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.
"Be careful," is immediate, and kneejerk. Armand doesn't need to fear the sun, Armand has done fuck-knows-what to Louis' head, to Daniel's head, by now. "It's— I mean just talking to another person for a second—"
What is he doing?? Get a fucking grip, Molloy. Don't say goodbye, even though that's what he feels like doing, suddenly. He's exhausted. He's already dying of Parkinson's, it's at least slightly more interesting to expire while kidnapped by a fucking ancient demon instead of in palliative care. Christ.
"I'm fine."
Another thing that there's no time to detail is what Armand is starting to force him to do in lieu of appropriate medical care. Daniel feels insane.
Daniel has to go. Louis receives this news with a shock of real fear. Takes a moment to steady himself, keep the tremor of it from bleeding into his voice when he speaks.
A promise. Louis will put himself into that room if he has to. Simple as that. He's older than he was. Has drunk down Armand's power for eighty years.
And he could never leave Daniel to his fate.
If Louis had been more careful, it simply would not have come to pass and Daniel would be home. Could do as he pleased with the money Louis had wired to him.
"I'll see you soon," Louis promises, as if they are only arranging a visit. As if Daniel doesn't sound terrified. As if Armand couldn't simply kill him at any moment.
Armand won't. If he had intended to, he'd have left Daniel's body for Louis to find upon his return. He is doing something else.
Hope against hope, but Daniel has a bad feeling. So bad that he says nothing else, and simply hangs up. The feeling persists so starkly that he doesn't even startle when he turns around to find Armand waiting patiently for him.
It doesn't matter how much he's heard, he can just pull it out of Daniel's head easy as breathing.
Stay there, as if Daniel has any control over where they go, and now Armand knows that trying to pass through Moscow to move west is an unwieldy risk. Though, as Armand takes Daniel's hand in both of his and guides him back to the lobby elevators to return to their quarters, he thinks he might have told him anyway; he really doesn't want to go to a fucking Siberian work camp.
Things for Louis to find: CCTV, glimpses of an anxious hostage scenario versus the unnervingly docile way Daniel walks beside Armand the last time they leave the hotel, telltale obviousness of being mentally controlled. Rooms upstairs hastily vacated, some papers with notes scribbled on them left scuttled under one bed, a list of names and places Armand has mentioned. The lingering scent of Armand's own blood, and empty glasses with deep red stains.
It's not difficult to track their abrupt movement through the city, though it becomes fuzzier when they make an overland crossing into Kazakhstan. The drive to Almaty is only about four hours, and they stop at a quaint photo op area on the long road. Armand tells him more horror stories. In the airport, there's only one nonstop flight to anywhere in Europe, and it's in ten hours. Not acceptable. They end up hopping one to Istanbul, and Armand keeps a hand on Daniel's elbow the entire time, like a dutiful caretaker of his aging father-in-law.
In the end, it's Claudia's tricks that get Louis across borders. Only marginally easier now than it was then, if only because Louis has more contacts, more money, better grip on his power. Willing to be brutal now, as Claudia was then. Disadvantaged, susceptible still to sunlight where Armand can walk in the daylight at Daniel's side while Louis can move only at night.
But setting into motion a hive of smugglers and thieves doesn't get him to that hotel before Armand takes Daniel from it. Days too late, but the room itself preserved for his arrival. Sealed so Louis can walk through it, a handful of his staff gathering all evidence of Armand and Daniel's stay. A list in Daniel's handwriting, shaky, perhaps from haste or from fear.
CCTV footage collected, a little trail of images between this hotel and the airport.
How far behind them is he? They can trail after to the airport, to the same ticket counters, to dig answers from the people behind the counters. Istanbul. Armand took Daniel to Istanbul, perhaps to another room, another place Louis may well find empty but for whatever clues Daniel could manage to drop as he goes, more blood-stained cups.
But Louis goes to Istanbul, sealed in the cargo hold of a private jet.
Remembers being here with Armand, once. The hotel they'd chosen, the art they'd purchased, long hours walking the streets together. Wandering.
It's the place Louis tries first, after he finds its still standing in the exact place he left it. A gamble. Maybe Armand would choose it only to punish, to dig a knife into Louis before he moved on. He goes, mind tightly closed, to pick at the mind of the woman behind the counter.
The woman behind the counter works the swing shift, and her mind is as open as any mortal's. During daylight hours she had assisted an older American man, certainly drawn to her thanks to the subtle button on her lapel signaling her fluency in English. There's nothing unusual about the way the interaction begins. He asks about the restaurant in the hotel, and she's happy to provide information.
He then asks her to look up a guest's room number. Louis de Pointe du Lac, he tells her, and they have a brief exchange about how pretty that name is. But he's not a registered guest at the hotel. The American smiles and says that's alright, he just hasn't checked in yet, but can she hold this for him for when he shows up? Of course. He hands her an envelope with that name written on it, and she sets it aside behind the counter.
When he leaves, the man in line behind him - Indian or Bengali perhaps, she's not sure - leaves with him; she had assumed he was just another customer waiting. Apparently not. But there's yet another customer after, and so she moves on with her work day.
Until now, staring at Louis, waiting with a small smile to assist him. Only another hour or so left of her shift. She would like to go home.
All of this there at the surface of her mind, skimmed so easily that it requires next to no exertion to extract. Louis pulls all of this from her, and so need offer her nothing but:
"My name is Louis de Pointe du Lac. I believe you may have an envelope for me?"
All very polite. Ease he doesn't feel. Offers up his identification, if she requires...?
They were here, they were here, they were here. Armand's face reflects back at him from her mind.
Can they be a step ahead of him infinitely? Louis chasing Armand across the globe until what? Until Daniel is gone?
ID, yes, but really who else has that name. She's happy to hand it over. If he needs anything else...?
The envelope is a normal white envelope, and within it is a normal sheet of paper folded into thirds. A message is there on it, written out with a blue ballpoint pen. No sinister signatures in blood, no ominous tokens. Just Daniel's shitty, uneven handwriting, which he struggles to keep on even lines.
Louis,
He's not literally forcing me to write this but I still don't have a choice. Fucking illegible I know.
Parkinson's has not miraculously let up in between the last time they saw each other and now. He's felt like he's been getting extremely good medication while being made to drink Armand's fucking blood, but there are psychological downsides. Mostly it's very annoying. The note continues.
He says he's not going to kill me, but he's not going to let you take me, either. No word on if he intends to let me go. He says it's stressing me out to move so fast but he has to if you're going to push the issue, which sounds like a victim blamey bullshit excuse to me, but what do I fucking know. He'll edit this if he finds anything objectionable probably, so fuck you, Armand. Cross this out if you want.
DM
Armand, apparently, opted not to force him to rewrite without the hostility. How nice. Not silencing a writer's voice etc etc. What a guy. In any event, they are not staying in this hotel, though Armand did permit Daniel to stop in and have lunch. They left before sundown, and are now...? Somewhere. Istanbul connects to the rest of the whole fucking world. But they left the airport. So it stands to reason they might still be in the city, with Armand hopeful that Louis won't have even made it this far.
Armand's mind is surely closed off, but Daniel is just a human.
How quickly it had passed, that liminal space between the interview's end and Daniel's call. A moment of possibility. Lestat in his arms, a promise to speak more and regularly. The thought of Daniel's friendship, because it felt like that is what they parted with. Color stealing into the townhouse, piece by piece of art and furniture. Possibility, blooming and clipped in record time.
Does he need anything else?
A room. The penthouse suite will do. No need to worry after his luggage, he has staff, but if his American friend returns, please, he would like to be notified immediately.
Door closed, staff dispersed to the airports to gather what information possible about departures, Louis removes his shoes and coat. Drains a blood bag. Answers Lestat's three text messages. He will need to sleep, cannot put it off forever.
But not yet.
Smooths Daniel's letter across one knee, and reads it again. Lets his fear give way to anger, lets the anger become fuel.
Reaches out, falling into the flow of thought swirling in the air, vampire and human alike, touching all the overlapping, intertwining threads, until the familiarity of Daniel snags him like a hook on a line.
Daniel, as a whisper. So, so tentative. Aware of the risk inherent in this.
Still here in Istanbul, in an old church, one of the Byzantine ruins; Daniel is sitting in a windowless room with stone walls, waiting for something. He is exhausted, contemplating the edges of chronic pain, contemplating his exact location (not sure, and furthermore not sure if that's because of the exhaustion and chronic pain, or if his mind was fogged), contemplating Armand, and the contested validity of Stockholm syndrome, because he's actually starting to feel slightly bad for the guy, who is clearly profoundly mentally ill in a way he's kept camouflaged around being an ancient monster.
He hears his name, and it sounds like Louis.
Is he losing it?? Maybe. Daniel looks over his shoulder—?
No psychic powers, no ability to say anything back, but he's listening.
Peel back, Louis had called it in New Orleans, when he was a days-old fledgling and learning the extent of his power.
Does it now, to the extent he is able, venturing further into Daniel's mind. Louis touches that exhaustion, that pain. Finds the marvel of Daniel's empathy, and feels his heart turn over in his chest.
I have your letter, Louis tells him. More importantly: I'm not going to leave you with him.
Louis understands the threat. Knows he simply can't live with it.
Can you envision anything that would help me make my way to you?
The sensation of Louis winding closer. A presence in Daniel's mind, warmth, sunlight, rich color at the edges of Daniel's thoughts. Gentle contact, a clasped hand. Here. He's here.
Louis. It really is Louis. Daniel experiences a surge of relief and wonder, clutching onto that sensation like grasping his hand. Louis actually came for him? —And then that sinks in, Louis actually came for him, and a dark thread of worry slips through. Louis is finally free from this stupid shit, and he's risking an altercation for him?
Not worth it. A dying old man. He wanted a book, he wanted to get out alive. Neither of those look like they're going to happen. He'll take getting Louis out and staying out.
Scattered memories. Armand talking to him about faith, his struggle with it, resentment and revulsion and terror, the way he wishes he could saw it out of himself; Daniel struggles to look anywhere but the floor of the car they're in as they end up wherever they are right now. Regular asphalt parking lot, to a sidewalk, to ancient cobblestones. He doesn't glimpse the exterior. His attention is fixed on his hand in Armand's. Armand has been holding his hand quite a lot on this journey. If he tries to remove his hand, nothing will happen. The grip is gentle, the grip is fucking iron.
He doesn't know what Armand is looking for in here, if anything. Daniel thinks there must be tombs beneath it. A church that seems like it used to be a mosque, and used to be something else before that.
Questions pile up. None that helpfully serve the goal of extricating Daniel from Armand's clutches, and are rightfully deferred.
Louis makes himself a blanketing presence inside Daniel's mind. The impression of his atrium, the scent of earth. Warmth. Faint notes, piano, perhaps. Pebbles and stone rolling underfoot.
I'm coming, words like a melody. Words like a decree from on high.
It is enough. What he has from Daniel will be enough. Louis will put it into the head of someone who knows. Who can direct him.
Sleep can wait. Louis can't afford the delay. All things sacrificed in this pursuit, money, humans drained dry, and perhaps Louis' newly gained freedom, it is all deemed necessary. Essential.
Daniel doesn't have much of a choice about holding on or not. If Armand walks back in and decides they're leaving, they're leaving. But Louis is in the same city, they're miles from an airport, it's the middle of the night.
He sits there as though Louis is holding him, and Daniel is tucking his hands into the arms around him, and it's all very strange and surreal. He doesn't know if he feels safe (no such thing), but he feels better, even though there's still a churn of unease in him about Louis taking this risk. And an even stranger feeling about Armand, who Daniel had been so angry at (is still angry at), but despite that, couldn't scrape together any satisfaction for when Louis chucked him across the penthouse in Dubai.
Violence just sucks. Is it going to be bad, when Louis shows up? If he makes it?
What the fuck is Armand even doing here. Daniel doesn't want to die in a fucking church, he doesn't believe in any of this bullshit. He stands up. Maybe he can just... leave. Just walk out. Armand's been gone for a while, and Daniel can't hear anything from outside.
Daniel, prickling with anxiety. Not dissimilar to Louis' voice whispering Lunch is almost over. Try. Fearful. A sense of the intention forming within Daniel's mind.
Don't tempt him to chase you.
Armand's favored way of feeding, giving chase. Measuring himself against his meal.
Would he reverse his assertions, the ones he made Daniel put to the paper pinned beneath his palm? If given the chance, would Armand pursue and devour Daniel and leave Louis nothing but a husk as punishment and warning both?
Daniel pauses before the door, a hand laid on the push bar. It's a metal thing, probably installed in the 90s; before regulatory bodies started to think that old places like these should be restored and maintained as-is, not retrofitted. There's a sticker on the bar warning of steps outside of it.
He thinks of the other times he's tried to walk away before now— getting lost in a crowd in the first major airport, bailing out of the hotel in Islamabad. Armand every time showing up and collecting him, disapproval on his face. Was Daniel punished? If he was, he doesn't remember.
But he trusts Louis, and so he drops his hand away from the door. Thinks of the Talamasca next, and wondering if they've been tracking this at all, but Armand had turned Rashid away with an ease that made mind control obvious, and that fucking organization thinks Armand isn't a threat. A docile housewife looking after younger, more volatile creatures. They might not have even been bothered by the sight of Armand escorting Daniel out of Dubai.
Images forming in Daniel's mind. A door, stairs. An empty room.
Louis collects them, as he rises slowly to his feet. Not as effortless as it would be for Armand, this multitasking, but essential. Slipping the note into his pocket.
I'm coming to you, he promises again, the echo of spoken words reverberating behind this murmur. (I need a car, and the smuggler, Fayiz, I don't care how busy he claims to be—) The connection holds, Louis' presence clinging close, a hand on Daniel's cheek.
Daniel does not know where Armand went. He deposited Daniel in this room, squeezed his shoulder, and then left. The door shut behind him, and he hasn't seen or heard anything since.
Thinking about it like that, it does feel an awful lot like he was left here on purpose, and that begins to fill him with uneasy worry again. Maybe he should just bail, even if Armand might give chase. They'd know where he is, and maybe it'd force Armand's hand. Something, anything.
But these thoughts pass through him and he begins to settle. Armand wouldn't actually do that. He's been extremely courteous to Daniel so far— he was in Dubai, too, despite the way they sniped at each other. He'd overreacted in San Fransisco, and Daniel of course holds a grudge about that, but why wouldn't he. It's reasonable. It's also reasonable to recognize that Louis was the biggest threat to him in that penthouse. Louis who triggered his tremor into violence, Louis who mocked him viciously about Alice. Louis threw things, Louis lost his temper with Armand. What's Louis going to do if Daniel doesn't comply, right now?
Daniel is a sharp and clever human, but he's still a human. He doesn't realize what's happening to his own head, sitting in this room where Armand left him, like a fucking cupcake out on a counter at child-height.
At a distance, Louis is reduced to circling, an anxious guard dog too far removed from his charge. Reduced to hurried preparation, conversations echoing down to Daniel as Louis shudders through the reflective sense memory of Armand's hand.
Louis had thrown Armand so hard. A delineating moment, reframing all that came before, all that would come after.
A slamming door. A hasty conversation, descriptions shared back and forth. Hemming and hawing, the exchange of currency. Louis' voice sharpening towards violence at the perception of further delay.
But he is told where he must go. It is night. Louis has a vehicle.
Daniel, like a tug of a sleeve. Daniel, I know where.
A reassurance dropped into Daniel's mind amidst these recollections and reasonings.
I'm coming.
No further plea. No other information, no divulging the people waiting at the airport to observe and follow if Armand is too quick to move. No mention of preparations, of what lives were drunk down to even the catastrophic imbalance between Louis and Armand.
No need to let Daniel try to convince him of anything other than this: Louis will come to him. He will take Daniel away from this place. It will not happen again.
I'm coming, and Daniel tries to reach for that in this ocean of confusion. Difficult to focus on what's real when his head is being flooded with a perspective he's never actually held, but that he could have held, if he were someone else. Raglan tells him he should be afraid of Louis, and Daniel nods, a concerned agreement. He folds his napkin in half, into quarters, in half again, a nervous tick, as they speak about the hundreds of people Louis killed.
This conversation never happened. But it feels like it did, inside of Daniel's head.
He thinks: Please fucking stop, I'll stay if you fucking stop, and there's apparently magic in that concession.
Armand has, of course, being doing nothing but standing on the other side of the door and observing Daniel's mind for the past hour. That door finally opens and he crosses the small room to take Daniel's face in his hands, and look into his eyes, and look directly at Louis.
Then it ends. A blanket draped over the mind of the mortal he's absconded with, completely obscured.
The instant it happens, Louis knows. Their eyes meet through Daniel's mind and then it ends, and it won't matter how fast Louis pushes the motorcycle he's been loaned. The room is empty. They are gone.
Daniel is gone.
A matter of thirty minutes. Twenty. Such a short sliver of time. Louis had let himself hope, find comfort in the contact with Daniel's mind and what felt like an increasingly real possibility of success.
Louis breaks the metal door. The chair. Daniel's scent hangs in the room, mingled with Armand's, a reminder of how near he'd been.
Reaches out, trying again, finds nothing.
Feels the urge to fall to the ground.
Boxes it away. He promised Daniel. He knows what Daniel would have to say. He can almost hear him, succinct summation of Self-defeating bullshit.
So he returns to the hotel. Is buoyed in he smallest way by what waits for him; all the eyes scattered through the city have something for Louis. Three of his people, observing Armand, Daniel caught at his side. A flight number, a destination.
So Louis goes. Spends the travel time alternating between reaching out for Armand and reaching out for Daniel, seeking any form of contac.
A rescue was a nice thought while it lasted; Daniel holds the fact that Louis actually came and tried close, like a lifeline. Like the words he burned into his head and that they both forgot about, but still felt. He and Armand move around, and Daniel is eventually allowed to leave Louis another letter. A similar delivery method as the first, with a similarly shaky hand.
In it, he apologizes. He doesn't want Armand to fuck with his memories, and remembering Louis as it all really happened is more important than getting away. Please look after yourself, he closes it with, and wonders when he stopped thinking about his own fucking children. Maybe a long time ago, actually. Christ.
He and Armand do a lot of talking. Most of it veers between points of miserable and hostile, but some of it's alright. They have a kind of rapport about some things, and static about others. Daniel drinks an awful lot of his blood, and by the time they do make it to Italy, he's sure he's going to die. Probably not even by Armand's hand, because Armand mentioned (seemingly by accident) having mailed all of Daniel's things back to his apartment in New York. It's the fucking sickness, and stress. He's in pain a lot. Sleep is elusive, he has trouble wanting to eat anything. Moving around like this is difficult. Armand holds his hands on flights and train rides, and he hates that it's comforting, but hates that he's with him more.
Louis had relayed this dispassionately to Lestat. They speak often. Lestat worries. Argues sometimes, but worries more.
Louis chases Armand to some final, terrible confrontation and Louis has stopped thinking very rationally about it. This terrible game of keep-away while Daniel suffers and Louis pours money into his pursuit and thinks about passing days, hours minutes.
Begs sometimes, into the absence that is Armand. Please, I'll do anything.
Does he mean it? Some days, yes.
But Venice is promising. Louis has friends in Venice. He has eyes in Venice. Enough eyes to see Daniel before Louis ever reaches to touch his mind. This time, Louis is waiting nearby, no distance to travel, reasonably sure that he's been led to the right place when he tries to reach out, hook a finger like he could snag Daniel by the collar. Catch his attention, call him away.
A slow, strange slide towards something. Daniel thinks of Heart of Darkness, not for any specific notes of the story itself, but the fact that it's cursed; adaptations are doomed to kill. He doesn't know where they're going. Upriver, upriver, that's all. There is a sense of stoppage in Venice, and Armand has turned into a darker and darker thing, and maybe the curse is going to kick in any second now.
I'm here, the faintest echo.
Is Daniel here? He supposes he is. He feels exhausted, irritable, and roiling with resigned pity and hostility towards his captor, who has poured out so much of himself. So much that may or may not be true. Difficult for Daniel to judge— it has become increasingly difficult for him to read Armand. He's never needed telepathy for anything like that, just intuition and attention to detail, but they've hit the point where Armand isn't sure if he's telling the truth, or not.
He thinks he's going to die. It's not a sentiment he allows Louis to eavesdrop on to scare him or rush him. It's just there, a strange feeling of certainty. His blood pressure is through the roof, his vision is constantly glassy. He is fucking tired in a way he's never experienced before. He doesn't want Louis to feel bad about it. Daniel was always going to die, he's old and he has a very annoying disease. It'll be okay.
The sense of Louis drawing closer. A feeling of circling arms, an embrace.
Daniel feels muted. It scares Louis, feeling even this implication of decline. Daniel is sharp and sarcastic and insightful and smart, had retained all things even with the disease. The sense of Daniel dwindling, exhausted and remote, it is just—
It cannot be permitted.
Louis has a cigarette in hand, the first time in a long time. He grinds it out. Listening, eyes closed, to Daniel. To the hum of the pedestrians and city around him.
Close. They're close to an end to this. Louis holds that thought like truth, a ward against panicky fear building in his chest.
A bedroom in an ornate home; old, it's clean, but it has a certain smell to it that suggests it hasn't been lived-in for years. Rare in an area caught in constant combat between residents and tourists. Nightfall obscures his view, but during the day, a window showed green water and edges of other buildings, but nothing close enough to make out.
Daniel doesn't want to give up, but he doesn't want Louis to end up hurt. To his knowledge, Armand hadn't fed at all since that fateful lunch out in Dubai, but this morning he drained three people in front of Daniel, who could do nothing but offer deadpan commentary on his technique. He doesn't know where the corpses went.
Is Louis alright?
Talk to me, he thinks. He can't really formulate replies, but he just wants to think about something besides what's happening.
But Daniel isn't asking, so Louis needn't do anything with that truth other than hold it in check. He isn't alright. He can indulge that when Daniel is safe.
I loved Venice, Louis tells him. Loved it the first time we came, been back every couple of years since.
Does Armand love Venice? Louis isn't sure. He is unsure of so much now. Has he known anything of Armand? What parts of their lives together are true and which were only cultivated for Louis' sake?
Louis is in motion. That comes through alongside the words.
I'll show you the best of it tomorrow, Louis promises. Mind wound so close in beside Daniel, anchoring. Tethering. Be here. Don't go away. There's a place I think you'd like.
Louis doesn't say where. Just in case.
Armand could likely guess. The house by the sea is in Louis' name, but they have shared everything. Everything. Armand will guess.
Daniel has been to Italy before, but not to Venice. His impression of it now is through Armand, his pieced-together stories that seem parts impossibly fantastical and in others harrowing. At one point, horribly disjointed, Armand attempted to produce a question, and it had taken long minutes after the vampire had given up and left for Daniel to understand that he was trying to ask if he'd ever had any traumatic experiences while selling sexual favors for drugs. A child's inarticulate fumbling, reaching in the dark for understanding, trapped under centuries of repression. Breaking through because Daniel smashed his life apart. He nearly threw up.
I don't understand why we're here. A thought that makes it through. Inelegant, a mortal's artless effort.
He doesn't know if he wants to like Venice.
Armand is in the room with him again, now. Surely he notices Louis. He's been in Daniel's head like he belongs there, for weeks. He sits across from Daniel and looks at him, and neither of them say anything.
Until:
"I'll give him to you."
Armand breaks the silence, and Daniel isn't sure if those amber eyes are looking at him or through him.
Armand's presence in the room had quieted Louis, but hadn't dispelled him. Stubborn. Clinging harder in the back of Daniel's head.
They don't need to talk through Daniel. Armand is not his maker. (Armand made him into something else, transformed him over nearly eighty years of attention.) They could forgo Daniel. Speak directly.
Louis doesn't withdraw. Doesn't blank Daniel from the conversation, from his response.
Please, Armand.
A tremor carrying through.
This offer laid out like a bear trap, waiting to break Louis' wrist when he reaches for it. Knowing he'll reach, because he cannot leave Daniel there.
Moving. Running. Faster, watching Armand through Daniel's mind.
It takes Daniel a second to notice the red on Armand's face. Tears. His reddened eyes aren't just from increasingly erratic moments of stress; the vampire has been earnestly crying. Dread and adrenaline slice through him, realizing, and Armand watches him realize, and reaches to hold his face in his hands.
"Wait," Daniel says, but Armand doesn't.
He doesn't know how to scramble for Louis. His pulse kicks up, a surge of panic, Armand looming close, so close, and then—
Nothing, because Armand kicks Louis out.
It doesn't take long. Daniel's surprised. Doesn't know why. With the right injury, an adult human can bleed to death in a matter of minutes. This isn't getting stuck in the thigh and left to bleed out, though, and so minute becomes hours, for the whole ordeal. Which is still too short a span of time for Louis to search all of Venice and find him. But what would he do? Interrupt? Does it even work when it's half and half, the whole way? Or would Daniel just not take? He thinks about it, staring at a baroque ceiling in need of restoration; he thinks of not taking. But there's nothing for it. Armand is too old, too powerful. It takes like a sharp knife sinking in through the softest flesh, inescapable, smooth, fatal.
In the end, Armand just turns his phone on and texts Louis an address.
He leaves Daniel alone, barricaded in a bedroom, with several mortals waiting in the lounge area. Docile and glassy, they sit obediently where they've been told, no thoughts in their heads. Sacrifices as his last goodbye to a fledgling he hadn't even been able to look in the eye after.
As if they are all three of them back in that apartment. As if Louis hadn't thrown Armand through the wall. They are all three locked together again, and Louis can feel Daniel's fear, Daniel's panic, before Armand simply expels him. Doesn't matter how tightly Louis dug in to Daniel's mind. Armand wills it, and Louis is simply gone.
Left alone with his panic, his terror. The understanding of what Armand means to do and his own inability to stop it.
Armand's mind is closed to him. Daniel is an absence.
The address is a knife twist. Louis had been close.
The scent of him is still lingering in the room when Louis opens the door. Moving too fast, made single-minded by his panic.
"Daniel," like a plea.
Not a single mortal reacts. But they are not the only occupants of this place.
He sees different. Hears different. Disoriented and starving and in— pain? Not quite. He was. Daniel's head swims and he tries to right himself, looking for something still in a stormy sea. Intellectually, he understands what's happening, but actually feeling it is worlds different than hearing it described.
He hears his name, and recognizes—
"Louis?"
Fuck. He's glad he's already puked up blood all over himself.
Daniel is still in this back bedroom, collapsed between the bad and the far wall, but he makes himself get up. Woozy, everything spins. Processing everything so much faster than his brain is used to.
The door shudders open, yanked too hard. Louis moving too fast. Mortals abandoned in the front room, insensate and doomed, as Louis blurs towards Daniel's voice.
The scent of blood is so heavy in this room. Overwhelming, the mingling of Daniel's and Armand's. A fundamental shift in Daniel's scent, only one marker of what had been made clear to Louis the minute he'd opened the door.
"Daniel," sounds like a sob. Relief. Agony.
Louis tries almost instantly to reel that overwhelming flow of emotion back. Control himself.
"Daniel," again, hands catching and releasing and catching again, fretful points of contact as Louis tries to reassure himself, tries to avoid overwhelming Daniel. "Go slow. It's alright."
Louis moves so fast, but Daniel can see it. Not like when he would dart around, appearing in one place then the next like magic. His voice is richer, a different kind of reverberation finding Daniel's ears, almost painful. He is a thousand times more beautiful for the detail that Daniel can now see. He can smell him, a not-alive-not-dead thing, he can almost hear his heart.
"I'm sorry."
Sorrow. Shame. He didn't wait long enough, he couldn't find a way to talk Armand out of it. He'd asked for it at twenty, and he dismissed the mocking suggestion of it at seventy, but here he is. He should have just offed himself in a bathroom, or something. The worst of the transformation is over, but he feels on edge still, fucking crazy, a failure. He was already dying, already making end-of-life care plans, but a thousand little things suddenly overwhelm his head on the heels of the interview. Stupid. What does chewing gum taste like now? Did he look long enough at Venice in daylight?
It feels like a loss even though he was going to die anyway. Maybe it's just that Louis looks so fucking disappointed, and shattered. Daniel tries to steady him, but he's too unsteady, himself.
"No," Louis tells him, instant. Miserable. "No, Daniel."
Shattering too, hearing Daniel apologize. Apologize for being taken, dragged across the globe. Changed.
Between them, it's Louis who should be sorry. But what use is an apology? This can't be undone. Can't be rectified. Louis couldn't save him. He can take Daniel from this room, but it erases nothing.
And Daniel is covered in blood. Smells different. Eyes changed. Louis' hand lifts, a fretful slip of fingers across Daniel's neck. Seeking the scarring Louis left there, decades ago.
After a few failed attempts - nervous, everything is too different, even something as simple as moving his hands - Daniel manages to hold Louis a little, hands at his sides, like he's testing to see if he's actually here with him. He really hadn't expected anyone to come. Louis was the only potential, and he did come. He really did.
"I..."
How to even describe it. Daniel keeps blinking too fast, still adjusting. Pale blue-green eyes are darker now, denser, uncanny. Similar to Louis', but as he stands there they start to refract and turn amber. Reminiscent of the person who gave him the bite that's not visible on his neck. Armand had gone at the other side, as though the scar Louis left on him was too much of a condemnation to face. Still there, textured under Louis' fingers.
"Yes," is a whisper, unconscious agreement. Remembering.
But Louis had felt such joy. He remembers that. Lestat and him, laughing together. The moonlight catching in Lestat's hair, the blue of his eyes electric whenever their eyes met. They'd gone tearing through the night together. It had been all adrenaline and exultation and Louis' first staggering steps had been haphazardly shepherded along.
This is not anything like it.
An apology, choking Louis. Wanting to say over and over, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
"Sit," Louis coaxes instead. "You're half-finished."
Not quite true. The thing is done. Daniel is only acclimating to it. His body is only catching up. Daniel's eyes shifting and Louis' hands coming up to cup his face, watch the sharp flint-blue of them be swallowed by jeweled amber instead. Feels it like a loss.
"I think I already puked up half a spleen, is there more?"
As if the gothic romance vibes weren't already a lost cause. Too fast, all of it. Armand had only known what he was doing through textbook knowledge; Daniel saw, in the transfer of blood, that the too-old monster has no real memory of his own transformation besides pain. The last thing he'd said to Daniel, sitting on the edge of the bed with his head hung over, was You'll feel better now.
Fucking asshole.
Daniel doesn't know what his eyes are doing, can't see himself, obviously. Mood-ring bullshit, green-orange-yellow, shifting between a reflection of his own genetics and something borrowed.
But maybe there is nothing more. Maybe the strain of Armand hauling Daniel around the globe, whatever had passed between them in those long stretches where Louis could not hook into contact with them, couldn't get eyes on them, maybe that was enough to ease the transition. Louis had been young, healthy. There had been so much life to wring from his body.
But Daniel—
Maybe this is the only blessing. The only easy part of this.
Louis is already nudging him back towards the edge of the bed. Not letting go, only easing back.
"It's been..."
Too long. Too much time.
"Months," Louis answers. "I'm sorry," breaks loose at last, his chest cracking apart as he watches Daniel's eyes.
"My body has been dying," he says, sharp and brittle in response to the sledgehammer reminder that now he's cursed like this, some fucking old man, being tended to by an impossibly handsome 200 year old who could have been a supermodel if he were a youthful millennial. What a fucking joke, being seventy and suddenly becoming frozen in time.
Maybe more complaining would come, layers on layers of reality sinking in, but as he sits down he hears Months and it shocks him.
Months? He thought weeks. Nobody caught him in customs on any of these airports, nobody noticed he was gone, huh. Well that's. Kind of fucked, but not surprising. Louis only noticed because he called him.
Louis. Daniel looks at him, and his own face falls, seeing how sad the other man looks. He gets a hold of him again.
"Don't do that. Just don't. I shouldn't have called, I should have just let you move on. It's okay, alright? I'm okay."
A sharp shake of his head, dismissive. Louis won't hear this.
"You were right to call."
As Louis lowers himself too, until he is looking up into Daniel's face. He can't stomach the idea of it, of never knowing.
"I thought," goes nowhere, stops abruptly. Things Louis doesn't need to say because they only excuse him, won't be a comfort to Daniel. "I called," he says instead. "I missed you."
Did Daniel think he was so easily forgotten?
Louis pushes past the uncertainty of it, asking, "How do you feel?"
Hedging around the necessity of hunger. Of pain. Trying to gauge well-being when Louis has so little understanding of how Armand had done about this. Louis had wanted to make it near-painless. He had learned from Claudia, what it could be. He wanted that for Daniel, suspects it is no what came to pass.
That shocks him, too, and it shows on his face. Daniel really didn't expect to be missed. He understands why Louis left with such immediacy and never looked back, and doesn't hold it against him: Daniel blew his life up. It was the truth, it freed him, but it was still destructive. The kind of thing therapists would probably urge a slow introduction to. Instead, Daniel set an unpinned grenade on the table in front of him.
