It takes no time at all for Armand to decide against killing the boy himself. And to be clear, there is nothing in this decision about sparing the boy's life. After a scattering of his memories are sifted through for explanation, for secret messages, and finding nothing of much value but confirmation, the mortal's life is deemed irrelevant, and winks out from Armand's perception like a distant star, dying.
A missed step, a stumble in the dark. What must Daniel think of him, to inspire this rejection? What is its meaning? Contemplating this is like contemplating wallpaper, its uniform nonsense patterns, or contemplating his hands, considering the whorls of patterns in his fingertips and the odder smoothness everywhere else, or a sky shrouded in cloud. No answers there.
There are other gifts he could give. More rivals, more naysayers. His agent, his publicist. His ex wives, his own daughters. Provocation, condemnation. This is a punishment.
Unbidden, an old memory: I am not Lestat. Responding to the prospect of annihilation with destruction. What Armand knows is that things destroy themselves on their own. Entropy. Daniel will hate him, in time. A hundred years. Maybe less.
(He still has business ties in San Francisco and New York, a couple of different firms holding his portfolios, a part of the neat surgery of financial interests from Louis'. He had decided that these ones can belong to him, and so these are his forged identities and contacts attached to old buildings and bank accounts, not so difficult to uncover when one knows what to dig for, even without Louis' confirmation or knowledge.)
A news headline, a couple of days later, barely a blip in the scheme of things and otherwise entirely missable if not for proximity: the mysterious death of a motel clerk, found sitting at her desk like a blue-tinge doll, and close to entirely exsanguinated.
Pages fall off the calendar, too slow even with twelve hours blocked from him. Daniel is looking into buying a house. Daniel is looking into Armand's financier's post address in Manhattan. The latter is easier than the former, in this economy.
The letter he leaves is short. He's careful about his handwriting, which has been accused of being barely-legible; he wants to be clear, while he's being deliberately obscure for the sake of just-in-case privacy.
I remember, and you know I remember. It can't start from there again.
Included is a small stapled-together booklet of poetry picked up from a Midwest university event he drove through on the scene route. Multicolored, photocopied badly, folded in half. College students of a campus of no particular prestige expressing flippancy and fear about the pandemic, about politics, about their families in Ukraine and Sudan and Yemen. They laugh at death. One writer details the last text messages she exchanged with a closeted lesbian waiting to be evacuated, lamenting she will never see the end of her favorite TV show, and probably not get into heaven.
There's no way it reaches Armand before the motel clerk meets her end. But who knows how long it will take after. Daniel hears about it, though certainly not as quickly as Armand hears about things— his sources, or his ability to sift precise information from the global spiderweb of minds, Daniel can't yet fathom. He gets emails from one of his researchers (they stuck with him when his editors bailed, but of course they did, he can pay even better now) about it, having sifted through deranged fanmail to find mentions of it. Just a few days ago. Vampire conspiracies abound already.
Well. It's a fucking motel. Can't hurt, right?
Incorrect.
If Armand is there, he has no idea, because the FBI is there. And a heavy-browed agent with shiny shoes and a band of pale skin that betrays a recent divorce is quicker than Daniel expects. They are so, so curious why a writer in a famous, public spiral into insanity over vampires is here lurking around the vampire murder scene in Connecticut. At least he can be almost honest, as he chats with two agents in a shitty diner near the motel, and has his assistant arrange for them to view the emails he received about the murder. He tells them he became worried it was related to people being 'incorrectly excited' about his book, given the volume of mail he receives.
Just an old man having a financially profitable breakdown, and feeling a little bad about some aspects. He is going to kill Armand, he decides. Not for all the murders. For this interaction. Oh my fucking god. He wants to extricate himself and tell them to talk to his lawyer, but he also really, really, really does not want to end up trailed by the fucking Feds.
What prevents a vampire from careless and frequent use of the mind gift?
Arrogance, Louis had cuttingly suggested. Love, Armand's riposte. It is these things, and more. The mind is complex, fragile, prone to collapsing in on itself when the wrong kind of pressure is applied. It is as good at protecting itself as it is easy to manipulate, and certain minds can close like steel traps over those manipulations unless you know what you're doing.
And Armand does, typically. Like here, tonight, the FBI agents sitting across from Daniel Molloy and asking uncomfortable questions. They aren't night guards or drug addicts or the usual fare of inconsequential people that Armand may snap his fingers and make think or forget this or that, but highly attentive, focused, dangerous.
So he is subtle. Slowly, the questions being asked become shorter. The answers provided from Daniel sink in more readily. They are more certain they're dealing with an uninvolved fanatic, looking for another piece of meat to feed the celebrity. They become sure they are wasting their time. They think it in clear unison, in a silent glance to each other.
One would hope Armand couldn't do this from a long distance away.
One would hope Armand couldn't do this from a long distance away
to him.
Daniel doesn't notice right away. Why would he? He lacks the experience in telepathic finesse, for one, but the biggest reason is he has no reason to expect it. A slow realization, born entirely of his own mundane ability to observe people so closely; the moment is paralyzing. For a blink, for an absent heartbeat.
Armand is terrifying. He frightens Daniel. Now, in Dubai, in San Fransisco. It's a personal failing that fear does nothing to caution him— despite the ice sliding up his spine, he finds himself utterly captivated. An urge like the desire to get high or drink blood grips him, and he wants so badly to push into one of the agent's minds just to see how it's being done.
He doesn't. It's too delicate of a thing to risk fumbling. Daniel plays along, in perfect pace. At last they get up, he gets up, they all shake hands. Thanks, we'll call you if we think of anything, you have my number and my assistant's number. He opts to stay in the diner after to collect his things, gather his thoughts, and hold a warm cup of coffee in his hands. He can't drink it, but the heat feels nice. From here, he has a view of the parking lot, and the unremarkable four door sedan with its government exempt plates.
So he'll see Armand approach as well, maybe around when he's thinking of taking his leave.
