. And so is Armand's instant reply.
Pretty sure she's a chunky paste in several different parts of the river, so, no, not at large. As far as I'm aware there's no more active threat from her, or anyone who was with her. Best guess is they were all her fledglings. I counted six, five were for sure dead when I left the scene, and the last one was in a critical state. Talamasca says they finished him off, but I can't confirm that.
Who else was talking to her about the Conversion, do you remember? This can be a question you come back later to, for the record, I'm not launching an investigation this second.
Well.
Yes he is, but he's also going to sleep soon, so. Hypothetically, anyway, there's every chance he'll be awake in his coffin until night returns, nerves shot, attention skittering away and desperate to cling onto anything but what he's feeling. He does not send And I'm fine, not because he isn't (he is, he's fine) (he's definitely fucking fine), but because... because. Because it's Armand. Armand is comfortable putting him in fucked up situations, whether or not he's fine is a whatever.
She would talk to any who would listen. I recall some pontification while she was active in Kazakhstan and so I presume had the permission or the apathy of the elders from that area. I would guess at the latter.
Not one for allies. Mainly underlings. You're concerned about reprisal?
He should ask. Is Daniel alright. A dimmer voice, is Louis alright. Pure curiousity, is Lestat alright. Glimpses of the three of them sneaking into their makeshift lair, blood spattered but on their feet. Some urgent feeling in him to know more, where knowing serves no other purpose but itself.
How weakened is this little unit? How shaken by the events that occurred? How protected is Daniel, really, if the other two are going to be insufferably self-involved?
But he has already asked a question. He will wait.
Kazakhstan. Pulls up anything related in the ill-gotten files he has, opening a dozen windows to read and dig through. Doesn't matter what this connective tissue means, or if he's just putting up a conspiracy board with miles of thread. He just has to do something, think about something, besides the unsettled pit that's still open in his stomach.
Not specifically, but it would be stupid not to assume it's a real possibility. Either from her community or anyone who doesn't like what happened on principle.
I have a hunch there's a third party interested in the conflict, too, based on something that popped up.
And so, another photo is attached. Cuffs, like fucking manacles, popped open and with evidence of chains having been snapped off of them.
Flaming bottles, a stolen van, really shoddy terrorist threats, and then a single piece of extremely sophisticated anti-vampire equipment.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
He'd been pushing down as hard as he could on the pedal. Right off the ledge, if necessary. He was going to stick the landing even if it snapped his ankles like a teenage gymnast being abused by a Russian trainer at the Olympics. Distantly, making a mental note to make a real note eventually, he was curious about why they seemed so hype on dinner. But it was nothing. Everything was taking Armand off the proverbial ledge with him.
And now,
He thinks of memories, mismatched, revealed. He looks at Armand crumpled against the floor, sitting sullen and disheveled beneath his Armand-shaped dent in the plaster, and he thinks of his own Daniel-shaped hole in the plaster of Louis' boytoy apartment in San Fransisco. He had sat there a mirror of this, also disheveled. Not as sullen. More terrified.
Clickclack, tick, far-away sounds of Louis extracting himself from the unit, the building, and maybe their lives. His words of protection feel laughable. Daniel is going to die anyway, what's the big deal? He can't call out, can't message his clandestine lifeline, not with his burning laptop— Ah, shit. A sigh, and he turn from the vampire. Grabs a cushion, heads for the fire. What a way to go it'd be. Not Parkinson's, not the creature he's now exposing his back to, but fumes from burning plastic. C'mon.
"You okay back there?"
He doesn't know why it comes out of his mouth. It just does. Thwap, he taps at the tiny fire, smothering it.
no subject
If not for Daniel, maybe Armand would stay here for some time. Not just in this room, but here on the floor. Maybe he would sink the last few inches down and lay in the dust and consider the absolute totality of the void that has now suffused his whole self, from somewhere cold within his gut and bleeding out to the edge of his fingers. He has much to contemplate. He has nothing to contemplate.