So it makes sense for Louis to have bailed, and it would have made sense to not care at all about Daniel after. He said his goodbyes, he lit his fucking laptop on fire (the guy who doesn't have a TV doesn't know about cloud storage), he maybe wired him some money. The end. Hearing him say he called, he missed him, makes red swim in Daniel's vision.
Red?
Christ.
"Disoriented. I don't know."
It's a lot. Daniel squeezes Louis' forearm where he's holding onto him, like a lifeline.
"Is this." Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. His voice cracks with emotion. "Is this really happening."
Daniel is bloody and disgusting and possibly minutes away from a fullblown starving newborn nightmare predator meltdown, but he cares more about Louis in this moment. He feels horrible for him, seeing that look on his face, knowing he feels responsible, knowing that Armand did this just to fuck with him.
A clumsy surge forward, arms around his shoulders. A messy hug, making Louis a mess too, but he doesn't know what else to do. For a minute he has nothing more than the ability to cling to him and try to take in a breath, finding himself not-quite-gasping. Strangled by emotion. Choked by it. Red over his own face, bloody tears, and he can feel and smell and taste the difference; everything is different, the way air feels in his throat, the pressure in his sinuses, the texture of fabric under his hands.
"I didn't think anyone would notice. Or show up." Finally, eking this out. Louis doesn't have to apologize. He came. He tried. "You kept me from losing it."
It's not enough. None of this is enough, because it still ended this way. Daniel, alone in a room covered in blood, changed.
Had Armand asked? Louis had wanted that for Daniel, a choice.
Daniel smells of so much blood. His own, Armand's. Louis holds him so tightly, a hand at the nape of his neck. Crying silently, hating himself for that too, because how dare any part of this be about Louis' regrets, his grief, his relief that Daniel is still breathing?
"I noticed," again, admission stripped of the self-pitying bullshit. Thinking Daniel was sick of vampires. Thinking Daniel was ignoring his calls. Foolish. Maybe if he'd been more suspicious sooner—
"I'm gonna stay," offered up to Daniel, thick-voiced. "We'll figure it out together, alright?"
Daniel holds him, trying to offer comfort as much as he's getting it back. A tremor shudders through him that feels different than the one he's been held captive by for years, and he thinks maybe he's going into shock. Stupid. Everything is spinning, but Louis is a still point to focus on.
"I couldn't have called any sooner anyway," he says with a huff of wry laughter. He'd tried to get away, but it was hopeless. Armand was a black hole. (Callback. It's brutal, to know everything Armand accused Daniel of in San Fransisco was projection. He can taste the ancient vampire's self-loathing, now.)
Hardly Daniel's fault. It was Louis. Louis' misjudgement. Louis' recklessness. Louis' misunderstanding.
Trusting Armand's revulsion so thoroughly that he had never even considered that Armand might do this. Might force the Gift on Daniel. The kidnapping, yes, but the rest—
"Don't be sorry," Louis repeats, fingers scraping slow through Daniel's curls. Breathes him in, blood and sweat, scent washed clean of the remnants of medication and illness. "This wasn't your fault."
Practicality has Louis measuring the necessity of the mortals waiting in the next room. Whether Daniel would feel better washed clean of blood first or if it wouldn't matter, given the inevitability of navigating that first meal.
Daniel weighs the shame-based instinct of wanting to be alone for humiliating circumstances, thinking of how screwed up he is, against the comfort of Louis being here and holding him. He should insist that he leave, but he can't make himself, even though he suspects he'll regret the lack of privacy later. There's no romance or familial yearning about this, just punishment.
But even as he thinks this, starts to become aware of the way wanting to withdraw is just a way to try and hide from the reality of what's happening, it starts to feel farther and farther away. A different feeling sweeps over him, an empty pit in his stomach that grows and starts making him feel weak.
Dying, after all? Is it rejecting him?
Daniel tries to ask Louis something and just makes a strange sound, disoriented. A sharp pain, gnawing on his insides. It's so different from how he recognizes hunger that it takes him a minute to realize that's what it is.
Daniel shudders back just enough to wrap his arms around himself, letting Louis go. Suddenly feeling like he might crawl out of his own skin, or do something out of his own control. His eyes are green again, but inhuman— shifting still, the color change more apparent on him than Armand, whose slides into yellow and red were less jarring, staring from amber.
"What?"
What. He can't. He can't. (Even though he might have fucking tried blood, when offered, but there was no way he was going to play into their weird game.)
Louis offers himself, and something in Daniel surges up to demand he say yes, demand he lunge forward. He can feel himself tremble. Do you want— too much of a question for him, for a mind that's starting to truly freak the fuck out.
Would Armand have touched Daniel's mind and lifted away the panic Louis can easily feel?
Maybe.
But Louis doesn't want to be Armand.
"You won't," Louis tells him, promises him. Easier to drink from Louis than to kill, because it would kill any of the mortals patiently waiting for their death in the next room. Louis would survive.
And whatever vampire Daniel intended to be, he could become it with a clearer mind.
It is weird to be able to feel everything again so vividly, when Armand had so often pacified him to get him to cooperate. (You'd hurt yourself if you fought, the ancient vampire had hissed at him on one flight, sitting so close to him, like he was fucking worried.) He's glad he can feel it all, though, even if it's fucking him up. He'd rather just know.
The monster that lives inside of him now — that is him now — is starting to scream, ears ringing, near panic at the idea that blood is being offered and he's not taking it. Daniel's considerable experience with managing cravings and fits is the only thing keeping him lucid. The part of his brain that could say I know you want more heroin today but we're going to have to go to work and make himself cooperate has survived transformation.
But even that's hanging on by a bare fucking thread.
"Alright." Alright. God help him. "How the fuck do I .. fucking do this."
A terrible moment to think of Claudia. To wish he had asked her, had time enough to ask her, how she had taught Madeleine.
Louis puts it aside.
They are here, in this room. Together. Daniel is hungry and he is afraid.
Louis wants this to be easy for him. His fingers are gentle at Daniel's cheek, watching the shift of color in Daniel's eyes.
"I'm going to go in the next room and drink what Armand has left for you."
Whether or not Daniel knows that Armand had, in his own way, tried to provide for him, Louis isn't inclined to lie.
"You're going to go wash the blood off your face," Louis tells him. As if that will make him feel better about what's to come. "And when you're done, I'll open a vein for you."
The rest will come. Louis is somewhere between impressed and worried that it hasn't already.
All of his precision is gone, in this state. Just huh, instead of being able to ask what the fuck Armand left for him, his mind racing faster than ever before yet going in circles, struggling to hold onto anything but hunger. Some horrible animal thing attempts anger, that Louis is going to go have something meant for him, like a predatory creature growling over a slain deer, and Daniel revolts against the feeling.
"Sure. Okay."
Wash his face. He must look like—
Jesus, who cares.
Daniel makes himself get up, unsteady in a way he's never been unsteady before, because everything about him is lighter, and there's no tremor making it difficult to find his center of gravity, and the pull of the earth seems to be less concerned with him. Eventually he'll realize this is because he's stronger, but right now, he just feels like he isn't real. Not nailed down correctly in reality.
A pause, distracted by the view out the window. Too dark to see anything out of, just a few hours ago. The water is a dozen deep jewel tones now. Eventually he starts moving again, one hand out in front of him like he might need to catch himself, not trusting his vision and the way it swims so vividly.
And Louis watches him go, anxiety plain in his face now that Daniel's attention elsewhere. The churn of emotion doesn't ebb. Grief and guilt and anger and fear, washing together in his body. He left Daniel unprotected. It doesn't matter that he'd never have guessed that Armand would make a fledgling. Armand surprised him.
Louis hadn't been able to stop him.
But Daniel goes, and Louis straightens. Maybe has some similar animal instincts that balk at encroaching on what Armand has left for Daniel, hesitate over how many how much.
Remembers how much he had wanted, how the thirst had felt bottomless. Like it would swallow him. Like it would tear him apart if he didn't sate it. (Louis' gift, this prodigious hunger, this love of his prey.)
Stood there among blank-eyed humans, skimming their minds and finding nothing at all, Louis has the urge to press farther. Find Armand. Scream into his head.
He sinks his fangs into the throat of the nearest unresisting mortal instead. The man's life flows into Louise' mouth as he hangs limply from Louis' arms. (Shades of the tenor from so many years ago: a sweet life, a little sailboat, a father swinging him up into his arms.) Louis drains him down to nothing and lays him down. Feels the blood in his body. Listens to Daniel, still alive. Still here.
Drains a second mortal, the sweet-faced woman sat on the settee. (A little dog, a half-completed canvas on an easel, a woman turning in her arms beneath a white sheet.) Feels sick. Feels anger.
Louis leaves the rest. Practical, isn't it? Having prey that will make it easy for Daniel to learn. Crosses back into that blood-splattered bedroom, mouth painted red.
Daniel is horrified of his own reflection. Eyes he doesn't recognize, gore-covered. He does wash his face, and he stares too long at the blood that drains down the sink, leaving it stained faintly. He feels nauseous, but only for a second, and the hunger kicks in. A part of him he's unfamiliar with is aware of Louis and whoever else is out there — what Armand left — and it claws at his insides like a frantic wild animal.
Control slips away like blood into the drain. He holds a towel (patterned, delicately embroidered on the end), stands in the doorway back into the bedroom, and the world does something strange. It feels... euphoric, and terrible.
"I can feel myself losing it," he advises. To his own ears, he sounds far away. "Lost it already, I think. If I. Louis, if."
He can smell the blood. Taste it in the air. His eyes change again, green vanishing into yellow. Staring at himself from some spot high up, observing the interaction. Ears ringing.
A promise given softly, sincerely. Daniel has heard all of Louis' turning, listened to Louis describe that first kill.
Louis can spare him that, at least. Spare Daniel a clumsy, frenzied attempt at drinking down a human while out of his mind. What comes later, they can manage it together. What Daniel wishes to attempt. What sort of vampire he decides to be.
Louis takes the towel carefully from his hands.
"You won't hurt me," Louis promises, laying the towel aside. Reaches up to take Daniel's face into his hands. "Look at me. Can you hear my pulse?"
Too quick of an answer. Daniel is blinking too rapidly, pupils quickly dilating, fangs appearing in his mouth. He touches Louis, startles at the difference, having only become properly aware of the way his nails have changed while washing his face.
Yes turns out all he's capable of communicating. Stuck after that, knowing better than to try and struggle against Louis on a lizard-brain (monster-brain) level, but unable to formulate anything else. He's so fucking hungry. Everything in him is dead, made up of crumbled, burned paper, and if he doesn't get blood, he's going to turn to nothing but ash, even just standing here in the middle of the night.
Wrenching, to watch Daniel struggle. Louis had wanted to give this to him, to have made it easy. Something Daniel chose.
He can only make this easy. This, the sating of his hunger. Filter the blood through Louis, let Daniel have as much as he needs without leaving a corpse behind.
Fangs gleam in Daniel's mouth. Louis' heart aches. Says anyway, "Keep listening to it."
The sound of blood moving through his veins. His heart, steady, even as Louis uses a nail to slice open his wrist.
The sight of Louis maiming himself that way makes Daniel flinch — he's talked so much of all the times he's wanted to kill himself, the imagery is profound — and at the same time, it inspires hunger to reach up and choke him. Like yanking the steering wheel out of his own hands and putting it firmly into an instinct he's never known before.
Holding Louis' wrist in his hands, simultaneously cradling him carefully and clutching with ravenous desire. Reality moves too fast for Daniel to think about. Consciousness is buried away somewhere behind a brand new monster's wild desperation. Blood, in his mouth, around fangs he doesn't know how to use. It's like light painting his insides. He doesn't have the presence of mind to compare it to Armand's (different, insane, an incident he will spend years unpacking), too wrapped up in it.
Not just food. Life, pleasure, connection. Does he feel Louis? Too much, for right now. He drinks, and loses himself.
He saw it, the moment Daniel teetered past conscious choice. His fangs sink into Louis' wrist, fingers gripping Louis' bare forearm for purchase, and Louis can turn his hand only so much, just enough to touch the side of Daniel's face. Encouraging.
Louis feels Daniel. (Had Lestat felt Louis like this?) Louis is not Daniel's maker. The Gift has been given, and Louis is granting him nothing but nourishment after the fact. It's painful. But Daniel is drinking, is taking what he needs, and Louis will survive it. That is more important than anything else in this moment.
The connection it forges between them—
Louis' eyes are wet again. His freed hand hooks into the blood-sodden front of Daniel's shirt, reeling him closer so Louis might hold onto him. Murmur encouragement. Lays his hand at Daniel's nape, give over to the depth of connection between them.
There is the instinct to give everything, and then some. Let Daniel drain him to dregs and filter the remainder of Armand's offerings through his body once more. Take it all. Anything. Everything. It's what Louis owes him, wants still to give him.
Louis is not his maker. Should he have been? Daniel can see so much into him, and it washes over and through him right now, not coherent enough to sift through and read or make notes. It will come to shore later, his analytical mind will want to pin every little thing, but right now he's in a raging flood. He needs this or he'll die, an instinct tells him, and so he indulges, and takes more, and the ravenous maw with thousands of jagged teeth and a seductive whisper tells him to keep going.
In fiction, vampires are bats, and spirits, and wolves. This is something else, some other order of thing, demonic and angelic at once. Unearthly. Here-but-not.
And Louis—
The flinch at seeing him open his wrist comes back. It hits him, in the wave of feeling. Daniel won't drain him, he won't do this even if Louis is caught in a trap of despair. He recognizes that Louis is clinging onto him and has tears on his face, and he shifts, pulling his mouth away from his friend's wrist and grabbing at his side, then more, scrambling at him until he can hold him. Fierce and sorrowful but thankful.
Stay with me, he thinks, and he means here in this world on this plane of existence. Don't go. The thought echoes, out of his control, away from him and into Louis.
The sudden shock of detachment is jarring, jolts Louis in a full body shiver as if doused in ice water.
What had flowed between them? So many things. Assortments of memory, of deep affection, deep regret. All of it accessible to Daniel, beyond even the boundaries of what Daniel had wrung free of Louis in Dubai. All the rest, all that Louis did not speak of, it flows into Daniel's jaws.
And then stops. They stop.
Daniel holds him so tightly that Louis can do nothing but wrap arms around him in return. The wound is still bloody, a ring of teeth marks sunk in to the flesh of his wrist. It doesn't matter.
"I'm here," Louis promises, voice gone thick. "I won't leave you."
Doesn't occur that Daniel is seeking a promise beyond their immediate circumstances.
"The world is better for you being in it," Daniel tells him, clutching him close. "You don't have to give anything up. Just be here."
Maybe they're both shitty people when you get right down to it. Daniel who ruins marriages and children, who picks apart peoples lives; Louis exploited women, digs deep into capitalism, and now Daniel has joined him in being a blood-draining monster. But Daniel's world is better for Louis being here. He is a light, and for every harsh word and cruel trick they played on the other during the interview, for all the horror they survived one week in the past, Daniel might just fucking love him.
"I'll be okay. We'll be okay."
How, he's not sure yet. But Louis made it, and that gives Daniel hope.
Yes, Daniel will be okay. Louis knows this. There is steel in him, strength enough to survive the transformation. To weather the demands of vampiric life beyond this room, the mortals waiting insensate beyond the bedroom.
"I'm here," Louis promises, a soft repetition. "I ain't leaving you."
A promise skewing near to what he had once offered Claudia: As long as you walk the Earth, I'll never taste the fire, you understand me? Similar, but not the same. He and Daniel have suffered together, survived together. They are linked. They walk into rooms and emerge side by side. Daniel is alive. They will survive this too.
Louis is holding Daniel so tightly. His wound is healing, but not quickly enough to avoid trickles of blood soaking into the back of Daniel's shirt. Cradles Daniel's head, allows himself to shudder through the rush of relief, held in check while so much else demanded Louis' attention.
Daniel doesn't need a promise of togetherness, it's not really about him. He'll figure it out. He survived this long, drug addiction and his life being upended in divorce, kids when he didn't really want any, being fired over and fire. Being tortured for a fucking week. Armand. Louis, though, he worries about. Worries about feeling him, seeing his wrist like that. It shocks too close for him in this new and uneasy state, he feels too intensely.
But he can sense Louis' relief, and finds his own in how tightly they're clinging to each other. Louis doesn't feel like he's about to slip away over guilt. Fuck, this is ... a lot.
"This is—"
What is it? C'mon, Daniel, you're a writer.
"Fucking crazy," is what he ends up saying, teary laughter in his voice.
Though it doesn't quite compare. Lestat had rushed Louis, but he'd been present. He'd provided some kind of guide. He'd offered, Louis had accepted.
Daniel had none of that.
The guilt will come later. It waits, circling at the edges of Louis' mind, waylaid by all that requires his immediate attention. Holding on to Daniel, feeling his breathing, the lingering closeness that comes from Daniel's teeth in his skin.
"Do you need more?" softly, fingers playing gently with the curls at the nape of Daniel's neck. "Or do you need the blood washed away?"
No matter what happened after, Louis spoke with such reverence about his changing. He loved Lestat, he got at least the illusion of a choice. This seems fucking stupid in contrast, but Daniel's stubborn, he'll deal with it. Memories of 1973 were stranger— in a way, it's a relief to have this overwith, and stacking onto that, he's kind of annoyed that Armand didn't stick around so Daniel could yell at him.
Shit to think about later, when his head's not turning itself inside out.
"Probably both." Another weak laugh. Incredulous. "It doesn't... feel like hunger usually does."
Daniel's should have been better. Should have been a choice, should have been gentle. Should have been what Claudia had constructed once for Madeleine. Louis had been meditating on it, recalling how carefully he had caught her neck in his teeth.
Had thought of how gentle he would be with Daniel, who still wears the scars of Louis' fangs on his skin.
"It won't. We call it hunger, but it's something else," is a little lofty, even as Louis draws just slightly back. Cups Daniel's cheek with his hand. "Does it still burn you?"
Hunger so vast and overwhelming that it is like drowning. Like burning alive. Like suffocating.
His fingers hook into the front of Daniel's blood-sodden shirt. Remembers San Francisco. Daniel hooking off his own shirt, a single easy motion. Does he still move that way? Had age slowed him, and has that now been restored?
One of those jokes you see in tacky self-aware vampire fiction, about bloodlust. Oh, you're hungry? You're so hungry you have to murder people? I've wanted a sandwich before but not enough to kill somebody every night. But it doesn't feel like that at all. Louis' right, it's something else.
"It does. It is." But he doesn't feel as insane as he did before he drank from Louis. Not sure he wants to do it again, worrying too much about the despair he could feel in the other man. "I need to just— I need a minute, I think."
A glance down at his shirt, with Louis touching it. Gross. Great.
"I can change," he says. What else is there to do? "He supplemented my luggage like a considerate freak."
Unconsciously, Louis' fingers have undone one button, two, three. Nervous energy. Weeks and weeks of fear and worry, carried from country to country, and now here, where he is present but unable to do anything for Daniel. Louis can see him fed. Can be present. But he cannot take away what Daniel has lived through. Cannot make Daniel less of a vampire.
"Shower," Louis tells him softly. "Use hot water."
Daniel needs a minute. Louis understands this as, perhaps, his cue to step away.
He is finding that difficult.
"You'll feel better afterwards," is true. "You can feed again. We can decide what to do."
How much privacy had Armand given him? None, Louis would guess. So he owes Daniel this. A closed door. A few minutes.
Only it is very hard to convince the animal instinct kicking in the back of his head to let go.
Daniel doesn't need supernatural powers to see how strung out Louis is, and it's understandable. A large part of Daniel doesn't want to pull away either, even though he's still reeling from fucking everything. A week ago—
Months ago?
Doesn't matter. It's all different. He doesn't have the same priorities, he doesn't have the same life.
"Come here," he ends up saying, and pulls Louis into a hug again. A shuddered exhale, and he stays like that for a while. Longer than necessary, probably. His own nerves feel fried and tangled, and Louis' presence, despite being part of the aforementioned fucking everything, is grounding.
After a while, he brings his hands up to hold Louis' face, and looks at him. Silently checking in.
"Help me pick something out, yeah?"
A task to do besides sit and wait. Best he's got. Unless Louis wants to come scrub blood off of him, insert bleak laugh.
Daniel pulls and Louis goes, folds in against him. A brief moment leaning bonelessly into Daniel before Louis' arms tighten around him. Holds him, clutched close, palm flattening across Daniel's back, sliding up to his nape. Breathing against Daniel's neck, where the scarring from Louis' teeth still rests after all this time.
Had Daniel tasted despair? Guilt? What had lingered in Louis' blood, what pieces of the long, frantic chase had been there for Daniel to taste?
A passing concern. Dispelled, momentarily, by Daniel's offering. (Louis wouldn't not remain, but—) It sparks up some deep tenderness in him, undeserving as he is. Daniel, taking care of him still.
"Don't rush," Louis tells him. "I don't mind waiting on you."
It makes him feel itchy with anxiety being even a room away. But Daniel deserves privacy. A closed door. A chance to gather himself without an audience.
He doesn't leave right away. Still holding on to Louis, feeling like they both need it. A far cry from the stoic handshake they shared before he'd left the penthouse, and Daniel experienced a thirty minute alternate universe fantasy where he was going to just pack and leave and Armand was going to sulk silently and never interfere.
"Thank you," he says, before stepping back. "For being here. I don't know what I'd have done. Today or— with any of it."
Get eaten, probably. Failing that, panic and accidentally torch himself. Nothing good. But Louis came after him, and that means everything. Daniel squeezes his hands, the reluctance tangible - especially now that there's a sympathetic telepathic echo possible between them - but he does step away. Ultimately he decides to leave the bathroom door half open, in case he ... what? He doesn't know. Passes out, or something. It leaves Louis with a view of the vanity, nothing scandalous, and Daniel spends an unknown amount of time (to him) staring at blood running off of him. 'Hunger' continues to gnaw at him, and his senses make him feel like he's on another fucking planet, but he manages not to do anything embarrassing.
Mummified in towels when he emerges. Daniel has been thin and wiry his whole life, he's not especially ashamed of what he looks like naked, being seventy. In decent shape all things considered; the most impactful years have been the last few, disease catching up to him at last. But in front of Louis it's a big ask.
"You better not have found a clown suit in there," he says. Look, he's got shitty jokes, he'll be okay.
Louis takes Daniel's thanks into the next room with him, where he can feel some quiet anguish for it. For arriving late. For this being the best he can offer. He sits with it, while water runs in the next room. While Daniel washes off the doused blood of his transformation.
Swathed in towels, emerging in a cloud of steam, Daniel can almost be mistaken for the mortal he'd been in Dubai.
But his eyes. His eyes cannot be masked.
Louis had loved Daniel's eyes. He has been thinking of this, sat at the foot of the bed, task put to him completed. Louis has had so much time to think of all the ways he was fond of Daniel, all the things that appealed. He is thinking of them now, taking stock the way a man standing in the remnants of a scorched building might anxiously put fingers to what's most valuable.
Daniel is himself still. But his eyes—
Is this what Grace had felt, when she'd taken Louis' glasses from him and found not their shared brown but gleaming green?
"No clown suit," Louis reassures. "Only your usual fare, without the addition of spilled blood."
Spoken aloud knowing that Daniel is hungry still. Louis had been hungry. Claudia had been hungry. (Had Madeleine? Louis had felt her, but she had been gone from him so quickly. Claudia would have known.)
"Better?" Louis questions, a slight smile on his face signaling some awareness of how absurd the question is.
No more clear blue-green, the strange density of a preternatural create has set in, occasionally shifting the way his maker's shift— ten times more obvious for him, starting from blueish, instead of Armand's deep amber. Daniel barely looked at himself in the mirror. Too surreal for now.
"Thanks." Wry. Blood seems like it's going to be a reoccurring theme, from now on. Speaking of: "Do you want a shirt?"
He's not sure how much transfer Louis got stuck with via sad hugs. He collects his change of clothes and goes to get dressed, still leaving the bathroom door partly open so they can talk.
"I have no idea what that word means," is almost a laugh. Better. "I feel sort of like I'm on acid. I'm distracted by the thought of— eating."
Eating.
"Am I going to go batshit crazy if I don't get something?"
What the fuck is wrong with Armand. (A lot. A lot of things that Daniel knows specifically, now.) Why did he do this? He pokes at the thing in his head, inelegant, but nothing happens; no return rush of feeling, no shift, no closure. A new phantom limb, in addition to everything else.
He re-appears, dressed and with one remaining towel that he rubs over his hair, glasses clipped to a shirt pocket. He doesn't seem to need them, suddenly, but it feels weird to discard them.
"You tasted miserable," he says bluntly. "Which of those options is going to make you feel the least like shit?"
Daniel can fucking cope, he's not the one with suicidal tendencies. He's the Actually I'm busy this weekend in the face of an eldritch monster coaxing him into sleep one.
Apology flexes across Louis' face, a slight grimace. Not regret, only worry. Daniel shouldn't have to account for Louis. For Louis' miseries, his private self-flagellation.
"It's not about me," Louis says frankly, though he isn't certain that's true. Maybe in the most immediate sense, this is not about Louis. But Daniel is a vampire. Armand had dragged him from their home, all across the world for weeks, had made Daniel write letters.
Maybe some part of it is about Louis.
But Louis is leaving that aside.
"It's about what you can live with," Louis cautions. "I want to make this easy for you."
And so had Armand, apparently. Louis is certain that's what those mind-broken mortals were meant for. An easy hunt. An easy first kill.
A fair bit of it is probably about Louis, even though Armand did not specifically say so. Daniel is hyper-aware of the fact that Louis had, in their stolen memories, made the survival of a junkie journalist a condition of their companionship. Cynicism (and a lot of logic) says this is purely about Armand trying to set up a return, and that Daniel is coincidental; he could be anyone. A 500 year old having a panicked tantrum in slow motion.
(Armand had explained himself, in bits and pieces, concerning the trial, but Daniel doesn't know how to feel about any of that. Maybe he'll relate those pieces to Louis sometime, but it feels like taking an axe to trauma, and so, maybe he won't.)
He considers saying something like What would be easy is clear guidance, but it feels pedantic. Daniel hadn't had a choice in transforming, but he has choices now. He should take the luxury while he has it.
"Do they have to die? Is it... am I not going to be able to stop? Are they going to be fucked up forever even if I do?"
It barely has time to register before Louis is taking Daniel by the hands. The lines are all blurry. Who is standing on ceremony now? They'd had something like professional boundaries, and now everything is in pieces.
Louis draws him down, coaxing Daniel to sit alongside him.
"I think Armand broke their minds. I think they will never be as they were. They are alive only to preserve their blood for you."
A guess. Armand has had hundred of years to hone his gift. Louis is outclassed. (They needn't invoke their own personal experience of Armand's gifts.)
Louis has not let go of his hand. He imparted his own story. He had relayed the things that had made sense to him, Lestat's tutelage, his personal experience. But Daniel asked.
"It is hard to take only a sip. It took me a long time to master."
To be safe enough that Damek is an employee rather than a corpse.
"You can learn to stop. But you're very new. Your hunger will be strong, and that will make it hard to stop while they are alive."
Daniel absorbs this, sat there, one hand clutching Louis'. Thinks about how dire being an accessory to murder in Dubai felt, watching Armand skip out of the tower to hunt down some idiot crypto kid, feeling nothing for the individual but leaning into the obligatory moral outrage. He'd done it several times over the course of the interview, and it was meaningless, because he was only using it as a tactic to prod the monsters whose house he was staying in.
What now? Those people aren't carefully curated, there's no way. Just random individuals with lives. Does he care? Is it worse if he doesn't? Was he a monster before, worse for not having an excuse? Daniel's other hand presses to his face, pinching either side of his eyes, tries to center himself through a long breath.
His hands don't shake. Steady.
"I'll just do it." Quiet. "You don't have to watch."
Louis has already pulled from some, he's said as much. He shouldn't have to cycle through more and feel like shit just for Daniel, just because Armand is an asshole.
Okay. Okay. He squeezes Louis' hand, tries to focus. Dead blood, right. All that.
Daniel stays where he is for a long moment, just getting his shit together. Coping with the things he can feel, and hear. Trying not to spiral thinking too hard about his future, his kids, getting back to New York without getting turned into a pile of ash. He needs to drink blood, and he needs to do it soon, or he'll go fucking bonkers.
Soon enough: they're out in the other room, and Daniel is contending with the sight of people Armand left. A strange feeling lances through him, perverse relief that they aren't tied up and terrified. The ancient vampire must have lobotomized them— Louis can probably hear the ragged thought, bordering on hysterical, Is this how I looked in that fucking apartment?
Daniel survived San Fransisco, these people aren't surviving Venice. Bad luck.
He's going to say something. Ask a philosophical question. Work it out. At the very least, point out it was stupid to put a clean shirt on before this. It flies out of his head, and he's not thinking, there's nothing, nothing but fangs in flesh and blood on his tongue, hot and horrible and alive.
That thought hooks in Louis' head. San Francisco. Daniel, pale and bloody, face blank while Louis stood at the window.
(What Louis looked like? Like Daniel? Had there been any difference?)
But San Francisco is pushed from Louis' mind as Daniel falls to drinking. Louis remembers it. Remembers how desperate he had been. How inelegant he had been, scrabbling across the hardwood, biting for veins.
The mortal doesn't struggle. Daniel's mind is a blank, plunged into the necessity of feeding. Impenetrable, in a way. Louis allows himself to be drawn in alongside Daniel, fingers trailing across Daniel's shoulders. Grazes bare skin at the nape of his neck as Louis sinks into his mind.
Louis can feel the mortal going, going. Life draining away. The echoing taste of blood rich in Daniel's mouth, an absence on Louis' tongue. Louis' fingers slipping through Daniel's hair, soft silver beneath his palm as Louis reaches to temper that grasping urge towards the last drops.
The drive to consume is too overwhelming to notice anything about the person he's killing— flashes he pays no mind to, they could be anything, skimming past him like spots in the distance on the highway. He gave a fuck about Louis, and that made it different. Daniel doesn't care about these people and just wants to get it overwith. That it feels good, filling him in an unearthly way, is something he can process later.
Louis' hand on him, strange, surreal. That soft voice in his head jolts him and he feels embarrassed about it for a moment, pulling away and—
Whatever he might have thought (laughing at him to put his shirt back on in '73, a mocking offer months ago) is gone, staring down at a person who he has now killed. The man - a human, a mortal, something Daniel isn't anymore - is fading away, greyish already. How much fucking blood did he have to take, to make someone lose color?
One person left, still alive. They sit there and see nothing, like a reformatted drive, blank. Daniel is more aware this time as he pushes their head back and leans down, but wishes he wasn't.
Louis would have drunk down four if he could have, that first night. He's drunk thousands since.
His fingers remain, Louis drawn along in Daniel's wake as he sinks teeth into the throat of this last mortal. Fingertips running along his scalp, grounding. Anchoring.
I'm here, whispers in the back of his head. Stay with me.
Drawing Daniel's attention, a step back from the life dwindling away between his jaws.
The last person drops and Daniel staggers back, this time feeling more sparks of their life— dull, bitter, a middling career in tourism customer service, a relationship that never resulted in marriage, a horrible feeling of a lifetime wasted and then, finally, a calming call to rest. The satisfaction of Finally, this rolls into him and Daniel can't help but feel an echo of it, even as something else takes over.
Fuck you, Armand.
Louis' hand on him feels crazy. All of this is making him cognizant of how long it's been since anyone's touched him in a way that hasn't been medical, or, recently thanks to Armand, gently threatening. He blames the resentful misery of this last victim.
Too many fucking emotions. He's dead, he's not dead, this can't be happening, this is very much happening.
Staring down at four bodies, the final one shivering their last. Blood on his mouth, a bit on the shirt, but it's not so bad. Too hungry to let anything go to waste. At least he feels more grounded, now, the thing inside of him demanding more, now, more, has shut up. He can still sense it, a creature that's grafted into himself like a fucked up horror movie monster, but it's been temporarily tamed.
"Okay."
Okay??? Tries again.
"Okay." A breath. "I have a question, and I want to preface it with saying that I don't want to, and that I'm asking from a purely practical standpoint, considering the logistics and morals of it all. Given that there's no fucking reason to have turned me into a vampire, and how many people I will apparently have to eat, and there's apparently thousands more vampires around today than at any time in history— should I just torch myself? Or sit in a locked room and starve? I was dying anyway. I had a lot set up to just go."
Again, he doesn't want to, but it might be a decent fuck you to Armand. Oh yeah, jerk?
That was, probably (certainly), a question that shouldn't be posed to Louis, but Daniel doesn't have anyone else. He meant it, he doesn't want to, and yet there is a vicious self-loathing kind of practicality that puts the option on the table. It wouldn't be a heroic sacrifice, Daniel Molloy is not the type, but it would solve a swathe of problems that seem beyond overwhelming from his current vantage point.