Hilariously ordinary, given the strange back and forth they've been doing. A chase, an exchange of letters, veiled threats, veiled assistance, all things up for interpretation. Dead bodies, kidnapped zoomers. The man who crosses the parking lot at a casual clip interacts with his environment in a profoundly ordinary way, plain black clothing reflecting grey off the streetlamps, the scuff of his shoes on the concrete.
But also not. Also always that little bit like he is from another world altogether. But the door to the diner swings open, and he is polite to the server who greets him—probably, because she doesn't space out and he is otherwise permitted to enter.
On the broad spectrum that Daniel has been able to observe in Armand's appearance, to 'perfectly composed' to 'a curl or two is out of place due to a recent temper tantrum', he appears somewhere in the middle. His brandlessly bland and expensive wardrobe is not freshly pressed, but even an investigative eye would have some difficulty attempting to deduce where he has been, where he has come from.
He thinks about a Stephen King book. Not a novel. One of the short stories. Ordinary people made horrifying as they move around, shuffling from place to place, having the audacity to exist off-kilter from reality. Maybe King knows a vampire. Wouldn't that be funny.
"Always happy to entertain further questions," he says amiably, despite the ice that hasn't shaken free of his spine, his nerves. Daniel feels the pulse-free version of adrenaline again, hyper aware and alert, without any of the skittish uncertainty. Of course these undead creatures (we) are such good hunters. Armand becomes singular in his attention.
And he can, just as he could in that room, on the fucking floor, feel him.
"Hey."
Hi, hello, it hasn't been one hundred years, want a hand warmer? (Coffee. Or tea. Whatever.)
He sits, and the waitress comes by once he does. Yes, he would like 'a coffee' (the phrasing more of a European quirk than an ancient vampire quirk), and in this light, hot-coal irises aren't quite rendered in a normal human shade, but have lost some of that bright hellish lustre that Daniel would remember seeing the last time they were face to face. A calmer disposition, perhaps.
Or maybe it's just the lights.
Armand can feel him too. The chill that comes with fear, but no sense that Daniel is about to bolt. Noting this, the rush of breath out of Armand has that suggestion of mirth. It's funny because it was the same when he was human. In the more recent past, anyway.
"Shall I start with, what are you doing here?" is two questions for the price of one, mildly put.
Yeah, Daniel has had a cat before, he knows they can look really cute and soft in between bouts of clawing at your face.
"It's a normal activity on the east coast," he says, in the same deadpan tone of voice that Armand is familiar with, the one that says I cannot believe you expect me to play along with your bullshit performance, "this whole driving around New England thing. It's nice out. Leaves, and whatever."
A coffee. Dweeb.
I sometimes enjoyed our conversation. Prick.
Daniel lets the bond sit in his awareness like a curious jewel; he holds it in his hands, turning it over, feeling the different facets and temperatures of it. He doesn't think it's like one of those fucking sensors in the Alien movies, beeping faster and louder the closer Armand is, but something about it is easier to conceptualize when he's got Armand right here in front of him. It's not a thing he might be imagining.
"How about: what do you actually want to start with?"
The waitress returns, pours coffee into the cup set down, and Armand wraps his hands around it.
Unbreaking focus, and the sense of more close up study. The government men had been encouraged not to make much out of the sight of diamond-sharp fingernails or bright eyes. No one knew of Daniel's prior condition, but Armand can note the absence of shake in his hands, and a certain amount of bodily relaxation. Different from weariness, resignation.
Daniel looks strong, to his eye. It's new. Considers the question. Is it good journalism, to cut to the chase? He had spent a lot of time, watching Daniel work, but he wasn't always conscience of all of it.
Evidently.
What does he actually want to start with? The corner of his mouth lifting. Fine, we'll try again.
You get things straight, first. The timeline. The story.
"Uh-huh."
Daniel doesn't think Armand wants to know how he is. He thinks Armand is watching him like he's an unidentified eruciform, and he's waiting to see if he turns into a moth, a sawfly, or if he just shrivels up and dies. Maybe he's even got a magnifying glass, which with both to observe, and to burn.
And yet, if that's the case, he can't entirely explain why Armand would be doing things like leaving him such specific people to eat. He has no good reason for why he's responded to it, either. Other than the usual, anyway: I have to fucking know.
"I'm great." It sounds funny, and so Daniel lets himself smile. A lopsided, half-exasperated thing. "I'm not sick, I'm not in pain, and I have millions of dollars. It rules."
He turns the cup around in his hands. Despite a characteristic stillness, Armand had always fidgeted a little during conversation. Louis had been, in some ways, even more contained, more controlled, while Armand toyed with his own glass chalice of warmed up bagged blood that he never actually drank from.
Focus unwavering, though. No fidgeting there. He doesn't ask if Daniel has taken to the killing, not when it's been obvious: he's been doing just fine in that department.
"You returned my gift," has some character to it, eyebrows raising.
Here we go. (Not incredulous. Bracing. Fortifying.)
"I wasn't sure that's what it was."
It'd be easy to be angry at Armand, here. And Daniel is. Angry. For San Fransisco, for Paris, for fucking with Louis for so long. Louis wasn't an innocent, in that arrangement - staying with Armand to spite Lestat, staying with Armand to force him into eternal labor to make up for Claudia's death, of course it was all wrong - but Daniel is strongly biased towards him.
He could make it about anger. He's got grievances. It'd make sense.
"I don't presume to think I understand you," he begins, watching Armand. The most terrifying predator on Earth. "But I'm pretty sure I see you. And my instinct is that you really don't like what you gave me."
Hopefully he doesn't have to spell it out, sitting here in relative public. What a thing for a waitress to overhear. Hey, so, now that I remember, I seem to recall you really not having any fun dealing with Louis' drug use by proxy. When did the resentment really get bad? After he fucked and drained fifty boys? A hundred? How many times did you clean up for him while he was out of his mind?