And then there is Daniel's voice, like it's coming from the end of some long tunnel. He lifts his head, first, and then adjusts. Folding his legs into a sit.
The death he considers granting Daniel is far from easeful. He could do like every other fucking vampire on this miserable world and tear what upsets him into furious pieces. The urge is there, certainly, naturally, and he can lift it up like a jewel and consider its facets.
"I'm fine, Daniel," he hears himself say.
no subject
Strange. He doesn't know what to feel. After an interview it's just over, usually. Each party awkwardly says their goodbyes and packs it in. Daniel can't leave under his own power, here. He's been managed carefully for the entire stay, and Louis, apparently, is going to call a car for him. Eventually.
—Are you sure?
No, no. Don't ask that. Don't poke him, you've poked him enough. You left holes, man.
"Alright."
Armand may not deserve the courtesy of avoiding any further antagonizing while he's down, but Daniel can't think of a great reason to carry on, either. He won. A stylish end. No need to cringe it up with a childish victory lap.
—What was dinner about?
Don't ask that, either. Interview is done. Just try to turn your fucking reporter brain off.
"We're both packing. Anything I can help you put together?"
Okay, too much brain was turned off. Bad. Overkill. At some point (this point, here) courtesy becomes a little mocking.
no subject
And Daniel's thoughts are even clearer than his voice. Are you sure? Armand draws in a long breath. What was dinner about? Breathes it out again.
Which isn't to say the words out loud don't penetrate.
Slowly, he stands. A graceful, borderline unnatural way of going from criss-cross applesauce to light on his feet.
"You barely understand what you've taken apart," he says, and now he sounds a little less far away to himself, turning to look at Molloy. Molloy who is not running, but then, where could he meaningfully go? (Louis is leaving. He is by, now, in the private lobby. His mind is busy. Frantic. Armand can't make out anything from the noise.)
The distant direction of his eye narrows, focuses. The smell of burning plastic, heated metal. No need to address that, as far as the information on the device is concerned. Daniel has everything backed up. Daniel is prepared.
He drops his stare on the items Daniel is scraping together. Packing. Absurd. As if any of this is worth anything.
"Where are you going?"
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Nope @ all of that. What he's taken apart doesn't matter, because it's apart. It's done and Armand had damn near eighty years to sort it out on his own anyway, to come clean, to get therapy, to go tie up the loose end and murder Daniel none-the-wiser. Instead he yes maitre'd his way right to this moment.
And obviously, Daniel is just going home.
So:
"I know you do art, this is the business you're running, curating and dealing. You have an unbelievable collection. Do you like it? Just— this isn't an interview, I'm just asking."
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"It was Louis' passion. I maintained it."
Was. A slip, maybe. What does Louis have passion for now? Or maybe, was, in that Louis isn't here, Louis is a figment.
Armand steps nearer.
"Your point, Mr. Molloy? Do you wish to itemise the list of all the nothing I have left?"
He is quiet, but not. A speaking voice, but one that fills the room a little oddly. Puts pressure on the air.
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Then, the intellectual fans. Those who like the book for what it is, a metatextual artifact that invites a state of suspended disbelief in a world of cynicism and science, a strange and perverse gothic romance told in the brisk and efficient, often comedic tone of an award winning journalist. Fans who gamely ignore the question of is this real, because if you have to ask, you're not ready for the answer.
Or something.
For them, the book is about homophobia during a specific period of time, processed through modern sensibility. It's about the AIDS crisis, which is obvious if you have read Molloy's work. It's about abuse, about forgiveness, about love. It's about the grief of time and parenthood. The vampire is a metaphor. The vampire is not a metaphor.
Younger fans, in it for the romance, who would like to know if Daniel ever met Lestat, if he still talks to Louis. Full conspiracy theorists and skeptics alike, sharing a row of cheap seating set up in the innercity bookshop.
And then, there's Armand.