Louis touches him again, sounds so shattered. It makes Daniel feel cared for in a way he hasn't in decades, but there's also a contrary part of him that's— you know, like, hey, you didn't even consider that from a logical standpoint.
Death has not changed him from being a weird asshole, apparently.
But Daniel makes himself crawl up out of his own bleak pragmatism, and reaches out to rest his hands on Louis' sides.
"Alright. Alright, Louis. I'm not going anywhere."
A moment where Louis simply looks back at him. Studying Daniel's face, fear in his own expression ebbing slowly into something near to relief. Breathes out.
In the coming days, weeks, he'll turn Daniel's question over and over in his head. In the moment though, Daniel touches him, and it is steadying. Eases the panic the had risen in him at the thought of Daniel walking into the sunlight.
"Stay," he repeats, soft. "We can figure all of it out, together."
Vampirism. The demands it was going to make of Daniel. How he'd answer them.
—Sounds a little lost, but sincere. Not his problem-causing Yeah.
Standing in a room, holding on to each other, surrounded by bodies. How much money has Louis blown, chasing after him? Where the fuck is Armand? What is he going to say to his kids? Is he ever going to see them again? (Does he care?)
"Do we... put these in a vat of acid, or some other horror film shit?"
It's Venice, though, maybe they just go out the window into the canal.
Louis' thumbs stroke over and over Daniel's cheeks. Smooth away the traces of blood. Find reassurance in the warmth of him, breathing and alive, caught up between Louis' hands.
"I'll take care of it."
Penance, maybe, for the number of bodies Armand dealt with on Louis' behalf. His turn now, to clean up.
"I'm not so far out of practice that it's beyond me."
Unfortunate facts, and please. Shit has to get way more traumatic than dying for Daniel Molloy to not want to know something. There's no fucking way Louis' going to magic anything else away while Daniel sits quietly in the other room.
So. The clean up.
Having something to do, no matter how gruesome, centers him. A project to work on, take mental notes on, even as he occasionally spaces out due to sensory overload, or looks spooked because his hands are steady and it's starting to sink in how much pain he isn't in anymore. Neurons repairing themselves, or the elusive, half-theoretical lifelong neurogenesis is happening now, erasing or otherwise outpacing the flawed ones. Armand gave Daniel his blood instead of medication, while they were traveling, and maybe it kept Daniel slightly more stable than nothing, but it hadn't healed him like this. A mortal can't properly benefit from death. The damned work best with the damned.
By the time they're finished he's nearing the ability to say I'm okay and mean it.
Rote work, for Louis. He is practiced still, even if it has been long decades since he cleaned up after his own meals. His patient, gentle direction guides Daniel through the most immediate aspects of the process. Wrapping, tying, obscuring. Corpses vanishing into rolled carpet and bedding, explanation and advice given while sending a handful of text messages. Security cameras, service lifts, all things Louis' staff knows to manage and Louis imparts to Daniel for whenever he might need to manage the process alone.
Which does beg the question—
"Whatever you want," is the truth, even if it sounds regretful in Louis' mouth.
He knows what he wants. To stay near to Daniel. Never let him out of sight again, never endure the frantic search while he slips farther and farther away.
They could go to Dubai. They could go to the States. They could go anywhere.
"You'll need to sleep," is true too. "And eat again before any prolonged travel."
Softer: "I would pay your ticket, wherever you wished to go."
Because Please stay close sticks in his throat. Uncertain. What does Daniel want? To never see Louis again? To go be a vampire where it pleases him, keep his own company?
The idea of home feels daunting. His apartment is far from sun-proof. What if he shows up thirty minutes before dawn? He's got blackout curtains, but how good are they? Has his editor reported him missing? Fucking declared him dead? Has anyone besides Louis noticed? Should he just 'die' now, or go work on the book?
Because
he's still going to write the book. Obviously.
The impression he got is that Louis is no longer as enthusiastic about the idea of publishing it (the whole laptop fire and whore number thing), but yeah, no, he's not complying with that, and figures Louis owes him for leaving him with Armand anyway, so it's fine. They'll be even.
Speaking of Louis, Daniel looks at him, and wonders if the longing he thinks he hears in him is imaginary, or... fucking mind reading. What's that about.
"What if I wanted you to keep me company for a while because I'm fucking lost?"
A perk for Daniel, perhaps, is first hand experience of the way Louis shields his mind.
Which is to say, rarely. Which is to say, with only Daniel in the room, not at all.
Maybe it will come to Louis in time. Recall that Daniel is a vampire. Recall that Daniel is a reporter. But in the moment, it is as open as Louis' face, looking at Daniel as he asks this thing. The Yes forms there before Louis says:
"I'll stay as long as you like."
Maybe there are better choices for touchstones, for teachers, than Louis. Louis who is newly returned to the world. Louis, who had been sequestered for decades.
Louis, who Daniel is intimately aware has been far from an adept vampire.
It's fine. They have Lestat for all that Louis is incapable of.
"I want to stay," Louis amends. Before Daniel can second-guess him.
It's going to take a while for Daniel to really understand what he's experiencing, in his head. The feelings and senses manifesting in him now are indistinguishable from being able to read Louis in a new way, particularly while he's still half-grappling with half-willfully ignoring the fact that he can feel Armand in his head.
He doesn't know why - he's not a touchy person, neither is Louis, he doesn't think - but he reaches out and grabs the other man's hand again.
Not totally to support the older vampire. Daniel is also freefalling a little still.
"Let's get the fuck out of here first, then."
Staying can come after. Daniel crams everything he has left into his abused suitcase, startles a little at picking it up (! weighs nothing ? cool), and then they can just... get out, and away, and he will try not to stop every three feet and stare up at the sky or out at the ocean.
Louis does not relinquish his hold on Daniel's hand. The link of contact remains, soothing the fretful anxiety that Daniel might vanish. That Armand will simply take him, play keep away as effectively as he had before.
They've walked a little ways before Louis asks him, "Would you like to go back to New York?"
It would make sense to Louis, who couldn't bring himself to leave New Orleans for thirty years. May never have left New Orleans, if it had gone differently with Lestat then.
May go back still, because Lestat is in New Orleans. Might intend to stay in New Orleans, if not in the waterlogged cottage.
"I have to, if not immediately, then sooner rather than later. Even if only to get my shit out of the mail room."
Because Armand sent everything back there, apparently. Bought him a different suitcase and clothes on the fly. He's not one hundred percent sure what all is in the shit that Armand (allegedly) sent off to his Brooklyn apartment— the ruins of his laptop, at least, but who knows what else. A part of him is itching to know. Did Armand post a dead cat in there? It could be fucking anything, the guy's got every mental illness known to humanity and probably a few extra ones no clinician has ever been confronted with.
"I don't think New Orleans is practical," he says. "I know you're an almost-billionaire, but the infrastructure from flooding and bad politics basically ensures you're exposed or stuck on a floating piece of driftwood at high noon within a year."
No awareness of where he picked up thoughts about New Orleans from, or that Louis hasn't said any of that out loud. Has not quite fished out Lestat, but they aren't talking about people, they're talking about where to go.
It had taken Louis some time to develop the skill of delving in and out of people's minds. Longer to achieve any kind of mastery. (Whatever mastery Armand felt appropriate, felt permissible.) It does not immediately occur to him that Daniel can touch his mind as he pleases; isn't it overwhelming, the change?
Daniel hits a key combination anyway: New Orleans and infrastructure, New Orleans and flooding.
Triggers a flutter of memory:
Car window grinding down, Louis' face turning into the passing breeze.
A hurricane rattling shutters.
Lestat's eyes widening as Louis crosses a damp, low-lit little room.
In this present moment, Louis slanting a look sideways at Daniel. A twist in his chest, thinking so immediately of Armand. How Armand must have known and perhaps shared some opinion on it with Daniel.
"It still feels like home," Louis admits, before saying, more practically, "I still own property in New York. And California."
A healthy real estate portfolio is nothing to sneeze at.
Daniel has heard about the tricks of vampire 'gifts' (focus on the mind like a bodily sound, find the flaw in something to set aflame), and Daniel is pretty fucking quick, and Daniel is the only fledgling of a half-millennia old vampire. It's definitely an oops, stumbling into things and people and heads he's not meaning to, and the minute he notices he'll reel it in. Or try to.
(That'll be the thing, probably. Hunger he can cope with, to a degree, with his experience in the trenches of addiction. But the cascade of variables - power plus a potentially inherited knack plus curiosity plus his inherent journalistic aggression - will equal a harder impulse to control.)
If he gets an impression of Lestat as he looks back over at Louis, he doesn't realize what it is; doesn't even realize what he's doing. There are other people out at night, wandering in the late hours and scoping out scenery or heading towards early shifts at bakeries and so on— one of them is thinking loudly about a fight with her husband that turned violent, and Daniel flinches and looks over his shoulder, trying to sort out what jumped into his head.
"I, uh."
Christ. What the fuck. (Tired of thinking What the fuck.)
The uh draws attention. Louis is already keeping Daniel in his periphery, unable to quite look away. His presence still a miracle, still exceptional. Louis wants to hold fast to him, cling against the prospect of Daniel slipping away.
But there is a moment where Louis finds himself uncertain. Tests the porous edges of that memory, all that had come before or after now suspect.
"Yes," Louis says at last. Testing the answer, knowing it to be true. "The building's been renovated."
Modernized. Is now handled by a property manager.
The floor still slants to the north. Louis knows this without any reason to still have possession of that fact. He hasn't set foot there in years.
"I can have a direct flight for us to New York," hooked onto the tailed end of this. "We can make arrangements for things you'll need when we get there."
The floor slants to the north. Something they should have taken care of before selling. He wonders if that's more Armand's style; flipping and reselling. Not a landlord. Not a capitalist. Louis became one and Armand started eating them. He can hear him saying it, he can see, in a muddy, disoriented blink of recall, the vampire who is now his maker leaning down and touching fingertips to a blood puddle that's been slowly oozing Oregonward. He doesn't know if it's a real part of a memory or just a fabrication when his gaze moves up to watch Armand put his fingers in his mouth as he stared blankly at the tape recorder.
So
having a normal time, tonight.
"That's funny."
He still has it. Daniel can go see it. Check if it's haunted or not. (With what? The ghost of things he can't remember? A poltergeist made of the junkie who should have died in the 70s?)
"What were you doing before this?"
New Orleans, something about New Orleans. Something about having to get home before the baby wakes up, but something something, he doesn't speak Italian. What? Daniel rubs the bridge of his nose.
This little motion hooks Louis' attention. Remembered from the interview, the myriad of things it signaled. Exasperation, at Louis or at Armand. Headaches, sometimes. Pain, sometimes.
Is Louis being exasperating? Not at this exact moment. But the rest —
"I was in New Orleans," Louis answers, truthful because what reason does he have to obscure this? "I wanted to go home."
To open the car window, to turn his face out into the night and feel all things familiar carried to him on the air.
"I wanted to find Lestat," is true too. "And I did."
And now he is here. His fingers soft in the bend of Daniel's elbow, keeping him near as they navigate the ebb and flow of mortal foot traffic. As Louis draws him off to a small fountain, a place to sit. Watches Daniel's face, assessing. Worrying.
Is it surprising? A little, despite the fact that Armand had made it clear that's where Louis was, had berated Daniel for sending Louis back to someone who will eventually beat Louis half-dead again. Despite that, it's almost uplifting. Louis got to put some things together, get a resolution, for good or ill.
"Is he okay?"
This question comes out slower than is normal, for Daniel. He feels like he's speaking underwater, suddenly, trying to be heard over a crowd. Voices, thoughts, impressions trickle in, then flood, then stop, then surge up again like a wave, and the water is too loud, and a woman walking by is thinking in Spanish which means he actually understands her, and Louis is worried about being exasperating but Daniel doesn't know why he'd say that, and, and, and,
his hand over his forehead, now. He wants to know about Lestat, but also:
It had been days for him, for this skill to manifest. Longer for it to become something that needed to be managed, curbed. (And then something that made feeding intolerable, much to Lestat's chagrin.) It has been hours, for Daniel.
The earlier question discarded for the moment. They can talk later about New Orleans, Lestat, anything Daniel likes.
Here, now, Louis takes Daniel's face in his heads.
"You can hear them?" Louis questions, worry creasing across his face as he draws them these last few steps. The fountain perhaps a mistake. There are others milling about here, humans enjoying the scenery, children playing, lovers chattering, an elderly couple with their little dog. Not ideal, but they are here.
Focus on me like a little tug at corner of Daniel's mind as Louis opens his own head to him. Makes himself an eclipse, all-encompassing, a shelter in which only there is only the quiet patter of his own thoughts, the subdued flow of emotion, running alongside Daniel's presence. Stay here.
Daniel goes where Louis leads him, barely aware of it. Everything is too fucking loud. Funny that it's this tripping him up so badly. Dying was a whatever, but then, Daniel had been making plans to die for months already. Psychologically braced. Thoughts roll around in him, and as Louis connects their minds to protect him, the other vampire might see Daniel thinking about his own relationship with death as he tries to sort it out— a wry memory, sitting in a restaurant in Dubai, relating his desire to get out of the city alive to a grey-haired man. Fucking moron. Daniel was already functionally dead, but saying so had gotten him more interesting information out of the agent.
Who cares about dying. Wasn't scared of Armand threatening him. What are you going to do, kill me, but that would have been easier than Armand's psychic tentacles in his head.
These thoughts bump into others, spinning around and outward, hearing, feeling, observing. It takes a second for him to find balance, using Louis as a fixed point, but he gets there.
Stay here, Louis says, and Daniel finally manages to get a decent grip on him.
'Think I'm gonna puke,' he warns Louis, though this is not the case. He might pass out, though.
Louis' heart aches for it, for this resignation. For Daniel thinking he is going to die and accepting it, dispassionate. Still unable to consider a world without Daniel in it, even now that Louis is assured it will never come to pass. (Is this Armand's idea of a gift?) His fingers bracket Daniel's face, stood so close their breath mingles, noses brush, Louis disregarding personal space on the far side of the fountain.
Breathe, Louis instructs. They are no longer in a blood-soaked hotel room. The air is clean, the fountain behind them a waterfall of sound. Louis' mind opening up, steady. Familiar terrain, perhaps. There are only two others who might claim to know Louis as well or better than Daniel does.
Called it peeling back, when I first started out hearing them all around me, comes this murmur. I didn't think it'd come to you so fast. Peel back on me. I'll keep it quiet.
Louis, who wished for death so differently than Daniel did. Who turns the face of a gray-haired man in Daniel's mind back and forth, lets it drift beneath the surface of his thoughts.
Says aloud, "Use me to orient yourself, while you get your bearings."
While Louis tries to pluck up some relevant memory, something like instruction. Here is Lestat, pivoting round on a lamp-lit New Orleans street. Here is Armand, lounging in bed, eyes alert. Lessons overlapping, linked in Louis' mind.
Nothing else has come so fast, so chaotic. Dying already, when Armand turned him; maybe it was the disease, maybe it was Armand feeding him his blood for weeks. (Months, Louis said. Fucking months.) But Daniel's entire being has always been centered in his mind. Sharp and unyielding, resilient in the face of all the shit he put himself through. Of course it's an element of his mind that wants to go wild at the first inkling of unchecked power and newness.
Thoughts of death and negotiation around it filter away. He stays with Louis, thinks of peeling — doesn't really work, someone nearby is thinking about potatoes and preparing them — tries something else. Then something else, then something else, and he sees Lestat, like he's there walking alongside them, disoriented and out of place, and he sees Armand—
Sitting with him in Dubai, aware Louis is asleep in the next room, talking to Daniel about solar power. It's a completely normal conversation, except for the way Armand is looking at him.
Gone, and it's just Louis and Daniel, in Venice, by a fountain. Daniel manages to close the fucking box around himself, and he takes a shuddering breath. Realizes he's holding on to Louis' sides again, probably clinging a little too intensely, but he can't make himself let go. He feels like he'll sink into the fucking abyss if he does.
A glimpse, displaced memory. Not his, Daniel's, slipping past. Louis lets it go. Daniel is vulnerable enough as it is without Louis prying after any given fragment of thought that catches his interest.
But he is aware of the process. How Daniel tries, tries again, troubleshooting. Something innate, skill Daniel has already in his possession, that severs himself from the drowning flood of mortal thought.
Louis' hands have shifted into his hair. Set their foreheads together. Daniel's hands are gripping tight at his waist, and Louis has not dislodged him. Senses Daniel to be steadier but not steady, and so remains. Their noses brush. Their breath rises and falls in time. A passing awareness of too close, set to the side.
"I got you," comes soft, reassuring. "And you got hold of it. You're still here."
Still here. Alive-but-not. Daniel finally, properly, understands what's happening, and manages to get a grasp on it. Wrangle it down. He's so used to paying attention to everything and everyone around him, picking up on details and patterns and tells. He will have to do all of that differently, learn to calibrate his passive observation so that it isn't this.
The prospect is as daunting as it is interesting.
Puking up his liver (or whatever) was much easier.
A shaky breath, then another, steadier one. So close to Louis, closer than he's been to anyone in... years, definitely. That thought is there, in the shelter of Louis' mind, and it's somewhat of a marvel until Daniel realizes what they must look like, Louis cradling some decrepit old man out in public in a fucking tourist hot spot, and he winces. Embarrassment colors his relief, and Daniel withdraws with a wry feeling of apology.
"I'm okay," he says, straightening up. Convincing himself that it's the truth, that he's okay. Repeats it. "I'm okay."
Maybe. Crosses his arms, self-soothing.
"If we could just. I dunno, get the fuck outta here, I guess."
Louis must contend with the instinct he has now, which is to hold fast. To fold Daniel in against himself, clinging and close like that can dispel all the unsteadiness of transformation. Of walking into the world as something new.
Of how Daniel was vulnerable for so long, hurting for so long, alone with Armand.
Armand, who is now silent.
Louis lets go. (Recognizes, in some way, the thing that had lived in Daniel's face when Louis had made an offer to him months back, mid-interview.) Touches Daniel's cheek briefly, fingers light at his cheek before Louis too straightens. Finds some composure, so he might look less split open by their present circumstances.
"We can go."
Softly.
You don't have to be okay, as a whisper in the back of Daniel's mind. Louis' voice, private, just for Daniel, as they begin to walk once more. You don't have to be okay with me.
New Rashid is already collecting what little luggage Daniel has. Louis' hotel is not a far walk. (Lavish, old building, beautiful artwork upon the walls, a breath-taking view from the window.) They'll need only spend a few hours, long enough for a flight to New York to be arranged. They can simply go. Louis has so much money. It makes all things possible.
To that whisper. No way for him to know how to only send it in his mind, and so he says it out loud, despite hearing Louis internally.
"I just need to be okay."
For as much as he can, he trusts Louis. And he's grateful beyond expression for this rescue— because that's what it is. He's not sure that Armand would have ever let him go if they hadn't been followed. If there was no pressure, he expects he'd have just died of his illness, probably had a stroke from anxiety, or Armand would have lost his temper. The end.
Different end, now.
Louis is a safe haven. Daniel wants to cling to him, too. Doesn't know how. So: the hotel, and he thinks of getting on a flight, but realizes he ... can't. Not for logistical reasons. For other reasons, one that don't fit together right in his head. Flight, drive, escape, hotel, fleeing, arguing, flight, hotel. Does he have anything to go back to? Is there a point to New York?
"I think I'm having a panic attack," Daniel observes, tone mild.
A twinned flutter of alarm and concern in Louis' mind, on his face, as he turns towards Daniel. The tablet in Louis' hand is set aside, a light clack of contact as Louis discards it on the glass tabletop. New Rashid seamlessly gathers it, taking up whatever Louis had left off. (Money, moving from place to place, easing the way.) Footsteps, as Rashid heeds some unspoken directive and exits into a side room of the suite.
Privacy, for the moment.
"That's normal."
Maybe. The concept of a panic attack is relatively new. Louis had been turned under vastly different circumstance.
He snares Daniel's hand in his own, draws him down to sit. No stones here beneath their feet, nothing but solid wood floors and Louis himself, playing tether.
"Talk to me. I'm here."
Shorthand for You're safe.
Or maybe, Everyone around us is safe from you.
Dual worries, things Louis would guess at but can't be certain are at the forefront of Daniel's mind without touching his thoughts. Is reluctant to do so without invitation or dire necessity, after Daniel has likely gone so long living with casual intrusion into his head at Armand's whims.
Daniel doesn't panic often. Not in his nature. Doesn't scare easy, responds well to stress. But his pulse has been slowly but steadily ticking up ever since leaving the place where Armand killed him, and now, trying to conceptualize returning to Brooklyn, it's a frantic beat like a thrashing bird's wings, and he's breathing too deep without exhaling for long enough, and his vision is starting to tunnel.
Classic signs. He attempts to identify the source so he can confront it. But, well.
The source seems to be everything.
"Maybe," he sounds unsteady, uncertain, "we could wait a day or two before leaving."
"Hey," soft, using a hand to reel Daniel in closer. Physical boundaries mutable in this moment, ever-evolving as they weather the toll this change is taking on Daniel. "We can stay."
Louis' hand finding the center of Daniel's back, smoothing slow circles there.
"I got a place," implies more comfort, more privacy, maybe better equipped for care and feeding of vampires than a lavish hotel. "Could post up there, send someone on ahead."
Though Louis isn't entirely sure it's the not knowing. But offers this, sweeping contact across Daniel's back, a murmur in his mind: Breathe. I got you.
Does he want a hug? Does he want to burst into tears? Does he want to leap out a window and eat a half dozen people and laugh about it, scream at the moon, rip someone's head off? Does he want to find out what his body does now, or call his eldest daughter and cry I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
He was prepared to die. He didn't want to die, but he'd done the trench work to get ready, since no one else was going to. He's interviewed enough people with suicidal desires to know that envisioning reactions and the state of the world after is a big part of the fantasy. (Louis, even, thinking about his cane and his pile of ash.) But that's never been Daniel. Someone would clear out his apartment and that would be that. He didn't even want to be buried. Cremated. Dumped in the ocean somewhere, just so no one would have to accidentally on purpose lose an urn. And then, nothing, because he's been so absent from anything of consequence anyway.
Here he is, in that fucking fantasy zone, except the fantasy's never been his.
"Will you tell me," he says, staring at his feet, thinking about taking solace in that touch to his back but not entirely sure how to go about it, "about what you were doing before? I interrupted you. About Lestat. Are you okay?"
The buzz of Daniel's thoughts is a palpable thing. Stronger for proximity, maybe, or because Louis is so attuned to Daniel in this moment. (Every moment, every moment in which they inhabit the same space, since the interview.) Louis keeps the detail and shape of those thoughts carefully out of focus, the slow sweep of his palm a firm pressure circling from the nape of Daniel's neck and down to the small of his back, over and over. Maintaining steadily; Daniel hasn't pulled away, hasn't stabilized either, and so Louis continues.
A moment of quiet in the wake of the question. Not withholding, not really, only parsing out his answer. Trying to pin down a thing he's scarcely given thought to himself.
"I'll tell you," he acquiesces, between he sweeps of his hand, observing Daniel's face in profile. "After I remind you that you haven't interrupted anything."
Insistent on this point, unwilling to let even this glancing comment stand. Continuing on, without leaving Daniel the space for an objection.
"I went to New Orleans," softly, a murmur into the space between them. "I wanted to go home."
Home. Louis' voice softening further over this word. New Orleans. Lestat. The two mingle, intertwine.
Maybe his instinct to push outward, away from himself, ask questions is a bad one. But Louis wants Daniel to use him as an anchor, and so, that's what he's doing. Trying to listen, trying to make his pulse calm down.
He thinks—
Of how fucking happy he is, genuinely. It floods him like the release of a painfully held breath. Louis got out of Dubai and found Lestat, for better or worse. Daniel didn't pull pack the curtain on something that couldn't be given closure. He doesn't pretend to know what that feels like - his relationships have deteriorated for far more mundane reasons. No pining involved. (Alice, a little. But does he miss her, or his fucking youth?)
A little miserable flex of a smile, acknowledging the inherent complexity of the question. In this moment? Louis is being eaten alive by his regrets and misery. But Daniel is asking about more than the immediate moment.
His fingers scrape lightly at the nape of Daniel's neck. Palm sweeps back down his back once more. Back up again. Steady, continuous contact.
"We forgave each other," Louis says slowly, feeling his way through the answer. "I'm glad for it."
Fumbling towards an answer to the actual question.
"I feel lighter," makes him feel guilty too. "It was good to see him."
After so many years. After so much misunderstanding, so many lies.
Daniel squeezes his hand. Hopes Louis can feel how pleased he is about it, even if it's bittersweet.
"I'm glad about it, too. I am, Louis. You deserve to feel lighter about fucking something."
A dry laugh—
"Armand made it clear I ruined his fucking life."
It wasn't a major, active worry, that he had also ruined Louis' - somewhat preoccupied at the time, given the abduction - but it was there. He feels the resurgence of that worry now, and can let it go. Feels fucking great, actually, to be able to let something go, in this mood. He doesn't ask more, doesn't want to pry into things now when he's already driven a bulldozer through so much of Louis' privacy (invited, but still).
"I can tell he's still in Venice, by the way. Is that weird?"
Louis can feel it. Feels Daniel's relief, tinged with the overwhelming reality of what Daniel paid to see it done.
Says nothing, for a moment. Just touches him, because Daniel is permitting it, and because for the moment it seems to be helping. Squeezes his hand back. Waits out the tremor in his chest that is all guilt and sorrow, because Daniel has enough to weather without Louis' internal conflict. He keeps it tucked away, walled carefully off, separate as his own mind touches Daniel's, something akin to a light lean, shoulder to shoulder.
"What happened was of Armand's own making," at last, simple dismissal of a thing Louis knows to be more complex than he's acknowledging. Moves onwards to admit, "It's not unusual, feeling your maker."
Louis feels Lestat even now, the threads between them all the more solid for the relief of their reunion, the time spent together. Long parting ended, and now some rebirth, renewal, whatever they make of it.
What will he do?
"I'll go where you go," Louis reminds Daniel quietly. "Brooklyn, and then wherever you like."
Louis is okay, Louis feels terrible over what's happened to Daniel, but he found Lestat again. He's out from Armand's control. Daniel is— coping, bit by bit. (Bite by bite??? We have fun)
The prospect of sleeping during the day feels daunting, for some reason, though he manages it; the next night, still jittery in stops and starts, but feeling more capable of thinking things through without forcing himself to. A breather, even if they're still here, in just one more place he was abducted to. Enough time to see something interesting, listen to Louis' opinion about it, associate the place with more than just Armand. Though Armand feels carved out somewhere inside of him now, permanent.
He has a long time to think about that. No rush to do it now.
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."
But Louis isn't contradicting him. Is conflicted about how much he wants to hear. How much he should hear. Lestat deserves his privacy.
"Come sit. Tell me how it's been. How you are."
Not necessarily about the interview. Maybe about the TikToks Louis has heard about, secondhand recounting when Rachida has clocked something worrisome enough to raise it onto Louis' radar.
They break apart. Louis turns to sweep his papers into tidier piles, a vague sweep of his hand inviting Daniel to the plush low couches, the cup of blood sitting untouched and warmed by a single candle. Meant for Louis, but easily given over. Daniel has traveled far. He must be hungry.
(THESE DAYS it's been professional. Daniel hasn't taken his shirt off since the 70s. OKAY.)
Lestat? Privacy? They're recording, man. But, Daniel sits anyway, and looks at the cup being offered. An instinct to decline, because Louis doesn't eat people — had Daniel hoped he'd pick it up again? maybe — but it feels rude to. Even Armand had deigned to sip out of a little glass dish towards the end, as though he was afraid of being ordered out of the room again for not dining.
"I'm alright. Really. Good, even."
He takes a drink, because why not, it's like sharing a cigarette. Not horrible, but still like a microwave TV dinner versus real food. Which Louis must know and struggle with, or else he wouldn't have live donors. He doesn't drain all of it, sets it back down between them.
"Missed you." He shrugs. Might as well admit it. "And I've been having weird dreams, sometimes of San Fransisco, sometimes of Dubai, I dunno. Just wanted to see you, corny as that sounds."
Missed you glows warm in the center of his chest. Tips Louis' expression, quietly pleased by the sentiment. Pleased over wanting to be seen, to share in each other's company.
He'd wondered whether after all was said and done, interview concluded, book published, if Daniel would simply close the door on him and move on. Louis wouldn't have blamed him. It has been a lot.
How good it is that this is not the case.
"I've missed you too," Louis murmurs, lifting the cup. Content to have offered something, some small extension of hospitality.
He puts his mouth to the same place on the glass as Daniel had, tips his head back to drain the last remnants. It's fine. Enough for Louis for tonight.
"Do you want to tell me about the dreams? Or do you want to tell me about the tour?"
What are they, to each other? Difficult to conceptualize friends, after living so long without any. Daniel can't even blame bitterness with old age, or illness— he's never been any good at maintaining friendships. He treats people like puzzles, he forgets to be emotionally present, he can't prioritize anyone over work. And now, no longer human, it's even stranger.
Not companions, not coven, not family, not tied by the bonds of shared blood. Maybe friend is a good fit. The only real one Daniel's ever had. Louis is singular enough in the world already without that dubious honor, but all the same.
"To everyone's great horror, the tour is being filmed."
Daniel sounds almost fond, despite himself. Lestat does not qualify as a friend, but he's fucking something. Every once in a while they even get along.
"It'll be a great documentary and you'll be off the hook about a sequel, if any of us live. But if you want early spoilers..."
In short: Louis gets to pick, tour or dreams. Whatever he's most comfortable hearing about.
Everyone's horror? Louis has his doubts. Surely it's the sort of thing that might appeal to Lestat, or would have, once.
Louis worries. Struggles over to how ask without being invasive, whether Lestat is still as fragile as Louis had found him. If Daniel might be just a little gentle, just this once. A late request, but maybe Daniel would indulge him.
Put aside anyway, because Louis had promised himself not to interfere.
"No," Louis decides. "He shouldn't have to worry about my reactions to your work together."
Which is what Louis really means when he considers privacy. Lestat allowed to say whatever it is he feels, and Louis will absorb it all whenever it becomes available on streaming. Or whatever medium Daniel chooses.
The papers are shuffled, stacked. Louis occupies the seat diagonal, an echo of their interview. Elegant still in how he settles himself, crosses one leg over his knee. Color in his wardrobe, deep oxblood cardigan tonight laying bare his collarbones, sleeves rolled back off his wrists.
A weighing moment. Does Louis want to be off the hook?
"Tell me about the rest then."
The rest. Not the interview. The dreams. The raucous nights out that keep making it into articles that Rashid inserts in Louis' workflow. Dealer's choice.
Little sparks of curiosity, not all of it innocent (curiosity isn't inherently good, or anything). But Daniel isn't here to prod at Louis' seams— that's behind them, and the road ahead is still... whatever they make of it. And there's a road ahead for Louis and Lestat, too. Which is, despite the meddling he's neck-deep in most days, not actually any of his business.
"Maybe I'm going nuts," is what he ends up saying. Decides for dreaming, instead of anything else. Tales of partying are kind of a whatever, and holding their own potential for memory issues, though granted, for far more mundane, self-inflicted reasons. Turns out vampires can still get blackout drunk. "Just imagining things, my brain trying to fill in the gaps. I try not to think about San Fransisco, but sometimes I go through the whole thing again while I'm asleep."
As though sleeping during the day has had some kind of additional supernatural effect on him, conjuring up the past that his mortal mind had forced to forget. Or maybe being severed from Armand telepathically has made it freer, more accessible, but requiring subconscious contact first.
Or, and this is the most likely explanation, these new edits are simply not real.
"Blank, in places where it was always blank, but sometimes..." Daniel shrugs.
Louis' attention sharpens as Daniel speaks. Daniel holds his focus, will always hold his focus, just as Daniel will always have permission to pry at his seams, to turn up unannounced, to crowd in to Louis' life because there always is and always will be space for him. There will always be some honesty between them that has been hard won and fifty years in the making.
Daniel describes this and Louis says:
"I understand."
Sometimes, there is a hazy shape of something. A memory. Something Louis has no names for and only the blurriest recollection of. A thing he can guess at but can't grasp.
"Maybe it's a benefit of your transportation," is only a guess. "Your mind repairing itself the way your body has."
Or maybe just something intrinsic in Daniel, a human gift made stronger in death.
"You don't have to describe it to me," is meant as a kindness. Nothing in that room would be easy to recover. What they pieced together between the two of them was a horror. Louis suppresses the urge to pry after what Daniel has, what only he and Armand could ever know. No one but the three of them in a room. All of it recovered only because of Daniel, tugging at loose threads.
Louis and the historical documents, trying to put together all his missing pieces. A comedy.