A subtle thing in Armand's expression that indicates: no, Daniel doesn't have to spell it out.
But it does seem to take a moment to sink in, this specific angle. Re-calibration, happening fast beneath the mostly-still surface, and he doesn't get much of a chance to do so when Daniel pivots to a question, and a one-worded one at that. Maybe Armand had been expecting something more along the lines of because you need to fuck off forever.
Which doesn't neatly align with Daniel having already accepted a gift before, with a gift in return, with a written letter delivered to his people inviting some sort of beginning, but it's been a disorienting time.
So. Why? An instinct to start with 'perhaps,' as though his own motives are a fun mystery they can solve together, just like old times. He bites it back.
"I wanted to give you something I didn't think you would seek for yourself," finally. "But that you would like. And I wanted to provoke you."
Both things can be true.
"Given your response, I don't know that I was successful on either front."
"Okay," is a fine reaction from someone that Armand spent a week torturing, once. And who has no real excuse for his own gift-murder. Something that he would like. Something that would provoke him.
But really, why—
Not an acceptable question. Bad interrogation technique.
"You kind of." How to phrase this. "Hit things in reverse. I would seek that out on my own, if I wanted. Whether I have or not already, even, is my own business. And I do like it. Just not like that, not risking putting us in a pattern of you cleaning up after it and hating me more than you already do. If you want to—"
Don't, some aghast instinct says in his head, Who cares if he gets mad, what the fuck are you going to do if he says YES?
"—try it sometime, it'd have to be even. Equal. Participation-wise, I mean. There are a multitude of things I'm only just learning about, and might benefit from a tutor over, but not that. I'm an expert in that, and anyway, it's recreational. You know. Fun."
Whatever. No comment on the success of provocation, because whether he likes the result or not, Armand did provoke something. Here they are. Hey, Armand, want to do drugs sometime? Please say no. (Or say yes? Help.)
Strange, the sweep of hot and cold, internal and private, in response to how he had not quite missed the mark. Only that he'd done it, in the manner that he'd done it in. Something shaken out from between the lines. Remembering the happy gallop through the decades towards the end of the interview, no lingering on the circumstances that drove Daniel Molloy into their lives.
The boys, the drugs sparkling in their blood, whether Louis put them there himself or found them like that. Armand, chasing after him. Armand, keeping their lives in a semblance of order, trying to measure the leash before the creature on the end of it snaps back, breaks it entirely.
An offer. A real offer? He is calculating more of what Daniel might do or say if Armand says yes or no, more so than whether he wants to say yes or no.
"I didn't hunt for Louis," finally, after too long of a silence. He doesn't have to glance to ensure no humans are near, letting his voice go quieter, almost too quiet, if not for the way they could whisper across a crowded street and hear one another if they wished. "I never brought him anyone. I was there at the other side of it, yes, but not the beginning."
His gaze dips down, into the near-black contents of his coffee cup. Never together. Had it occurred to Louis, to ask him along? Had it occurred to Armand, to ask if he could? He doesn't remember.
The question is tabled, for now.
"You said in your letter to me about starting. Are you looking for tutorship?"
Daniel isn't sure when, exactly, he decided that he knew Armand had never participated. Maybe in San Fransisco, on day three or four slowly bleeding on the north-slanting floor of the Zodiac Killer pad; he forgot he knew, and did not remember the act of remembering, merely folded it into his consciousness. But he does feel confident that Armand never took part. That anger was too genuine and too familiar. Someone in the blast radius of an addict finally snapping.
But maybe a shitload of magic mushrooms would lighten him up.
He notes the way Armand seems to look at the offer and slide it to one side. Obvious about is awareness. Daniel watches too close, too intently, sees too many details. Is a journalist a predator? Armand seemed to think something like it. Claudia's kill list. How is it any different.
(How fucking stupid of him to have said that, by the way, back in Dubai while the tree was burning. I'd just be Claudia, boo hoo. Embarrassing. Daniel wishes he'd shut up, sometimes, but he never seems capable.)
"You got that." Good to know? Yes. Good to know. He thinks. Something itches to ask his opinion on the booklet, but he refrains. "... I'm not sure. Practically there's merit, but I'm used to being on my own, you know?"
Armand ditched him, anyway. Whatever game they're playing here is not about a maker's compassionate mentorship of a fledgling.
"How are you?"
Speaking of being on one's own. Daniel has been his own companion for a while now, lucky to have settled into peace with loneliness. But how long has it been, for Armand? Has he ever had a stretch of time without company? Owners (ugh), the coven, Louis?
It certainly is not about a maker's compassionate mentorship of his fledgling. A joke, the very concept. If impulse drove him to create Daniel, then it was something more deliberate that kicked him from the nest. Armand recalls how the struggle had been not to immediately cast his creation, the shameful act, into the sun.
No plans (at all) to cultivate it further, but then, here they are.
I see you. Is that true?
"I'm sure you can imagine," he says, chin lifting. "Free of my obligations, wandering the world, finding myself. What a wonderful gift you've bestowed upon me, Mr. Molloy, that my partner of seventy-seven years despises me, and the airless few seconds granted me for my response to your dramatic revelations. What a rush that must have been for you."
Anger? Maybe. His voice is hard, edged. His focus, intent. But there is something to it that better resembles parries and ripostes in a penthouse in Dubai than the levels of potential fallout that had permeated a claustrophobic apartment in San Francisco.
"Why don't you tell me how I am instead? Or is the going rate still in the millions."
He is aware that it will sound scathing. Even in a muted voice, he is still grating and loudly unkind. The earnest charm of he and Louis at that gay bar, I want to interview you, the tether of it that continued to stitch them together over the years as Louis read his work and looked for evidence of himself. Louis was interesting. Daniel was, in return, interesting. While Armand picked lint off the sofa, alone.
But liars deserve to get their bruises poked at. Daniel has not accepted his apology for any of it, even though he's great, even though this rules. Armand doesn't get to be thanked.