Dressed a little like he imagines people should dress for a book signing, in a warm forest green cardigan, full sleeved and cosy, over simple greys, glasses with a very dim tint to take away from the brightness of his irises, and hair tidied into a bun like any modern young man might in this corner of the world. He sits with a leg crossed over the other, a copy of the book balanced on a knee.
The questions are good, lively. He hasn't decided if he intends to raise his hand or not, content to listen to the proceedings, the murmurs of thoughts from the audience, and occasionally impatiently glance towards the podcaster who is graciously hosting Daniel any time he acts particularly sycophantic and familiar.
The picture of innocence, otherwise. Interested and engaged.
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It was just that novelists did more of these than journalists. So he does them, and they're usually half full even in tiny little stores. Now it's a bit of a mess, but it's a fun and interesting mess.
Even when there's a wild animal sitting in the fifth row. Strange that no one else notices. Do wild animals make eye contact? Between two sets of tinted lenses, can either of them tell?
The host is cheery and a fan, a BookTok girl who has used Interview with the Vampire as a gateway drug to reading some of his other work and recommendations and who now feels like an intellectual powerhouse compared to her peers. Which, to be fair, she probably is. Molloy has caught some heat off more established review circuits for engaging with short form media this way, but he doesn't get it. Never has. What if Bradbury told him to go fuck himself? (Well, he did, but he was laughing about it and laughed harder when Daniel stood in line yet again. Angles.)
Questions roll in. He says he can't comment on if he still speaks to anyone mentioned in the book, regarding them as sources who he has a professional duty to protect. He says the best way to get into journalism is to be nosy and take debate classes and do karaoke at crowded bars. Lose your fear. He says he doesn't mind the mixed reaction to his recent book because it's a new experience.
Is the very innocent creature in his cozy sweater and tidy bun going to ask a question as they close out this section, or meander up to a queue?
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He certainly has questions.
Hasn't landed on exactly which one when he does raise his hand as the floor reopens, and several other people do. It is nothing at all to steer the attention of the young woman hosting the event to call upon him, already lowering his palm when she points him out.
"I was curious about the experience itself," he says, tone mild, not even too privately amused. "Interviewing vampires. Were you ever afraid for your life, Mr. Molloy?"
There is the predictable murmured chuckle in the room when someone tosses in a question that takes the premise seriously, but all focus honed forwards for the answer regardless.
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The creature that kept torturing me, that struggled with his desire to kill me versus save me, sat politely in the audience and asked if I ever felt like he might go through with it.
A little smile. What the fuck is wrong with you. (Oh, are we playing a game, again.)
"Yes." So there's that. Another ripple of laughter in the room, because of course, of course. "A vampire could kill me. Easily. So could a gunshot to the head or a bus hitting me, though."
More audience chuckles.
"I like my life." Echo. Still. He looks at Armand. He knows he is dead. He liked his life before, in the 70s. He did not like it very much six months ago, something he told 'Rashid'. Did you have a restful sleep. Funny. Horror, perhaps: he likes it again, now. "It's not that I don't care about risk or that I think I'm untouchable. I just acknowledge it and try to get on with the work anyway, and then it fades away, because I care about the work. The unsettling thing about the threat of death from a vampire versus the threat of death from a Boeing CEO or whatever," the host goes Oooooo at that around more audience reactivity, topical!! stop assassinating people, Boeing, "is how death doesn't mean the same thing to a vampire as it does to a CEO. If I look at a vampire, and I did, and I think 'This guy is going to kill me', do I even know what that means? What's the experience of death going to be like? Am I changed, in those final moments? How changed? If I die, permanently die, was I a different person for a few seconds? Is the vampire who killed me changed, through me?"
And what if he didn't die. What if the vampire let him go for fifty years. What if the same vampire came back, and killed him, and changed him.
"Art is immortal, and climate damage is immortal, microplastics, vampires. It's an intimidating concept to grapple with while trying to take notes on somebody's love life. So— yeah, I was afraid, in there. In that way."