He lets out a breath. A relief to have someone who understands, and further that Louis doesn't clam up. He'd be well within his rights to say he doesn't want to talk about any of it, that he wants to just move on. Daniel has felt that way sometimes, and wrestled with it. But here he is, having come to the conclusion that he just hasn't unpacked it enough, and he'll probably have to. With or without Louis.
Though with would be nice.
"You know, in some vampire fiction, vampire blood makes them physically younger. Speaking of my body repairing itself."
Raw deal!! He still looks old!! No fair at all. But he offers this with dry humor, not about to actively complain about anything to Louis. Heaven fucking forbid he get caught in the riptide of guilt.
"But I don't know. Am I seeing newly recovered snippets, a picture starting to fill itself in, or am I making shit up in my sleep because I spend so much time while I'm awake ... worrying about you, worrying about Armand, even. Differently, of course. But still."
Of course, no word on what kind of worry should be directed at Armand. There is a ragged tear in Louis where Armand came away from him, a wound that inspired pain and anger and regret by turns, but never quiets.
Daniel doesn't need to hear about that though.
Louis moves on, suggesting, "I don't know. Lestat might. I'm limited in my understanding of the mind gift."
Of how its workings may deteriorate over time. Whether Daniel's curiosity alone is enough to wear at the edges until he can gather glimpses of what was obscured or altered.
"Well, I care about you, and my other methods of caring about people are leaving them alone for their own good, or bribery."
So, worry it is. Mirrors in their own ways. Louis' wounds from Armand are significantly worse than Daniel's, so much that Daniel can't conceptualize them, not really, not the depth. And yet he's still got these fucked up entry wounds in his soul from the guy, so here he is, circling the drain infinitely about what the fuck do I do about it.
Then he pulls a face, about the idea of telling Lestat. Absolutely not, apparently.
"Sometimes." He knows that word isn't helpful, but it's all he's got. "As much as dreams can, where it just could be, and other times I forget it's a dream at all, until I wake up. I mostly see you. We're both fucked up and I'm trying to make you laugh. I think I'm going to die, I think you're probably going to die. You've told me to hang on but there are moments when I'm not being actively hypnotized and it's, you know."
He's in a shitty apartment with a dying monster and a very alive one who wants to kill him.
"I think Armand left to get me a sandwich, at one point. I was probably going to die from lack of nutrients after the blood loss after a few days. So I was locked in the room with you. Does that sound real?"
Louis' expression has lost all of the easy warmth with which they began this conversation. The look he wears now must be familiar; it is the same expression he wore in Dubai, across the table, listening as Daniel methodically laid out which pieces he had, what he had made of them, looked to Louis to fill in the rest. Tension and focus and a flex of worry. Not for himself.
Daniel is still so young. Young for a vampire. Young even in comparison to Louis, who had lived out lifetimes before Daniel had ever grown old.
But they are not in that room. There is no one who will stop them piecing through what's been lost but them.
Louis draws a breath. A little restless tic of movement works through his body. Readjusting the cross of his legs, his perch on the edge of the cushion, drawn unconsciously closer as Daniel speaks.
"I haven't dreamt that."
Only enough to know his fears of missing pieces are real. To know that things have been lost, or taken from him, and that Daniel and his tapes won't recover them.
Daniel is asking him about that room. Louis closes his eyes.
"But it sounds real," comes softly, slowly. "I remember..."
A door closing. A hand rattling at the lock. Sunlight filtering through newspaper. An agonized groan that could have been him, might have been Daniel.
"I remember your voice," Louis admits. "Closer than I thought you should be."
Acclimated to Daniel in the main room, his screams and moans of pain carrying through the sometimes locked, sometimes open door. But the discrepancy Louis worries at now, like plucking at a loosened thread, rolling it between fingers.
After a minute of watching Louis' drawn face, and suddenly feeling quite bad for barging in here and dumping this on him (Daniel has been more wound up about it than he realizes, unable to slow his roll with verbal puke about it), he reaches out. A warning touch first, a brush of fingers against Louis', before he squeezes his hand.
Comfort, apology.
"So have I just implanted a false memory in you?"
The trouble with this kind of shit, is that there is so much trouble with this kind of shit.
"I don't know if I'd have known to do that. I'd like to think so, though. I'd do it now."
"I don't think you meant to do it," Louis says slowly, lacing their fingers together. Taking that small touch and turning it into a link, holding on as he explains, "Or that I was able to think to ask you. You were standing beside the bed, and you cast a shadow across me."
Is it all a dream? A story they're telling themselves?
It feels real. The shape of a thing that fits into the pain-blurred voids they hadn't managed to parse out in the span of a single lunch break.
Louis turns Daniel's fingers in his own, thumb moving across his knuckles, grip tightening and loosening by turns. Familiar. Tethering, while Louis' thoughts turn inwards by degrees.
"I don't know if it's false. It feels real."
And then:
"You're the only other person in the world who would know. And you're better at this. Putting together what we lost."
"Yeah. He probably just told me to go in there and stay."
No conscious positioning, everything incidental, until Daniel laid down because the Lovecraft monster was no longer controlling his body, but he was too exhausted and in pain to do anything else. Desperately in need of actual rest, and not the kind that came from invisible tentacles in his fucking brain.
Daniel's hand feels inelegant, next to Louis'. Thick fingers warped with age, nimble again now but no more attractive for it; nails a little longer than he'd like, but he supposes they echo his fangs. Strange, all of it. Not unwelcome. Nothing's perfect, especially not death, but it beats the way life was.
"I just have perspective. You didn't know there was any other way to look at it."
Inhale, exhale.
"If you don't want to be bogged down by all this..."
A tightening of Louis' fingers around Daniels. Uses their fingers as a link, levering himself closer, head shaking.
"You aren't bogging me down."
No hesitation. Firm over the words, intending to dispel any instinct Daniel might have to withhold.
"I want to be here with you."
Even when here required them to be there. Who else had this perspective? Who else could understand even a fraction of what Louis is struggling with? Pieces of him, missing. Pieces of him simply gone, excised over decades. He'd never known. He wants to know now.
"It's good to be here. With you. To see you here."
And not just in that apartment, in that room, in his dreams and invasive flashes now and again as he tries to go about his nightly life. Louis is real, he's alright, he's not a charred corpse, he's not back under Armand's thumb, he doesn't have to hear him scream and beg from the other side of a closed door.
Whatever happened, more or less or whatever they remember or don't, it's behind them, and they're here. Daniel squeezes his hand. His lifeline, since then.
"I promise I'll eventually get over needing to check in with you in person. No ETA on when, though."
Maybe it'll take a hundred years. Louis' stuck with him.
"I'm not complaining," Louis promises. "I like to see you."
Missed you, Daniel had said. Louis hadn't said it back. He should. Daniel is intuitive, but Louis has learned not to leave some sentiments to the intuition of others.
And now he has this memory, coming into clearer focus. Daniel, on the bed beside him. Agony and comfort mingling together at his closeness, the nearness of his body jostling Louis' charred limbs but too much of a comfort to forgo. Real. It's real. Louis knows it in his body, truth like it had been truth in Dubai when Daniel dragged the reality of that week out of the dark.
"How long can you stay before the tour beckons you back?" Louis asks. "Long enough to sort through a few more dreams with me?"
He doesn't know why he needs to know about those liminal spaces in his memory concerning that week. He should probably want to forget the awful details, at least, and leave himself armed with just the awareness. But he can't stop digging. Even when it turns into harm, he just can't fucking let things go.
Trying to, for the moment. This surprise attack on Louis' peace is enough, and Daniel feels like some strange pressure has been bled out of him for it. He's left feeling grateful, but definitely sheepish.
"A few weeks." Maybe more. Maybe less, if he gets a hysterical phone call, but that'll only happen if Lestat figures out who he's with. "What are you doing here, anyway? — Should have been what I led with, probably."
It wouldn't have surprised Louis if Daniel had guessed at what he had been working on.
His thumb runs along Daniel's knuckles, fidgets lightly with the hand caught in his grasp. Should let go. Holds on anyway.
"I've been looking for the pieces I'm missing," Louis admits. "In my mind, there's..."
A trailing shrug of an implication. Maybe Daniel knows. Maybe it's the same for Louis as it is for Daniel, thinking of that room in San Francisco and feeling places where the story lapses. Where they cobbled together enough, but not everything.
"I think there's memories that are gone. I've been trying to recover them."
And then, a smile, head tipping slightly as Louis adds, "Lestat thinks it's a kind of vacation. I haven't corrected him."
Doesn't want to worry him, distract from the interview, the tour. It's Louis' problem to fix. Lestat has his own to occupy him.
Real surprise. Daniel wonders at it. Coincidence alone, or was there some subconscious call between them, drawn to the same missing pieces? Well. It's not like there will be memories of Daniel anywhere besides San Fransisco, so probably coincidence. He doesn't have anyone else to go to about it (except Armand, but he's out of the question).
Louis might, he realizes. He could uncover any number of people. A slightly sick thought, and probably nothing compared to how Louis feels about it.
"He misses you. He'll live, though."
Sentimentality and assurance offered at once. Daniel does not mention that Lestat loathes his association with Louis and passionately hates that they have a past connection, because there's no point. He gets it, anyway. And as dangerous as Lestat is, as fucked up as his relationship with Louis was (is), there's a part of him that wonders if either of his marriages would have lasted longer if one of them went really, really crazy over it. If it wouldn't have been romantic.
What does it cost him to say this to Daniel? Daniel, who cut through all the stories Louis told himself for almost eighty years to find this truth.
A little smile, head tipping as he contemplates Daniel. Daniel who Louis doesn't need to miss, because he is here. Who Louis will miss when he goes, because he doesn't expect Daniel to stay when he is a newly made vampire and the entire world is laid open at his feet.
Contemplations Louis moves past to devote himself to Daniel's question.
"We lived here, for a time," Louis tells him. Something he guesses Daniel knows, because he found his way here. "I thought I would find something left behind."
Something. Someone. Louis keeps the feeling to himself, the terrible, aching swoop as he contemplates what's been taken from him. How he was kept, things excised from him over the passing years.
"I've been looking at documents. It hasn't been very enlightening," he admits. "So you're a welcome interruption."
would not be a nice thing to say, even with a fond smile, and so he doesn't. Significant to hear Louis admit it out loud. He spent the entirety of two interviews talking about Lestat, for good or ill. A mutual obsession. Daniel wants Louis to be happy and safe. He wonders if those are mutually exclusive things, but he hopes not.
"Do you have day to day, or night to night would be a better way to put it, recollection of things tied to the papers you're going through?"
He leans in to see what Louis is looking at. Sorting out gothic romances is beyond him. But this. Getting the story straight is something he can help with.
Yielding his grasp on Daniel's hand, the contact lingering before Louis accepts that they are breaking fully from each other. Contenting himself to the way Daniel leans closer, interested in something Louis is certain is of limited interest.
"No," he admits. "I have...pieces. And these are financials, not diaries."
A boon, maybe. Armand might have doctored a diary, but the record of where Louis' money had been going seems more or less untouched.
"I thought I'd look through local archives. Hope for something to jog my memory."
Body counts. Extravagance. The kind of tragedies tailored to cover up a vampire who had lost control.
No wishy washy nonsense like does this feel real. Does Louis remember buying this thing, on that day? Can he remember the circumstances? Who worked for him at the time, how long were they on payroll, at what point did staff change, were they discharged and mindwiped, forced into NDAs, killed? Did they pay taxes?
A wealth of information and potential reminders. Good call, Louis. Daniel is busy looking at his financials when he realizes he's being looked at, glances up, laughs a little.
"Hey, you had the chief butler as a spy long before they tried to rope in my inept ass. I was so bad at it that Armand noticed me, thought I had maybe been contacted by them, but then after he looked into it, decided I was just fumbling like a moron and he was imagining things."
Fun.
"But, I do have a bunch of their shit, still, if you want me to look up any dates in particular."
Difficult, hearing Armand invoked. Pressure upon bruising, pain that comes from within the body.
Louis is here partly because of Armand. What Armand neatly snipped out of his mind. (What Louis willingly discarded, perhaps.) They shared a life for seventy-seven years. Louis chose him. Louis had believed him, when he had said Yes in answer to that fateful question.
Daniel is smiling. Daniel laughed, and Louis likes hearing him laugh very much. He lets these things offset the spiraling cascade of thoughts in his head, circuitous and guilt-drenched and angry, and draw him back.
"I could make a list," is only a stop on the way to: "Are they still hoping to rope you in?"
Armand is a sore spot for Daniel, too, differently. Little needles of it, like one of those inner ear headaches, adn sometimes literal nightmares. He has a re-occurring one of Armand in his wine-colored shirt in the 'reading room' of the Dubai penthouse, sitting calmly across from Daniel, not letting him turn his head to the sight of his youngest daughter being immolated; all he can do, in the dream, is see the flames in peripheral, and hear her scream.
But he pokes at it anyway. A constant source of low-level stress. A permanent tether.
"A list would be a great start." Because he actually will look it up for Louis. Then, hm. He shrugs. "Sometimes. They've made pitches."
Attempts at begging, attempts at intimidation. But Daniel was almost impossible to wrangle into cooperation as a mortal, and now, it's basically impossible. He will do whatever he wants to do.
"It's interesting to me, their whole gig. I just hate the secrecy and I hate the drama."
Watches Daniel's fingers on documents containing years of Louis' money, moving in and out of accounts. Assets multiplying. The accounts of this household, the accounts of what it cost when Louis and Armand lived here and hunted here and careened wildly through the streets.
"What will you do instead?"
Louis won't hold his attention forever. Even this, the piecing together Louis is attempting, is limited in scope for a man who can do as he wishes, seek answers more incisively than he had ever done as a mortal. The quiet pleasure at his company is limited, Louis reminds himself. Daniel will return, first to Lestat's tour, and then to whatever work draws his attention.
Louis will be pleased to read it all, as he has for long years.
"Yeah, the spy drama." Sifting papers. Already putting them in a different order. "Spies are only good to talk to after they've retired. The active ones all suck. The one they sent to finesse me in Dubai is still sending me sad 'hey baby' messages like I'm an idiot."
Like Daniel did not spend a year literally embedded with 'ex' KGB. Please, Raglan.
"Finish projects I'd stopped working on because I got sick. Still got a limited window."
Maybe he should fuck Raglan. A guy might shake things up, particularly given Daniel is still adamantly heterosexual. Being able to have sex again has been great, even though fucking humans while inhuman is a sometimes-dicey situation, already tipping towards a pattern he recognizes. Less and less fulfilling each time, like every hit of something really bad is less and less good with each high. Be with your own kind, some nagging animal instinct calls, and to that he says Fuck off. Because: no. He's not doing the companion thing, and he's not seeking out anyone who might want to take his head off for publishing the book.
If he thinks about things sometimes—
Daniel misses Louis, Louis misses Lestat.
It's not that Louis wouldn't be worth the attempt. But Daniel would lose, and badly, and he knows that. Sometimes dreams aren't memories, they're just dreams. Armand in the reading room, looking at him. Armand in the reading room, a touch sliding over his shoulder that's sensual for a moment before it turns. His daughter burning, and Louis, reaching for him.
A smile for the thought of this nameless, faceless spy courting Daniel. A flicker of jealousy that Louis knows he is not entitled to but feels anyway, deep in his body, hooking into the mournful wound there. Still raw, the circumstances of Daniel's turning. They don't speak of it, but that doesn't mean Louis doesn't feel it.
"You should," is quiet encouragement, Louis watching the reordering of documents. "I'd been interested in your upcoming projects."
Of course Louis was aware. He'd observed the press releases, the curated website. Everything is different now, but his enthusiasm remains.
"How long can you stay now?" is followed a little hastily by: "I don't expect you to put aside your work for my soul searching."
Which is a fucked descriptor, something Louis only catches after the fact but can't retract.
He wants Daniel to stay. He doesn't want to infringe on Daniel's pursuits. It's difficult to balance.
"You don't know the half of the dumb shit I was looking into."
Collections to be compiled, sure. Interviews with North Korean escapees, published here and there throughout his career, being turned into a book. His (former) publisher announced intent to formally put out unedited interviews with all the rock stars he's ever known. Daniel has half of the connective tissue of it written. But there's more— stories he got halfway through, research done to the near-pinnacle but never completed. He got sick. He burned bridges.
Now, though.
"Two weeks, at least." Louis' sudden minimizing catches his attention, and Daniel leans in, giving their hands a little jostle. "Hey. Parts of our souls are overlapping now, I think. Just some tiny fucked up corner."
Shaped like an apartment in San Fransisco. Shaped like an angel.
"If you need me for longer than that, then I'll stay longer. I'm a sad old seventy year old man, I get too sick to fly all the time."
Stay, though even the thought itself stops short of what Louis feels in his body. It blooms between them, obvious and clear in his mind, but the rest comes only as formless impression. Stay in a way that offers weeks months years of time. Work here on the books and the articles, travel where he pleases.
Louis missed him. Misses him. Hand opening into the little knock of knuckles and wrist, the suggestion of interlocking fingers without indulging himself. Laughs, quiet but clear, for the excuses as to the rigors of traveling.
"I'll take two weeks, to start," he says, knowing this already as indulgent. "I know you have work waiting for you."
Daniel and Lestat should complete their work together.
"And I'll do a better job of staying in contact with you both."
Find the balance between too much presence in their periphery and too little. Louis has stepped back out of politeness, but—
"I have missed you," he reminds Daniel. "A whole hell of a lot."
It seems like there's nothing else Daniel could do, besides pull Louis in against his side and hold him. Soothe that ache of loneliness, comfort him, hug him like he might one of his girls if they didn't all hate each other, or like a friend if he ever had any he became close to. Or even like Alice, who he used to jog up beside and sling an arm around so he could become an annoying dead weight against her while she gave up and laughed her bad mood away.
Of course he doesn't do any of that. But like the obviousness of Louis' urge of Stay, his instinct is a tangible thing, hidden parts all made detectable by supernatural powers. Hands near each other, touching now and again. He doesn't know what to make of their friendship.
Louis misses him, Daniel is reminded. And he does believe him.
"We've got time," he says, a bit muted. Careful with the moment. "Centuries of it."
Centuries of time. Louis knows. He is aware of the specifics of the gift he'd very much wanted to give Daniel. Their fingers tangle, a loose hold, as Louis contemplates this.
Centuries of time now. Nights ahead of Louis where he is himself, mistakes and sins and flaws and all, and able to move through the dark with them as they are. No one to tease them into less offensive shape.
A terrible thing, to know all of what had been done to him and still find himself missing pieces of the well-manicured life he'd kept for so many years.
But out of all of the ugliness and pain: they are here.
"I wasted decades of it," Louis murmurs. Isn't talking about Armand. How had Louis been spending that time? And how long he had gone, content to live with pieces sliced out of him so neatly it left no scar.
"Wasted at least fifty I could have spent knowing you," as if that had been an option available to him. As if it would have been permitted.
All the centuries Louis wants, to do anything. Everything. Live until he can touch the sun again, live until he can want to see another sunrise. Live until he doesn't sound so dismissive of himself, A rougher thing.
And then a huff of a laugh, and he jostles there hands again, teasing.
"Come on, you've have been sick of me so fast."
Daniel would have made a much better looking vampire in decades gone by, but he'd have been a much more insufferable one. There are reasons he's twice divorced (and none of them are waiting in the swamp for him, no one is holding trials, no one's keeping him locked up in a cage), why he has no friends, why his kids hate him.
"What happened wasn't better," he says. "But now has its own merits."
Silver linings, like skipping Daniel in the early 90s.
Even for a vampire, it is a formidable amount of wasted time. More than half his life, more than half of what he's lived thus far.
He does not say this to Daniel, offering reassurance and optimism. Yes, Louis has more. He will have more years and Daniel will have more years, and perhaps Daniel will permit Louis to lay claim to a handful of them even though his story is told and what's missing may well be less compelling than what's already been put to page.
Daniel will be fascinating still. Louis has no doubts.
He lets a smile slant between them, warming to Daniel's teasing. Doesn't matter if he holds fast to these doubts and regrets; it matters that he warms to Daniel, easier than he might have if they dipped too far towards what happened.
"I'd have had a good time arguing with you then."
And Daniel would have gotten better at it. Louis observed his progress in glimpses of late night appearances, print interviews scoured to find familiar voice in each line.
"But I'll give you this one. Now's got some merit."
Daniel, in his home, no longer shaking or in pain.
Daniel understands the agony of wasted time. A year ago he was making plans to be cremated. Books he was never going to finish, relationships he'd never repaired, opportunities passed on, chances never taken. He looked back on his life and all of it, every moment, felt pointless and shallow and unfinished. It's all still pointless and shallow, but maybe he can finish a little. And maybe he can have fun being just as pointless and shallow for another few lifetimes. Fun, spite, hedonism, defiance. Whatever.
Different for Louis. But in the same pool. Daniel doesn't want pull another Cheer up buddy, but he does want him to stay buoyant. The only thing with a set time is the past, he doesn't have to go into the sun or... fucking bury himself, or whatever.
"I like now. I like you, here."
Teetering on profoundly sappy, the both of them.
"And I like that my cosmic timing involves showing up when you could use an investigator."
"You know I wanna see you even if I ain't investigating anything?"
Pushing the point.
Louis can't say the important things. Can't say what matters, no mater how deeply he feels it. And Daniel must know this, or at last, have the shape of Louis' failings when it comes to those he cares for the most.
But he can say this. He always wants to see Daniel. His door will always be open for Daniel. And for now, that can be enough.
Not that he's surprised— well, maybe he is. That Louis would address it out loud, and furthermore, that Daniel actually has to think about it. Kneejerk is Of course I know that, but does he?
For a moment he just looks at Louis, and considers the merits (hah) of the of course answer.
"I guess I don't know that," is what he ends up saying, because it's the truth, even if it sounds pretty fucking bleak. "Not because of any failing on your part. I can't remember the last time I spent any time with someone and it wasn't about work, or a doctor's appointment. Maybe I don't know how to do anything else."
I think it was the Yeah that pissed her off the most, yeah?
No off button—
But it's not just that. Daniel doesn't think he's got much (or anything) else to offer. What does he have? Is he a good friend? No. Is he good company? Not really. Louis is charming and engaging and Daniel is the first vampire to ever have The Annoying Gift.
Though Daniel can be forgiven, can't he, for assuming otherwise?
Fifty years of absence after a week of torture. Leaving him behind in the penthouse. And now Louis' distance, while he skirted around vampires seeking to kill him and the pressure of mortal attention. He has not done much to counterbalance the perception that his investment in Daniel centers in their shared work.
Trust, Louis has considered his failings, whatever Daniel has to say otherwise.
"I don't know that I can compete with Lestat," is a minor needling. Yes, Louis reads the news. "But I think we could have a good time together outside of these."
Reaching a free hand to flick the edge of the sack of papers, dismissive. As if it is a small thing, finding which pieces are unaccounted for over the course of eighty years of life.
Daniel misses Louis, Louis misses Daniel? Louis had spent all of San Fransisco and all of Dubai speaking of Lestat. Louis misses Lestat. Is Daniel envious? ... Yeah, a little. But he puts it away. What an embarrassing thing to expose.
"Well, kiddo," we have fun here, cajoling dad voice, "it's not a competition." Daniel nudges the papers back into a neat alignment. He sighs, and more seriously: "That's work, too. And that's shit I have to be on guard during in a very real way. We can talk about it, if you want."
When else will he get to say this? A joke, creating some space in which Louis can consider the offer that followed after.
"I want to know how you are. How it's been."
Not details as it relates to what Lestat is saying. Louis might have let the entire subject drop if it hadn't been for the implication of guardedness, of needing to be alert. Daniel is sturdier now than he had ever been, but Louis worries for him still. Even now.
"You ask after me. I want to do the same for you."
"And you've been youthful and spry the whole time. Doesn't count."
Louis has yet to see Daniel pull a 'just a confused old man having an episode in public' routine to get away with being somewhere he shouldn't, or lure in a victim. Maybe he'll have an opportunity to do it sometime out here, a lost elderly tourist on private property, and they'll see who loses it and laughs first.
He doesn't want Louis to worry, or fixate on Lestat more than he already seems to. (Can he be blamed for this belief? Both interviews, the entire time, Lestat, Lestat, Lestat. Now, needling him just a bit about it.)
"It's been interesting. I haven't spent much time with another vampire, and now all that, and there's other people around, and shit's crazy all night every night. I'm learning a lot, both about how to deal with this existence, and how to shoot a fucking documentary. Elements of feeling like an idiot kid again fumbling with learning how to drive, and being geriatric baffled at smartphones. Except some of it's camera batteries and some of it's, you know. Hey quit reading my fucking mind."
A brief pause, digesting all of this. Louis watches Daniel's face, and thinks about the ways they touch each other now. Tentative expressions of comfort, of intimacy, things that feel right in the moment but that they don't speak about after.
"Are you happy?"
A heavy word. Can Daniel be happy as a vampire?
Louis wants him to be. Wishes he could be. He'd wanted to ask and for Daniel to say yes.
That isn't how it happened. And now they are mostly apart and Louis has to be envious of Lestat and Daniel by turns, wishing to join them, knowing all the reasons why he shouldn't. Why it is better to be alone, doing what sometimes feels like healing and growing and sometimes feels nearer to destruction. Regardless, Louis knows all the reasons he should be doing that on his own. All the reasons he shouldn't take two weeks of Daniel's time even, why it's selfish and why he hasn't stopped himself.
"I have millions of dollars, I'm not in pain, I get to 'leave' my kids money, and I can have sex and do drugs again. I have fucking superpowers. I'm happy."
That boy who fumbled over his tape recording device (shut the fuck up, Armand!!) has always been in here, yes. Daniel is still who he's always been, if sharper, meaner, older, more vindictive. More insightful, too. World weary in a way that will (hopefully) let him mitigate his worse instincts, especially as time goes on.
But for better or for worse, he is who he is.
So.
"Does it disappoint you, that I'm not taking it more seriously? It's not a joke. I know that. But I'd been dying already, Louis. It's hard to not feel better."
Quiet, as Louis' eyes rove over Daniel's face. Lifts his free hand to set light fingers o his cheek.
Is it enough? Louis can only take Daniel's word. Remind himself of all the ways they are different, and let that ease Louis' fears for him. Push aside the question: will all of that be enough in ten years? Twenty? Ninety?
"You could never disappoint me."
Says Louis, who is not on TikTok. Who has only the barest understanding of what Daniel and Lestat are doing together between stops on the tour.
"I only want you to be fulfilled by this. I already know you're able to make something of the Gift," and then, softer, "I want you to live."
To live better than Louis had, though the bar for that is admittedly low.
An internal flinch of shame (does Louis feel it? he hopes not) about that touch. He knows what he looks like. That's the trade off, he supposes. Daniel has no angst about his mortal life being stolen from him, because he's already lived a mortal life. But he gets to be undesirable by anyone but weird fetish chasers forever.
More than fair. He'd sworn off longterm companionship before he ever knew the c-word had special vampiric connotations. Weirdos are fine, and Daniel doesn't need another divorce. But it must be particularly strange for someone eternally young and beautiful to look at and think about.
"You say that," is wry, with a touch of humor. About disappointment. Maybe they shouldn't spend more than a week at a time together. Minimize the risk of Louis realizing what a catastrophe Daniel is capable of being.
"You don't have to worry about that. Not with me."
Not even Armand could talk him into wanting the end, all his hypnotic powers pressed pedal to the metal, when Daniel was twenty years old and psychologically terrorized and on death's door from exhaustion. I like my life. I have a thing in the city. He didn't ask for the Gift because he wanted to die. He wanted to feel better.
The world has so many dangers even aside from the vampires who are bent on killing Louis, who thrash mutinously about Lestat's tour. Who can say whether Daniel is spared their ire for being only the medium through which their stories are relayed to humanity, not once but twice?
Daniel's skin is warm beneath even this light touch of fingers. Louis has been careful to stay out of his mind, but even surface-level awareness telegraphs a thing Louis mistakes as discomfort. Weighs against the linked fingers, his touch to Daniel's face. Too much? Too intimate? His fingers skim along his cheek, his jaw, lingering even as Louis angles towards disengaging.
"I'm glad you're here," is a layered thing. Glad Daniel came. Glad he lives still. Glad he will live long centuries. Glad for the privilege of knowing him, whatever shape that knowing takes in the coming years.
Another pause. Daniel looks at Louis, and it's a slightly weird calculating look, like Daniel is considering rolling the dice. That's what he's doing, for the record. Sometimes he's easy to read.
What should he say. 'You seem off', 'You still seem lonely,' 'Are you sure you're okay,' all things that seem like an Interview Question when Daniel has been told very recently that Louis likes to see him just to see him. He returns to a previous instinct.
Is this friendship? Are they friends? Is that what it is now, when it was always more complex than that?
Maybe there is nothing else to be but complex, given how they stared. Given the sudden urge in Louis to slide his fingers down beneath Daniel's jaw and reassure himself that the marks his teeth left on Daniel's throat are still just as he recalls.
And Daniel is still waiting for an answer while Louis thinks this, looking into his eyes that are no longer blue but still familiar.
"Do I seem like I need one?"
Needing and wanting are different things, Louis knows. It is difficult for him to consider the latter. Of wanting, and indulging that want.
Something else, different than friendship. Daniel hasn't realized yet. But is there a word for it, if he does?
"I don't know what you need. I don't know if I'd be able to give it to you, if I did."
As touched on earlier, he has limited applications. An aggressive investigator, a sharp-edged conversationalist, an elusive off button. He did puzzles when he was sick, to try and make his hands work. Before that he mostly did drugs and went to bars. What hobbies. What social life.
But there is still that instinct. Pulling Alice against him, annoying the shit out of her until she laughed. (Out of everyone, he loved her best, and losing her hurt the worst; she is remarried now, and Louis does not need to see if she thinks of him, because Daniel knows she doesn't, she is remarried and she does not see any dream versions of him, just frowns when their daughter says something mean in a particular way she knows to be inherited, and tries not to regret her choices.)
Unfair to expect Daniel to know what it is Louis needs in the wake of shattering apart his life. Louis needs to know it. Needs to stand on his own and find that thing, build upon it.
Still, a measuring look, a memory of Daniel across from him at a small table with a clunky tape recorder. Revelation.
"You could."
Decisive.
More complicated than this answer acknowledges. Hardly defines what it is Louis alluding to. This thing they are to each other. How he breathed easier when Daniel appeared in this building. How he misses him as he misses Lestat, a similar depth and longing and jealousy. Daniel is not Lestat, he is something else and Louis doesn't have a word for it either, but he has this certainty.
Yes, Daniel could. Daniel already has. Maybe it is a gift only for Louis, maybe it's been true since Louis gravitated into his space at that bar all those decades ago. True now, with the two of them so changed by the course of their lives, all the missing pieces between them specifically.
It may be unfair, too, for Daniel to have demolished Louis' life. He never asked him if he wanted out, if he wanted the truth. It's only Daniel who thinks the truth is paramount even when it's made of nothing but pain and suffering. Maybe that's the love of his live. Truth, all the horrible parts of it.
So this is where he says, I also had this other dream, right, because truth.
A smile bending into Louis' expression. Some private amusement. What does he want to do? Many things that are perhaps a poor idea, impulsive and reckless in ways Louis hasn't been in years. Had sheared away over time and is surprised to find the roots have survived deep in his body.
"Come lay down with me," is not exactly a clear answer as to what Louis wants or wishes to do. His palm lays softly, briefly, across Daniel's cheek, before his hand drops and Louis uses the tether of their fingers to draw Daniel to his feet as he rises.
The request is so unexpected that it manages to short-circuit Daniel long enough that he stands without resistance. Staring at Louis in a way that makes it clear he's trying to process whether or not he actually heard what he thinks he heard. Replaying it in his head, he realizes: yes, Louis did say that.
Hey what!
What!!
The expression on his face is comically youthful, eyes wide and scandalized. 'Kiddo' jokes not clearing after all.
Rare to ever truly stun Daniel. Daniel who had been talking and talking through the first reveal of Louis' fangs. Who had received the entirety of Louis' story nearly in stride.
"No," is mostly true. Louis is tired, but not the kind of tired that requires a nap. He is tired of the business of piecing together his own mind, his own history.
But that's nothing to do with his request, not really.
"I want to lay down with you."
Half an intention. Maybe it goes no farther than the two of them in the lavishly appointed guest bedroom, because Louis closed the door to the one he'd shared with Armand when he'd emerged at dusk, and has no desire to lead Daniel over the threshold now.
He thinks, well, he had offered a hug, meant obviously as comfort for the bad weather in Louis' head. Despite that, it does feel like mixed messages— cold dismissal in San Fransisco, a mocking offer in Dubai. But this doesn't have to be anything more than a hug, somewhere else. Even if it's strange. Daniel supposes there's going to be quite a lot of strange things between them, undefined as they are. Louis hasn't been human in a century, Louis has been living in a psychic dollhouse for nearly as long.