"What I meant," no time to stabilize after Daniel implies he's boring, even though Daniel doesn't actually think that, "is that we can't start this life, with a permanent fishing line strung between our consciousnesses, doing shit we know goes bad on purpose. There's so much out there that can go bad as a surprise. Why sabotage? And like I said. I'm pretty sure you hate that shit. Let's do something else. You like philosophy. You like creativity. What else do you like?"
If he says Louis, Daniel is going to kick him in the shin.
"Don't— don't interview question response that. We're just talking. Ignore that I'm bad at talking when it's not an interview."
My second memory, he had begun, and never finished.
He has read Daniel's book. He has sat through Louis' interview, this thing that had begun so deliberate and constructed that if Daniel had wanted to, he could have and then what'd his way to his bestseller. He has entertained the idea of it, the outpouring, and remembers something like it, standing in a museum, speaking to the wall.
It doesn't appeal, but the strike hits true anyway, finds a tender bruise. Contemplates the phrasing that implies a life is being started. His life feels over, had felt over. But here he is. Here Daniel is.
"I don't really know," he says, in a kind of hard tone, like, isn't that what Daniel is getting at? He doesn't say Louis, and he doesn't say, again, our conversations, because the former is too strange and large to fit into 'like', and the latter—
Well, Daniel might ask why. On the topic of unhealthy patterns of behaviour, he probably shouldn't tell him that the pain is pleasing. That the scalpel-edge of his attention, his ability to cut to the heart of a person, is intriguing. (Let's not bring out the f-word again.)
"I don't know that I hate that shit either. I hated rescuing him from it. Are you intending on becoming out of your mind and a danger to yourself any time soon?"
Good intel, that Armand doesn't know if he hates being blasted out of his mind on cocaine. Interesting that he says so, instead of asserting something uppity like, I don't need to know to hate it. Offering just a hint of something that looks like curiosity about new experiences. Daniel underlines it in his mental notes, even though this is not an interview.
"It's fun. It feels good. I haven't felt good in so long, and now I don't have to worry about having a stroke or a heart attack doing it, so why not?" He shrugs. "I'm not a sad junkie."
A hard stop to that statement.
As you'll recall. High as a kite, traumatized, and hypnotized, Daniel wanted to live. He had no profound reasoning to try and sway Armand with. But he had still wanted to walk out of that place intact and breathing, whether or not he deserved it. He resisted until his mortal mind simply couldn't. But he never asked for it, not even down to the wire. Louis ran into the sun, and Daniel, sitting at that shitty card table, said he had a thing in the city tomorrow. He didn't. His plans - pre-shit going sideways - were Star Trek reruns, and a hangover burrito from the diner down the street, and maybe jerking off thinking about Louis then convincing himself it wasn't gay.
Worth living for.
"What'd you think of the poetry booklet? Not quite Sartre, I know."
Armand, sitting back in his chair, attentive to the rest. Calculating. There is no effort at all to reach for memory, as they arise naturally—Louis, laughing hysterically, or Louis, strangely comatose, or Louis, beyond weeping. Louis, who perhaps wanted to die the whole time, chasing it down, and where does that urge end, and the compounding chemical alterations of heavy drug use begin?
Something to consider. He doesn't know, truly. Vampire physiology is as varied as there are vampires. The look on Armand's face doesn't disbelieve. His hands spread from his cup, an agreement: indeed, why not? Neither of them could fathom any answers if they tried, surely.
And then, the poetry. Half a smile.
"I thought, why did he give me this?" This isn't an interview. He doesn't have to be impressive. (He always has to be impressive.) "I thought it was," and a pause, considering, scraping around for what he did, in fact, think of it, "youthful. Familiar. There is no long history of middle-class youths with a university degree and the adequate literacy to express themselves, but if there were, you might read something like it two hundred years ago. In spirit, if not form."
He turns the cup around in his hands again. "And I enjoyed the one about the tiger on the bus."
Daniel lets him think. He interacts with his coffee cup a bit, but not in a way that suggests fidgeting; little engagements, as he listens. A thumb running over the edge of the rim. Still feeling the bond, and wondering at it.
"Tiger tiger burning bright, how many metaphors can we fit into this bus before the driver gets eaten."
A writer, but not a poet himself. Some of his turns if phrases can be artful, and very insightful, but Daniel Molloy prefers throwing bricks to make a point over seduction. Still he can't help but smile, thinking about Armand enjoying that particular piece. Armand, stuck with his own decisions, contending with them. Armand, a predatory animal who eats people.
"I liked the kid who was glad their dad died."
It was a funny one. Brutal, but funny. And a little more conversational, so of course it spoke (haha) to Daniel.
The tip of Armand's head says—yes, that's the poem—and he doesn't disagree with the summary. Of course he would choose the poem that is aware it's a poem, something a little clever and meta nestled in between some of the more raw scribbles of youthful angst.
He had put hard work into the theatre too, influencing its artform, dictating its aesthetic. In the beginning, the half-improvised horror-comedies, powered by the force of vampiric charm, of the audience's familiarity with the form, everything a little different every night. Times change, of course. Taste changes. Technologies emerge. New vampires, brought into the coven, with new talents.
The plays were weird, Louis had said. The plays were an autopsy of a play. A diagram. The layers of reference made clear through rigid scripting, the projections dictating exactly how each performer had to move so as not to throw them off-sync, the light of the film like a glamour, the modernity and artifice pulling audiences into the joke of a human playing a vampire playing an actor playing a character. The ones who kept returning, delighted at trying to find the truth behind the lies.
He had liked that.
But he has a question, first giving a 'hm' of amusement for the choice, yes, very good, and then asking, "Do you know that you're dead yet?"