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and he remembers that stubbornness, how much work it had taken to have Daniel fold into him. Armand remembers it as having finally succeeded, but he is no longer certain. His own gentle, relentless convincing, winnowing willpower right down to the edge of itself, and then in that final moment, had he simply reached in and forcibly pulled Daniel's heart out through his chest?
The taste of his blood. He hadn't been hungry for anything it offered save for some other ineffable thing, something he had been trying to discover all week. Maybe he could take it into himself, and be changed by it.
It's a good answer. The audience, drinking it in. Save for one, and Armand turns to look after the sound of a quiet scoff. The sound isn't for show, quiet, only drawing his own attention and that of the woman this audience attendee is with, who lists her shoulder into his to encourage him contain himself. A skeptic who is almost angry at the level of bullshit being spun.
He smells like laundromat soap and synthetic vanilla, and she, some kind of flowery hand cleanser. Armand's attention flicks back forward, offering a small smile that indicates he is content.
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How much have I changed you?
He notes the way the ancient vampire's attention shifts for a brief moment. Daniel considers reaching out, dipping into the mind of the attendee who pulled it, but doesn't. Let it be a surprise to ask about later. And let him wrap up this Q&A section without risking a superpowers fumble. The host follows through on his meditation on fear and death, asks him about how changed he feels in terms of his career, and his social circle. Levity and seriousness. She's not doing half bad. Another question from the room about the balance of research versus creativity, then a final one, about an older book, and his thoughts on how the oil industry has carried on without any meaningful change. It detours them a bit, and the host is more clumsy about cutting them off to wrap up, but Daniel is gracious about it. She spends a while with him during the transition, all bright smiles, taking photos and little videos for her TikTok, and Daniel indulges her.
Book signing. An employee sits behind the little folded out table with him, occasionally taking a photo for social media and making sure no one gets Extra Weird. A global pandemic lingers, and so it's not so strange that Daniel wears gloves for this bit, the way items are being passed back and forth. A young couple has wandered in behind the one that annoyed Armand, navigating around chairs being put away. 'I wonder what we missed', 'I think it's the vampire guy', 'Oh woah, sick—' Enthusiastic, they discuss grabbing a copy and hopping in line, drawing an annoyed look from Mr Scoff.
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He makes a deliberate decision to give Armand house keys and a garage door fob in between trips to Belfast and Dublin for an IRA poet thing he's working on (Molloy, Molloy, that's one of ours, you should look up your genealogy, lad). His maker has the room with the biggest windows that catch all the warmth from the sunrise, where the cat likes to curl up when he's not kicked out. Peanut is an oversized Siamese mix of some kind, the same strange sandy-grey color all over with too-long limbs and a weird, perpetually frightened expressions in green eyes, even when he's winding around ankles and fearlessly sliding down curtains. A freak of a cat. He fits in.
The kitchen is an art studio, the living room is a library. There are other rooms that could be properly allocated, but Daniel only has so much time in this 'life' left, and he likes working. His work will sprawl and take over common spaces like fungus. Best to leave it alone, unpruned. Teaching Armand bad habits, maybe, with charcoal smudges all over a fridge that only holds selected options for the cat.
Daniel has a suite in the basement. It includes a regular bed, because he feels insane without it, but he sleeps in the coffin, mostly. Dead-lizard brain says it's safer, and he's too young in this unlife to have shaken free of the instinct just yet. As such, the former serves many purposes, including flat sofa, flat filing cabinet, and flat book shelf. Presently, Daniel is moving folded laundry off of it, away from Armand's knee.
"Did you end up liking any of those crime shows?"
Winding down for the morning. Sometimes he's here, in Daniel's space; sometimes they curl up together and sleep, like they had when Armand was recovering. Other things, now and then. They'd argued bitterly in Milan and Daniel had anticipated flying home alone, maybe not seeing him for months (not unusual, but he felt a pang about it), but Armand had shown up in a seat beside him anyway, and rested his head on his shoulder for the duration of the flight. Sometimes they lace their fingers together. Sometimes. But they don't drink from each other, and they don't talk about it.
