Sometimes, over the interim forty-nine years, the scar on his neck was unsettled. An ache as skin hardened and shifted, a persistent itch or tingle in the nerves; a dermatologist once offered to laser it away entirely when he got some suspicious moles removed. Daniel had declined. He made up a story about what it was. Nonsense.
In the two weeks in that Dubai penthouse, it sometimes felt electric. A weight that would jolt or burn. He knew it was just his imagination, an expression of psychological pressure and fascination, but he still thinks of it. Even now, yet more weeks removed, in fucking Kyrgyzstan.
He thinks about Louis often. Armand is aware, he knows. The ancient vampire gets a particular look in his Halloween shifting eyes whenever Daniel does it while they're in the same room, even if he's stopped commenting on it as often. Daniel has yet to decide if he thinks that's because Armand no longer finds it worth noting, or if it's because Armand isn't always sitting inside of his head and sifting through it.
Not a prisoner. He'd agreed, after all. Sure it was under serious duress, but he could have always opted for death, he supposes.
Very casually, Daniel has made his way to the lobby of this hotel in Bishkek, and using his mashup of familiarity with Turkic languages, has managed to secure the ability to make an international phone call. It's fine. Normal. Nothing weird. He has no savior to call, no lifeline. Just this. He has no idea where Louis went after he walked out of the penthouse suite in Dubai, no idea if he's back, if the number he thinks he remembers is right, if call will even connect if it is.
It is fortunate for all parties involved that the respective time zones involved see Louis available, rather than sequestered and asleep.
He's left several messages since returning from Dubai. Louis has Daniel's number. Has called, confused to be met each time with Daniel's voicemail. Is it this simple? A completed transaction, and a return to their respective lives?
Painful to consider. But maybe Daniel has wishes to divest from the tangle of vampiric life.
And then—
The phone call. An unknown number. It rings thrice before Louis answers.
Hello, and it's actually Louis somehow, he knows from just one word, not a member of staff. Daniel is so shocked-relieved-desperate (fucking help) that for a horrifying second he's too paralyzed to say anything. A comedic rare gem.
He clears the hurdle—
"Hey, Louis. Hi. It's Daniel Molloy." Out in a rush. He should have practiced what to say, he doesn't know how long he has. Every heartbeat (faster and faster) he expects to see a hand slide into frame and press the end call button. He did practice, he recited it all in his head, but it's gone now in a shaky flood of adrenaline. Scramble. "I'm in the Orion Hotel in Bishkek, staying on the top floor. I think." Pretty sure. "If you could find a way to get me out of here and away from him that'd be great. I understand if that's not a possibility," does he sound hysterical here? he hopes not, keep it together, clock's ticking, "and in that case, if you could just split whatever money you were going to send me and kick it to my daughters, I'd appreciate it. You don't owe me anything. I just—"
Just what? He freezes.
Didn't have anyone else. Who the fuck is going to help. At least Louis can give the girls money.
The tone of Daniel's voice in the wake of that pause pulls Louis onto his feet. Alarm sparking a mean rush of adrenaline through his body, building as Daniel rushes through his request. Has the audacity to say I understand if that's not a possibility.
There is only one him. Daniel doesn't have to say a name.
"Daniel."
Insistent. Urgent.
Immediate dread dropping like a stone into his stomach. Armand took him. Armand took Daniel and it's why Daniel wasn't answering his phone. Armand has him.
Louis' fear is near-paralyzing, but he boxes it up. Puts it away. Striding through the penthouse in search of Rashid as he asks:
"Does he mean to stay there with you? For at least a few more days?"
It will take some doing to get a plane into the country. Not impossible, only difficult.
"I don't know how much longer. It was a private jet to Qatar and a commercial flight to Islamabad, then here."
Facts, quickly. He doesn't have time to unpack the strange spiral Armand has been on, seemingly torn between dragging him east towards his earliest memories and west towards the worst ones. Strange, awful stories at all hours, in between phone calls and meetings in dozens of languages, paying bribes, moving assets, some of which seem to have not been touched since before World War II.
"He's running into a problem getting out of the country, now, between politics and the pandemic, so maybe Russia. Until he realizes my passport is flagged with them and I end up in the fucking Gulag anyway."
Though that might be better? Uncertain. Armand has kept to the letter of Louis' threat, and he hasn't harmed Daniel, but it hasn't exactly been relaxing and the abducted human is staring to lose it a little.
"A lot of phone calls in Italian, but there's no way he's getting a flight directly to western Europe."
Maybe it would be better if Daniel were in Russian custody. Humans would be easier.
Louis does not offer this.
Rashid has produced a tablet. Louis lays a hand on the smooth, cool surface. Makes his fear feed the adrenaline, sharpen everything in this moment.
"I'm coming," Louis tells him. "I can move a little more freely than him."