It would have been interesting to see one of the weird plays. Not a trial, not Claudia's mockery of Paul's death. One of the ones Louis called weird, and made that delighted laughing face over, while Armand carefully crafted his own expression. It reminded Daniel of a face Kate used to make, whenever he said he'd be out of town for a job. She had become so used to the pain of disappointment that she'd made a mask for it. Understanding and fond. Looking at her own upset, and the oblivious source of it, as though it was charming.
How many bad husbands does it take to change a light bulb.
"That's almost nuts enough to be a me-style question," he says. "Could really throw somebody off balance. But given context, maybe not so nuts."
His mouth just goes. Talks. An annoying thing for someone who is also an artful listener; most have the decency to be men of few words. But Daniel falls quiet to actually contemplate it for real, taking it on good faith (or taking it hostage) that Armand means it as a philosophical question and not a morbid one meant to dump cold water over their meeting.
"I don't know." Layers to not knowing. Unsure if he is or isn't, but sure that it's different. "I was entering negotiations with myself, before. Getting ready. 'You're going to die, you have to start making preparations.' I hadn't gotten to the preparations yet, but I had a list of things I would have to look into by the end of the year. My will, insurance policies, right-to-die laws. The shape of death wasn't formed in my head, but there were sketches of it. None of it looked like this, or you."
Philosophical is a safe bet. A cold bucket of water is, perhaps, more in the eye of the beholder. Daniel could let it be a bummer, if he really wanted. Armand could press the point.
Armand had shifted his posture by subtle degrees. Less stiff through the leg and spine as though he were in an interview (as in, like for a job, not whatever they were all doing in Dubai at any given time), more comfortable in all the subtle ways. Daniel can interpret that however, but what it is is that he has not had cause or motivation to exist in these spaces very much over the past several months. Vampires of a certain age and detachment have a way of moving. Existing.
Sometimes, it takes a minute. And, to elaborate, "Unless you intend to reveal your immortal nature to your next of kin in the next decade or so. Or the world at large."
Alternatively: Daniel could not care. But he's a public figure. He's buying a house. Mortal connections persist.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
A missed step, a stumble in the dark. What must Daniel think of him, to inspire this rejection? What is its meaning? Contemplating this is like contemplating wallpaper, its uniform nonsense patterns, or contemplating his hands, considering the whorls of patterns in his fingertips and the odder smoothness everywhere else, or a sky shrouded in cloud. No answers there.
There are other gifts he could give. More rivals, more naysayers. His agent, his publicist. His ex wives, his own daughters. Provocation, condemnation. This is a punishment.
Unbidden, an old memory: I am not Lestat. Responding to the prospect of annihilation with destruction. What Armand knows is that things destroy themselves on their own. Entropy. Daniel will hate him, in time. A hundred years. Maybe less.
(He still has business ties in San Francisco and New York, a couple of different firms holding his portfolios, a part of the neat surgery of financial interests from Louis'. He had decided that these ones can belong to him, and so these are his forged identities and contacts attached to old buildings and bank accounts, not so difficult to uncover when one knows what to dig for, even without Louis' confirmation or knowledge.)
A news headline, a couple of days later, barely a blip in the scheme of things and otherwise entirely missable if not for proximity: the mysterious death of a motel clerk, found sitting at her desk like a blue-tinge doll, and close to entirely exsanguinated.
no subject
The letter he leaves is short. He's careful about his handwriting, which has been accused of being barely-legible; he wants to be clear, while he's being deliberately obscure for the sake of just-in-case privacy.
There's no way it reaches Armand before the motel clerk meets her end. But who knows how long it will take after. Daniel hears about it, though certainly not as quickly as Armand hears about things— his sources, or his ability to sift precise information from the global spiderweb of minds, Daniel can't yet fathom. He gets emails from one of his researchers (they stuck with him when his editors bailed, but of course they did, he can pay even better now) about it, having sifted through deranged fanmail to find mentions of it. Just a few days ago. Vampire conspiracies abound already.
Well. It's a fucking motel. Can't hurt, right?
Incorrect.
If Armand is there, he has no idea, because the FBI is there. And a heavy-browed agent with shiny shoes and a band of pale skin that betrays a recent divorce is quicker than Daniel expects. They are so, so curious why a writer in a famous, public spiral into insanity over vampires is here lurking around the vampire murder scene in Connecticut. At least he can be almost honest, as he chats with two agents in a shitty diner near the motel, and has his assistant arrange for them to view the emails he received about the murder. He tells them he became worried it was related to people being 'incorrectly excited' about his book, given the volume of mail he receives.
Just an old man having a financially profitable breakdown, and feeling a little bad about some aspects. He is going to kill Armand, he decides. Not for all the murders. For this interaction. Oh my fucking god. He wants to extricate himself and tell them to talk to his lawyer, but he also really, really, really does not want to end up trailed by the fucking Feds.
no subject
Arrogance, Louis had cuttingly suggested. Love, Armand's riposte. It is these things, and more. The mind is complex, fragile, prone to collapsing in on itself when the wrong kind of pressure is applied. It is as good at protecting itself as it is easy to manipulate, and certain minds can close like steel traps over those manipulations unless you know what you're doing.
And Armand does, typically. Like here, tonight, the FBI agents sitting across from Daniel Molloy and asking uncomfortable questions. They aren't night guards or drug addicts or the usual fare of inconsequential people that Armand may snap his fingers and make think or forget this or that, but highly attentive, focused, dangerous.
So he is subtle. Slowly, the questions being asked become shorter. The answers provided from Daniel sink in more readily. They are more certain they're dealing with an uninvolved fanatic, looking for another piece of meat to feed the celebrity. They become sure they are wasting their time. They think it in clear unison, in a silent glance to each other.
One would hope Armand couldn't do this from a long distance away.
no subject
to him.
Daniel doesn't notice right away. Why would he? He lacks the experience in telepathic finesse, for one, but the biggest reason is he has no reason to expect it. A slow realization, born entirely of his own mundane ability to observe people so closely; the moment is paralyzing. For a blink, for an absent heartbeat.
