Easy to conceptualize New Orleans at the turn of the century. Surreal, almost unnerving, to fully engage with the reality that the man driving his car is recalling events in his life from five hundred years ago. Is it smart to ask him to go back there, when he, apparently, might actually humor him and answer?
Daniel holds his hand out between them, flat over the center console. It does not tremor.
Tempting to stare at it for an eternity. Does he move because the car moves? Or because he doesn't have control over it? But after a long moment he drops it, because at some point he has to stop watching. Or he will stare at it for an eternity. A recovery is never full until it never comes back, and finality is gone from him now.
Armand was more afraid of the sickness coming back than he was about being a monster. Something about that is powerfully comforting, even though it roils in him, too. Could be that this is too soon to try to make peace, even secretly.
Too late now, they're in the fucking car. There are bodies between them like—
Whatever they were doing.
"Hey."
He points at the turnoff. Let's go look at the stupid leaves.
Armand looks to that hand, a lingering kind of study while the road is empty and straight. Draws his attention up from it after a while, to Daniel's face. Here, he would normally part the flimsy curtains that separate him from the minds of others, and judge what the correct thing might be to say.
He remembers Daniel's heightened distress as Louis twisted a knife. He had been moved to grip the hilt and ease the strain, and collecting the necessary information to do so.
No ability to do so now.
"Our power, by its nature, only strengthens over time. Comprehensible, I think, but I can imagine it will take longer to trust it, the longer you've lived."
He was in his twenties, somewhere, when he was turned. His experience with age, health, development is not applicable to most. But he says a thing that sounds true to him, observable in others.
He looks back out at the road, and ponders whether he is really experiencing a change in paradigm or if his feelings are hurt. Daniel points out the turnoff, and Armand obeys.
Why did Armand save him, in San Francisco? Why didn't Armand just kill him at any point those times when Louis couldn't get up? Why did Armand restrain Louis from fucking with his Parkinson's, why didn't Armand kill him after Louis left?
Why did you make me?
He can't get the question out. He's tried to talk himself into it. Been trying for some time now, awkwardly gathering up courage like a passive system running in the background. It fails to manifest now, as the car is parked in a dirt 'lot' in front of a small farm store. No Gas Here, reads a sign propped on the patio. 20 Miles South.
The cloudy night sky is like a silver blanket that bright colors of foliage decorate; the gentle illumination of the older-than-Daniel store is like a beacon, pouring light out over this corner of woods. Footpaths between dormant apple trees suggest frequent stops from roadtrippers who check in for kitsch and fresh eggs and the ability to wander and pick some fruit, should the season permit. Maples tower over those, some already red, bright like fireworks.
Sleeping birds. A distant raccoon. Cricket nightsongs.
It can be nice, departing from deep urban centres. Not that living in the middle of Dubai, San Francisco, New York, Paris had been some kind of punishment in that way—just background noise, the cacophony of a dense populace, sometimes soothing, most times unnoticed.
But the absence is not unpleasant. The anxiety of the world replaced with rustling leaves, chittering nocturnal things, and—a bit of a trick, to hone in on it—the subtle and constant deep bass hum of the atmosphere itself. Armand lifts his chin as he absorbs the auditory information of the environment they're in.
Perhaps he ought to have said hiking. Night time hiking. No fear of mistakes, from an overwound attunement to perfection or shaky hands or otherwise.
And then—loud, to overtuned ears, and therefore startling—Daniel says that, and Armand looks over at him. Vampire eyes in the dark, a subtle reflection of light, cattish. Despite his best efforts, he feels relief. Despite his best efforts, he longs to go to him. At least this second thing is actionable restraint, and Armand stays in place.
There can be hiking. They don't have to plan everything. They don't have to do anything, at all. There are compelling reasons why they shouldn't— more than reasons encouraging connection. And yet, the kills, the notes, the diner, and here, leaves.
Difficult to feel anger over his initial assumption — that Armand did what he did to tether Louis, to make their agreement over his survival past that apartment in San Francisco eternal, a symbol of their relationship — when Armand is here and seems so lost at sea. He supposes there could still be time. A long con.
But Daniel likes figuring shit out. He's good at getting angles.
"Okay."