Years of cultivating friendships among the underbelly of society. Louis and his art, some of which has been procured in less than legal fashion. There are options, people who would smuggle a vampire.
"Are you hurt?" betrays a little tremor of that fear. Worry. Daniel is very obviously not alright, but Louis now has a clear idea of the full spectrum of discomfort that Armand could visit upon him.
He never got a full timeline. Lestat went out of the story, and the life, it seemed, went out of Louis. But now that Daniel remembers San Fransisco, and now that he has a flood of deranged mail to sift through in response to the book, he finds he's able to piece it together. No reason to. It's just a puzzle in his spare time, idly putting pieces together on his coffee table, until it isn't.
Monaco isn't a surprise. Right up their alley. Art, culture, wealth; probably a little on the grating side of tourist-y, but that could work on their favor, if it had been before Louis had quit hunting. And his notes suggest it had been— part of why it's on the list is because someone matched a whole lot of murders.
The big question is why now. Why did Louis leave Dubai, why is he on his own tour. A break in shows, a break in the insanity Daniel has let himself be drowned in for the past several weeks, and he's off to Europe. Lestat might be behind him, with plans on securing shows in London, but he's not thinking about that tonight. 24 hours and a long flight have run the drugs out of his system and he's got a new mission.
"Is this your old place?"
A beautiful townhome. Worth millions. Daniel broke the lock in the back, sorry.
"Has your time on tour made you forget how to knock?"
Smoothly, no tension in Louis as he rises from the lovely low couch he had been seated upon when Daniel let himself in. A book dropped to the coffee table, a scattering of legal documents fluttering as it lands. Louis had felt Daniel somewhere within the strip of a backyard. Could perhaps have prevented the breaking and entering, but felt no real urgency to do so.
Still, deep fondness in his face as Daniel enters the room. Moving already to reach for him, clasp Daniel's hands in his own.
"You could have told me you wanted to see me."
As Louis considers asking why, and how Daniel came to be here. Louis has been careful as he moves about the globe. His skirmishes have been few, but violent. Not insurmountable, but good motivation to fly below the radar. Louis has had to stretch his own awareness, given the attention he's attracted. Given the vendettas piled up around his door. Despite all their arguments and conversations, despite Lestat's best efforts, not every eye follows him. (And some still judge Louis the easier target. Younger, isolated, no longer linked to Armand.) Some follow Louis. Most he would not be so pleased to welcome into one of his homes.
Both about the front door, and a wish to see him. Daniel knows he's been acting crazy, doing things that Louis won't approve of— and with Lestat. Peace and closure, smash cut to: whatever the fuck is going on now. Eating people, making too much bad behavior public, viral TikTok behind-the-scenes clips of Lestat screaming and throwing things while Daniel calmly dodges and tells him to pick the bone fragments out of his glittery net shirt, and so on.
So. Maybe Daniel is in the dog house, maybe he feels sheepish about it. Easier to just surprise him and let the cards fall where the may. Still, a real smile when Louis reaches out, and Daniel grabs his hand in a warm hello.
Fortunately for Daniel, Louis is not on TikTok. Some bad behavior gone unconfirmed, if intuited from the news articles that find their way into his workflow for perusal.
They can argue about it tomorrow. Later tonight. In an hour.
Louis can simply be pleased to see him. The complex swirl of emotion about Daniel, about Daniel and Lestat, he can sweep that aside. Use the link of their hands to pull Daniel into a brief hug.
"I'll always answer you," Louis tells him, soft beside his ear, before Louis releases him. Slants a smile to him, a little sly, as he questions, "Though I'd thought you were keeping very busy these days."
A rare Louis hug. They've always been professional with each other
(right?)
and Daniel's never been touchy anyway, but Louis is ... Louis, and Daniel thinks he cares about him more than he's cared about anyone, outside of his girls and maybe the dog he had when he was a kid. He gives him a bracing squeeze, thinks again that it's such a fucking relief to see him out in the world and himself. A pat to his shoulder when they part, and he makes sure his touch doesn't linger like some creep. Too much partying lately. Get it together.
"It's exactly as insane as you're imagining," he confirms, tone wry. Busy, indeed. "Even as I was getting my shit to get out for a while, I still hadn't completely assured myself I wasn't a hostage. Though, you know. At certain points. Which one of us is holding the jail keys, who knows."
Lestat is powerful and frightening. Lestat also cries a lot. I'm not trapped in here with you, etc.
"You gave better interview. For my tastes, anyway."
He's getting better at this. Halfway across the world, as usual, and he doesn't have to yell, mentally. Doesn't have to talk out loud, either, though he does sometimes. And despite getting better, there's still a slight sense of being barrelled into. An obnoxious old wired phone ringing, instead of the discreet chime of a text. Hey, just one word, not en an exclamation mark on it, and yet it's going to feel like there's one. It'll feel like Hey!, like Daniel spotting him from across the room and calling out with a bright smile on his face.