Armand is terrifying. He frightens Daniel. Now, in Dubai, in San Fransisco. It's a personal failing that fear does nothing to caution him— despite the ice sliding up his spine, he finds himself utterly captivated. An urge like the desire to get high or drink blood grips him, and he wants so badly to push into one of the agent's minds just to see how it's being done.
He doesn't. It's too delicate of a thing to risk fumbling. Daniel plays along, in perfect pace. At last they get up, he gets up, they all shake hands. Thanks, we'll call you if we think of anything, you have my number and my assistant's number. He opts to stay in the diner after to collect his things, gather his thoughts, and hold a warm cup of coffee in his hands. He can't drink it, but the heat feels nice. From here, he has a view of the parking lot, and the unremarkable four door sedan with its government exempt plates.
(Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.)
no subject
Hilariously ordinary, given the strange back and forth they've been doing. A chase, an exchange of letters, veiled threats, veiled assistance, all things up for interpretation. Dead bodies, kidnapped zoomers. The man who crosses the parking lot at a casual clip interacts with his environment in a profoundly ordinary way, plain black clothing reflecting grey off the streetlamps, the scuff of his shoes on the concrete.
But also not. Also always that little bit like he is from another world altogether. But the door to the diner swings open, and he is polite to the server who greets him—probably, because she doesn't space out and he is otherwise permitted to enter.
On the broad spectrum that Daniel has been able to observe in Armand's appearance, to 'perfectly composed' to 'a curl or two is out of place due to a recent temper tantrum', he appears somewhere in the middle. His brandlessly bland and expensive wardrobe is not freshly pressed, but even an investigative eye would have some difficulty attempting to deduce where he has been, where he has come from.
Nails set on the table edge. "May I?"
no subject
"Always happy to entertain further questions," he says amiably, despite the ice that hasn't shaken free of his spine, his nerves. Daniel feels the pulse-free version of adrenaline again, hyper aware and alert, without any of the skittish uncertainty. Of course these undead creatures (we) are such good hunters. Armand becomes singular in his attention.
And he can, just as he could in that room, on the fucking floor, feel him.
"Hey."
Hi, hello, it hasn't been one hundred years, want a hand warmer? (Coffee. Or tea. Whatever.)
no subject
Or maybe it's just the lights.
Armand can feel him too. The chill that comes with fear, but no sense that Daniel is about to bolt. Noting this, the rush of breath out of Armand has that suggestion of mirth. It's funny because it was the same when he was human. In the more recent past, anyway.
"Shall I start with, what are you doing here?" is two questions for the price of one, mildly put.
no subject
"It's a normal activity on the east coast," he says, in the same deadpan tone of voice that Armand is familiar with, the one that says I cannot believe you expect me to play along with your bullshit performance, "this whole driving around New England thing. It's nice out. Leaves, and whatever."
A coffee. Dweeb.
I sometimes enjoyed our conversation. Prick.
Daniel lets the bond sit in his awareness like a curious jewel; he holds it in his hands, turning it over, feeling the different facets and temperatures of it. He doesn't think it's like one of those fucking sensors in the Alien movies, beeping faster and louder the closer Armand is, but something about it is easier to conceptualize when he's got Armand right here in front of him. It's not a thing he might be imagining.
"How about: what do you actually want to start with?"
no subject
Unbreaking focus, and the sense of more close up study. The government men had been encouraged not to make much out of the sight of diamond-sharp fingernails or bright eyes. No one knew of Daniel's prior condition, but Armand can note the absence of shake in his hands, and a certain amount of bodily relaxation. Different from weariness, resignation.
Daniel looks strong, to his eye. It's new. Considers the question. Is it good journalism, to cut to the chase? He had spent a lot of time, watching Daniel work, but he wasn't always conscience of all of it.
Evidently.
What does he actually want to start with? The corner of his mouth lifting. Fine, we'll try again.
"How are you?"
no subject
"Uh-huh."
Daniel doesn't think Armand wants to know how he is. He thinks Armand is watching him like he's an unidentified eruciform, and he's waiting to see if he turns into a moth, a sawfly, or if he just shrivels up and dies. Maybe he's even got a magnifying glass, which with both to observe, and to burn.
And yet, if that's the case, he can't entirely explain why Armand would be doing things like leaving him such specific people to eat. He has no good reason for why he's responded to it, either. Other than the usual, anyway: I have to fucking know.
"I'm great." It sounds funny, and so Daniel lets himself smile. A lopsided, half-exasperated thing. "I'm not sick, I'm not in pain, and I have millions of dollars. It rules."
A secret Lestat quote. Armand will never know.
no subject
He turns the cup around in his hands. Despite a characteristic stillness, Armand had always fidgeted a little during conversation. Louis had been, in some ways, even more contained, more controlled, while Armand toyed with his own glass chalice of warmed up bagged blood that he never actually drank from.
Focus unwavering, though. No fidgeting there. He doesn't ask if Daniel has taken to the killing, not when it's been obvious: he's been doing just fine in that department.
"You returned my gift," has some character to it, eyebrows raising.
no subject
"I wasn't sure that's what it was."
It'd be easy to be angry at Armand, here. And Daniel is. Angry. For San Fransisco, for Paris, for fucking with Louis for so long. Louis wasn't an innocent, in that arrangement - staying with Armand to spite Lestat, staying with Armand to force him into eternal labor to make up for Claudia's death, of course it was all wrong - but Daniel is strongly biased towards him.
He could make it about anger. He's got grievances. It'd make sense.
"I don't presume to think I understand you," he begins, watching Armand. The most terrifying predator on Earth. "But I'm pretty sure I see you. And my instinct is that you really don't like what you gave me."
Hopefully he doesn't have to spell it out, sitting here in relative public. What a thing for a waitress to overhear. Hey, so, now that I remember, I seem to recall you really not having any fun dealing with Louis' drug use by proxy. When did the resentment really get bad? After he fucked and drained fifty boys? A hundred? How many times did you clean up for him while he was out of his mind?