There aren't established boundaries for connections like this. No playbook. Maybe not even between vampires. How often does this happen?
"Yeah, it's alright."
Daniel silently vows to try not to embarrass himself. Confidence in avoiding it entirely is low, but might as well give it a shot.
This structure is smaller than the Dubai penthouse. Quieter, lacking the mournful groan that had become so much a part of Louis' nights that he'd ceased to notice it.
Of course, until Daniel had arrived. And then he had noticed Daniel's noticing, and the sound had been made new to him again.
Here, Louis leads Daniel by the link of their fingers from the main room with its lovely windows and tastefully worn furniture. More color in this place than Dubai as well, though the beginnings of its absence can be seen. Walls washed clean, stripped of natural woods, a blank canvas upon which paintings must once have been displayed.
They leave Louis' paperwork, financial touchstones from decades ago, in Daniel's assortment on the table. Louis pushes open the door to the guest bedroom. Brings Daniel along with him to the sprawl of bed.
"I can have a coffin brought for you, while you stay, if you didn't bring your own." Louis murmurs, loosening his grasp only so he might recline, settle himself onto pillows against the headboard. This too, not so far removed from the understated luxury of Dubai. The markings of a shift in shared design sensibilities. He reaches a hand back out to Daniel, inviting.
Asks, "Will you tell me about your dream?"
A little like asking to see a puzzle piece. A little like asking for permission to test its fit.
"I bought one online ahead of time and had it delivered to my hotel," Daniel says, about coffins. He'd dragged one around a bit for the book tour until he realized he was being a fucking idiot. He's rich now, he can have five hundred coffins wherever he goes and he can have custom enclosures built at home. Working smarter.
Trying not to appear so cautious as to be offputting, Daniel is peeling off his jacket - suboptimal for whatever's going on here - when Louis questions him.
"More about my dreams of San Fransisco?"
He hasn't mentioned any others. A thread of nervousness. Has Louis been...
"I know you don't have a TV in here to throw a movie on, but that's kind of a bleak alternative."
"We'll have it brought here," delivered in a kind of easy dismissal of Daniel staying in a hotel. Yes, yes, he's very rich, but he's here because of Louis. Louis can offer him the guest room.
The unspoken query: why be apart at all?
Because Daniel will go back to Lestat and the tour and the interview and Louis will go back to his search, to the war he's started. They have two weeks.
Louis hitches an ankle up. Watches Daniel, intent.
"I know," doesn't contradict. It is hardly light conversation. "But I want to hear what you dreamed. I want to see if we can remember it together. You only told me part of it, earlier."
Something occurs to him. He's glad he came out here, and now. Louis' readiness for his privacy to be invaded suggests he could really use the company, and it calms something in Daniel. Washing away some of the insecurity. He's still uncertain about what's going on, here, but willing to forge ahead.
He wants—
Is he allowed? Is it a good idea?
Daniel sits on the edge of the bed. Louis watches him, and Daniel watches him back.
"Some of it... you wouldn't have seen. Maybe heard a little."
This will be a pattern: Armand, that person-shaped wound they share, which is far worse for Louis when it's agitated. He listened to the tapes again and again. He eventually remembered Daniel would need food and water. He waited until his body had made enough new blood cells before he attempted to drain him.
A moment where a memory of a dream of Lestat comes to his mind, the sweet encouragement of Tell me, mon cher. Tender in a way Louis feels now, as Daniel looks at him, begins this recitation.
"I wasn't all there sometimes. It was harder during the day."
To be lucid. To stay in his body when he was burning and burning and burning, agony exacerbated by laying beneath windows papered in nothing but newspaper to block the sun.
"Sometimes I heard you."
Because Daniel would be screaming, agony loud enough to carry through the door that was sometimes open, often closed. Armand had stopped screaming, by then.
Louis' hand stretches along the coverlet, maintaining the invitation. A silent Come here open, for Daniel to bend towards to whatever extent he feels inclined to indulge.
About daytime. Daniel remembers - has been remembering, over the time they've been apart - the feeling of dawn, how it turned from Will it be over now? to I'm alone with him now, aware that it meant Louis would fall silent. Just him and the boyfriend and his horrible eyes.
Daniel has the same eyes, now.
He toes his shoes off, and moves up onto the bed properly. Accepting the invitation and sitting close to Louis, hand going to his.
"I felt like it was my fault. I think I apologized to you."
Words almost to himself, even as Louis feels some specific attachment to the thing Daniel is putting voice to. How an argument within a marriage could feel like it was his fault, his responsibility to fix.
Of course, this is very different from the du Lac household. This was not Daniel's fault. It has been Louis'.
His eyes open. Louis had closed them as Daniel turned attention to his shoes, as he levered up into the bed. Let himself feel it. See what the sensation shook loose.
"It wasn't your fault," Louis tells him now. "Did I tell you that?"
How could Daniel even have known that Louis ran into the sun? He'd been bleeding out. A gap of time that existed only on the tapes: Daniel, unconscious and bleeding on the floor. Daniel, hauled upright while Louis screamed from the next room.
Things got heated with a boy, it's morning, the tapes, wake the boy and you go, then becoming a talisman meant to preserve a companionship. Maitre, a horrible, fragile voice that made Daniel wake up from the hypnosis Armand had finally managed to lure him down into (he was so fucking tired, he didn't want to agree, but it had been days by then, he was so tired). Louis, sitting there instead, and he was burned and he was the one who'd ripped his throat out but Daniel was so, so relieved to see him.
"I don't remember what you told me."
Not an admission he's happy to make, but—
"It was later. I remember.. pieces of us walking. I don't remember what I was thinking. Probably nothing. You were on one side of me, and I felt like shit, and I knew you felt like shit."
Armand was carrying most of their combined weight, no matter that Louis was on Daniel's other side. They were both shattered, still, and the sense-memory of it is that they were clinging to each other to a degree that was mismatched for the situation. Daniel was out of his mind, but he still... He thinks he still tipped his head down against Louis', whispered, Hey, I'm sorry.
And Louis...?
He doesn't know. He was so far under, then, about to be deposited in the crack house, with the rest of the trash.
Maybe Louis hadn't said anything. Couldn't say anything. He'd played all the cards he'd had to play, turning Armand from Daniel's throat and the promise of an easy death. Maybe Daniel had said this thing and Louis had said nothing back.
He'd like to think he'd murmured something. But he just doesn't know.
A slight shift, setting hip to hip without disturbing the relaxed sprawl of his limbs across the bedding. The dig of heel against the coverlet. His thumb strokes over and over Daniel's knuckles, listening. Thinking.
"It hurt to carry you."
Clarity. Memory, not conjecture. Louis barely healed, still a horrendous sight beneath the hooded sweatshirt he'd tugged up over his healing face. Every step had jostled Daniel between them. All Louis' breaths had been sharp hisses of pain, but he'd clung tighter as they'd walked.
"Hurt more when I let you go."
Harder to tell if this is a memory or only what Louis knows to be true of himself, reasoned through with what he has of that night and knowing it to be a likely outcome.
"Tell me about when he left. What you dreamed of us in a room."
What was it like? Daniel doesn't remember. He sees only snippets of the last of it— the haze of Armand's hypnosis is too powerful, his exhaustion was too overwhelming, and the reality of the flophouse asserts itself. He doesn't know if he was a zombie, left in there, if they dumped him onto a soiled mattress and left him there, limp and barely breathing, or if he stared up at Louis with half-fogged eyes and their hands were connected until the last moment.
Little things, lost. But he held onto Louis.
"In the room..."
which he pronounces like a fucking fraud that's not how californians says room, eric
They weren't sat like this. They were laying down, side by side, and then at some point they'd each turned to look at the other. Daniel... had he reached out? Touched a little patch of skin that didn't look too burned, trying to conceptualize what had happened to him?
"I said 'I don't think your boyfriend was cool with it after all', and you made a noise, like. I don't know. Maybe I imagined it, since I was trying to lighten shit up. I don't know why. Maybe you did laugh, or maybe you were trying to tell me to put a sock in it. I told you I didn't have enough strength to get away. That was probably true, I was exhausted, but looking back on it I know it was because Armand told me not to get up."
Louis had been so badly burned. Exquisite, Armand had correctly described the pain. But Daniel says this and shakes loose a little sense memory: cool fingers, hesitantly set to his face.
"I'm not sure I realized you were really there at first."
The combination of the daytime, the newspaper-filtered light exacerbating his pain, lending a layer of unreality to the sense of Daniel on the bed beside him. It had taken everything in him to turn on the mattress towards him.
"I wanted you to run," slowly, feeling out the words. Truth. "I remember your blood, and how hurt you felt."
The scent of him had lingered, even when Daniel had been extricated from the bed and bidden to eat, drink. To live, so Armand could continue on with their sentence.
"I think I told you to try to sleep."
And maybe it would have felt like a joke too, offering Daniel actual sleep instead of what Armand had been pushing onto him. Rest like a sledgehammer, like a hand forcing Daniel's head down beneath the sea of his own exhaustion. Louis had been in too much pain to sleep, had been too overcome with the selfish comfort of Daniel laid alongside him in the ash-flecked sheets, but Daniel could have slept. Might have. Louis has trouble recalling what came next.
"You didn't even know me, I imagine it was pretty weird, on top of everything else."
Some kid from a bar. Louis had taken 'home' so many. Suddenly one was still there, was brutalized, while Louis was slowly burning to death. Daniel remembers the smell, and the heat of him. Once he'd finally figured out what had happened, he thought—
"I couldn't sleep," he says. "I was too terrified. I think I asked you why you weren't in the shower in an ice bath, or something, but you were asleep then, I'm sure. Maybe I was blocking the light well enough."
Just a little from the newspaper-gauze windows, but Daniel had still between between Louis and the wall, shielding him. He thought of safety PSAs in school. You were supposed to hold a burn under running water, because it might still be burning inside your skin. But Armand had just left Louis there.
"I'm glad you survived." Daniel reaches out, touches Louis' cheek in a mirror of how he'd touched Daniel on the sofa. "I know you know. I hope you know. But I might not have ever said."
A half-settled thought coming together in Louis' mind: not asleep, he had never been able to sleep in that bed, but drowsing; there was just the barest relief in Daniel's body blocking even a fraction of the light coming in and the way he was touching Louis, the sound of his voice and his heartbeat, how near he was, unmistakably alive.
Then Daniel says this thing, and it takes Louis by surprise.
What a complicated sentiment. Complicated for its in-betweenness. Had Daniel been glad then that the monster that had dragged him into danger was still alive then? Maybe. Maybe because Louis had been able to save him, in the end. Maybe because they are something to each other now, because it is clearer that those days in that apartment linked them in ways more intrinsic than they could have known when Louis invited Daniel to leave the bar together.
Had Louis known Daniel felt this? Maybe. But it is different, hearing it said aloud.
Louis watches him silently, taking in the familiarity of his face, the newness of his eyes. Reaches up to cover Daniel's hand with his own, turn his head to kiss the center of his palm.
Does he need a reason? Is he lifting Louis' surprise, or is it just that Daniel is incapable of shutting up for long? The latter, probably.
"You're you. And now that I know you, now that I remember everything." His breath catches when Louis kisses his palm. He doesn't know what that means. It's not a platonic, friendly move, but he still has these incidents in his mind: banished to putting his shirt back on, the completely untenable 'offer' at the dining room table. And a dream is just a dream.
"I couldn't go through with this vampire shit if I didn't at least know you were out here. Everything else is screwing around. Being able to bother you in the middle of the night makes it real. I hope you feel real, too, now."
Words that chime against something in the back of his head, stir loose memory like silt. Real. Does he feel real?
Louis' head lifts.
"I'm always here, when it's you. You're always welcome in my head."
No small offer. Who else can say the same? Claudia, gone. Lestat, unable. Armand, who had once been trusted above all others, now barred.
But Daniel—
"You help me feel real again. I felt like I wasn't. So much was missing..."
San Francisco, yes. But emotion. Color. Daniel brought all of those things back to him. Shattered Louis back into the world, disrupted long decades of stasis.
Real. Louis holds that in his palm. Let's it unspool there, a memory of a mid-morning, of a conversation Louis only half recalls.
"You're real. We are. It happened and we know now, and the rest— You'll find it."
Earnest. Daniel believes this. If they can shake loose 1973, then Louis can find anything, everything he's looking for— even if it just turns out to be that nothing is missing, and he gains proof of that, and peace of mind. Daniel rubs Louis' cheek with his thumb. (Thinks about the kiss pressed to him, searing the center of his palm. Thinks about dreams.)
"And I'm not going to ever let you go quiet. I'll always be around to annoy the shit out of you and make sure you're here, and not reading our book, and rolling your eyes at me from afar. Or this."
Whether it's shouting at him from the other side of the planet or tracking him down. Stuck with each other. Forged in stupid ideas and drugs and misery and this lifeline they've drawn. Louis who prevented Daniel from dying in the next crack house, Daniel who prevented Louis from losing his free will permanently.
I was lost, Louis had told Lestat. He is still a little lost, unmoored in the vast possibility of the future sprawling out before him. (The worst days: when he feels so alone within it that he misses Armand. Misses what had been good between them, amidst the problems that had been slowly diminished and diminished until Louis couldn't have named them.) Daniel's fingers are warm, and their hearts don't beat in time but it is a complimentary rhythm all the same.
Or this, Daniel says, and Louis' expression softens, looking back at him across the pillow. Real fondness for Daniel, annoying and insightful and just as stubborn as Louis. Fondness for the promise of having these things always.
"I'm glad you came," Louis tells him. "I'm glad you're here."
And even in the deep, painful snarl of emotion that surrounds the circumstances of Daniel's turning, Louis can appreciate this: the thing he'd hoped for, Daniel's long life extended, his illness erased. Eternity in which they might know each other.
A pause. A breath drawn beneath the sweep of Daniel's thumb.
"I have been so," a break. A small smile, Louis' hand hooking restlessly at Daniel's lapel. "I have been so glad you're alive. That you didn't throw away my letter and ignore my invitation."
Daniel would have been entitled to that. Louis would have accepted it, felt the disappointment like a knife until he stopped feeling anything at all. You're real, Daniel reminds him, quieter here than he had been—
Than he had been there, Louis remembers. A fragment of something turning over in his head.
The way Louis touches him feels vulnerable, and it makes something in Daniel want to crack open. There's a part of him that's shaped just like the other man, he thinks. A seam made from a wound that they managed to heal in Dubai, sitting in the room with his rocks, together.
"I had to know," he says, and he smiles a little, though he feels constricted with emotion. "Just about anything else I'd have let my editor or my doctor talk me out of. Louis du Lac. I've seen you in my dreams for fifty years."
Dreams. Don't.
"I just. Had to know. I was always going to come."
He's missed him for fifty years. Is that it? Is that the emotion that threatens to strangle him, sitting where with a hand on Louis' face, Louis' hand at his shirt collar?
Louis glad he did. He is sorry he did. Both by turns, depending on how near the reality of what Armand must have done in his absence is to Louis' thoughts. It lingers now, as Daniel smiles a wavering little smile back at him.
Feels it in his chest, this thing Daniel tells him. Fifty years. Fifty years of Daniel dreaming him. Fifty years of Louis missing him, following him through paper and ink and never considering anything more.
"You."
And then, more specifically:
"Did you ask me..."
A trailing quiet, Louis ordering his thoughts. Circling around a soft spot in his mind, an incision so neat Louis may never have realized it was there.
Stops and starts. Daniel wants to pull him closer and hold him. Daniel wants to get up and put distance between them. This feels good and it feels confusing, too. (Lestat, in one of his spirals, firing until he hits something, asks Are you in love with him? and Daniel makes himself say No, and Lestat laughs at him. It's spiteful and mocking but it's afraid, too, and it just makes Daniel ashamed.)
Did he?
Daniel's gaze darts away. Confusion and something else, embarrassment?
"I think I really am implanting false memories," he says. "I have nightmares about—"
Armand, killing my kids
"Doesn't matter. Impossible shit that I know never happened."
"Will you tell me?" softly, the whisper of expensive fabric as Louis shifts nearer across the coverlet. Their knees bump. His grip on Daniel has eased in counterpoint, always seeking to leave Daniel an escape.
"I'll tell you mine, if you tell me yours."
Are their nightmares the same?
Where does this foggy impression come from: Daniel, asking Do you feel real, here?
A quiet plea. He hasn't looked up. Show you mine if you show me yours. Both vulgar and innocent, and Daniel is still grappling with messages that weren't mixed until now. His palm itches. His mind doesn't reel, but it digs into embarrassment, the same kind that made his face turn red with frustrated retroactive shame when flogging himself over the 'cheer up' routine to Louis in 1973.
Get a grip, Molloy. He has to.
So much for not doing anything excruciating.
"You know what I thought about you. What I kept being reminded of, with the performances you were putting on in the first week out there."
It feels like an eternity since Louis has touched his mind in any serious way. Light connection, voices bouncing back and forth, but never delving beneath the surface. He doesn't reach for his mind now, even if he might find clarity there. He remembers then, what had bloomed in Daniel's mind. How Louis had been performing, how he had felt revulsion and desire and fear blooming in Daniel in turns.
He sets fingers beneath Daniel's chin, silent coaxing. Look at me.
Wanting to see him, even as Louis asks, "Am I a nightmare?"
Louis had been—was a monster. Had failed Daniel. Maybe he's a nightmare too.
Stay out of my head Daniel had snapped at him, sharp and angry. Afraid but it never tempered anything, never curbed Daniel's instincts, never made him pull his punches. Louis had admired that.
Daniel lets himself be urged back up, and he's glad he does, because it means Louis gets to see how honest and immediate his flinch of denial is.
"No." Emphatic, real. "Never."
As insane as that sounds. Never, not even then, not even when Louis was trying to kill him. A technicality maybe— Daniel was too high to really understand what was happening, and it was fucking crazy, but there was also an expected element. Daniel was always out rolling the dice, his life had been threatened before, but his addictions, desires, needs, were stronger than fear.
But it's not the 70s. They're here, now, and Louis is not a nightmare.
"I see your reading room a lot. The fake atrium light. I don't know why, maybe... because so much went on in there."
A breath in, and out. Armand's reveal, the diaries introduced, Louis' rocks, their memories dredged up, the end. And it was where he and Armand had the majority of their daytime interactions when Louis was sleep. Of all the recordings he has of them one-on-one, they're all there, under the artificial light.
"I see my daughters there sometimes. It's just nonsense."
Yes, Louis' reading room. It had been his. It was his now. Touched inevitably, inescapably, by the minimalism and monochromatic aesthetic that had marked their shared Dubai penthouse, housed Armand's tree reaching up towards the filtered light. But it has been Louis', always.
"Sometimes I see her there. Claudia."
Claudia. Claudia, burning to ash beneath the light. Sometimes, lately, Claudia sitting, smiling, looking at him.
"Sometimes I dream you there."
Maybe nonsense. Maybe. His fingers remain there, thumb at Daniel's chin, knuckles brushing Daniel's throat. He can feel the inhale, exhale of his breath. The beat of his pulse. Daniel, alive. Indulging Louis in this conversation, in this stolen closeness.
"I changed some things," he murmurs. "Could show you, next time you got a couple weeks to spare."
Assuming Daniel ever wanted to set foot in that penthouse again.
Claudia. Harsh. Daniel gives Louis a bracing touch wherever his other hand last was. knee?? maybe. im a good rper
"I see you sometimes. Never as a nightmare."
It seems safe to admit. Dodging admissions of shamefully daydreamed intimacy. That Louis didn't press after You know what I thought about you tells him he was worried for nothing, and that Louis isn't about to open that door. Daniel thought they'd had a sexual encounter and Louis laughed; Daniel had been on the defensive foot with the fetish roleplay Louis and Armand had been acting out when Armand was still disguised.
Louis not wanting to hear more makes sense. It doesn't disappoint Daniel, because Daniel doesn't actually want to be exposed to new depths of shame, and he doesn't like men that way anyway. Just transactional. Louis isn't transactional.
"I'd like that, sometime. Give my subconscious a clean slate."
Daniel would like that. Louis holds that, draws it close to his chest. Daniel would come back to Dubai.
A thing which only matters in small ways. Louis would come to him. He has already promised to come to Lestat. He would travel, carefully, covertly, to see Daniel wherever he wished. But he wants Daniel to see the changes he'd made. Paul's portrait. Claudia's dress. New paintings. Color in places where there had been none.
"How do you see me?" he asks, contented with the latter, circling back to pluck at the former.
Not any direct question about what Daniel thought, but near to it. Skimming towards a similar topic, adjacent if not identical.
Dubai kind of sucks, a fake place for hidden people, but Louis makes a kind of sense there. The first vampire capitalist, in his tower. And now it's a tower to watch the world from, instead of being locked away inside of it. No longer a prison, a beacon, a lighthouse.
Mm. Almost dodged the topic, apparently. Daniel looks at him, quiet for a moment.
"I'm having a difficult time figuring out the boundaries of what's happening here," he ends up saying. Might as well just spit it out.
It shouldn't be a surprise, Daniel's directness. Pushing Louis to consider what they're doing, dwelling in the blurry quality of the intimacy they've cultivated.
Daniel touching him, his face, his hip I have decided you can't stop me. Louis' hand on his chin, knuckles grazing his throat. This nearness. The way Louis dreams him, dreams San Francisco and Dubai. Holds this new piece of the latter close, the two of them together in a shared bed, Daniel blocking the light, talking while Louis drifted and burned in a haze of agony.
The first two impulses towards deflection are discarded. Louis looks into his face, trying to feel his way to a clear answer, though he is not exactly certain of where he's leading them either. Only that he wants Daniel here.
Steps past the question, failing to come up with a clear answer as his eyes hold Daniel's. Stalls out, quiet stretching between them as Louis' fingers move along his skin, seeking the raised scarring his teeth left in Daniel's throat.
His breath catches, more obvious this time. Louis touching there and—
It's happened before? Louis leaning over him, the reading room made dim for the evening, not yet cycled into its dawn hours. Louis, looking at him, and there's a can of Coke with Arabic script on the branding on the table, before, before—
Just a dream.
"Louis."
A pleading note, starting to sound lost. Daniel doesn't want to shove him away, but he doesn't want to be fucked with, either.
A relief, selfish and terrible, to find the mark there still. Not gone, not healed. It remains, the ugly raised edges of the scar Louis bit into them that night.
He's jolted back from contemplation of it by Daniel, saying his name. Sounding this way. Something in his voice that makes Louis want to put arms around him.
"I'm sorry," sounds lost too. Louis is sorry to do anything that makes Daniel sound this way, sorry to be so uncertain himself.
"I..." Louis begins, trails off. Fingers following the near-circle of his own teeth in Daniel's throat. His heartbeat rising. Uncertain of what feels familiar in this moment, no connective tissue to hook into between now and—
When? San Francisco?
Daniel didn't have a scar yet, in San Francisco.
Takes a breath.
"I wanted," he starts and stops again. His finger catches on the low edge of the bite. Says, "I missed you," even though it isn't an answer. "I keep dreaming you."
Daniel. Lestat. Claudia. Fragments coming together easier in his subconscious than with conscious effort in his waking hours.
The scars are sensitive, sometimes. Skin texture and nerve endings that were mangled enough to regrow in odd ways; over the years he's felt the area go numb, tingle, itch, it's been nothing, it's been pleasant to touch. He had forgotten about it for a while, once his skin started to sag enough to camouflage it. Just a scar on his memory.
Louis' touch seems to connect a circuit. Does funny things to him.
"What are we doing, when you dream about me?"
Pushing. He has to know. He was always going to come to Dubai.
Disorienting, finding an incongruity. A sick swoop of a feeling, trying to walk down well-trod steps and finding one missing.
Daniel didn't have this in San Francisco. Had the raw, ripped open mess Louis bit into him and Armand had begrudgingly healed, late enough with little enough effort that the scar remained under the crusting blood. Louis hadn't touched Daniel at all in Dubai, not until he was leaving.
But he's touched him here. Remembers. Daniel's breath had hitched just this way. It could only have happened in the near present.
"Talking," comes slowly. "I dream of us talking so much."
Memories caught between two rooms, pastiches of burning and chilly serenity. Daniel old and young and old again, tape recorders and microphones and the slant of his smile a constant.
"Sometimes I—"
A pause. Louis' fingers continue their slow loop of progress around the bite.
"Sometimes you let me get close," Louis says quietly. "Sometimes."
Tempered with, "Sometimes you tell me I'm a monster. You leave."
But less, that last one. Less, since Armand had gone. Since Louis had left Dubai. Louis feels the chill of suspicion, of understanding.
A confession-that's-not, because Louis is already here, close. Daniel's smile is sheepish and self-deprecating, sitting practically tangled up with him. He could lean forward, press a kiss to his forehead. But why would he do that? They're not...
They're just not. Armand wasn't ever going to look at boats.
Scans the past few minutes, but he's not sure what Louis means. Tips his head, brows knit together. Pretty sure they've got it all out, fumbling all the way, even though Louis has still not established any boundaries or given him a straight answer. Daniel's starting to feel like he might be permanently lost with this. But he supposes this is what he gets for trying to have a regular, meaningful conversation, and not an interview. Bad at acting like a real person.
An apologetic shake of the head, at the abruptness of the backtracking.
"You said I should know what you thought of me. About my performances, when you first arrived."
Something left untouched at the moment, something Louis comes back for now.
"We can leave it," he offers, hand fanning across the bite mark on Daniel's neck. "I only wondered."
Not a complete thought. Louis comes to a stop, watching his face. Trying to get a grasp around an absence in his mind. A fragment, an outline where maybe Louis was touching him and maybe Daniel wasn't pulling away. Maybe a dream, nothing else, and he's embarrassing them both.
—Not pleading this time. Mildly exasperated. Louis will be able to feel the sudden flush that blooms on his neck, up to his cheekbones. A silent are you kidding me vibe.
"I thought we had sex. And you were putting on your weird kink thing like I wasn't going to notice it was a weird kink thing."
Armand was certainly aware that Daniel thought about him (them) sexually, even if he wasn't doing anything about it - couldn't, thanks to illness and medication. Just a creepy old man sitting about the past and then dying of mortification when Louis had laughed and said they'd never slept together.
A complicated tangle of emotions cross Louis' face. The misplaced urge to laugh. The bruising pang recalling Armand, drinking from him with Daniel on the far side of the table.
And something deeper, something in his chest turning over as he feels Daniel's skin warming under his fingers.
Louis had gone fishing a few more times after that Daniel knows of. Unreasonable to think he had never done it without remarking on anything— again, he knows Armand did, Armand has an itemized list of the nastier things Daniel idly thought of, and has informed him, in explicit detail, because Armand is insane.
Everyone was thinking about sex in that goddamn penthouse. Rashid was. Raglan wasn't even there except to look very startled in the hallway when collecting Daniel and he was.
"I friendzoned you," he says, forcibly deadpan. Just a little strain. "Try to contain your disappointment."
A split second where Louis can't. Doesn't. Where Daniel says this and Louis believes him, because he's asking about now, not then. Things change. Louis left him with Armand. Daniel is a vampire now. Some of the ease ebbs out of Louis' body, tension flowing in after.
"Okay," first, and then, "I see."
Recalibrating. Feeling Daniel's pulse beat beneath the scarring, the warmth of his skin. Fitting in friendzoned alongside everything else they've said, that Daniel's said.
Turns over a handful of things in his mind. Stalls on what to say, what to ask. So looks at Daniel instead, into his face, his fingers still at Daniel's neck even as he loosens his grip on Daniel's chin. A little compromise, while Louis finds his footing.
"It was a 'no' in San Fransisco, and then you laughed about it in Dubai," Daniel says. "I'm trying not to be a creep about it, but you're taking me in here, sitting in bed with you, kissing my hand. Are you fucking with me?"
"I'm not fucking with you," is so immediate, a little incredulous. Shakes some heavier weight loose from Louis' tone, rattles him loose from the encroaching sense of rejection.
Yes, maybe he had been fucking with Daniel in Dubai. In those first weeks. It had been meant to serve a purpose, and it had failed anyway. Louis lost control of the interview. His whole life came apart. It hadn't mattered that he'd sat Daniel down to watch him drink deep from Armand's throat, in the end. Daniel hadn't been wrong-footed in any meaningful way.
Daniel lays these things out. Louis had said no in San Francisco. He'd laughed in Dubai. And they are here now, after all those things, and Louis finds himself unsure if he should be touching Daniel at all.
Asks, "Do you think I don't want you?"
Semi-aware that the answer must be yes, given the question.
His voice goes up at the end, like it's a question, even though it shouldn't be. But apparently it is? Once again: what the fuck are we doing.
"Because you don't."
An echo, an internal flinch, He didn't even want me in the end, like that was somehow more wounding than being nearly violently murdered. But Daniel could be murdered by a car or a bad stumble down the stairs, the sexual rejection was somehow much worse.
"All that and— you spent weeks talking to me about Lestat, and now I know the guy, and he's obsessed with you, too. And maybe, maybe when I was a kid I was alright, but I know what I look like now. Which is fine. There are upsides." Rambling. Oh god, get him out of here. "I'm just— I'm saying, it's fine. You don't have to, whatever this is, you don't have to offer me table scraps, I understand the score."
A beat somewhere mid-ramble where Louis thinks of kissing him.
But he isn't certain Daniel would welcome it, wouldn't take offense, so the impulse is swept aside. Feels Daniel's heartbeat ticking up and up underneath his fingertips. Waits out the rush of words until Daniel pauses to take a breath.
"I want you."
Curbing the impulse to say a handful of other things first that Daniel might argue his way past.
"This isn't about me and Lestat. There are no table scraps," he presses on. And on and on to murmur, "You don't have to want me back. It's alright if you don't."
Because maybe Daniel doesn't. Louis won't touch his mind, doesn't cheat and look inwards to see if the answer rises to the surface.
Wry, but fond. Daniel's already told him point blank how he's thought of him. Friendzoned, ha ha, is a measure about respect, but about self-preservation, too. He doesn't want his heart broken. He doesn't know if he feels enough to be broken-hearted about the inevitable draw back together between Lestat and Louis (he isn't fucking stupid), but it's as close as anything, probably. Louis means so much to him.
What to do. Well.
Just fucking send it.
"I don't want to lose you, or fuck anything up. Will you talk to me about how you feel? I just... I don't really get it, not that I'm not flattered, but... you have to understand, I've had a fair amount of time to resign myself to dying alone and being full stop undesirable."
Things Louis can understand in the abstract, but has no lived frame of reference for. A lifetime spent in a thirty-three year old body, eternity stretching out before him. Having gone from his mother's house to Lestat, to Armand.
Louis alone now for the first time in his life. Has been in contemplation of it, and even that is nothing like what Daniel is speaking of.
Will you talk to me about how you feel? prompts a small smile, aware of his failings. Aware that he is uniquely unequipped to vocalize the things he feels. They are bigger than he is. Bigger than his body, bigger than any of the words he could speak aloud to try and tell Daniel what he feels for him.
"You'll never lose me."
As a side-note. A certainty offered casually off the cuff. There is no world in which Louis would cut himself off from Daniel.
But he is keeping a hand to himself, does not reach back for Daniel's face even as his opposite hand lingers, possessive in spite of how lightly his fingers are set, over the ringed bite at Daniel's throat.
"You don't get it? Why I feel the way I do for you?"
Hedging, a little. Stepping around the enormity of the emotion, the instinctive flinch away from the vulnerability of it.
Daniel talks to Lestat. It can't be a surprise, that Louis falters here.
Louis says this thing, and Daniel believes that Louis believes it, but Louis has never been married to Daniel, never gotten in a bad bad fight with him, never had his trust accidentally betrayed because Daniel is good at remembering details about cases and bad at remembering what hurts.
"I can get it halfway, probably," he says. Trying to be the straight shooter since it seems like Louis is stuck in mysterious mode. "And I don't just mean 'emotionally yes, physically no', because emotionally I know where your bed is made, we spent weeks dissecting it."
Yes, Daniel talks to Lestat. The man that appears to be the north star on Louis' emotional compass. In turn, it can't be a surprise that Daniel is incredulous that Louis is offering up this reveal.
"And... it." Ok. Okokok. He can articulate this, he's a professional writer. "I'm lucky. Some guys get old and they can only get off thinking about girls that look like they did when they were in high school. That was never me. There's never been a decade where I didn't think Jane Fonda was hot. I'd give Mark Hamill a handjob in an airport bathroom today, he's still a cute twink as far as I'm concerned. My tastes expanded with me, aged with me. It's not that I think people who look younger than me are offputting now, but there's definitely a disconnect that I've cultivated on purpose. My oldest daughter is 40."
..ish? 40ish? Is she 38? Ah fuck. Well anyway
Perspective. Wordvomit.