This greeting bursting into Louis' mind, hooking his attention. Effortless. Even if Daniel whispered. Even if it were not a word but a sensation.
Halfway across the world, miles and miles and timezones apart, Louis answers. (Relieved, every time Daniel touches his mind. Pleased, always pleased.)
Hey.
Warm. Affectionate.
Amused.
Hello, Daniel.
The sense of Louis' attention turning, narrowing. Daniel effortlessly claiming all his focus, task at hand set aside for the moment.
There is a headless vampire on the floor. Louis is sitting cross-legged, had only a moment ago been slowly, painstakingly digging through the content of a poorly secured laptop. He is not sorry for a reason to let his hands slow on the keyboard. Louis is not an expert, only determined, working off what he'd dragged from the dead thing on the floor's mind to gain access, and now navigate the device's contents.
It's not a hardship to give Daniel all his attention. All else can wait.
Just like he's better but not quite graceful, Daniel hasn't perfectly gotten the hang of precisely how he's supposed to express how he feels, when he connects with Louis like this. As usual, happy to hear from him, happy to be answered, relieved to be answered— there's a cellphoneish quality to the immediacy of telepathic communication he doesn't love, but when it's Louis, he's happy about it, and he forgets to do things like ask 'are you busy' when he starts throwing pebbles at his window.
So: affection, a stupid amount of it, the care he's always had and that something extra more, since Louis talked him into believing any of it.
(He's still pretty fucking sure he's going to get his heart broken. But he's made peace with it.)
'Hi, Louis. I have a little bit so I thought I'd check in.'
Louis has a personal cell phone that he carries himself now, stowed gracelessly in a pocket instead of tended to by Rachid, all messages screened before they find their way to Louis. Two people have this number, and one of them can do this, reach out and touch his mind and speak into it.
(Lestat populates a lively text chain with emoji and French, a language Louis has let molder on his tongue for so long that it no longer comes easy to him. He smiles often, parsing out Lestat's messages.)
He is smiling now, mind opening further to invite Daniel close, project easy welcome back to him.
I was thinking of you, Louis tells him. But I know interruptions fuck up your flow.
And Louis still means what he'd said: he doesn't want to intrude on Daniel's work, on Lestat's interview.
Where are you today?
Daniel ranging across America while the Vampire Lestat wins the hearts of stadiums full of mortals. Louis wandering across continents, retracing steps taken decades ago alongside Armand. Seeking. Collecting.
'You always say that,' is a friendly accusation. Louis can't always be thinking of him just before whenever it is that Daniel fumbles into his head, it's a line, but Daniel likes hearing it anyway. 'And you can't fuck up anything for me.'
Louis, forever an exception. Somebody who's allowed to interrupt him and be welcome, somebody who people basically go to war for, somebody Daniel's going to let himself get emotionally pulverized for. It's fine. This feeling right now, that invitation to get closer, the psychic feeling like tangling hands together, is worth it.
'Houston. It sucks. This whole state sucks. And not even for political reasons, it's the first time I've missed being able to eat food.'
Texas barbecue. Struggle.
'What are you doing, are you still up to your elbows in spinal fluid from the fights you think nobody knows you're getting into?'
Louis has such a complicated flex of reaction to the concept.
Does he miss food? Truly? Louis made human food, made blood, into a type of harm. Ate little and less, coaxed and harangued into the act by turns.
Daniel talks about barbecue and Louis can feel the ghost of it in his head. Remembered tastes. Comes through clearer than most things Louis can recall from his mortal life.
The contemplation shifts rapidly, smoothly, into the sensation of fingers stroking down Daniel's palm. Little points of contact, tangible expression of affection telegraphed across the world as Louis looks at the corpse on the floor. He'll have to burn it before he goes.
I never instigate.
Except in the ways Louis absolutely does, absolutely has.
This one had a laptop. And saved most of their passwords. Maybe you'd like to read some of their documents and email chains...?
A dangling little invitation. The fight is negligible. Look what Louis got from it.
Dubai, to New Orleans. To Lestat, in the middle of a hurricane.
A wire transfer, wealth passing from Louis' account to Daniel's.
In the wake of a hurricane, a text message: Are you home safely?
No answer.
Louis is uncertain what to make of the silence. He is uncertain if it is unwelcome, the texts that follow after. The scattering of voicemails Louis permits himself. The handful of emails to Daniel's account. All these attempts met with silence, an absence that cultivates an anxiety that solidifies into a heavy weight in his chest. Louis carries it with him back from New Orleans, back to Dubai. He keeps it held close, worries at it, trying to understand the cause of it.
Perhaps Daniel is tired of vampires. Perhaps Daniel has had enough of Louis. Can he be faulted?
The penthouse changes around him. Wall repaired. Bookshelves lowered. Paul's portrait, Claudia's dress. Color and greenery. Markers of what has passed, changes that fill the absence that Armand's absence created, that Daniel has left.