Confirmation. They have said it, thus it shall be so. And all that. Bracing himself. Not just for staring at his own hands but the undertaking of trying to meaningfully connect with someone who tortured him. Daniel looks at him, those blood-moon eyes shimmering with the barest bits of light picked up from the store far behind them. Horror movie features he's seen in his dreams for fifty years. The lenses he wore for his costume seem so unconvincing in retrospect. Armand looks more alive when he's a vampire.
More forest to wander through, for a little while at least. Daniel has cigarettes in his pocket but he doesn't pull them out, not wanting to disturb the area. Content to exist quietly in this world he can see and hear correctly now, before the turning of the Earth asks him to return to the car, and head back to a hotel, and darkness.
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no subject
Daniel holds his hand out between them, flat over the center console. It does not tremor.
Tempting to stare at it for an eternity. Does he move because the car moves? Or because he doesn't have control over it? But after a long moment he drops it, because at some point he has to stop watching. Or he will stare at it for an eternity. A recovery is never full until it never comes back, and finality is gone from him now.
Armand was more afraid of the sickness coming back than he was about being a monster. Something about that is powerfully comforting, even though it roils in him, too. Could be that this is too soon to try to make peace, even secretly.
Too late now, they're in the fucking car. There are bodies between them like—
Whatever they were doing.
"Hey."
He points at the turnoff. Let's go look at the stupid leaves.
no subject
He remembers Daniel's heightened distress as Louis twisted a knife. He had been moved to grip the hilt and ease the strain, and collecting the necessary information to do so.
No ability to do so now.
"Our power, by its nature, only strengthens over time. Comprehensible, I think, but I can imagine it will take longer to trust it, the longer you've lived."
He was in his twenties, somewhere, when he was turned. His experience with age, health, development is not applicable to most. But he says a thing that sounds true to him, observable in others.
He looks back out at the road, and ponders whether he is really experiencing a change in paradigm or if his feelings are hurt. Daniel points out the turnoff, and Armand obeys.
no subject
Why did you make me?
He can't get the question out. He's tried to talk himself into it. Been trying for some time now, awkwardly gathering up courage like a passive system running in the background. It fails to manifest now, as the car is parked in a dirt 'lot' in front of a small farm store. No Gas Here, reads a sign propped on the patio. 20 Miles South.
The cloudy night sky is like a silver blanket that bright colors of foliage decorate; the gentle illumination of the older-than-Daniel store is like a beacon, pouring light out over this corner of woods. Footpaths between dormant apple trees suggest frequent stops from roadtrippers who check in for kitsch and fresh eggs and the ability to wander and pick some fruit, should the season permit. Maples tower over those, some already red, bright like fireworks.
Sleeping birds. A distant raccoon. Cricket nightsongs.
"Figure drawing."
It fucking scares him. And yet: agreed.
no subject
But the absence is not unpleasant. The anxiety of the world replaced with rustling leaves, chittering nocturnal things, and—a bit of a trick, to hone in on it—the subtle and constant deep bass hum of the atmosphere itself. Armand lifts his chin as he absorbs the auditory information of the environment they're in.
Perhaps he ought to have said hiking. Night time hiking. No fear of mistakes, from an overwound attunement to perfection or shaky hands or otherwise.
And then—loud, to overtuned ears, and therefore startling—Daniel says that, and Armand looks over at him. Vampire eyes in the dark, a subtle reflection of light, cattish. Despite his best efforts, he feels relief. Despite his best efforts, he longs to go to him. At least this second thing is actionable restraint, and Armand stays in place.
"Okay," he says.
no subject
Difficult to feel anger over his initial assumption — that Armand did what he did to tether Louis, to make their agreement over his survival past that apartment in San Francisco eternal, a symbol of their relationship — when Armand is here and seems so lost at sea. He supposes there could still be time. A long con.
But Daniel likes figuring shit out. He's good at getting angles.
"Okay."
Confirmation. They have said it, thus it shall be so. And all that. Bracing himself. Not just for staring at his own hands but the undertaking of trying to meaningfully connect with someone who tortured him. Daniel looks at him, those blood-moon eyes shimmering with the barest bits of light picked up from the store far behind them. Horror movie features he's seen in his dreams for fifty years. The lenses he wore for his costume seem so unconvincing in retrospect. Armand looks more alive when he's a vampire.
More forest to wander through, for a little while at least. Daniel has cigarettes in his pocket but he doesn't pull them out, not wanting to disturb the area. Content to exist quietly in this world he can see and hear correctly now, before the turning of the Earth asks him to return to the car, and head back to a hotel, and darkness.