"I felt guilty thinking about you, thinking about fake 'Rashid' and his Sharia French maid outfit, whatever else. Not as guilty as I should have, probably, but still. And I've fucked some women that are way too young for me because they're freaks into old men, now that I can. Same thing. But you're not that, you're not a lunatic in line to get a book signed who I'll never see again. So—"
Where the fuck is he going with this.
"You're right, I don't really get it. I get me about you. You about me, I don't get."
A twinge of guilt in Louis, remembering. Remembering that sliver of guilt in Daniel, the performance they had put on the exacerbate it. Not all things are excused by how combative they'd been then. A little restless shift of his fingers along Daniel's neck.
It's late, for an apology. Maybe a smaller harm when set alongside the many other ways Louis has failed Daniel.
Maybe an apology, when Daniel will let him give one. Later.
In the moment, Louis' eyes move over Daniel's face. Watches him. Takes in all these things he's saying.
"Daniel," Louis murmurs, voice low into the space between them. "I've been thinking of you for fifty years."
Every book. Every article. Interviews. TV appearances. The only threads of connection Louis could maintain, keeping his distance because he'd thought he'd almost killed him. Daniel. The fascinating boy. Louis had wanted him from the start, sitting at the bar with his clunky tape recorder and eager fumbling. Had wanted him in Dubai, with his sleek laptop and needling questions.
Daniel, honing the thing that made him different all those years ago. Daniel looks at a person, and he sees the truth. Has learned how to dig it out, arguing all the while. As appealing now as it had been then.
Voice edging raw as he admits, "I still remember what you taste like."
Are these things enough? Louis, hyperaware of all the places Daniel is touching him. Of his fingers on Daniel's skin. Louis says these things and they're only half, because the rest is overwhelming. Too much to say.
And waiting until I look like this was the best bet? You couldn't have asked me to dinner at age fifty-five? Fifty-five was a pretty good year. You paid attention that whole time and I never annoyed the shit out of you? My Twitter account is so bad. My second wife published all of our angry emails and I look like a psychopath in them.
He has all of that, incredulous and insecure defense mechanisms, a rocket barrage as always, covering his escape. Good at reading people, and Louis didn't want him, and Daniel was hurt, stupidly hurt, and for some fucking reason there's still a bruise, even though he knows - especially now, he knows - that if Louis had fucked him he'd have killed him. No interview, no mood turn, just the routine like all the other boys.
What's death beside the next trophy, though. Maybe Daniel didn't think he'd die.
And look. He didn't. Armand killed him and he's fine, and this train of thought is going places because Daniel's mind is still whirring, until, until—
What?
He's going to say all that, but he doesn't, because Louis says something he's said before, but he hasn't. Has he? Daniel is staring at him in a different way, a sharp frown on his face. A jolt. Reality, shifting.
And Louis looks taken aback. Something like dread digging claws into his chest, tightening as Louis looks back at Daniel, register his expression.
They're laying down, but Louis feels unsteady anyway, hearing Daniel—
Did Daniel pluck this from his head? Unlikely. Uncharacteristic. If he'd been prodding around Louis' mind already, he'd hardly have needed to coax Louis into saying anything aloud.
And Louis has all this dread. This disorienting sense of retreading, recognition attached to nothing, no structure to hang this thought upon.
"Yes," Louis says slowly, thumb coming to rest in the hollow of Daniel's throat. "Are you listening to me?"
Listening as shorthand. As in: are you touching my mind?
A question that Louis knows has a single answer.
A question that leads them to a different question, harder to map out.
Sinking. Disorienting. Just a self indulgent fantasy seeping into dreams, dreams he surely has while he'd been there that he forgot— and even in thinking that line of rationale, something tips. Had it then, but not then? Somehow it feels like a knife twist. It could have been ruinous and explosive, it could have killed the whole interview, isn't that what, isn't it—
"It was a dream," sounds uncertain. A plea. Let it be a dream. "That you'd look at a dying old man. Not something that would actually happen. And you said that, in the dream. And you told me, because I asked you."
And Louis had touched him, the scars he's still fascinated with, and come so close, even closer than they are right now.
Louis touching him now, feeling the world tilt. Expression on his face familiar because he'd worn it before sitting alongside Daniel, no longer at the opposite end of the long dining table but near. Near enough that Daniel could see so clearly how Louis' face crumpled into hurt, into confusion. Memory coming slow to him, all things colored by betrayal.
He'd wondered what else he was missing. What more had been neatly pruned out of his head.
A dream, Daniel says. Louis' breath coming too fast, unsteady, heartbeat loud in his ears as he says, "Bitter, at first. I could taste the drugs, and the beer."
Disorienting, yes. Words that echo into an absence. Watching Daniel's face. Saying this aloud, unable to stop.
"You were underneath," as Louis' thumb draws up and then down Daniel's throat. "Black licorice. Tea like Grace'd make me when I lived in our mama's house."
A flashpaper memory of Daniel straightening beneath his fingers, looking up at him. Detached. A dream. Watching Daniel for recognition, for a repetition of something they have already done together, once.
Daniel touches Louis' face, cradles it. Trying to comfort him while he can hear his heart go faster in distress. It's fucked. This is fucked. His eyes close in denial at how familiar it is, black licorice and tea. It's what Louis said in the dream, and he'd had no dismissive comment about it in response, he'd just let—
"What'd I ask you to do?" Eyes open again, staring at Louis. It couldn't have been real. "Before you got up,"
like there's a sequence of events in dreams, come on
"I asked you to do something."
Don't. It can't be real, Armand was in the room, wasn't he? Louis wouldn't have done anything with Armand standing in the entryway, watching them, like he watches everything in all of Daniel's dreams, a glow-eyed grim reaper.
Not the same as remembering San Francisco. No recording. Daniel hasn't worked his theory out in advance. He isn't seated adjacent to Louis with all his notes and his evidence, steady even as Louis falters.
And Louis does falter.
Not because he doesn't know the answer to the question. He has it, brow creasing into a frown as he thinks back. The memory comes hazily into focus, soft-edged, fogged even as Louis says, "A movie."
Half a thought, answer pared down to bare bones, while Louis' mind races ahead of the question. Dreamy flashbulb pops of recollection, the afterimage burning behind his eyes.
Armand looking down at him, his fingers in Daniel's hair.
A shaky breath. Daniel feels anger wash up and over him, because he's seen Armand, seen him several times, and it's fucked up, sure, everything between them is a mess, and Daniel has always assumed there's more just because Armand is a minefield of bullshit, but are you kidding him.
"In the dream, there's like— it's two layers. What I'm dreaming of, you, and my separate awareness of it being ad ream, and Armand is there the whole time. It had to have been a dream."
Where Daniel moves onwards to anger, Louis is still mired in the memory as it comes to him in parts and pieces, starts and stops. Out of order. Flashes of Daniel's face tipped up to him, Daniel's hand setting down the aluminum can on the table, Daniel asking him if he felt real.
Daniel kissing him, and kissing him, and kissing him.
And then Armand.
Armand with his hand in Daniel's hair.
Armand holding Louis' gaze as his own flared bright as Louis asks quietly, steady in spite of the look on Armand's face, Don't hurt him, Armand, and Armand touched his cheek, claws pricking skin, as Armand told Louis, Rest, Louis.
Here and now, Daniel is touching him. The only thing anchoring him to his body.
"He didn't leave me anything."
So he remembers it now. Daniel brings the memory back to him, just as he'd done before.
"But I..." a trailing pause. "I have some of it now."
And then, "He wasn't there, at first. He was in our bed."
Until he wasn't. Until he was touching Daniel, his fingers at Louis' jaw drawing him up and out of their kiss.
"He was in your bed, and you were... You're nuts, you know that."
A little horrified, but fond. Louis had been pacified into believing Armand was too docile of a creature to ever be a real threat, but Daniel had taken one look at him and knew it was a fucking megalodon. An old, old predator, made for nothing but hunger, and teeth. And Louis went and sat on Daniel's lap and made out with him while that thing was waiting in their marriage bed.
And Daniel let him. Encouraged it. Pulled him closer and kissed him back. Because he wanted Louis. In the 70s, in Dubai.
Now. He's tried to kill it, but he still does.
"I don't think I remembered - dreamed it again - until after." After dying. "Must have something to do with... getting patched up."
Last minute swerve away from Armand's blood. His blood, disintegrating the stitches on his own power left within his fledgling's mind. But then again, maybe it's just healing. Parkinson's isn't a brain disease quite like that, it hadn't left a mark there so literally, but the stress had.
Some prickling awareness of what's been omitted, but Louis lets it pass. Doesn't care to invoke how often he drank from Armand, how it hadn't seemed to make any difference at all. Years and years drinking from his throat, and still all that Armand sealed away in his mind remained securely veiled.
"We had an arrangement, for a while."
Louis says this almost too himself, a murmur spoken with his attention still turned inward. Remembering. A blur of recollection, holding all Louis' focus even as Daniel says these things.
Louis had wanted Daniel. Maybe wanted the argument too, something in his body clawing desperately out of the stasis he'd been held in so long. Living seventy-seven years and wanting the things Armand kept on a high shelf, pushed far to the back. Things Louis had never been allowed to touch unless they were fighting, and they hadn't fought in years.
(That he remembered.)
A little flutter of focus. Enough of a tug at the edges of his attention to draw out, "You've been better than me at it. Remembering."
There is surely a difference between vampires sharing blood, and someone being resurrected with it. Armand killed Daniel, and his blood brought him back into this unlife; they are bonded, Daniel can feel him. Something about it has shaken loose the worst of Armand's surgery to reveal hidden damage, or something about Daniel's inherent doggedness, or more likely, a combination.
"The Annoying Gift," he deadpans.
An arrangement. Oh, Louis. After a moment of hesitation, fighting with himself over the dumbest shit, he leans forward and presses a kiss to the older vampire-younger man's forehead.
"Gotta wonder if we're just crazy. For all of it."
Even in this moment, half-consumed with the revelation of what came before, what Armand took, what it is to recover it now, Louis' breath catches when Daniel leans in.
A kiss pressed to his forehead. Louis feels the strain of self-control, containing the impulse to lean up to catch Daniel's mouth as if he has any right to it at all. Daniel kisses his forehead. Louis shudders out a breath.
Says, "No."
Not crazy. No. Crazy is all the rest. The choices Louis made before. Daniel was something else entirely.
Or if it's crazy, it simply manifests the same in them both. Mirrored instincts, a choice that was so simple it was hardly a choice at all.
"Not crazy. It was crazy to spend fifty years away from you."
To say nothing of what else Louis had locked himself away from. What he had made of almost eighty years.
Baby steps. He's not actively dying anymore, and Louis is free, and Daniel does have a worry in the back of his head that if Lestat found them making out, he'd do worse than just make them forget. He's pretty sure if Lestat had found Louis and Daniel giggling at each other in a bar in 1973, that he'd have just killed Daniel right there, and saved everybody the trouble.
And doesn't Louis deserve that kind of devotion, no matter how fucked it is? Yeah. He wishes it could come without the danger of intimate violence, though. It makes his heart ache.
Louis says—
That.
Doesn't know why it touches him so tenderly, but it does. A disarming fantasy, to be wanted so sincerely. Maybe that's why he has such an irritating kernel of understanding for Lestat. They both run people off by being themselves.
"We can do fifty years easy, now." Another forehead kiss. At this point he's just venting the desire for something else, and not subtly. Restless, conflicted. "I wish... I could remember it normally."
It's not teasing, but it feels like a kind of tease. Being wound up, each time Daniel leans in closer. Letting out a breath each time Daniel kisses him somewhere other than his mouth.
Fifty years. A hundred. Two hundred. Louis can imagine these things, dreamy possibility. The ways they'd keep each other busy, the war that would burn itself out and whatever new thing would occupy them. Whatever they were to each other. Whatever Louis and Lestat became. All these pieces easy to align now that Louis isn't looking at Daniel and seeing time and life slip away from him.
(Seeing his eyes, and knowing, inescapably, who they have to thank for it.)
Louis winds fingers into the front of Daniel's t-shirt. Knuckles against his chest, a restless kneading sort of contact. Impulse restrained. Wanting, wanting, wanting. Reluctant to overstep.
Though it's inevitable that they'll drift back at some point, Daniel's eyes have settled to green, for now, like Louis and his feelings for him have taken hold over the bloodline that makes them twist yellow-orange. Not the clear tinted water of his mortal life, but sea glass now, dense and unearthly. Perhaps a downgrade, but he'll take it, an easy swap for kicking Parkinson's.
(Still. Over him, like a shroud. Armand, Armand, Armand.)
"I remember we were talking. About getting out of the penthouse, the tower, just doing something. It felt like... kids sneaking out past curfew."
Even though it wasn't going to happen, and maybe Daniel knew that even then. Intuition telling him that the next time he saw Louis, he'd be placid again, having shaken off his restlessness and be ready to gently decline. Now he knows getting out just for the fuck of it would have been the thing Louis wanted most.
"And then you came over to me. And I couldn't really believe it, but I just. Wanted you too much to argue about it, even if you were fucking with me. Even though I couldn't do anything but that."
Careless, as if it were so easy. Maybe it had felt easy. Like Louis had forgotten how contained he was.
"I like when you argue with me," is barely a surprise. They've been trading jabs since the beginning. Daniel, irreverent from the start, still dismissing Louis blithely while inhaling a line of Louis' cocaine. He'd liked that so much. Too much to fuck Daniel just inside the door the way he had any of the others.
A breath. Shallow, eyes moving from Daniel's mouth to his eyes, telling him, "I remember touching you here."
Fingers tracing a circle around the bite. Offering this fragment while he tries to drag the whole of it out of the haze in his mind. What Daniel's face had looked like. What his pulse had done.
Except for now, he could say, but there's a lopsided smile that covers it. Daniel likes it, too. Likes that Louis likes it. Likes that he puts up with it, getting poked about how serious and dour he can be. Likes, too, how serious and dour he can be. I like you better this way, all...
"You did." And Daniel shivers. Had he then? His eyes flutter closed, remembering then, enjoying now, and open again. "I've had to make up so much weird shit over the years to explain it. But I never got scar revision done, even when a dermatologist tried to sell me on it."
"I wanted to take a little," he admits, hushed. "A small drink, before you went. I thought maybe you'd let me, if I asked."
Because that had been the half-formed thought already. He wouldn't kill Daniel. Daniel would live. It wasn't even about hunger. Louis had wanted so badly to taste him.
"But I lost control."
Daniel had pissed him off. Louis regrets it.
"I'm sorry. I don't think I was able to say it then."
Maybe he had, somewhere in that stretch of time with Daniel laid alongside him on that little bed. Louis, delirious with pain and exhaustion, saying things into the slip of space between them as he drifted in and out of awareness. Maybe he had apologized.
Maybe he should apologize now for how much he likes the scar that remains.
"I would have let you. I'd have let you do anything, Louis. You know that."
Considering the insane thing that Daniel asked. An awful part of him wonders what Louis thinks of that now— Daniel, immortal, through someone else's blood. But though he's got a nasty insecure streak about it having happened at 69 (nice), twenty would have been too fucking stupid, and in the world where he's Louis mortal gopher as they wait for him to be 'ready'... well, that sounds like a disaster.
"I forgave you ages ago."
He rubs Louis' cheek with his thumb. Starts to say something, stops. Thinks about it, as he watches Louis closely.
Hearing this offer is a little like flicking a spark onto dry kindling. Louis' whole body flushes hot, breath catching in his throat.
If he wants to, Daniel says. He wants. He wants so much, so deeply. Has this soft-edged memory in his mind that is porous and detached. Daniel is touching him, has kissed his face, says this thing while his eyes shift green and Louis is overwhelmed by all of it in combination.
"I want to kiss you," Louis whispers, despairing. "I want to taste you again."
Has the presence of mind to wonder if Daniel tastes different. Would that shatter Louis in some way, to drink from him and taste traces of Armand?
"I don't want this to be a dream anymore."
This, the way they want each other. The way Louis has kept so many of his desires this century. Hidden, compressed.
Like in Dubai (not a dream, but why, would Armand even fucking answer if he asked), Daniel finds himself unable to put up the resistance that he thinks he probably should. Stupid of him, to want someone this much, someone he knows is destined elsewhere. But Louis says he wants to kiss him, and taste him, and have it be real, like Daniel always wanted him to feel real, and what the fuck is he supposed to do?
What's the point of a heart if you don't break it every so often. Who better to shatter it against, than the person he cares for most in the whole goddamn world.
"Okay," is soft, and tense with emotion. "Yeah. Louis. Come here."
Smooth? No. He's never going to be.
But this time when he leans in, the kiss lands on Louis' mouth.
Daniel kisses him this time. (A piece of a memory: asking, receiving permission, leaning in to catch Daniel's mouth in a kiss.) Daniel says, Come here and Louis slides across the coverlet even as Daniel leans in.
Eager. Wound up, more than he'd realized before Daniel put hands on him and drew him into a kiss.
Louis makes a low, ragged sound against Daniel's mouth. A relief, to be kissed. To feel Daniel's hands on his face, holding him as they kiss. There is a creak of mattress and whisper of fabric as Louis closes the space between them. Hooks an ankle around Daniel's knee, tangling them together.
They kiss. The memory snaps together, grows clearer as Daniel holds him. As Louis' nails scrape so lightly across Daniel's nape beneath the soft collar of his cardigan. Idle wandering; his fingers always return to the mark his teeth left.
They break for breath. Barely enough time between one moment and the next for Louis to murmur, "Was it like this?"
Prompting. Tell him, Daniel. Say what you remember.
It makes everything in him jolt. Kissing Louis, electric and revelatory but familiar, which cases an ache like a wound, knowing it happened and it wasn't a dream, it was pulled away from them.
What else? Can't think of it now, it's too fucking much. He has Louis, feels him, smells him, everything is just Louis, the itch in the scar on his neck, the beat of dead hearts. A thought starts to surface, if Armand will know, if Armand will make him answer for this, how bad the fight will be— but he sends it away. Fuck off, all of that.
"This is probably better. I'm not half-hoping you aren't serious so I don't embarrass myself further."
Poetry. But what do you want, his dick literally did not work, then.
"You sat on my lap. I didn't care about it," (because it was uncomfortable, because Daniel was in constant pain, but Louis sapped it out of him), "I wanted you too much."
It happened, and it wasn't a dream. Louis kisses him and feels it like an echo. Kisses him and feels how Daniel makes the recollection sharper, stronger. Real. A real thing that happened, that they started and weren't permitted to finish.
(Armand's claws pricking at his jaw, the expression on his face like ice, anger so cold it sliced, it cut.)
"I didn't know."
No denial that Louis had been in his head, touching his thoughts. Fascinating still, always, endlessly. Distracting. But not with enough depth to know. Or maybe Louis simply hadn't been allowed to look at what it was Daniel felt for him.
Louis, a monster. Louis, who had bitten him. Almost killed him. Louis hadn't known there was anything else. Daniel, wanting him like this. Different than the kind of attraction Louis had cultivated like a jump scare, like an elbow to the ribs that Daniel would always, always return in kind.
Speaking so close their noses bump, their lips brush, telling him, "I am. Serious."
Corrects himself, "I was serious. I'm still serious now."
Knows this even with only parts and pieces, with only the sense of Daniel's expression looking up at him.
Daniel, in typical Daniel form, wishes he could remember all of it. When had Armand really appeared? Did he watch, while keeping himself obfuscated, or did he just eavesdrop with telepathy? Did he and Louis argue after? Did he guide Daniel back to his bedroom himself? Why? Why?
He'll have to run these down. Because he has to run everything down, the instinct in him can't be killed, not even by weeks of power-tripping on a rock tour while newly undead.
Has to know, because he has to know. And maybe because he has to tell Louis, too. Louis, who he cares for so much, who deserves to have all the things taken from him restored. Thousands of victims, but Daniel still thinks Louis is the better person. Too many reasons. He wants Louis to be happy— and it's so strange to think Louis would have him be a part of achieving that.
Just some junkie. Still. And yet Louis says serious.
A laugh breathed into the space between them, for how overwhelming the question is. Overwhelming in what it provokes in Louis, what it stirs in him for an answer.
"Too much."
Tempering, obscuring. Louis wants too much from him. He had described to Daniel what it had been, wanting Lestat. Knows that to be within him, still, knows that holding himself apart from it is necessary. He knows that the way he wants Daniel runs on a parallel, and knows Daniel would find it unbelievable.
"But we got time."
A couple weeks. Then what? Daniel goes back to Lestat. Louis continues hunting the past across continents, continues fights he isn't telling Daniel about. They come back together, when?
Logistics and practicality that Louis stops, puts out of his head for the moment.
"Will you tell me what you want?" comes as Louis winds impossibly closer. Narrows the space between them, hooked in by his fingers in Daniel's shirt, his knee hitched around Daniel's leg. Practicing restraint, when Louis wants to kiss him again. Spend hours on just that, making up for lost time.
Daniel pulls him closer, and kisses him. For real, this time. I am serious, even if he's nervous about it all still. But he wants him. Badly, and so much. Just like in San Fransisco, wanting Louis most of all the things he wanted, recklessly pulling his shirt off and trying to bait it first thing. Just like in Dubai, where he wanted to do the interview and get out of there alive and have the book, didn't want to end up fucking murdered by Armand, but wanted Louis more.
Like now. He wants to talk about it, wants to not end up screwed over, but he wants Louis. More. Most. He wants to know what his fucking tonsils taste like. Unfuckingbelievable that Louis wants him, but Daniel doesn't have enough moral fiber to keep saying no to something he wants. It's Louis' bad decision, Daniel's done all he can to dissuade him.
Daniel reels him back and Louis goes, laughing softly into the kiss. Poorly timed amusement fading away as Louis sinks into Daniel, no space left between them. Louis' knee hitched up over Daniel's thigh, fingers in his hair. Whole body going loose, flushed warm under Daniel's hands.
They should talk about it. Louis should do better, give Daniel the conversation before they pitch headlong into anything.
Except they are something. They've always been. Louis has been serious for fifty years. Serious even when Daniel was half a memory, when they were missing pieces of each other.
They can talk about it. They will. Daniel will ask his questions and Louis will answer, and they'll argue a little, maybe. (Probably.) Louis tells himself all of these things as they kiss, as he licks into Daniel's mouth, crowds him like they aren't already as close as can possibly be. Tells him, "I'd give you anything," between one kiss and the next. Bites down on his lower lip, breathes, "Anything" against his mouth, easy promises to make Daniel, who has already offered this to Louis.
Easy to promise him anything. They've survived everything together. Louis trusted him with all of himself before they even knew who they were to each other.
Stupid to promise a selfish addict anything. Fortunately, Daniel has grown since the 1970s. He's not going to say Then never leave me like the black hole he is. Knows better. He's just going to accept that anything is beyond his ability to believe— but appreciating it is not. That Louis is willing to say it fills him with a stupid, light feeling. Like driving too fast in a car and laughing about it. Heady, exciting, dangerous.
"Except a direct answer this whole time," he teases him in a faux-annoyed tone. Daniel kisses him, and kisses him, unreal, until he pulls Louis closer (somehow), "because you're so mysterious. And a dork."
Art nerd. Fashion diva.
Daniel rolls onto his back and takes Louis with him, easy like this, as a creature, and he looks up, obviously marveling. It had hurt in Dubai, but he was willing to ignore it. Now, there's nothing. Not even discomfort. He can just look up at Louis, hand on his cheek, and closeness is all there is.
Anything whispered again, over the heels of feigned annoyance, words Louis has never been called in any context but laughs anyway.
Might have pressed the point, if Daniel hadn't said this other thing.
"Oh?"
A choice to offer polite interest in this timely assertion, as Louis settles himself over Daniel. Loose-limbed still, sprawling across Daniel's chest, aligning their hips, tangling their thighs. An easy drape of contact, fingers tracing idle circle over the scarring at Daniel's throat. Touches his face, now that their position better affords him the leeway. Close. Not close enough.
From this vantage point, Louis takes a moment to consider him. To weigh this statement. Parse whether or not Daniel is telling him this thing like a joke, or something else.
Louis wants to kiss him again. Louis has to content himself with fingers toying with the curls at Daniel's temple, waiting for him to expand on this point before they go any further.
"Yeah, 'oh', so if I fumble anything just. Tell me."
He is sexually attracted to men, he's had a lot of sex with a lot of men, and he still considers himself straight, because—
Because. Wrapped up in the behaviors he was supposed to have left behind, and so he left that there there too instead of the harder thing, and took all his feelings of repression and survivor's guilt out on a book, because what else does a writer do. He's had sex with men since, and in non-transactional contexts, but those, too, are painted in shades he might not be entirely proud of. Infidelity, lies, abandonment.
"I guess we all tell ourselves things."
How did Louis phrase it. A lie he told himself about himself, and Daniel looked at him and said it was just about drugs, so. He's out of practice, airport handjob jokes aside.
Louis' fingers curl in Daniel's hair, thumbs across his temple. Touching to touch, watching Daniel say these things. Understanding them better now, with all the pieces of San Francisco, with his own past brought into clearer focus.
How Louis had swaggered into bars and picked up young men and called himself queer, but somewhere deep in his body for a very long time had felt shame. Sometimes still feels shame.
And Louis has lived many more years than Daniel.
"Is that still something you want to tell yourself?"
Even after Louis had stopped telling himself the lie, it took decades for the truth to come easy, settle without discomfort. Thinks less of Daniel's warning against fumbles and more of Daniel's comfort, of what Daniel will want in the future.
As if it's so simple as this, navigating these identities between them.
He likes women, too, so he can get away with it. No matter that getting away with it sometimes felt worse than being celibate, and he's sure it contributed to the failure of his marriages. Dishonesty with oneself about intimacy tends to turn corrosive, even if there's never a need to challenge it. There was a bleak kind of relief hidden in the betrayal of his body. The issue was taken away from him entirely.
And now—
Now, he's still only fucked women, and he's got bigger things to be dishonest about. He just doesn't want to be dishonest with Louis. For some reason that's worse. (If Alice could kill him with her mind she would.)
"Not right now."
Maybe later. He can't silence a lifelong habit overnight, and he'll probably grapple with it. But not now. He touches Louis' face, looks at him in wonder. In awe. Even though he's still a nerd who can't give him a straight (hah) answer, the reticent vampire. Daniel wants to be here. Now. With him.
Easy. Louis knows who he is. He can let Daniel wind his way towards that knowledge in his own time, so long as Daniel doesn't stop touching him, reaching for him, wanting him.
And then Louis' weight shifts, a sinuous arch of movement up to brush a kiss to Daniel's mouth. Suppresses the urge to bite him, to lick into his mouth, to be too hungry too much too overwhelming even if the traces of that desperation live in his body, telltale for someone who knows where to look.
"Will you still take me to a terrible movie?" is a real request, even if it a little like deliberately pressing down onto a wound. This memory Armand took. The way it had felt to kiss him, that first time. The way Daniel had looked at him, the way Daniel had kept kissing him, over and over.
If Louis is telling the truth about all this, about wanting him, fifty years, the way he tastes— there's a dreamlike quality to it, even actual dreams and recovered memories aside. Fairytale shit, except there's blood drinking and monsters and extreme, shared trauma. The way he moves, the feeling of his kiss, it's all... fucking crazy, Louis is unreal, brilliant, weird, shining.
Daniel makes a sound like a laugh, sharp and bright. Wound or not, what a request. (Sometimes bruises feel good. It's the ache.)
"Still want to go on a bad date with me?"
Like, that's what it was, surely. Daniel lifts his head to press a kiss to Louis.
"Yeah. Yeah, let's find ... whatever, who cares what's playing."
Another kiss. Louis makes a soft sound into his mouth, subvocal encouragement. A revelation still, kissing Daniel. That Daniel leans up to kiss him, that they are here and have found their way to this.
It only took fifty years or so.
"I want to go everywhere with you," Louis tells him. A giddy kind of promise, aware of the potential unfurling ahead of them. Years and years to go where they like, anywhere Daniel has ever wished to see or visit. Years to do as they like, together. "Any kind of date, any place."
Louis has been laying low, out of sight. But who would ever look for Louis du Lac in a movie theater, seeing whatever Daniel chose for them?
And there is real appeal in distracting Daniel, even from a terrible movie.
Maddening, to kiss Louis. He thinks some trite thing, 'doesn't know how he kept it together in Dubai, in that stolen moment', but of course he knows, he was dying, it wasn't just that he wanted but couldn't follow through— he couldn't fully feel, so disconnected from himself he was, floating in a fog of chronic pain and medicated malaise.
But it's incredible. He feels better than every fantasy, and fuck, but there have been a lot. Even before, even in those fifty years, sometimes Daniel's attention would stray, and past the fear and panic of twisted memories he'd wonder.
"Louis du Lac, at Disneyland." More kissing, in between it. Daniel hitches one knee up to encourage Louis to settle on him. "Actually, I don't know how long Disneyland is open after dark. Might have to break in."
An inordinate amount of money would change hands in the process, but Louis would pay it.
Louis certainly has never been. Has no desire to go. Has no sense Daniel is serious in this proposal, but offers anyway: Louis would engage in Disneyland, if Daniel had real desire to go.
Breath gone shallow, fingers tightening and loosening in Daniel's hair as Louis settles into the cradle of his hips. Kissing him and kissing him and kissing him, a restless rolling movement of his body down into Daniel's, eventually finding his way to, "I'd take you home."
Home, a concept in flux. Some sense of wavering, Louis' thoughts split between New Orleans and Dubai. Lestat. And Daniel, home is Daniel too.
What the fuck would they do at Disneyland. Put Louis in mouse ears, maybe.
No, quiet dark places, the back row of a movie theater, or a bar somewhere. Casino at a push. Beautiful outdoor scenery. Because Louis can go wherever the fuck he wants, doesn't need to arrange a car unless he wants one. Daniel has no romantic or even very interesting spots tucked away. Haunts only pedestrian places and temporary, liminal spaces, brief stops on all his investigations. Similar, now, to touring. Belongs nowhere. A Californian in New York, a shitty American in the world of the night.
His breath hitches. Louis' weight is good, grounding and inflaming at once. Intimacy is so different like this. Dead, it just feels better.
"Wherever you are works for me," he murmurs.
Home. Daniel doesn't know where he's going, either.
"With you," has nothing to do with location. "I'm going to be with you."
Wherever that might be. (Daniel has to finish the tour. Louis has to finish chasing ghosts.) Maybe Brooklyn. Maybe New Orleans. Maybe Daniel would never want to return to Dubai, given the givens.
A luxury, to decide together. To live together in dozens, hundreds of places. To find one that will be theirs.
Louis bites his lower lip, a nip of blunt human teeth, before Louis asks in a low murmur, "Will you tell me what you want?"
He could guess. He doesn't want to guess. Slotted together this way, hips to hips, chest to chest, nails scratching lightly along Daniel's scalp each time Louis' hand tightens in his hair, Daniel occupies all of Louis' attention. This is good. Kissing the breath from Daniel's mouth is good. Having him laid out beneath him on the bed is good.
In Dubai, Louis knows he had taken the deep intimacy of Daniel's hands on his body and his mouth under his as enough. It is enough now still, even as Louis' body trembles wanting more. Wanting to bite him all over. Wanting to clutch him closer, so close the boundaries between their skin blur.
And then, lower, voice fraying breathless as he says, "I would kiss you like this for hours. It doesn't need to be anything else tonight."
What would Daniel have done, fifty years ago. Scrambled to grab Louis' hand and run away with him into the dark, probably. It's still difficult to fathom, now, that he could be wanted this much, no matter that he's let go of the ledge and let himself wade into these waters, no matter that he can tell Louis is practically vibrating out of his skin for want of more.
He could laugh at himself. Since when are you so scared, Molloy. Just been a long time is all, he supposes. Not since somebody wanted to screw around. Since he gave a fuck about it. Since he really, truly wanted it. And not it, who. Speaking of who, he could also laugh at Louis, who says it doesn't need to be anything else when he feels like he's going to explode.
"Don't hold yourself back like that," he says, against Louis' mouth. Kissing him, touching him, winding himself up and up. "Not when I want you anyway and we both know I like it when it's too much."
Daniel's just bitching and prevaricating because that's what he does. Angles, even with himself, like a lunatic.
"Yes," falls out of Louis' mouth easy, a breath of an answer. Yes in a vibrant impression between their minds as Louis kisses him again. Let's Daniel feel it, the way want turns over in his belly, sparks scattering between them.
Some flicker of caution behind this immediate desire. Wanting to be good to Daniel. Take their time. Be careful with him, a real feat when Louis wants him this way.
Desire held in check for fifty years, known and unknown to Louis. Overwhelming now, finding it met and reflected back to him.
It had been the truth. Louis could do this for hours, torturing them this way. Kissing and kissing until they're both a shuddering mess. Louis wants to see Daniel flushed with the way they want each other, wants to take him all apart, let Daniel take him all apart.