Daniel, who still has not answered him. The silence hurts, slices at Louis even as he reorders his life. Is it so simple? To be done, to close himself off and leave Louis in the past? Is it anger, over what was burned?
He is considering dispatching staff, earmarking separate details for Daniel and for Lestat both. This is weighing on his mind, the invasive quality of it set against the ever-present ache of what Louis doesn't know, can't know without them answering his calls.
A possibility Louis still turning over and over in his head when he boards a plane to the United Kingdom. Business goes on, in spite of the wreckage Louis is attempting to piece through. His meticulously amassed empire requires all the usual tending, and so Louis devotes himself to it. Gallery invitations, private showings, these things lined up long before Louis' life was blown apart.
He is not unaware of the Talamasca. It is still a surprise to be approached directly. A surprise to be directly approached by Rashid, stepping out of a crowd of art collectors to inform him, I can escort you to Mr. Molloy, if you wish to see him.
And what is Louis meant to say? In what world would he say no?
Emails, voicemails, texts. He tells himself that maybe if they'd come sooner, maybe if Louis hadn't tried to walk it all back by torching his laptop (more proof than any of it that Louis is old), maybe if he hadn't left him alone with a furious prehistoric insect wearing a person-suit. A lot of maybes. A good detective keeps them on hand to look at sometimes, draw details from, chase down leads off of. Doesn't get lost in them, though.
Life goes on, even when it's over.
He tells himself a lot of things and then he stops telling himself those things, because he's got other shit that occupies him. The time difference between continents and the necessity of an old man maintaining social distancing offers quite a bit of cover. London's a bit of a pain in the ass, but at least the weather's shitty, and he only singes his fingers sometimes instead of searing off a hand.
Rashid is a valuable asset, given his connections. But his clearance is not not all powerful. The unassuming flat building they arrive at has a stonefaced doorman who isn't going to budge, not even with supernatural threats; in the lobby behind him, an unfamiliar man with grey hair and thick black glasses walks out of the elevator only to smoothly turn around and get back inside of it. He flashes Louis a smile as the doors slide shut, gone.
Calls are made. Bribes are offered. Hints of this ancient order crumbling at the seams before they're granted access, either to save face or just save some cash.
An unfamiliar man with grey hair and thick black glasses smiles at Louis, and Louis smiles back, fangs glinting sharp in his mouth. A promise, to this man who flees into the security of this place where Daniel is being held. Louis will remember his face.
He has much to repay the Talamasca for. This has not been forgotten.
A production to gain access. Stubborn negotiation, in which Rashid is caught between old employer and new. (If Louis was ever anyone's employer, given the givens.) Efforts to turn Louis away unsuccessful. He is clear. He wants Daniel. Nothing else will suffice.
Eventually, doors opening. Louis led inside. The building smells antiseptic, too clean.
They've been holding Daniel for how long? For what purpose?
No one is saying.
Louis is led into the elevator. Down hallways. Directed, at last: You'll find him in there, as he is finally turned loose at the doorway of a suite that allegedly contains Daniel Molloy.
Raglan is out the back door and in a car to the next scam by the time they let Louis in.
Daniel should be, too. He tells him as much. He's always told him that, about Louis. The actually dangerous one, which he still believes, even after all that's happened. You can trust an ancient to be committed to ancient stuff. Louis' too young. Too unpredictable. Daniel remembers now, right?
Whatever.
Bailing, even after such dedicated ignoring (well, it was dedicated at first, after that he just got preoccupied), seems like too much. He still cares about him. It was still him, telling him to live. He's still who Daniel decided to die over when he pulled the pin on the grenade. Did die over, ultimately. It's just—
It's just he kinda doesn't want to talk to him about it. About any of it. Frustrating. But he stays. Opens a window (legal in the UK? was the building never updated?), burns a cigarette, puts Raglan's half-eaten dinner in the microwave. Stupid. Louis will be able to tell.
(Talamasca agents hedging their bets. Maybe a good idea not to be so near to Louis, when he receives this news. Consider, all that's been said about Louis' temper. Young vampires, erratic in their hurts and their angers, better observed from a distance.)
Almost as Daniel left him. Here is Louis with soft curls, eyes masked by dark mirrored glasses he is already removing, turning in his hands in a little tick of anxious movement. Now stowing them in a pocket of the oversized bomber jacket, cut from shining dark material. Rich, dark emerald green polo beneath it, textured knit evoking living things, greenery and life. Trousers belted at the waist. Polished leather loafers. An evolving wardrobe, expanding, experimenting.
A sign of the times.
Daniel's right. Louis knows, instantly. Maybe had already known before the door opened, catching Daniel's scent and finding it changed. Confirmation now, looking at him. At his eyes.
The vampire Daniel Molloy.