"So—"
A shrug.
"Why?"
no subject
But it does seem to take a moment to sink in, this specific angle. Re-calibration, happening fast beneath the mostly-still surface, and he doesn't get much of a chance to do so when Daniel pivots to a question, and a one-worded one at that. Maybe Armand had been expecting something more along the lines of because you need to fuck off forever.
Which doesn't neatly align with Daniel having already accepted a gift before, with a gift in return, with a written letter delivered to his people inviting some sort of beginning, but it's been a disorienting time.
So. Why? An instinct to start with 'perhaps,' as though his own motives are a fun mystery they can solve together, just like old times. He bites it back.
"I wanted to give you something I didn't think you would seek for yourself," finally. "But that you would like. And I wanted to provoke you."
Both things can be true.
"Given your response, I don't know that I was successful on either front."
no subject
But really, why—
Not an acceptable question. Bad interrogation technique.
"You kind of." How to phrase this. "Hit things in reverse. I would seek that out on my own, if I wanted. Whether I have or not already, even, is my own business. And I do like it. Just not like that, not risking putting us in a pattern of you cleaning up after it and hating me more than you already do. If you want to—"
Don't, some aghast instinct says in his head, Who cares if he gets mad, what the fuck are you going to do if he says YES?
"—try it sometime, it'd have to be even. Equal. Participation-wise, I mean. There are a multitude of things I'm only just learning about, and might benefit from a tutor over, but not that. I'm an expert in that, and anyway, it's recreational. You know. Fun."
Whatever. No comment on the success of provocation, because whether he likes the result or not, Armand did provoke something. Here they are. Hey, Armand, want to do drugs sometime? Please say no. (Or say yes? Help.)
no subject
The boys, the drugs sparkling in their blood, whether Louis put them there himself or found them like that. Armand, chasing after him. Armand, keeping their lives in a semblance of order, trying to measure the leash before the creature on the end of it snaps back, breaks it entirely.
An offer. A real offer? He is calculating more of what Daniel might do or say if Armand says yes or no, more so than whether he wants to say yes or no.
"I didn't hunt for Louis," finally, after too long of a silence. He doesn't have to glance to ensure no humans are near, letting his voice go quieter, almost too quiet, if not for the way they could whisper across a crowded street and hear one another if they wished. "I never brought him anyone. I was there at the other side of it, yes, but not the beginning."
His gaze dips down, into the near-black contents of his coffee cup. Never together. Had it occurred to Louis, to ask him along? Had it occurred to Armand, to ask if he could? He doesn't remember.
The question is tabled, for now.
"You said in your letter to me about starting. Are you looking for tutorship?"
no subject
But maybe a shitload of magic mushrooms would lighten him up.
He notes the way Armand seems to look at the offer and slide it to one side. Obvious about is awareness. Daniel watches too close, too intently, sees too many details. Is a journalist a predator? Armand seemed to think something like it. Claudia's kill list. How is it any different.
(How fucking stupid of him to have said that, by the way, back in Dubai while the tree was burning. I'd just be Claudia, boo hoo. Embarrassing. Daniel wishes he'd shut up, sometimes, but he never seems capable.)
"You got that." Good to know? Yes. Good to know. He thinks. Something itches to ask his opinion on the booklet, but he refrains. "... I'm not sure. Practically there's merit, but I'm used to being on my own, you know?"
Armand ditched him, anyway. Whatever game they're playing here is not about a maker's compassionate mentorship of a fledgling.
"How are you?"
Speaking of being on one's own. Daniel has been his own companion for a while now, lucky to have settled into peace with loneliness. But how long has it been, for Armand? Has he ever had a stretch of time without company? Owners (ugh), the coven, Louis?
no subject
No plans (at all) to cultivate it further, but then, here they are.
I see you. Is that true?
"I'm sure you can imagine," he says, chin lifting. "Free of my obligations, wandering the world, finding myself. What a wonderful gift you've bestowed upon me, Mr. Molloy, that my partner of seventy-seven years despises me, and the airless few seconds granted me for my response to your dramatic revelations. What a rush that must have been for you."
Anger? Maybe. His voice is hard, edged. His focus, intent. But there is something to it that better resembles parries and ripostes in a penthouse in Dubai than the levels of potential fallout that had permeated a claustrophobic apartment in San Francisco.
"Why don't you tell me how I am instead? Or is the going rate still in the millions."
no subject
He is aware that it will sound scathing. Even in a muted voice, he is still grating and loudly unkind. The earnest charm of he and Louis at that gay bar, I want to interview you, the tether of it that continued to stitch them together over the years as Louis read his work and looked for evidence of himself. Louis was interesting. Daniel was, in return, interesting. While Armand picked lint off the sofa, alone.
But liars deserve to get their bruises poked at. Daniel has not accepted his apology for any of it, even though he's great, even though this rules. Armand doesn't get to be thanked.
"What I meant," no time to stabilize after Daniel implies he's boring, even though Daniel doesn't actually think that, "is that we can't start this life, with a permanent fishing line strung between our consciousnesses, doing shit we know goes bad on purpose. There's so much out there that can go bad as a surprise. Why sabotage? And like I said. I'm pretty sure you hate that shit. Let's do something else. You like philosophy. You like creativity. What else do you like?"
If he says Louis, Daniel is going to kick him in the shin.
"Don't— don't interview question response that. We're just talking. Ignore that I'm bad at talking when it's not an interview."
no subject
He has read Daniel's book. He has sat through Louis' interview, this thing that had begun so deliberate and constructed that if Daniel had wanted to, he could have and then what'd his way to his bestseller. He has entertained the idea of it, the outpouring, and remembers something like it, standing in a museum, speaking to the wall.
It doesn't appeal, but the strike hits true anyway, finds a tender bruise. Contemplates the phrasing that implies a life is being started. His life feels over, had felt over. But here he is. Here Daniel is.