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He hadn't had Louis' gift for finding young talent, but he can appreciate the work of the established, and so this doesn't truly feel like some form of reaching back for something. If he doesn't sleep the whole day away with Daniel, he will go upstairs and take charcoal into hand, and refuse to wonder what Louis might think of whatever he does next.
Soon, hopefully, the past won't be an act of negation. It simply won't matter. For now—
He turns a page as Daniel speaks, looking up and keeping the corner of glossy artbook page pinched between his fingers. His wardrobe has adapted too, a soft T-shirt and sweatpants, albeit both items criminally expensive.
"I like your commentary," he says. "Is that the same thing?"
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What's the rush, now? He hasn't figured out what this is, and there's no one to ask. No two beings in existence have been in anything even like this situation. Dead or undead. So he proceeds with no expectations, and prunes away unhelpful mental wanderings with better efficiency than he applies when selecting meals. Experiencing it one night at a time, and unpacking things when he's alone. Armand is interesting, and dangerous, and beautiful, and smart, and Daniel is comfortable with him (somehow). Armand wants men like Lestat, and Louis, and a fucked up ancient Roman painter that Daniel hopes has gone into the earth to never return; Daniel sees women sometimes, once then never again. Reconnecting with his body is his business and not something any other vampire he knows can or will understand. He handles it away from them, and shuts it off at home.
"It's something," he says, wry humor. "I'll keep trying." A habit by now, to chuck DVDs at Armand. Another holdover from recovery, during which Daniel didn't know what to do, just put random shit on during the day when he was passed out so that the house wouldn't be silent. Like Armand might slip away into some severed vampire coma he couldn't be woken from, and then Daniel would have to contend with why he didn't want that to happen.
Clothes go where they go, a few books next. Daniel is wearing an oversized long-sleeved shirt, soft pants. Shorts when he's alone, more coverage when Armand lingers. Barriers out of— respect, privacy, something? Daniel is a substitute, he's pretty sure. Though for what, who fucking knows. Maybe Armand is still crafting the role, like a sculpture perpetually still in the blobby clay stage.
"What— oh." A slipper robbed from the foyer, wedged halfway under his dresser. Peanut crimes. Daniel yanks it free and goes to chuck it upstairs to be collected later (or just stolen again by the lurking beast). "Are you staying down here?"
Armand is free to; Daniel would say so if not. Has before.
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early discomforts. Not gone forever, perhaps, but not present now. Some sense of him assured that Daniel does not consider him dull, a complete freak of nature, an alien being in need of acclimation. At least, not so much that he finds it insulting, not so much that they can't exist in each others spaces.
In Daniel's space, initially, now also his. And Peanut's, who Daniel has walked in to find in Armand's arms, chin buried in soft fur as if to absorb the rumbled purring, at least once or twice.
"Yes," he says. He has turned another page but has taken to watching Daniel when he is certain the other vampire won't notice.
With a soft impact, he closes the book. "I took the liberty of downloading more of Bakshi's films, if you'd like to see them too." He had done so a little while ago, actually, but it seems pertinent to offer in light of I'll keep trying.
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It's fucked up in here. It always will be. Daniel hums confirmation to that 'Yes', does some beep-beeping on the security system panel near the door to the stairs (Armand will know how to use it, if he gets sick of being asleep during the day and wants to bail), and then—
"I'd like that." Still pleased with the success of that suggestion. Somewhere in the dark depths of his storage unit is an American Pop laserdisc, but fuck only knows where the laserdisc player is (not that he couldn't get a new one) (of any of these items) (wealth does not break all habits). Digital is the solution. "Thinking about a specific one?"
He'll listen to the answer while he brushes his teeth in the en suite, out of sight but easily connected. Still no satisfactory answers from anyone about dental work, by the way. What a world, what a world. For a moment, when he meets his own gaze in the mirror, he thinks again: It's fucked up in here.
Yeah, well, he tells himself. Kinda interesting, despite that.