"Daniel," Louis says, split open under the blow of this revelation.
Finds his way to, "You haven't been answering my calls," as a statement of fact stripped of all attached emotion. Daniel is a vampire. Daniel is alive, not lying in a hospital (but maybe having chosen to cut ties with Louis anyway) or overwhelmed by his illness.
It doesn't matter what Louis feels in the moment. Here is Daniel, alive. Louis can take some relief in it even as his mind churns, surges ahead, circles the horrible inevitability of Who?
Hurts a little, to see him. It's real, now. Louis is the architect of all of this, he picked him up in that bar, he invited him to his home, he left with with Armand. Daniel doesn't blame him, it's nothing like that, it's just—
Louis is the vampire who's been in all of his dreams since he was a too-young addict hustling drugs for blowjobs. A safe person to fantasize about, who was both terrifying and alluring. He'd nearly killed him, he might not be real, and their dynamic during the interview had been just as much of a rollercoaster. And now, Louis gets to see what's become of him, and Daniel...
Might be a shitty vampire? Shouldn't be one at all? Will Louis be disappointed he didn't just walk into the sun, will he resent him over who's done it to him?
"Hey."
Great opener. He looks at Louis for another moment, finds an ache in his chest blooming to see him so much like his own person, and then turns away. He moves back into the suite, shrug passing as an invitation inside.
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In the two weeks in that Dubai penthouse, it sometimes felt electric. A weight that would jolt or burn. He knew it was just his imagination, an expression of psychological pressure and fascination, but he still thinks of it. Even now, yet more weeks removed, in fucking Kyrgyzstan.
He thinks about Louis often. Armand is aware, he knows. The ancient vampire gets a particular look in his Halloween shifting eyes whenever Daniel does it while they're in the same room, even if he's stopped commenting on it as often. Daniel has yet to decide if he thinks that's because Armand no longer finds it worth noting, or if it's because Armand isn't always sitting inside of his head and sifting through it.
Not a prisoner. He'd agreed, after all. Sure it was under serious duress, but he could have always opted for death, he supposes.
Very casually, Daniel has made his way to the lobby of this hotel in Bishkek, and using his mashup of familiarity with Turkic languages, has managed to secure the ability to make an international phone call. It's fine. Normal. Nothing weird. He has no savior to call, no lifeline. Just this. He has no idea where Louis went after he walked out of the penthouse suite in Dubai, no idea if he's back, if the number he thinks he remembers is right, if call will even connect if it is.
Ring ring.
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It is fortunate for all parties involved that the respective time zones involved see Louis available, rather than sequestered and asleep.
He's left several messages since returning from Dubai. Louis has Daniel's number. Has called, confused to be met each time with Daniel's voicemail. Is it this simple? A completed transaction, and a return to their respective lives?
Painful to consider. But maybe Daniel has wishes to divest from the tangle of vampiric life.
And then—
The phone call. An unknown number. It rings thrice before Louis answers.
"Hello?"
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He clears the hurdle—
"Hey, Louis. Hi. It's Daniel Molloy." Out in a rush. He should have practiced what to say, he doesn't know how long he has. Every heartbeat (faster and faster) he expects to see a hand slide into frame and press the end call button. He did practice, he recited it all in his head, but it's gone now in a shaky flood of adrenaline. Scramble. "I'm in the Orion Hotel in Bishkek, staying on the top floor. I think." Pretty sure. "If you could find a way to get me out of here and away from him that'd be great. I understand if that's not a possibility," does he sound hysterical here? he hopes not, keep it together, clock's ticking, "and in that case, if you could just split whatever money you were going to send me and kick it to my daughters, I'd appreciate it. You don't owe me anything. I just—"
Just what? He freezes.
Didn't have anyone else. Who the fuck is going to help. At least Louis can give the girls money.
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There is only one him. Daniel doesn't have to say a name.
"Daniel."
Insistent. Urgent.
Immediate dread dropping like a stone into his stomach. Armand took him. Armand took Daniel and it's why Daniel wasn't answering his phone. Armand has him.
Louis' fear is near-paralyzing, but he boxes it up. Puts it away. Striding through the penthouse in search of Rashid as he asks:
"Does he mean to stay there with you? For at least a few more days?"
It will take some doing to get a plane into the country. Not impossible, only difficult.
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Facts, quickly. He doesn't have time to unpack the strange spiral Armand has been on, seemingly torn between dragging him east towards his earliest memories and west towards the worst ones. Strange, awful stories at all hours, in between phone calls and meetings in dozens of languages, paying bribes, moving assets, some of which seem to have not been touched since before World War II.
"He's running into a problem getting out of the country, now, between politics and the pandemic, so maybe Russia. Until he realizes my passport is flagged with them and I end up in the fucking Gulag anyway."
Though that might be better? Uncertain. Armand has kept to the letter of Louis' threat, and he hasn't harmed Daniel, but it hasn't exactly been relaxing and the abducted human is staring to lose it a little.
