Daniel meant the book. Armand's seething resentment over a suicide, as he put it. But it's a microcosm of vampiric existence anyway, and so he listens, and wonders about—

too much. So he puts a stop to it, and only listens.

Dire.

The tiniest bubble of anxiety. Not out of fear of himself. What if Armand decides to end it all? Can he, without a vulnerability to the sun? Daniel realizes in a strange moment in which he witnesses this scene from outside of himself, that he does not want Armand to die. The immediate thought is that, of course he doesn't, the bond between them has been a point of stability to navigate this new life through. He cannot explain the contrary twinge of something that follows.

He could rules lawyer. Humans are a virus, plenty shouldn't exist. But life isn't actually about order, or they'd all still be single celled organisms.

"I'm not a hopeful optimist," he says eventually. "I'm just stubborn. I'm not sure where I stand yet on our existence."

Probably won't be that, though. I like my life. Daniel wants to stay. He would like it, for some fucking reason, if Armand stayed too.

"Do you feel like this most times, when there's not a bearable thing to distract you?"