They have time. Louis has to keep reminding himself of that. They have time for everything. Anything. All that they might desire from each other.
"Now?" asked like a private little joke, Louis' hips rolling down against Daniel slowly, deliberately. Fingers catching in his hair, mouth at his jaw. Offering. Assessing.
Yes makes him shiver, and press more kisses to Louis' mouth, artless but passionate. Louis rocks down and Daniel welcomes it, grabbing him to keep him there and close, shifting up to meet him. Still a marvel to do everything easily, painlessly; even before he got sick, the ordinary tiredness of age had made screwing around so tiring and awkward. More of a marvel, that they're both what they are— Daniel's fucked mortals, since, but not another vampire.
"Yeah, why, are you double booked or something?"
It's all in a rush, Daniel stumbling over the hurdles of disbelief and identity. But what if they wait and Louis changes his mind. Wakes up tomorrow after they've made out for hours, and realizes he's made a mistake. Shitty and opportunistic for Daniel to push forward now, greedy despite his nerves and insecurities, but, well, he is who he is.
"Yes," breathed back into Daniel's mouth. Louis bites yes along his jawline after, yes and yes and yes scraped along the high point of his throat. Likes how tightly they hold each other, the encouraging clutch of Daniel's hands as Louis moves into him.
Has to breathe a little laugh at himself, for the thought of delay. Wanting to go slowly while simultaneously wanting all of Daniel now, immediately, and then over and over again after.
"I want you," is corrected with a punctuating nip of teeth as Louis raises his head to look at Daniel. Grin, offer him something more, "I want you every way you can think of. More besides that. I been dreaming of it. You."
All this underscored with the insistent roll of his hips. Instructive. See, it's all true.
Intakes of breath as Louis bites him, doing something to him, there's a new part in his brain since transformation that says Yes more of that harder draw blood now, which is. Fucking weird, and fucking wild, and he thinks he likes it. A lot. Too much? More than bears inspecting, for now. Chill.
"Alright." Breathless as Louis moves against him. Daniel's hard by now, he's sure Louis can tell. Inhale, exhale. Repeats, just a little giddy, "Alright."
Daniel kisses him again and then shifts them once more, now that he's satisfied about feeling Louis' weight on him. Over him, so that he has leverage to push his hands beneath the other man's shirt, feel him as he kisses him, peels back fabric so he can taste his skin as it's exposed. If it's all true, he wants to feel it, taste it—
"Why do I want to bite you everywhere?" is asked with a laugh. Like, he can guess, but.
A hitched groan of sound as Daniel rolls them, already reaching to draw Daniel back to him. A sound that fractures into a laugh as Louis' thighs tighten around Daniel's hips, hand settling at the nape of his neck.
"We're vampires," Louis deadpans, even as he tries to parse out the question. Had he wanted to bite Lestat everywhere when he first saw him? Had it been he or Armand who sank fangs into the other first? Is it intrinsic in him, even if he had never been a vampire? Something innate, wanting someone so badly there is nothing else to do but sink teeth into them?
The way he wants Daniel now, wanting to keep biting him, even with blunt human teeth. Wanting to leave marks and bruises, to hear the sounds Daniel makes, taste him. Press his fingers down onto the marks tomorrow, make new ones when they fade.
Louis' nails scrape lightly along Daniel's nape. Arches up off the bed as Daniel strips off his shirt, drawing his face up to kiss again, and again.
"Gonna make you wait," he murmurs, a low promise. "Gonna make you wait until you're inside me before I let you get teeth in me."
All their bite marks and bruises will fade— except the ones already on Daniel's neck, grotesque impressions of Louis at his most violent, marked permanently. His, in that way, forever.
Again, again, again. Daniel paws all over him, down his chest, tasting the hollow of his throat and lower when he can pull back from kissing. Though it's difficult. He wants more of Louis, who is so fucking beautiful. Who feels like. Like he doesn't know. Can't describe it. Not like the humans he's hooked up with. There's some other quality to it, thrumming between them, an undercurrent to the fishhook of sensation that already links them, electric and magnetic.
"Jesus."
That thought—
Too good. Louis will be able to feel an echo of the flinch that goes through him, desire spilling over into telepathy, unable to be contained.
But.
"Some other time. I can't reliably stop."
This person I'm eating is dying will snap him out of it, but he's yet to get anywhere close to moderation. Hanging out with spiraling rock star Lestat hasn't helped. Excess, indulgence, insanity. No little drinks.
Words that echo in Louis, shared experience. Of being so unable to stop, hunger beyond anything a human experienced. Louis
A flicker of thought to Lestat, to Lestat and Daniel. Things Louis hasn't quite asked about being it feels invasive, prying where he shouldn't.
Daniel had offered, offered to let Louis drink from him, kiss him, keep him in whatever way they wind their way to. His skin burns everywhere Daniel puts his mouth, flushed fever warm under Daniel's hands, and it's overwhelming while simultaneously not being anything near enough.
Louis wanted him. Louis wanted him even when he could hardly remember Daniel.
"I'd let you," is familiar recklessness, is deep trust. Is Louis shivering in response to the flinch of thought that passes between them, feeling Daniel want him and wanting him all the more in return. Louis' fingers hooked beneath Daniel's jaw, tugging him insistently up to bite himself a kiss before Louis tells him, "I want you to. You won't hurt me."
Louis is capable of stopping him, if Daniel can't stop himself. There is blood enough in this building for Louis, for them both, if they go too far.
A thread between them. Not of maker and fledgling, but of their own weaving. Red, like blood, like the line on his laptop audio recorder. It stayed there, stitched and intact, even when they'd both forgotten most of it. Daniel thinks of how he always turned down scar revision. He thinks of Louis reading his books.
He tells his brain: Do not. But there's still a thought, one he's had before. That he's probably in love with Louis. What an idiot. Daniel knows better. And yet, and yet, and yet.
"We don't have to go completely off the edge of the cliff first thing," he says, fond and amused against Louis' mouth. Returning that bite, flat teeth. (Fangs ache to extend, with this talk. He resists.) "Just... let's just. See. If I still even know what I'm doing."
More kissing, he can't get enough of it. Tries not to think about what Louis' blood must taste like. Tastes his skin instead, and leaves a quick-fading hickey on his chest. Slides hands down, lifting off only briefly when he becomes away of how cold the metal of his watch is; takes it off, before palming over the front of Louis' trousers.
One of them should have some restraint. Louis should not be thinking so seriously about testing the limits of Daniel's.
But restraint is difficult. Surprisingly so for Louis, who has felt so little in the past eighty years. The way he wants Daniel is a breathless, consuming rush of a thing, wanting to give him everything, anything. All of it at once, an unshakeable awareness of two weeks measured against the promise of fifty years, a hundred years, two hundred years. Not enough time. There will never be enough.
"Tomorrow then," like a little joke. Ha, ha, waiting twenty-four hours to veer off the edge of a cliff together.
Polite, restless touches roaming across Daniel's shoulders, the nape of his neck, down his back. Curbing the impulse to strip off Daniel's clothing in turn, aware of some discomfort, some self-consciousness, and as loathe to tread over tender territory as Louis is impatient to touch him in turn.
Murmurs, offers, "We can go slow. Figure it out together."
It's not a hardship to linger here, trading kisses back and forth. Letting Daniel's weight bear him down into the mattress while Daniel touches him, while they breathe together, wind each other up to some unbearable height. As long as Daniel is here, as long as Louis is still kissing him, it's enough.
Daniel is at least partly a paradox, being good at restraint, and good at excess. He can wait to do cocaine. And then when he gets it, he does a fuckload of cocaine. Feels like that, now— he'll try to be the voice of reason, but if Louis convinces him, well. He really hasn't learned how to stop, and he knows Louis will taste so, so, so good.
So—
Not quite slow. But Daniel does balk, slightly, at the idea of pulling his own shirt off. Says he can leave it on, does not say why, but it's obvious why. He does not look the way sexually desirable people look, does not feel the way sexually desirable people feel. Louis is sweet enough to want him despite all that, and so Daniel is in no hurry to shove his face in it. Definitely in a hurry to bite the soft skin of Louis' belly, though, even with flat teeth that he makes sure are not elongating in any way.
With hands at the other man's waist, fingers digging beneath clothing— "Can I?"
Unbearable, the way Daniel bites him. It is just the same as Daniel's kisses laid to Louis' forehead, so near to something Louis wants. Something they both want. Daniel bites him and Louis' hips shift, restless, a shudder of unconscious reaction. Louis wants to kiss him again. Louis wants to pin Daniel down into the mattress and bite him everywhere. Louis wants to let Daniel do whatever he wants, give him anything he asks for.
It's overwhelming. Louis remains settled, propped up on one elbow to keep Daniel in his eyeline, only by some miracle of restraint. His heel nudges at Daniel's hip, a small, insistent point of contact as Daniel bites a bruises into his skin.
"Anything," Louis breathes. Says, "Yes," before Daniel can start in about the absence of direct answers.
Presses the word into Daniel's head as Louis sinks fingers into silver-white curls.
Louis has been under someone else's control for decades. Louis is here looking for stolen memories. They've stitching one together right now. Anything is hot and desperate, but what if anything doesn't mean anything. Daniel is going to keep asking.
But Louis also says Yes. And so Daniel undoes his trousers, pulls them down just enough, and mouths over the curve of his cock held in by underwear. If he had any grand ideas about taking his time and savoring this, though, they go out the window quick. He doesn't remember the last time he did this (yes he does, but it was cruel of him, and so he leaves it elsewhere - years, in any event). But he wants to, and not for altruistic reasons of giving Louis something worth it from fucking an old man. Just because he likes it. And wouldn't it be nice, if he's still good at it. Maybe he can get good at it again, if he's not.
His own arousal is so cranked it doesn't bear thinking about. If he pays attention to it he'll go insane. Instead: his mouth, on Louis' cock, thick fingers circling him, and seeing if giving head is like riding a bicycle after all.
A wreck of an exhale, Daniel's name fraying apart in Louis' mouth as Daniel makes good. As Daniel takes him in hand, as Louis' whole body twitches up under the heat of his mouth.
Remembers seeing this in Daniel's head fifty years ago, remembers saying no because more than anything he had wanted Daniel's attention, wanted his voice, wanted to talk to him while the recorder spun on the table between them.
Wants his voice now, absurdly.
His fingers tighten in Daniel's hair. Holds there too tightly, forcibly loosening his grip over and over and over, always sliding back. Some hindbrain need to keep hold of Daniel running away with him, the same urge that wants his teeth in every inch of Daniel's skin.
Maybe it should be embarrassing, how easy it is. How easy Louis is, for this. For Daniel. A thought that swims through his mind and finds no purchase at all, slides away as Louis' thighs flex tight around Daniel's shoulders. His heel has set into the small of Daniel's back, resting there as Louis' breath goes haywire.
"Just—"
Comes all apart in Louis' mouth. A pause, a breath. Some skimming link of his mind across the surface of Daniel's, unsteady impulse narrowly averted. Louis tries again: "That's good. You feel so good."
Selling his mouth as a kid was where he started— a complex internal cauldron, for a quick and easy act. He wanted drugs. He wanted attention. He wanted other men, carnally, with an intensity that frightened him. Daniel didn't have to be anything if he was just selling it. Everything was about the payoff, and so his enjoyment was a private thing, something he thought was stealthy and unseen, though in retrospect he knows just how tragically obvious he was.
Now, he doesn't have to try and hide anything. He can just like it. And he does. Likes even more that it's Louis, finally. He gets to taste him and feel him, the softest, most delicate skin, where sweat and scent pools the most profoundly, finding shapes to press into the eager heat of his own mouth.
Daniel's hands don't shake anymore. He can touch him without fear of losing control of his motor skills, he can hold and stroke him, and run his thumb over the head of Louis' cock when he pulls back. Breathless, even though he doesn't strictly need to breathe. It all just feels good.
"I felt you against my mind," he says. "We can. Will you show me how?"
Expected to be coherent, Louis processes the question on a delay looking down into Daniel's face with some awareness of his own lack of composure. Flushed, tremors running through his body as Daniel's thumb circles, as he observes Daniel's mouth and eyes, observes himself caught up in Daniel's hand.
"How to let me in?" Louis asks unsteadily, even as Yes, anything blooms into Daniel's mind, true regardless of the question. Louis had meant it, his offering earlier. It beats between them in time to their heartbeats, Louis' ragged breathing, the tremoring flex of his thighs and the hand in Daniel's hair.
Lets it be obvious too, the effect the question and offer inherent in it has on him. Louis has kept out of his mind for some time now, polite even when they speak telepathically. He's never delved as far as Daniel might have suspected him of. Contemplates the intimacy of it now, feeling want of it as some complicated thing.
Wants Daniel close, wants him inside in every possible way. (Cannot help but remember Armand, who had been so welcome in Louis' head, and what he had made of that, how their intimacy had become something else.)
Just the two of them here, but always bound in a web; to Lestat, to Armand (to absent children). Armand was right that Daniel is a black hole, but his mind isn't like his maker's. Sharp, strong, certain things firmly sectioned away, but there's no ascetic, curated dollhouse. The way he invites Louis in is clumsy with enthusiasm, emotion rushing with raw honesty. The way he reaches for him is not with precision, not looking for anything surgical, he just wants Louis.
"Yeah. I think."
He thinks a lot of things. Things Louis can see, feel, hear, read, whatever it is that happens. Profound affection. Intense desire. He wants Louis to have whatever he wants, and if it's psychic, if he wants to touch his mind then: yes. Here. He can have it, and Daniel will like it, too, because Daniel likes everything when it's too much and overwhelming.
Drugs. Sex. Blood. Arguments. All of it. Hands on Louis' body, resting against him, ready to take him into his mouth again, and mentally all awash and ope for him.
"Oh and— fucking, am," he laughs a little, fucking, haha, he knows how to do that. But. "Am I going to hurt you with my goddamn nails?"
Drawn into Daniel's head, Louis winds so, so close into the river of Daniel's thoughts. Feels everything, all of it, an almost overwhelming flurry of activity that is so, so familiar. Lets Daniel feel all things in return. Withholds nothing. Slides in alongside the patter of Daniel's thoughts to soak up desire, affection, reflect it all back to Daniel.
Love, so hard for Louis to put to words. Love is here, intertwined among mirrored desire, affection, growing desperation as Daniel touches him. Louis lays himself bare, all impressions and thoughts rising from his own head blooming vivid among the order of Daniel's mind as his fingers drag slow through Daniel's hair. His thumb catches at Daniel's lower lip, intent on the reddened quality of it, of how kiss-bitten his mouth and how badly Louis wants to keep kissing him.
"No," Louis tells him, easy reassurance tempered only by, "Go slowly."
They heal quickly. Louis trusts Daniel to be careful, wants him enough to weather the passing flash of discomfort if he is not.
You feel so good murmurs, a thought telegraphed between them, a thought that has little and less to do with the way Daniel touches him and everything to do with how Louis fits into his head, the space Daniel makes for him here.
Daniel pushes up, feeling Louis' desire to kiss him like it's his own, unable to hold back. Feels good, feels crazy, coiling together mentally while still touching this way. He can show Louis, really show him, down to his atoms because he can feel it, how much he means to him. And so he does. Not like pulling an item off a shelf to display, but something they can sink into, drown pleasantly in. Like his office at home, his mind is organized chaos; like his outward personality, his mind is intense, and blunt.
Love and pride and desire and trust. Daniel is so fucking happy for Louis above everything.
"Contradictory," he points out, through a kiss. Does he say it out loud, telepathically? Not entirely sure. They feel like a wonderful clash, right now, bright paint colors spilling into each other. No but go slow sounds like Yes you can, and so, Daniel will just be careful, how about that.
'So do you.' Dizzying. Now's probably when somebody should grab lube if they actually want to fuck, but they don't have to. (Don't have to fuck, not, don't have to grab lube if they do. Important distinctions.)
I'm sure, without taking a breath, licking into Daniel's mouth. No hesitation, no thought required, only the certainty of: I'm sure.
Something in the way Louis settles into his mind akin to how Louis eased his way into Daniel's lap. Close, and now closer, drawn in, shuddering at what they fall into, what Daniel feels for him. Overwhelming, to be so well-loved. To feel what Daniel feels for him, to know Daniel can feel him, nowhere to hide when linked so closely. Louis, who has been missing Daniel for months, who wanted him for decades. Who feels it, love, but has no words for it.
Who didn't kiss him in 1973. Who can remember kissing him in Dubai only in parts and pieces. Daniel, who asks if Louis is sure when he has always been so certain about Daniel from the first moment they met.
"I'm sure," is a murmur against Daniel's mouth. Sunk so far into Daniel's head that the words echo there even as Louis says them aloud. As the enormity of his desire mingles in with Daniel's pride and love and trust, a heady mix. Tangling and overlapping, distinct only in the tenor of what belongs to Louis', desert dry giving way to New Orleans warmth and circling back again, and all of it a beating heart, all of it tender and desperate, held so long inside him even before Louis fully knew he'd carried it from that little apartment. Half undressed now under him, offering anything still, anything because he trusts Daniel so much, so deeply.
Yes, Daniel can feel it. Confirmation swells into that thought, like grabbing at his hand and holding tight. Not that he thinks Louis is lying, he just—
Just. Old man things. Daniel has been humbled by age, and some of his behaviors after resurrection have been to spite (actively, to spite it, not in spite of it, he is doing it on purpose) that humility. Cranky notes, prickles of discomfort he can't be rid of, that obviously Louis would prefer someone who was beautiful. Daniel is not drowning in self-pity about it, or anything, but. Still there.
Many things are true at once. Daniel wants him and he knows Louis wants him in return. This is real. He is reckless and enthusiastic, he is insecure. He wants to bite Louis and say fuck it, let them make bad decisions, and he wants to be responsible.
Extra difficult to compartmentalize when he's mostly thinking with his dick, now, too, so there's also that. ANYway,,
"Do you have anything?"
He can't just sit here and dither, they have things to do, or Daniel thinks he will probably die for real.
The answer rises like smoke before Louis verbalizes it: the lovely wood nightstand, top drawer, glass jar.
Says, "Yes."
Says, "Let me..."
Trails into implication, already sinking back into Daniel, already catching his mouth for another kiss.
Daniel is not obliged to retrieve anything from the specified drawer. Louis is already coming up off the mattress, crowding into Daniel as he kisses him. Hands bracketing Daniel's face, curling into his hair, heels of his palms at Daniel's temples as he creates some minor space in which he might move.
Terrible, having to let go of Daniel even by halves, even for a moment. But Louis stretches out, hooks open the drawer. Does not think of Armand. Does not think of what he is studiously ignoring: no one has touched him at all since he and Lestat parted ways, resolved to attempt standing on their own.
Transparently expensive, Louis' choice in lube. Just as all the product in Dubai had been expensive, all things betraying the casual flex of wealth Louis has come to appreciate, find security in. He presses the jar into Daniel's chest.
Noses back up along Daniel's jawline, yielding Daniel's mouth for whatever commentary is sure to follow.
Daniel compensates, as Louis fetches his bougie lube. Keeps touching him, kisses his chest, up to the side of his neck, his earlobe. Leans on him because he knows he can, they're both strong enough, and it means Louis can feel how hard he is, bare skin against clothing. Daniel, still a little skittish about undressing, nevertheless completely cranked with arousal.
A sensual murmur,
"Did you render down an endangered vegan seal for this?"
Daniel tries not to laugh against Louis' shoulder. Not laughing AT him, of course, and their minds winding together like excited foxes (who haven't been ground into lube) will show that. It's just fun, and giddy, and he likes Louis, he likes all of it.
"What do you like? Don't say anything. I get it. But pick something."
It doesn't disappoint, Daniel's little sideswipe. Amusement curls between them, coloring the tenor of Louis' mind even before he turns his smile in against Daniel's cheek, the corner of his mouth, presses it into a kiss. Can feel it, their shared affection. The familiarity of their shared levity.
It would have been like this, Louis knows. It would have been like this if they'd come together before. It's just easy, between them. It's easy now, drawing Daniel into him, fingers sunk into the curls at the nape of his neck. Feeling laughter in his body and finding himself so pleased with it, with Daniel's irreverence and good humor.
Pick something, prompts an inscrutable little flex of emotion across his face. Dampens some of the vibrant glow of his thoughts, some more serious timbre bleeding in. Weighing the question as he rocks a thigh up against Daniel's groin, nips at his lower lip.
Has anyone ever asked him this question? (No.)
Lets the little jar fall to the coverlet alongside them, freeing a hand to draw Daniel down with him against the pillows. Close, tangling together as Louis lets a hazy pulse of memory drift between their minds. What does he like? Piecemeal impressions, a mix of experience: hands on his body, weight heavy over him, a bowed spine beneath his fingers, the burn of overextended muscles, skin reddening under his palms, the sharp pain of fangs at his throat. Pain, pleasure, tenderness, all things mingling as Louis sorts through over a hundred years of entanglements (Lestat, Armand, distinct in his mind, maybe distinct in this accounting even as Louis pares these recollections down to overwhelming sensations.) as he winds his way to an answer.
"I want you to fuck me," can't be cheating, it's a choice, even if it's something he's already said yes to. "I want that, and not only because you asked."
A pause, a slow bite of a kiss. He can taste himself in Daniel's mouth, and lets Daniel feel how much he likes that too.
"I want to find out what we like," feels like a distinction to Louis, a difference clear in his thoughts as he says this against Daniel's mouth. "Together. We have time now."
A nudge, close and almost protective, when he feels that brief dimming, even as he pushes down against the way Louis flexes up against him. A notion in their heads. That Louis should always have whatever choices he wants. Sex is just sex. It's what they make of it, whether it's just a transaction or a laugh or something miserable or something that rewires a person's entire inner intimate world as profound. Something even a heterosexual boomer knows. (Or maybe it's because he got old he can have this perspective.)
Daniel's turn to say Anything.
Feels all these things, sees all these things, kisses Louis deeper all the while. Only a brief flinch back, followed by a warning nuzzle, because, fuck, if he thinks too hard about biting then Daniel's not going to be able to keep his fangs from stretching out, aching and desperate.
"Okay." A fond concession. Louis is just not a simple answer guy, Daniel should know that. Let the tale seduce you. Let the fumble in bed after memory trauma seduce you. Well. Daniel is not that seductive, but he'll give it a go.
Another kiss. More clutching at him. Time. They do have time. Finally.
"You can turn around if you want, I'm not gonna..."
Be bothered if Louis decides he does not want to stare at wrinkly old man skin. His dick is still in perfect working order, he's always been lean so the whole affair isn't that bad, but compared to Armand, Lestat, Louis himself, it's pretty tragic.
Trying to tread carefully, aware of some tender stretch of terrain here. Aware of potential to nick something vulnerable in Daniel, and angling away from it. Still, fingers heavy in his curls at the nape of his neck, a hand falling down his chest to lay over his heart.
"I want to see you," softly. Offering, "I want you to see me."
Daniel had seen him. Daniel had come to Dubai and argued and needled and dragged truth out of Louis even when all Louis had to offer was a story he'd been telling himself (A story Armand had been telling him too, a quiet chorus shifting and omitting and realigning Louis' life.) for so many years that it had felt like all there was. Daniel had seen something else.
They're linked so closely. Louis is sunk so far into his head, bleeding desire like sunlight. Wanting. Offering pieces still, hazy answers to join the impressions he'd already given over to Daniel. (Teeth sunk down into the flexing muscle of a thigh, wrists caught up in one hand, bruises blooming livid in the wake of kisses laid to the throat and collarbone and chest and hip—) Savors the sweetness of Anything he finds in Daniel's mind, an offering passed back and forth between them.
"Come on," is lightly impatient, deeply affectionate. "Come on, Danny."
Is deliberately goading, teasing. Words murmured into the corner of his mouth as Louis leans up to kiss him.
All of these wrapped up feelings, made more and more intense for sharing them. Daniel is clumsy with it still, but it's so earnest. In there is his white-knuckled insecurity, feeling it but trying not to dwell on it. Address and move on. That he senses no aversion from Louis doesn't mean Louis isn't just being polite, so he is also being polite, in offering an out.
And yet.
Tremors of uncertainty. Not just Louis' sensibilities to contend with. Daniel still thinks Jane Fonda is hot, but maybe he doesn't like himself very much. Maybe he hasn't in a long time. One thing to say you don't care about aging, it happens to everyone, and then watch yourself change out of your own control in the mirror. One thing to make peace with it because it'll all be over soon anyway, and then have nothing be over, indefinitely.
And then this, and— Danny, and Daniel is giving Louis' shoulder a hard, (still flat) bite. How very dare you.
"Start down the 'boy' path and I'm really turning the screws on you over shit you're into," is deliberate teasing in return.
Okok. He can do this. His boner, for sure, believes he can do this, and has no qualms about physical appearance. Get with the program.
"Danny boy," Louis needles, as the bite at his shoulder throbs. As Louis' nails scrape lightly along Daniel's nape. "Danny."
Amusement warming the link between them, coloring everything, everything.
Louis' voice dips lower, shifts to dig his heel in at the back of Daniel's thigh as he says, "Come on, Daniel."
Shades of anything in the way Louis' thoughts shift, the way he draws Daniel in closer. Anyway that Daniel wants this, wants him, Louis will have him. Aware of some discomfort in Daniel, trying to quietly assuage it.
"This is saying something about deep, weird kinks," he says against Louis' mouth, in between those teasing calls of Danny, which Daniel does not love. It's not enough to actually annoy him, but it's like pulling his pigtails. He always thought it sounded childish, and that people who used it were trying to infantalize him. Which, you know. Plenty were. He was basically hooking, what's there to be said. "I'm keeping an eye on you."
What a thing. A sticky-note for the back of Louis' jacket, but instead of Kick Me, it will say I Like To Call Grandpas 'Boy'. Creep!!
Anyway.
"It's always been anything." Okay. Okay. "With you, anything."
Drugs, sex, interviews, going to Dubai. Daniel has wanted him for so long. Only another bracing moment, before he relents, and starts to peel off articles of clothing. The rest of Louis', too. Bandaid off.
Lets Daniel do this, strip him bare. Lets Daniel manage his own clothes, touching only lightly, seeking welcome as his fingers skim newly bared collarbone, fall down Daniel's chest to his hips. Smiling still, pleased with his teasing, with Daniel's exasperation. Pulling pigtails indeed; satisfaction fades only as Daniel gives him something else to occupy his attention, hold him rapt as clothes as discarded over the side of the bed.
Anything whispering between their heads. Louis holds it in the palm of his hand, a precious offering from Daniel who Louis had met only by chance. Daniel, who saved him.
"Come here," again, reaching up as Louis yields back down, shoulders hitting mattress. "Come down here and let me kiss you."
A ghost of Dubai: Tell me I can kiss you. Wanting him so badly, any way he could have him. Even a kiss, even a touch. Anything, anything.
Daniel feels warm all over. He knows, sometimes, especially in the 'mornings' or when he's too engrossed in work to remember to eat an entire living human being every few hours, that his core temperature drops lower than it ever did before transformation. But this flush isn't from having gorged himself on blood— arousal, adrenaline of overcoming embarrassment, but mostly, overwhelming affection. Crazy how it feels.
And this, too, finally. Bare skin on bare skin, and it's so novel and such a relief that he forgets to feel self-conscious about the difference in textures. Louis feels so good, and Daniel is helpless to do anything but grant him his request, and kiss him.
Just a little bit of hiding against him, but Daniel rallies. Lets Louis touch him, even look at him if he wants, only a moment or two of looking away himself. Different, when it's somebody he gives a shit about and not just some nutjob at a book signing he'll never see again. Who he thinks is so gorgeous, precious, and holds in such high esteem. Touches him, kisses him, sets flat teeth against the side of his jaw, rocks down against him and feels hard on hard, making him shiver.
All this for Louis, who is not so certain of Daniel's esteem. (Louis, who failed him. Left him.) But soaks in the glow of it all the same, lets himself bleed it back. All this affection. All this admiration. Louis has oceans of it, for Daniel.
"I've got you," is a breathless murmur, as they move together. As Daniel bites him and Louis shudders all through his body. Touching all the while, fingers in his hair, at the nape of his neck, down his spine and up again to follow the flex of Daniel's shoulders. Hooks up an ankle on the coverlet, reaches down to take them both in hand as Daniel moves and shiver and breathes. Louis can hear his pulse, wants to put teeth into it.
Just barely refrains.
Instead, asks soft as Daniel bites a bruise beneath his jaw, "You want me to make it easy for you?"
Daniel's pulse will be louder in Louis' ears, touching him like this. Tangible against his fingers, blood-hot and hard; he chokes on an inhale at the feeling of it, erections held together, driving him crazy. He thinks he can feel the remnants of his own spit on Louis' cock and that makes it just that much crazier.
Really happening.
"What's that mean?"
Knees push into the bed, and he rocks down, into Louis, into that grip he has on them. Fucking, but not quite. He braces one hand by Louis' shoulder and lets the other roam, stroking over his body everywhere he can get to, playing with one nipple before moving to the curve of his hipbone, touch teasing to join hands between them. Waiting, just to keep feeling Louis' hand, and his dick, uninterrupted.
Some lingering surreal quality to this entanglement. They are here and it is not a dream. They are here and can do as they like. (The latter maybe sticking in Louis' head more than Daniel's, all in all.) Daniel touches him and Louis arches into every single place he puts his hands, diminishes nothing about his reactions. All of him, laid out for Daniel as they move together, as Louis tightens his grip to hear Daniel's breath hitch.
"Could roll us over," Louis says, watching Daniel's face. Aware of how enmeshed their minds are, how maybe Daniel can see Louis' proposal even before Louis speaks it aloud. "Lay back for me, and let me have you."
A possibility. Some aspects of the picture in Louis' mind hooked back to Dubai, a different place, different time. Daniel's mortality, the pain in his body, things Louis had accounted for when he'd imagined—
A flicker of complicated, bitter feeling. He'd imagined. He half-remembers that he had.
The thought makes him shiver, makes his mind shiver. Louis can certainly feel it, like Daniel can feel his intent, and—
"Hey." A husky whisper, and he presses in for a kiss. Emotion grabs at him, like a rough hug. Daniel, continuing to be clumsy from lust an inexperience, but so earnest. "Hey, we're here. It's just us, and it's all really happening."
They won't forget it. They can't, not anymore. Daniel kisses him and kisses him, and leaks against his hand, and takes his own to clutch him close, fingers and hardness and desire.
"Thought about that? Wanted to take care of me, even then?" It makes his head spin. That Louis could want him so much, want him despite, in spite. All of it. It seizes at his heart and makes it all feel so fucking tender. He wouldn't have even been able to, no matter how considerate Louis was. Maybe he'd have wept with it, overwhelmed by the attention, the offer, the thoughtfulness. How long had it been since anyone wanted him that much? How long has it been?
"We can take care of each other. Be here now, yeah? We can do that, if you want. I'm not gonna be picky, Louis." And there's a breathless laugh, as he slides his hand down lower, stoking over Louis' balls and into the cleft of his rear. Just his knuckles, then, brushing over so-soft skin, leery of claws. "I just want you. I've wanted you for ... most of my life."
Dizzying, thinking of Daniel's lifespan. Louis met him at twenty. Louis bit his desire into Daniel's throat, spent almost a week locked in small rooms beside him, and now —
A little miraculous, all that had to happen to bring them here. A miracle Daniel made happen, whether he admits it or not.
Louis' body jolts, an all-consuming spark of movement as Daniel touches him lower, with something like intent. A technicolor flare of emotion in his mind as Daniel tells him these things, says I just want you. Says, we can do that, if you want. Overwhelming, what Louis wants. Fifty years of longing all the more potent for being contained and suppressed and obscured, thinking of how he would have put himself into Daniel's bed, how they'd have touched then. Different from how they touch now.
His heel hooks higher, better leverage, permissive, encouraging. Coaxes the slow slide of their fingers, tremors working through his thighs at the slickness of them, how easy it makes the stroke of their palms.
Says, "Don't stop touching me," while his thoughts circle through every single touch Daniel has laid on him from the moment he broke into this house and the way Daniel is touching him in this specific moment. Wanting all of it at once, even the innocuous, polite way they'd touched each other before.
A break in his voice, hitching over, "I just need to see you. I don't care about the rest."
Years and years to explore every possible entanglement, isn't that one of the benefits of eternity? They could joke about it. Maybe later, after. Right now, Louis is hard pressed to be particular. Even to try and pick some specific preference out of Daniel's head. Unlikely to be successful anyway. Louis can feel him, is slid so far into Daniel's mind that he is very aware of how true Daniel was when he said he wasn't picky. They just want each other. Louis feels that truth like a hook caught behind his ribs, helpless with the meaning of it.
"We're gonna get there," Daniel tells him, stoking fires and comforting at once. "Even if a fucking meteor falls out of the sky, okay, don't worry."