"A lot of phone calls in Italian, but there's no way he's getting a flight directly to western Europe."
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Maybe it would be better if Daniel were in Russian custody. Humans would be easier.
Louis does not offer this.
Rashid has produced a tablet. Louis lays a hand on the smooth, cool surface. Makes his fear feed the adrenaline, sharpen everything in this moment.
"I'm coming," Louis tells him. "I can move a little more freely than him."
Years of cultivating friendships among the underbelly of society. Louis and his art, some of which has been procured in less than legal fashion. There are options, people who would smuggle a vampire.
"Are you hurt?" betrays a little tremor of that fear. Worry. Daniel is very obviously not alright, but Louis now has a clear idea of the full spectrum of discomfort that Armand could visit upon him.
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He never got a full timeline. Lestat went out of the story, and the life, it seemed, went out of Louis. But now that Daniel remembers San Fransisco, and now that he has a flood of deranged mail to sift through in response to the book, he finds he's able to piece it together. No reason to. It's just a puzzle in his spare time, idly putting pieces together on his coffee table, until it isn't.
Monaco isn't a surprise. Right up their alley. Art, culture, wealth; probably a little on the grating side of tourist-y, but that could work on their favor, if it had been before Louis had quit hunting. And his notes suggest it had been— part of why it's on the list is because someone matched a whole lot of murders.
The big question is why now. Why did Louis leave Dubai, why is he on his own tour. A break in shows, a break in the insanity Daniel has let himself be drowned in for the past several weeks, and he's off to Europe. Lestat might be behind him, with plans on securing shows in London, but he's not thinking about that tonight. 24 hours and a long flight have run the drugs out of his system and he's got a new mission.
"Is this your old place?"
A beautiful townhome. Worth millions. Daniel broke the lock in the back, sorry.
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Smoothly, no tension in Louis as he rises from the lovely low couch he had been seated upon when Daniel let himself in. A book dropped to the coffee table, a scattering of legal documents fluttering as it lands. Louis had felt Daniel somewhere within the strip of a backyard. Could perhaps have prevented the breaking and entering, but felt no real urgency to do so.
Still, deep fondness in his face as Daniel enters the room. Moving already to reach for him, clasp Daniel's hands in his own.
"You could have told me you wanted to see me."
As Louis considers asking why, and how Daniel came to be here. Louis has been careful as he moves about the globe. His skirmishes have been few, but violent. Not insurmountable, but good motivation to fly below the radar. Louis has had to stretch his own awareness, given the attention he's attracted. Given the vendettas piled up around his door. Despite all their arguments and conversations, despite Lestat's best efforts, not every eye follows him. (And some still judge Louis the easier target. Younger, isolated, no longer linked to Armand.) Some follow Louis. Most he would not be so pleased to welcome into one of his homes.
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Both about the front door, and a wish to see him. Daniel knows he's been acting crazy, doing things that Louis won't approve of— and with Lestat. Peace and closure, smash cut to: whatever the fuck is going on now. Eating people, making too much bad behavior public, viral TikTok behind-the-scenes clips of Lestat screaming and throwing things while Daniel calmly dodges and tells him to pick the bone fragments out of his glittery net shirt, and so on.
So. Maybe Daniel is in the dog house, maybe he feels sheepish about it. Easier to just surprise him and let the cards fall where the may. Still, a real smile when Louis reaches out, and Daniel grabs his hand in a warm hello.
"I needed some air, I guess."
Turns out both of Louis' ex-husbands are a lot.
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They can argue about it tomorrow. Later tonight. In an hour.
Louis can simply be pleased to see him. The complex swirl of emotion about Daniel, about Daniel and Lestat, he can sweep that aside. Use the link of their hands to pull Daniel into a brief hug.
"I'll always answer you," Louis tells him, soft beside his ear, before Louis releases him. Slants a smile to him, a little sly, as he questions, "Though I'd thought you were keeping very busy these days."
Busy.
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(right?)
and Daniel's never been touchy anyway, but Louis is ... Louis, and Daniel thinks he cares about him more than he's cared about anyone, outside of his girls and maybe the dog he had when he was a kid. He gives him a bracing squeeze, thinks again that it's such a fucking relief to see him out in the world and himself. A pat to his shoulder when they part, and he makes sure his touch doesn't linger like some creep. Too much partying lately. Get it together.
"It's exactly as insane as you're imagining," he confirms, tone wry. Busy, indeed. "Even as I was getting my shit to get out for a while, I still hadn't completely assured myself I wasn't a hostage. Though, you know. At certain points. Which one of us is holding the jail keys, who knows."
Lestat is powerful and frightening. Lestat also cries a lot. I'm not trapped in here with you, etc.
"You gave better interview. For my tastes, anyway."