"I don't really know," he says, in a kind of hard tone, like, isn't that what Daniel is getting at? He doesn't say Louis, and he doesn't say, again, our conversations, because the former is too strange and large to fit into 'like', and the latter—
Well, Daniel might ask why. On the topic of unhealthy patterns of behaviour, he probably shouldn't tell him that the pain is pleasing. That the scalpel-edge of his attention, his ability to cut to the heart of a person, is intriguing. (Let's not bring out the f-word again.)
"I don't know that I hate that shit either. I hated rescuing him from it. Are you intending on becoming out of your mind and a danger to yourself any time soon?"
no subject
Good intel, that Armand doesn't know if he hates being blasted out of his mind on cocaine. Interesting that he says so, instead of asserting something uppity like, I don't need to know to hate it. Offering just a hint of something that looks like curiosity about new experiences. Daniel underlines it in his mental notes, even though this is not an interview.
"It's fun. It feels good. I haven't felt good in so long, and now I don't have to worry about having a stroke or a heart attack doing it, so why not?" He shrugs. "I'm not a sad junkie."
A hard stop to that statement.
As you'll recall. High as a kite, traumatized, and hypnotized, Daniel wanted to live. He had no profound reasoning to try and sway Armand with. But he had still wanted to walk out of that place intact and breathing, whether or not he deserved it. He resisted until his mortal mind simply couldn't. But he never asked for it, not even down to the wire. Louis ran into the sun, and Daniel, sitting at that shitty card table, said he had a thing in the city tomorrow. He didn't. His plans - pre-shit going sideways - were Star Trek reruns, and a hangover burrito from the diner down the street, and maybe jerking off thinking about Louis then convincing himself it wasn't gay.
Worth living for.
"What'd you think of the poetry booklet? Not quite Sartre, I know."
no subject
Armand, sitting back in his chair, attentive to the rest. Calculating. There is no effort at all to reach for memory, as they arise naturally—Louis, laughing hysterically, or Louis, strangely comatose, or Louis, beyond weeping. Louis, who perhaps wanted to die the whole time, chasing it down, and where does that urge end, and the compounding chemical alterations of heavy drug use begin?
Something to consider. He doesn't know, truly. Vampire physiology is as varied as there are vampires. The look on Armand's face doesn't disbelieve. His hands spread from his cup, an agreement: indeed, why not? Neither of them could fathom any answers if they tried, surely.
And then, the poetry. Half a smile.
"I thought, why did he give me this?" This isn't an interview. He doesn't have to be impressive. (He always has to be impressive.) "I thought it was," and a pause, considering, scraping around for what he did, in fact, think of it, "youthful. Familiar. There is no long history of middle-class youths with a university degree and the adequate literacy to express themselves, but if there were, you might read something like it two hundred years ago. In spirit, if not form."
He turns the cup around in his hands again. "And I enjoyed the one about the tiger on the bus."
no subject
"Tiger tiger burning bright, how many metaphors can we fit into this bus before the driver gets eaten."
A writer, but not a poet himself. Some of his turns if phrases can be artful, and very insightful, but Daniel Molloy prefers throwing bricks to make a point over seduction. Still he can't help but smile, thinking about Armand enjoying that particular piece. Armand, stuck with his own decisions, contending with them. Armand, a predatory animal who eats people.
"I liked the kid who was glad their dad died."
It was a funny one. Brutal, but funny. And a little more conversational, so of course it spoke (haha) to Daniel.
no subject
He had put hard work into the theatre too, influencing its artform, dictating its aesthetic. In the beginning, the half-improvised horror-comedies, powered by the force of vampiric charm, of the audience's familiarity with the form, everything a little different every night. Times change, of course. Taste changes. Technologies emerge. New vampires, brought into the coven, with new talents.
The plays were weird, Louis had said. The plays were an autopsy of a play. A diagram. The layers of reference made clear through rigid scripting, the projections dictating exactly how each performer had to move so as not to throw them off-sync, the light of the film like a glamour, the modernity and artifice pulling audiences into the joke of a human playing a vampire playing an actor playing a character. The ones who kept returning, delighted at trying to find the truth behind the lies.
He had liked that.
But he has a question, first giving a 'hm' of amusement for the choice, yes, very good, and then asking, "Do you know that you're dead yet?"
no subject
How many bad husbands does it take to change a light bulb.
"That's almost nuts enough to be a me-style question," he says. "Could really throw somebody off balance. But given context, maybe not so nuts."
His mouth just goes. Talks. An annoying thing for someone who is also an artful listener; most have the decency to be men of few words. But Daniel falls quiet to actually contemplate it for real, taking it on good faith (or taking it hostage) that Armand means it as a philosophical question and not a morbid one meant to dump cold water over their meeting.
"I don't know." Layers to not knowing. Unsure if he is or isn't, but sure that it's different. "I was entering negotiations with myself, before. Getting ready. 'You're going to die, you have to start making preparations.' I hadn't gotten to the preparations yet, but I had a list of things I would have to look into by the end of the year. My will, insurance policies, right-to-die laws. The shape of death wasn't formed in my head, but there were sketches of it. None of it looked like this, or you."
no subject
Philosophical is a safe bet. A cold bucket of water is, perhaps, more in the eye of the beholder. Daniel could let it be a bummer, if he really wanted. Armand could press the point.
Armand had shifted his posture by subtle degrees. Less stiff through the leg and spine as though he were in an interview (as in, like for a job, not whatever they were all doing in Dubai at any given time), more comfortable in all the subtle ways. Daniel can interpret that however, but what it is is that he has not had cause or motivation to exist in these spaces very much over the past several months. Vampires of a certain age and detachment have a way of moving. Existing.
Sometimes, it takes a minute. And, to elaborate, "Unless you intend to reveal your immortal nature to your next of kin in the next decade or so. Or the world at large."
Alternatively: Daniel could not care. But he's a public figure. He's buying a house. Mortal connections persist.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)