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The Mehretu is set down, placed on one of the side tables, and Armand drags himself a little ways off the headboard, coming to sit in a loose-cross legged posture nearer the middle. He either does not brush his teeth or does not allow Daniel to witness it, or perhaps just does so infrequently—after his occasional meals, one imagines.
"Unless you have a preferred title."
But probably at least somewhat an element of privacy, where Daniel allows himself to do domestic things in Armand's presence, laundry and tidying and grooming, Armand holds himself in more reserve. Still enjoying finding a space for himself in the routine of existence. Considers the bed, considers the coffin, considers the sound of water in the drain pipes as he loops his arms around his knees.
Anyway, he has found he likes cartoons of a certain brand and mood. Adult, complex, satirical, dark. The eternal impulse towards comparison, and equally resisting it: Louis "The Plays Were Weird" du Lac would have no patience for them. They did not even have a television in Dubai.
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@ "A"
Attached, the clearest headshot that Talamasca has of the female vampire labeled 'Eimear' — she seems to be frozen in time in her mid-thirties, medium height, slender build, a hard expression framed by long, straight black hair. The quality of the picture makes it difficult to see what color eyes she has, but Daniel remembers near-glowing pastel green.
Just assumes tabs are being kept. Does not explain. Sends it, along with:
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Not personally. Marked for death on the British Isles for sedition, drew focus as one of the earlier and more authoritative voices under the Conversion movement some years back. Is she still at large?
He is not far. A block or so down, keeping his own tabs after all that noise. Mostly lurking about the minds of Louis' security detail, his assistant, rather than being too direct about it. He is also not calm, replying quickly, but at least the medium of text message affects a kind of neutral monotone.
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Pretty sure she's a chunky paste in several different parts of the river, so, no, not at large. As far as I'm aware there's no more active threat from her, or anyone who was with her. Best guess is they were all her fledglings. I counted six, five were for sure dead when I left the scene, and the last one was in a critical state. Talamasca says they finished him off, but I can't confirm that.
Who else was talking to her about the Conversion, do you remember? This can be a question you come back later to, for the record, I'm not launching an investigation this second.
Well.
Yes he is, but he's also going to sleep soon, so. Hypothetically, anyway, there's every chance he'll be awake in his coffin until night returns, nerves shot, attention skittering away and desperate to cling onto anything but what he's feeling. He does not send And I'm fine, not because he isn't (he is, he's fine) (he's definitely fucking fine), but because... because. Because it's Armand. Armand is comfortable putting him in fucked up situations, whether or not he's fine is a whatever.
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She would talk to any who would listen. I recall some pontification while she was active in Kazakhstan and so I presume had the permission or the apathy of the elders from that area. I would guess at the latter.
Not one for allies. Mainly underlings. You're concerned about reprisal?
He should ask. Is Daniel alright. A dimmer voice, is Louis alright. Pure curiousity, is Lestat alright. Glimpses of the three of them sneaking into their makeshift lair, blood spattered but on their feet. Some urgent feeling in him to know more, where knowing serves no other purpose but itself.
How weakened is this little unit? How shaken by the events that occurred? How protected is Daniel, really, if the other two are going to be insufferably self-involved?
But he has already asked a question. He will wait.
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Kazakhstan. Pulls up anything related in the ill-gotten files he has, opening a dozen windows to read and dig through. Doesn't matter what this connective tissue means, or if he's just putting up a conspiracy board with miles of thread. He just has to do something, think about something, besides the unsettled pit that's still open in his stomach.
Not specifically, but it would be stupid not to assume it's a real possibility. Either from her community or anyone who doesn't like what happened on principle.
I have a hunch there's a third party interested in the conflict, too, based on something that popped up.
And so, another photo is attached. Cuffs, like fucking manacles, popped open and with evidence of chains having been snapped off of them.
Flaming bottles, a stolen van, really shoddy terrorist threats, and then a single piece of extremely sophisticated anti-vampire equipment.
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Another message, swiftly after this one;
Or vampire hunters. Why they would work with someone like Eimear, I'm not sure, but perhaps they were stolen from.
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