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He's getting better at this. Halfway across the world, as usual, and he doesn't have to yell, mentally. Doesn't have to talk out loud, either, though he does sometimes. And despite getting better, there's still a slight sense of being barrelled into. An obnoxious old wired phone ringing, instead of the discreet chime of a text. Hey, just one word, not en an exclamation mark on it, and yet it's going to feel like there's one. It'll feel like Hey!, like Daniel spotting him from across the room and calling out with a bright smile on his face.
So. Hey, indeed.
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Halfway across the world, miles and miles and timezones apart, Louis answers. (Relieved, every time Daniel touches his mind. Pleased, always pleased.)
Hey.
Warm. Affectionate.
Amused.
Hello, Daniel.
The sense of Louis' attention turning, narrowing. Daniel effortlessly claiming all his focus, task at hand set aside for the moment.
There is a headless vampire on the floor. Louis is sitting cross-legged, had only a moment ago been slowly, painstakingly digging through the content of a poorly secured laptop. He is not sorry for a reason to let his hands slow on the keyboard. Louis is not an expert, only determined, working off what he'd dragged from the dead thing on the floor's mind to gain access, and now navigate the device's contents.
It's not a hardship to give Daniel all his attention. All else can wait.
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So: affection, a stupid amount of it, the care he's always had and that something extra more, since Louis talked him into believing any of it.
(He's still pretty fucking sure he's going to get his heart broken. But he's made peace with it.)
'Hi, Louis. I have a little bit so I thought I'd check in.'
Obvious how he feels. He just misses him.
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(Lestat populates a lively text chain with emoji and French, a language Louis has let molder on his tongue for so long that it no longer comes easy to him. He smiles often, parsing out Lestat's messages.)
He is smiling now, mind opening further to invite Daniel close, project easy welcome back to him.
I was thinking of you, Louis tells him. But I know interruptions fuck up your flow.
And Louis still means what he'd said: he doesn't want to intrude on Daniel's work, on Lestat's interview.
Where are you today?
Daniel ranging across America while the Vampire Lestat wins the hearts of stadiums full of mortals. Louis wandering across continents, retracing steps taken decades ago alongside Armand. Seeking. Collecting.
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Louis, forever an exception. Somebody who's allowed to interrupt him and be welcome, somebody who people basically go to war for, somebody Daniel's going to let himself get emotionally pulverized for. It's fine. This feeling right now, that invitation to get closer, the psychic feeling like tangling hands together, is worth it.
'Houston. It sucks. This whole state sucks. And not even for political reasons, it's the first time I've missed being able to eat food.'
Texas barbecue. Struggle.
'What are you doing, are you still up to your elbows in spinal fluid from the fights you think nobody knows you're getting into?'
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Louis has such a complicated flex of reaction to the concept.
Does he miss food? Truly? Louis made human food, made blood, into a type of harm. Ate little and less, coaxed and harangued into the act by turns.
Daniel talks about barbecue and Louis can feel the ghost of it in his head. Remembered tastes. Comes through clearer than most things Louis can recall from his mortal life.
The contemplation shifts rapidly, smoothly, into the sensation of fingers stroking down Daniel's palm. Little points of contact, tangible expression of affection telegraphed across the world as Louis looks at the corpse on the floor. He'll have to burn it before he goes.
I never instigate.
Except in the ways Louis absolutely does, absolutely has.
This one had a laptop. And saved most of their passwords. Maybe you'd like to read some of their documents and email chains...?
A dangling little invitation. The fight is negligible. Look what Louis got from it.
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prequel fodder.
A wire transfer, wealth passing from Louis' account to Daniel's.
In the wake of a hurricane, a text message: Are you home safely?
No answer.
Louis is uncertain what to make of the silence. He is uncertain if it is unwelcome, the texts that follow after. The scattering of voicemails Louis permits himself. The handful of emails to Daniel's account. All these attempts met with silence, an absence that cultivates an anxiety that solidifies into a heavy weight in his chest. Louis carries it with him back from New Orleans, back to Dubai. He keeps it held close, worries at it, trying to understand the cause of it.
Perhaps Daniel is tired of vampires. Perhaps Daniel has had enough of Louis. Can he be faulted?
The penthouse changes around him. Wall repaired. Bookshelves lowered. Paul's portrait, Claudia's dress. Color and greenery. Markers of what has passed, changes that fill the absence that Armand's absence created, that Daniel has left.
Daniel, who still has not answered him. The silence hurts, slices at Louis even as he reorders his life. Is it so simple? To be done, to close himself off and leave Louis in the past? Is it anger, over what was burned?
He is considering dispatching staff, earmarking separate details for Daniel and for Lestat both. This is weighing on his mind, the invasive quality of it set against the ever-present ache of what Louis doesn't know, can't know without them answering his calls.
A possibility Louis still turning over and over in his head when he boards a plane to the United Kingdom. Business goes on, in spite of the wreckage Louis is attempting to piece through. His meticulously amassed empire requires all the usual tending, and so Louis devotes himself to it. Gallery invitations, private showings, these things lined up long before Louis' life was blown apart.
He is not unaware of the Talamasca. It is still a surprise to be approached directly. A surprise to be directly approached by Rashid, stepping out of a crowd of art collectors to inform him, I can escort you to Mr. Molloy, if you wish to see him.
And what is Louis meant to say? In what world would he say no?
He gets in the car. They go.
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Life goes on, even when it's over.
He tells himself a lot of things and then he stops telling himself those things, because he's got other shit that occupies him. The time difference between continents and the necessity of an old man maintaining social distancing offers quite a bit of cover. London's a bit of a pain in the ass, but at least the weather's shitty, and he only singes his fingers sometimes instead of searing off a hand.
Rashid is a valuable asset, given his connections. But his clearance is not not all powerful. The unassuming flat building they arrive at has a stonefaced doorman who isn't going to budge, not even with supernatural threats; in the lobby behind him, an unfamiliar man with grey hair and thick black glasses walks out of the elevator only to smoothly turn around and get back inside of it. He flashes Louis a smile as the doors slide shut, gone.
Calls are made. Bribes are offered. Hints of this ancient order crumbling at the seams before they're granted access, either to save face or just save some cash.
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He has much to repay the Talamasca for. This has not been forgotten.
A production to gain access. Stubborn negotiation, in which Rashid is caught between old employer and new. (If Louis was ever anyone's employer, given the givens.) Efforts to turn Louis away unsuccessful. He is clear. He wants Daniel. Nothing else will suffice.
Eventually, doors opening. Louis led inside. The building smells antiseptic, too clean.
They've been holding Daniel for how long? For what purpose?
No one is saying.
Louis is led into the elevator. Down hallways. Directed, at last: You'll find him in there, as he is finally turned loose at the doorway of a suite that allegedly contains Daniel Molloy.
Where Louis knocks.
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Daniel should be, too. He tells him as much. He's always told him that, about Louis. The actually dangerous one, which he still believes, even after all that's happened. You can trust an ancient to be committed to ancient stuff. Louis' too young. Too unpredictable. Daniel remembers now, right?
Whatever.
Bailing, even after such dedicated ignoring (well, it was dedicated at first, after that he just got preoccupied), seems like too much. He still cares about him. It was still him, telling him to live. He's still who Daniel decided to die over when he pulled the pin on the grenade. Did die over, ultimately. It's just—
It's just he kinda doesn't want to talk to him about it. About any of it. Frustrating. But he stays. Opens a window (legal in the UK? was the building never updated?), burns a cigarette, puts Raglan's half-eaten dinner in the microwave. Stupid. Louis will be able to tell.
Whatever, again.
Daniel opens the door.
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Alone.
(Talamasca agents hedging their bets. Maybe a good idea not to be so near to Louis, when he receives this news. Consider, all that's been said about Louis' temper. Young vampires, erratic in their hurts and their angers, better observed from a distance.)
Almost as Daniel left him. Here is Louis with soft curls, eyes masked by dark mirrored glasses he is already removing, turning in his hands in a little tick of anxious movement. Now stowing them in a pocket of the oversized bomber jacket, cut from shining dark material. Rich, dark emerald green polo beneath it, textured knit evoking living things, greenery and life. Trousers belted at the waist. Polished leather loafers. An evolving wardrobe, expanding, experimenting.
A sign of the times.
Daniel's right. Louis knows, instantly. Maybe had already known before the door opened, catching Daniel's scent and finding it changed. Confirmation now, looking at him. At his eyes.
The vampire Daniel Molloy.
"Daniel," Louis says, split open under the blow of this revelation.
Finds his way to, "You haven't been answering my calls," as a statement of fact stripped of all attached emotion. Daniel is a vampire. Daniel is alive, not lying in a hospital (but maybe having chosen to cut ties with Louis anyway) or overwhelmed by his illness.
It doesn't matter what Louis feels in the moment. Here is Daniel, alive. Louis can take some relief in it even as his mind churns, surges ahead, circles the horrible inevitability of Who?
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Louis is the vampire who's been in all of his dreams since he was a too-young addict hustling drugs for blowjobs. A safe person to fantasize about, who was both terrifying and alluring. He'd nearly killed him, he might not be real, and their dynamic during the interview had been just as much of a rollercoaster. And now, Louis gets to see what's become of him, and Daniel...
Might be a shitty vampire? Shouldn't be one at all? Will Louis be disappointed he didn't just walk into the sun, will he resent him over who's done it to him?
"Hey."
Great opener. He looks at Louis for another moment, finds an ache in his chest blooming to see him so much like his own person, and then turns away. He moves back into the suite, shrug passing as an invitation inside.
"I've had a weird few weeks."
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