Louis is here, with Daniel, it's alright. Finally. Even though Daniel just decided to show up, be his annoying, nosy self— impossibly glad he did. That he followed some little instinct. Pulled by fate, or more likely, just Louis.
Minds twisting together, tumbling colors, feelings. Daniel thinks he physically feels a reflection of what Louis does, a marvel of a thing. He strokes him carefully, still not uncoiling his fingers for caution's sake, but he can't linger there forever. Or. Well. He could, but he doesn't think either of them are patient enough for it, right now.
"Show me how to do this, huh?"
With hands or mental images. He grabs the lube, taps Louis' hip with the points of his nails.
Something for another night, testing the limits of their combined patience. Interest flickers, unmistakable, but doesn't last. Daniel says show me and Louis' mind lights up.
The impatient, careless thing first: Now, just come here, we don't need anything else. Just wanting, urgent, willing to toss aside all the care Daniel is trying to offer him. Daniel lets go and Louis makes a wounded sound, some muffled groan against Daniel's jaw.
Lets go, only in favor of taking Daniel in hand, idle touches while Louis cups his cheek. Nods, wordless, before reaching down. Hitches an ankle up further, lets his thighs splay. Reaches for Daniel's hand as he says, "You won't hurt me."
Louis' already felt the resolve to go gently in Daniel's head. Here and now, his fingers thumb over Daniel's wrist, already drawing his hand down, guiding him closer. Touch me blooms between their minds, lurid imaginings laid out for Daniel to observe. Louis has been thinking of him. Lays out a kaleidoscope of desire at Daniel's invitation, instructive and aspirational all at once.
See. Works fine, with both of them. Daniel kisses him until he can't do both that and concentrate, and he leans there with his forehead against Louis', his gaze unfocused between them. He has no intention of forcing Louis to act like a frustrated, delicate flower, but he wants to know what the fuck they're doing, and it's important to him not to look at potential injury with a we'll fix it in editing attitude. Always has been. (Well, for his partners. He's always been fine with getting completely fucked up. Sometimes that's part of the fun. And maybe it will be, someday, with them. But that's not what right now is for.)
Careful, not nails on places he's never put nails. He feels Louis physically, and he feels Louis in his head, and he pays attention to both. Probably too much lube, it's been a while, he doesn't fucking know how much anybody needs these days, some guys want an hour of this, some guys could just drop their pants and that's enough preparation. Louis seems impatient enough for the latter, but Daniel's being stubborn.
Not too stubborn. When he believes it in his head, he relents, and gently nips his jaw as he pulls his fingers out, and swears through touching himself to get excess over his aching flesh.
Because you're gonna show me is, Louis knows, meant to elicit specific instruction.
And it does, in part. Louis' fingers following Daniel's, guiding, encouraging. Breath coming in heavy pants as Daniel touches him, as Louis strays further and further into his head. Desperately present in his mind as Louis' thumb strokes his cheek, lets Daniel have all the sounds his work drives out of him.
He lets Daniel have this too: how much he likes the way Daniel touches him, how much Louis has imagined him touching him this way. The way Louis has imagined having him, laying Daniel out across his bed, across the floor. Throwing a thigh over his hip to sink down onto him, hitching Daniel's thighs up around his hips to drive into him.
And how he might bite him. Louis' teeth in his thigh, his throat, the sounds Louis would make, the sounds Daniel would.
Look at me like a shorthand for what Louis means to do. To let Daniel see him, as clearly as possible through the haze of desire and impatience coloring all Louis' thoughts. Drags his fingers down Daniel's nape, across his shoulders, tangling fingers into Daniel's to slow the pace, direct the way he touches himself.
"Daniel," is strained, breathless. "You done making me wait?"
It's so much in his head. Halfway like they're there already, and the other half is the most intense tease he's ever experienced. The biting fantasies get him the most, and Louis can no doubt feel the tension that runs through him— it's good but it's a lot, tangled with him like this, the perfect position to lean his head down and sink fangs into his throat.
Like the surface of the sea shifting up and down, with one heartbeat he wants to fuck him more than bite him, and then the next, bloodletting takes over. Then back, and back again, and, and, and...
"Yeah."
Doing something here. Daniel pinches Louis' thigh in affectionate warning about the biting shit. He really won't be able to control himself. But fucking, he's done before. Though it's been a while. One last frisson of nerves—
(A torrent of things he only partially remembers as a kid, not because of telepathic interference but because of drugs and risky bullshit, an affair he had that was maybe the worst thing he ever did to his second wife, the clubs he kept visiting all throughout every marriage, a fellow reporter who would have left his own wife for Daniel, and all of them, Daniel buried, like an asshole, like a callous, awful person who used survivor's guilt like self-harm but kept on with it all.)
—but he's over it, because Louis is here, and he wants him so bad it's tipped over into needing him. And yes, done making them both wait. He pushes into him and thank fuck he still knows what he's doing. Something still trembles in him, and he clutches onto the other man, eyes bright and dilated with thin green circles and not like his maker's at all.
Daniel drives into him and Louis' thoughts all fall to technicolor fragments, sensation rather than shape, the deep ache of yes, and finally more impression than substance.
The sound Louis makes is a low, ragged groan. His hands clutch at Daniel's hips, encouraging and impatient, begging more and deeper with the dig of nails and flex of thighs around his hips. Begs until Daniel can simply give him nothing else, settled in so deep, and Louis' hands scrape up his back, his shoulders, cradle him, cup his face with one palm.
A brief, clear impression in Louis' head: Daniel's eyes, all the ways Louis remembers them. Across a stained table in a small apartment bathed in yellow light, looking up at him on a muted gray sofa, watching him across a gleaming table in the filtered light of the atrium —
Blue, Louis remembers. He remembers.
"Yeah," echoes back, delayed. Shades of relief in the way Louis breathes it out, leaning up to kiss Daniel's mouth. "Yeah, like this."
Feeling refracting, reflected back, see how badly Louis wanted him, see how much better this is than anything he'd dreamed about. The thing behind it, the overwhelming feeling that has no name but has shape and sensation and is all for Daniel. Louis thumb runs along his cheek, the corner of his mouth along cheekbone and back again, and again, and again as Louis tells him, "I was waiting for you."
Fifty years. Fifty years, waiting and not knowing he was waiting.
"Go slow," has nothing to do at all with gentleness or care. It's only the clinging, deep-set urge to make this last. Maybe some fear that Louis doesn't get this again, that this is all and he needs to hang on as long as he can before it is over.
It wouldn't have been like this in San Fransisco, Daniel just some kid. Enthusiastically offering himself up to be used so that he could get drugs, and the release of a desire he kept hidden in the night. And it wouldn't have been like this in Dubai, with Daniel too fragile, too useless, to do anything but be held carefully. Through it all, fifty years, Louis is unchanging—
No, that's not true. Louis has been in flux the entire time Daniel's known him, struggling to free himself of the very pretty net laid over him. Now here he is, and he and Daniel are something like equals, and the desire and affection courses between them like sunlight. Like sunlight should be, clear and warm.
"Don't say it like that," he breathes out, shaky. Waiting for him. "You couldn't have been, Louis. I."
Emotion chokes him. Buried deep in Louis, he ducks his head down, overwhelmed. Deep breath in and out, settling himself, clutching close and trying not to do something tragic like cry. Who else does he have, besides Louis? His kids are better off without him, Armand is a fucking nightmare. It's Louis, it's been Louis since that horrible apartment, becoming his lifeline.
"Okay," he whispers when he can, finally. "Yeah."
He kisses the side of Louis' face, artless, mindless, as he slowly rocks into him.
Holding these threads of though as Daniel moves, and Louis' entire body shudders through the sensation.
"I saw you," he says, a dreamy kind of unraveling. Daniel's curls are a mess, rucked into wild disarray made wilder now as Louis' fingers scrape slow across his scalp. Encouraging. "I knew you."
Looking at the boy Daniel had been across the bar and knowing then, him. Only him. No one else would have done. How easy he had been to talk to, easy for the first time in so many years. Long decades of holding pieces of himself in check, talking of everything but the most important parts of himself. Seeing him after, over and over, on screens and book jackets, knowledge locked away but always there.
"You," comes breathless, aching. Daniel is moving so slowly and it is agonizing. It is perfect. He is thinking of biting him, kissing him. Of bruises that would fade too quickly now. Louis' affection threads through all these things, burns brighter as they move together, the vast and overwhelming sea of Louis' affection-love-desire flowing forth as he whispers, "Me and you, if you want it. As long as you want it."
Forever whispering beneath this, because that's what Louis wants. Daniel, forever. Always in his life, always linked. Nothing new about it, this well-worn wish. It's so familiar. It weaves in alongside everything, held in its usual place.
A tremulous feeling. No one who's chosen Daniel before has stuck to it, because no one who's chosen Daniel has been able to endure Daniel, and the overwhelming desire to grab that offer of forever in both hands and cling to it is matched only by a gun-shy feeling taught by experience.
But what the hell, huh? Daniel knew heroin was a bad idea when he injected it, ever time. Accepting this might be a bad idea. He might get hurt. Will get hurt, through no fault of Louis'. Because Daniel knows better. But Louis' worth that, isn't he? Worth the shattering, like he thought before. Worth the heartbreak. No one better to endure it for. If they have forever for each other, then Daniel has forever to get over it when things inevitably fall apart.
"Ask me again when we aren't doing this," Daniel breathes out against him, humor in his tone as he rocks into him, back out, pushes in again. Everything is blood-hot, slick, velvet, perfect. "I'll think it's a serious offer when you're making it while I'm ignoring everything else to follow a lead."
He snaps his hips in quicker, just for variety. Just to dig all the way in and connect them, deep and firm, grind into where it feels like Louis likes best; he can feel it in their minds, reflections of every spark.
"I'll ask as many times as you want," Louis promises, breathless, throat bared as his head tips back. Wanting still, desire mingling with forever and me and you and us.
Forever in whatever form forever takes. Possibility like a shimmering ocean laid out in front of them as Daniel fucks into him and Louis holds onto him, encouraging, all grasping hands and drum of his heel at the back of Daniel's thigh. More telegraphed in all the ways Louis moves under him, the flash-fire catch of sensation in his mind.
What has Louis learned in a century on this earth? He's learned that things shatter apart and come back together after.
Forever. Forever, because Louis cannot parse out any future where Daniel is not desperately important to him. Where Daniel isn't everything, precious and vital and beloved. What changes that? Nothing. They've already been all the worst things to each other. Louis left him, when he should never have strayed from his side. What can be worse than that?
There's no one like Louis. Washed-up journalists on benders reliving their youth are a dime a dozen, immortal or not. Daniel still believes, might always believe, that he's incidental to this story; a part of the machine that got caught up by accident. He wasn't worth forever, it was just a thing that happened because someone was angry at him and needed an outlet, and to say yes to something when he hadn't the first time—
Things to think about later. Or not at all.
Feels too good to let it get muddy with his cynical brain. Their minds are tangled together and it's as good as being locked together with him physically, buried deep inside, pressing his cock all the way into the clutch of his body. Feels like forever since he's done this with another man, never done this with another vampire. It thrills him that it's with Louis, who he's wanted for so long, who's welcoming him with a force of desire he could have never expected.
"Good?"
Caged close over him, folded in, nose to nose. Daniel slides a hand over Louis' chest and lower, so that he can wrap fingers around the older creature's own arousal. In no hurry to have it all end, he just wants to feel him more, and more, and more.
The thoughts don't come into clear focus, but Louis can track the shadowy shape of them, the humming activity of Daniel's mind it's own draw. His own desire and thoughts and emotions refracting, mingling in among the pulse of activity in Daniel's head. It is as Louis always knew: Daniel's mind always spinning, contemplating, arranging and unraveling. All this activity, intrinsic to Daniel. Dizzying to have even a fraction of that focus. Louis wants it all.
Admiration of it all distracts, enough so that Louis is jolted by the slide of fingers, the clasp of Daniel's hand.
"Yeah," falls out of his mouth, exhaled against Daniel's mouth. Swallows, thrusts up into Daniel's hand as he says again, "Yeah."
Brings his hands up, fingers pulling slow through Daniel's curls. Takes Daniel's face between his palms.
"You feel so good," Louis murmurs. Their noses brush. Louis' breath coming in shallow pants. One breath, then another, then another, Louis grasping for some composure before he offers, "Like a dream."
Except they get to keep this. All of it. It's real, and it's theirs.
"Not dreaming," he promises. "We're awake. We're right here."
No more lost memories. Only making new ones.
New memories that include: this, driving into him, finding the angles that make Louis gasp, the best way to press into him, and all of it is good for Daniel, who feels like something is once again being rewired in him. Sex shouldn't be on the list of revelatory potentials, at over seventy years old, especially with his history, but he can't deny the elated things happening to his brain chemistry. Allowed to have this, to enjoy this, and it feels right. It feels correct in a way that should be terrifying, because it's everything he's put away and denied for so long.
And maybe he does know, has always known, but there's a difference between knowing and setting it aside, and knowing and being present within it.
He kisses Louis, and feels something in him, some emotional, intangible thing, shiver loose. It belongs to Louis, whatever it is; the man who had chosen him at that bar, who wanted to be interviewed by some idiot kid, who saw him as more than a hookup to be used despite what they'd both walked into the building for.
Daniel kisses him and Louis feels it, whatever shard of a thing comes loose in Daniel. Feels it echo in his chest. Feels it like something precious, makes him hang on all the tighter to Daniel as he fucks down into Louis. Nails biting half-moons into Daniel's back, his shoulders, clutched so close as they move together. As Daniel touches him.
"I want to feel you," is a little nonsensical, given their current position. But it's spelled out in Louis' head, wanting Daniel to come apart. Louis' dreamed this too, and he dreams it now, how Daniel would feel, what he would look like.
His fingers drag down Daniel's spine. Coaxing. Encouraging.
They should do this forever. They should do it again, and then again. Again after. Louis wants. Just wants him, helplessly.
"Cheating to ask me to embarrass myself," he accuses in a close whisper. Bad form to get off first when you're on top. Men and women aren't that different. Maybe it's been — alright, definitely — too long since Daniel's had sex that hasn't been about just understanding an assignment and getting there.
He's close anyway. It's too good. He's been trying not to think of it climaxing because, as expected, the second it enters his mind he's right there on the edge and everything is cranked up past when the dial's supposed to stop, tense and desperate. Near breaking.
Just—
They can do this forever, again, then again; helpless, starving, lonely, enamored. And yet Daniel isn't ready for this right now to be over. Not yet. He holds Louis close, grinds into him slow and deep, winds tighter together in their minds. Another minute. Just another.
Refrains from teasing, because Louis can feel it. All this in Daniel's head, it is in Louis' now.
"Stay," he whispers, fingers tightening and loosening and tightening again Daniel's hair. Breath gone haywire, uneven panting as Daniel rocks into him. The lines between their minds are so blurred that there are moments when Louis cannot say with certainty which sensation belongs to who. Coaxes, "Stay here with me."
Not kissing, but close. Noses brushing. Louis' forehead against Daniel's. Unclear in the moment if the pulse in his ears belongs to him or to Daniel. A drifting itch of fangs in his mouth, wanting this too, wanting to bite Daniel all over while Louis has him caught up here.
A quiet truth running like a current beneath all else in their minds: there has been no one, since Armand. A true thing that exists disconnected from specifics, but exists all the same. Louis' thighs tighten around Daniel's hips and he breathes into his mouth and his mind shimmers, wanting him with a kind of absurd desperation, as if Louis doesn't have him already.
Louis deserves every bit of affection, and love, and validation from the universe. He deserves to find justice and peace, and he deserves to get the love of his life back— did Daniel assume? Sort of. Lestat has a way about him, as has been stated numerous times, but the way that strikes Daniel the strongest is his adoration for Louis. The same cord that rang through the interview, mirrored.
A private special thing, then, for Daniel. This moment. This encounter, this act. A thing he will guard jealously for the rest of his existence. That Louis chose him, after. A first time after for the both of them, albeit different afters. Louis thinks 'You and me' like Daniel was born yesterday, and yet, he knows so much of this will be kept and held onto preciously. Forever.
Maybe he can let go soon. It's starting to get hard to hang on, to draw it out. He doesn't need to breathe yet his breath feels tense and labored; all of him is coiled, pulled tight, near breaking.
'You can,' Daniel lets him know. Fangs, in his throat, or wherever else Louis wants them. Daniel can feel the sympathetic ache of his teeth. 'Anything you want.'
I want you is reflexive, whispering between their minds as Louis catches Daniel's mouth in a kiss.
Says it against his mouth, "I want you, I do."
A luxury to say it aloud. The only hush in his voice because they are both so breathless, wound so tightly in against each other. Louis, free to say this thing. Free to keep it, without any fear of it being lifted out of his hands or diminished down to nothingness. As near as Louis can get to the thing that lives behind it, that Louis has never been able to say when it truly matters, when he feels it most deeply.
His hand slides free of Daniel's curls. Fingers find his throat, the faded imprint of teeth Louis left there once. Shudders, fangs pricking at his gums, thinking about putting his mouth here. Some hazy dream of a fantasy not quite coming into focus, a dream Louis had once that he hadn't been allowed to keep. An impression, carrying some formless pulse of desire.
(I wanted you for such a long time, a whisper that isn't meant to tantalize; directed inward, a discovery. A confirmation.)
Louis puts his mouth over the old scar, sucking kisses across the skin. Teasing. Clutching on to Daniel, anchoring himself to that fraying restraint.
Close, and getting closer. Every rock forward is some new height of electric intensity for Daniel, who is caught up in not just Louis but this feeling of another person who is like him, not a mortal he has to be careful about hurting by accident. Not like being human still, with another human, either; there's no strain, no cramped efforts, no itching exhaustion. It's just everything.
And then, the touch to his neck. The scars there. Louis' scars, carved into him. It makes his breath catch, his movements stutter, and he grasps him harder and flexes his hips into him where he's buried deep, with Louis pinned to the mattress.
"See. You've been there the whole time."
A part of Daniel. Tangible. Even when they couldn't remember. Louis was there, written on his flesh, like a signature.
Can't quite say patience as a tease because Daniel could unravel him if he wanted, easy enough if he touched Louis again. Can't say it because Daniel is being patient, in some respects. Patient with his teeth, despite how much Louis wants them in his skin. Patient with Louis beneath him, holding together despite how precarious a balancing act it has become to hold off.
Beneath him now, Louis blinks hard against the prick of tears. Remembering because Daniel gifted him the memory, dragged it out of Louis' head with a tape recording and sheer determination. Because of him Louis can remember this: dropping his fangs for Daniel, who startled and laughed and asked to see them again.
His thumb circles the scar as he draws in an unsteady breath. When he speaks, his fangs glint up to Daniel, though Louis' voice sounds wrecked-raw as he murmurs, "You've always been mine," as his nail scrapes feather-light across Daniel's skin. Voice falling to a whisper as he echoes, "This whole time."
Half-statement, half-question. Louis says it and doubts it in the same breath. How unlikely, that Daniel would want to be kept. Louis stealing two weeks from him, audaciously demanding hundreds of years after. Can't help himself. Can't do anything but hang on tightly to everything that's been lost to him for so many years.
Daniel may not want to be kept and restrained, but that has nothing to do with being Louis'. His friend, the person on the other side of a lifeline, the one that's tethered between each of them. He feels utterly confident that he can pull on it, and never be alone, just like Louis can always pull for him, and Daniel will be there. Louis isn't his maker, and Daniel might even accept someday that's what Louis wanted, but look— they have this, instead. They can feel each other, they can sink like this, and it's so good.
Louis, the scariest and most enchanting thing Daniel had ever seen. Louis, who nailed him to the world and said you deserve this life.
"Yours."
He strokes Louis with intent. Not going to last much longer.
A thing that Louis will keep, hold tight in his chest: the sound of Daniel's voice saying Yours.
Arches up, brushing a sharp-toothed kiss to Daniel's mouth on the way to his throat.
Louis has held his place, his fingers over the scar that's remained, all these years. Daniel touches him, and Louis' whole body is flush with the sensation, fine tremors betraying the way Louis' self-control is fraying apart. He kisses Daniel's throat, mouths softly over the scarring before Louis bites him there.
Delicate, the way Louis breaks the skin. Hard-won finesse, the best of his capabilities, holding himself in check as he bites down.
They're already sunk so deeply into each others heads. Daniel is treated to the way Louis receives his blood, the taste of him, the way Louis' emotions flare bright as the blood forges a link of its own. As he drinks from Daniel, swallows down the familiar taste of him. Thoughts a blur of overlapping images and feeling, such deep, overwhelming affection as Louis drinks slow, luxurious swallows from Daniel's throat.
He knows how badly Louis wants it, and he's told Louis to do it, yet Daniel is still surprised when the bite comes. It slips hot lightning through him, not a violent electric shock but something that sneaks in, an intimate knife. He's been waiting for this for fifty years, to feel it, really feel it, not just survive it.
Louis can see all of him through his blood. A flipbook of adoration, the struggle to adjust to this unlife always pinned by the stability of knowing Louis is out here. The way he missed him, the way he's always missed him even when he wasn't aware that's the thing he was feeling. And, maturely, how fucking hot he thinks he is.
Daniel pulls his arms around Louis, lifting him enough so that he's not jostling fangs from his throat as he fucks him, because it's out of his hands, now. Louis wanted to feel him unravel and now he is, everything is too much, shattering, barely aware of how desperately he chases after it over the edge. Tension snaps in a perfect way as he comes, his mind an explosion of stars.
Briefly, Louis' jaw tighten. Bite down harder in those brief seconds where Daniel lifts him closer. Digging in against the fear of being dislodged even he feels Daniel's intentions to allow Louis to stay.
And then it's Louis' shoulders coming up off the mattress, arms looping up around Daniel's shoulders to keep himself there as Daniel fucks into him. As Louis drinks, deep swallows as his whole body flushes under what he feels and tastes in Daniel now.
Louis is sunk so far into Daniel when he comes apart. All that sensation, mirroring, echoing. Overwhelming, what Daniel feels, what Louis feels for him in return. Overwhelming, the moment Daniel comes. It whites Louis out, draws him in after Daniel as he comes, as Louis' self control breaks all apart. His lips open over Daniel's throat, panting, mouth rich with the taste of his blood as his fangs scrape across Daniels skin.
The same taste. Black licorice. Tea.
Unconscious instinct, the way Louis rolls them over. He's made a mess out of Daniel, he knows. The aftershocks make him unsteady, shaky, but he's still capable of draping himself across Daniel's chest. Teethmarks in his throat oozing sluggishly, momentarily abandoned as Louis presses a clumsy kiss to Daniel's mouth.
Daniel, colored through with such affection, thick with tenderness. Nothing but his name, not even trying to prompt a reply. Just his name, said for the pleasure of saying it, for his fingers in Daniel's hair and the taste of blood in his mouth.
No more beer, drugs, or medication. Just his blood, and Daniel can feel Louis' delight in it, and it makes him ache to return the piercing affection— he just can't, because he doesn't have that control, not anywhere near it. But the scorching reflection of it is still good, still mind-bending with pleasure and relief.
Why do vampires ever do anything else? How are immortals bored? C'mon. Give Daniel a break. They could be doing this every night.
Blood and sweat and come (which is more blood, he's pretty sure), harsh breathing though they don't fucking need to, and the sound of their heartbeats. Different, out of time, and beautiful for it. Daniel speaks Louis' name back to him in their heads, and slides a hand down between them to touch him, get his hand wet, and bring it back to his mouth. Still a disgusting black hole junkie, sorry, but if he doesn't taste Louis somehow he's going insane.
It blooms in Louis' head, just how much he likes that too. The way arousal flares up in his chest as Daniel does this thing, as Louis feels how badly Daniel wants to taste him.
Louis leans in to kiss him. Licks into his mouth, aware of the open punctures at Daniel's throat.
Heady, to be wanted this way. (Louis is still, always, in some ways the man standing in a courtyard, asking if he is enough.) Heady to know that Daniel wants him this way. To feel it so clearly. They are a mess and exhausted and Louis wants him again. Louis can taste himself in Daniel's mouth. Has Daniel's blood on his own tongue. He is still catching his breath, and yet—
But he's older now. Has learned something like patience in all his long years on this planet. He can hold one desire in check, focus on where they are now. Daniel under him, the rhythm of their hearts, the warmth of his skin. Daniel tastes him, and Louis kisses him again, deep and slow, before he lowers his head down to the bite he'd left, the slow drips of blood at Daniel's throat.
Louis catches them, arms around Daniel as he applies lips and tongue to the trailing droplets. Kisses over the wounds slowly, no urgency.
Better than I remembered, is true, but also a kind of joke. How much does Louis truly remember? Enough, enough to know, but there are blurred aspects, things damaged by Armand, by the injuries Louis survived.
He touches Louis, sliding hands over his chest, to his back, down to squeeze his ass. Something that's greed-adjacent in it, or more like, still half-convinced Louis is going to change his mind. A marvel, while he has it. Something he wants to sear in his memory, not because he's afraid a wraith will appear and take it away, but because Louis is a thousand miles out of his league and he makes Daniel's heart do stupid shit and things like this don't last, not for him.
Between their minds, an impression of a laugh, both for taste and because— what, why put the brakes on? Does Louis have somewhere else he needs to be, right now?
Still. Sure, it's worth savoring the moment. Daniel cradles Louis' face and looks up at him. He's forgotten all about how he's supposed to be ashamed of how he looks, and everything is just warm, and good.
"I missed the taste of you," Louis tells him, a close murmur on yo way to putting his mouth over open punctures. Kissing away the trickles of blood there as Daniel touches him. Aware of the ways they have made a mess of each other, of how much Louis likes that too.
How many years with the taste of Daniel somewhere in the back of his head? Half a memory, something that survived despite how immediately wrecked Louis was, how hard the drugs hit after those first swallows. He had carried that away with him, the way Daniel tasted beneath the bitterness of just so much alcohol and so many hits.
No, there is nowhere else. A certainty. Decades and decades where time and obligations all moved at whatever pace Louis chose, it is no different now. They can stay here, carry in all the papers from the next room, draw the curtains, lounge in bed. (Two weeks. Daniel has two weeks to spare.) He slots his weight into the cradle of Daniel's hips, scrapes a smile across the skin of his throat.
You feel so good, drifts as a murmur between them. Louis wants to bite him everywhere still. He wants him again, wants to stay in this bed as long as Daniel would allow. Louis lets all of this warm the connection between them, as his teeth nip along Daniel's collarbone.
Are bites supposed to feel this way? he wonders. Louis can probably detect that curiosity, the very slight pain of it just giving depth to the pleasurable experience, as though sinking fangs into those same scars has ticked a dial over from scar tissue that is occasionally sensitive and/or tangibly emotionally significant to all that, but also now an erogenous zone.
It doesn't spark anything immediate, just adds to the dreamy, sparkly (and sweaty, and messy) soup of afterglow. Daniel continues to touch him just because he can, stroking feelings of affection and happiness into him. A little bit in awe, like he had been as a kid; like he had been as an old man, too, though he always brandished sarcasm or a biting comment instead of allowing it to be expressed. Safe to express it now.
He's just always thought Louis is so cool. Still does.
Hands slide up to cradle the back of Louis' head. (Is he allowed to touch his hair? The instinct to act permission is there, but his brain's a little fried from climax. Help.) An encouraging thing. Anything that Louis wants. Two weeks, sure, but it's not like somebody's falling off a ledge into non-existence after two weeks. There's life after two weeks. It's exciting. What else will there be?
"Maybe I didn't think I could anymore," he says softly. Feel good. For someone else. "I'm glad it's you."
Would Daniel have wondered over touching Louis' hair in 1973? Louis wished he could know the answer.
It had been right, leaving Daniel human. Louis is certain of it. But he cannot help but mourn the lost pieces, the long years apart. Daniel couldn't have become the man he is now with Louis hovering over him, but Louis was so far. He was so distant, he missed so much of what guided Daniel's becoming.
"I missed you," is a specific thing. Louis missed Daniel so deeply. These long months between the interview, between the terrible things Daniel survived, between the tour and Louis ranging away from the complicated things he feels for Lestat, Louis chasing memories, Louis trying to excise himself from a process he understands broadly but doesn't know anything about in particular. Or at least, doesn't know how Lestat and Daniel are conducting their interview, and doesn't wish to compromise.
But he missed Daniel. Deeply. Endlessly.
Louis' tongue draws over the punctures, licks a hot strip up Daniel's throat. There is some mirrored movement in Louis' body, the way he balances his weight, the friction and shift of their bodies. They are a mess. Louis likes that too, likes the tangible signs of how they've come together. Likes the taste of blood on Daniel's skin, the hint of himself in Daniel's mouth.
"Can I touch you?"
Can Louis lean into how oversensitive and spent they are? Wring something more from Daniel, because he doesn't think he can contain the impulse otherwise.
Daniel was a disaster in 1973. He'd have asked, but been as insensitive as possible about it, entirely by accident. Smugly well-meaning. Embarrassing. He knew everything in 1973, you see.
And now he understands he doesn't know shit.
Except: that Louis missed him. That Louis wants him. And how much he wants Louis in return.
Daniel kisses the side of his cheekbone, his ear, nuzzling at wherever he can as Louis toys with the punctures and the scars they're layered over. What a perverse relief that they didn't vanish when he was transformed. They didn't need to heal. They're not a mark of pain, not really.
"Anywhere, as long as you want," Daniel tells him, with elated laughter in his voice.
A relief, that the mark Louis left on him remains. Endured all these years, tangible reminder of what had passed between them in that apartment, what they survived together.
Not romantic, except in the ways these things can be, for vampires. Or for Louis, possessive even when he didn't have a right to be.
Louis does touch him, hips shifting just enough so he might take Daniel in hand again. Marvel at the slick slide of his palm over him, while Louis' head lights up wanting him all over again, as if they had done nothing at all together yet.
An innate sense of restraint running alongside this, wanting to put his teeth back into Daniel, knowing he is already flirting with how much he should drink. Louis opens his mouth over the punctures once more, over damp skin and the rapid thud of Daniel's pulse, lets his thoughts paint a picture of how Daniel should put hands into his hair, the way Louis likes to be touched, fingers at his nape, teasing the ends of soft twists, the rare sink of fingers in along his scalp at the back of his head—
A break in this thought as Louis drags his tongue along his own fangs, a shortcut to close up his own handiwork in slow, regretful strokes of his tongue.
Whenever I want picking up, as Louis noses along his jaw. Strokes him, slow, careless drags of his palm as the fingers of his opposite hand slid down Daniel's arm, following veins, the delicate bones of his wrist and hand.
A rush of exhale, a shiver— he's sensitive, yes, but it's not like being mortal, his body does whatever he wants it to, now, will rebound happily if desire is there. And it's there. Here. In truth, sex as a mortal is a little fuzzy in his sensory recollection, not because of the long, sad, cold existence of a vampire, but because of his slide into age and disease.
A new life, in so many ways.
He touches Louis how he's shown, taking his time and indulging at once, wanting to make sure everything feels this good for the both of them. No fumbling discomfort, if they can avoid it. He lets Louis feel wherever he's curious about, his cock, his wrist. Rough hands, inelegant, always a little too big and square for his wry frame. He would just make shoe size jokes. (Hey, who's joking?)
That taste of him was not enough. Not by a long shot. But Daniel tucks the desire away on a shelf; they have time. They have an eternity. They don't gave to go on every ride at the theme park in one go.
'I've never known anyone as long as you, did you know that?'
Discounting the gaps. Louis missed him. Daniel missed Louis. Core parts of each other, now; fifty years. Daniel's parents died before he hit fifty. He didn't meet his first wife until after that week in San Fransisco. Friends from college, high school, scattered, forgotten through mundane means. But Louis has been with him all along.
No. It illustrates something for him about Daniel, brings into clearer focus the shapes yielded by memoirs and interviews, by what Daniel has said aloud in Dubai and otherwise. It is arresting. It draws Louis up from his ministrations at Daniel's throat to look at him, to feel all the ways this hooks into the parts of Louis that want to sink teeth into every inch of Daniel's body, to splay over him and pin him down and keep him. Possessive, always possessive.
I didn't know that.
As Louis kisses him, warm and open. Licks into his mouth, tasting of Daniel's blood mingled with his own.
Who knows Louis still? Lestat. Armand. Daniel. And of the three, Daniel has the clearest picture of Louis. Lestat missing great swaths of time that neither of them have been able to touch. (Armand, something else. How deeply does Armand know Louis? Deeper than Louis ever knew him.) But Daniel—
Daniel saw Louis, more clearly than Louis saw himself. Still does, even now.
I want to know you forever.
No mincing the sentiment by casing it in years, decades, centuries. Louis wants forever. Always. Reflects the enormity of it back to Daniel as they kiss, the drag of his palm slowing down to a torturous drag. See how precious he is to Louis? How vital? See how wanted he is?
Daniel looks up at him. Louis is so beautiful. There's such overwhelming, aching affection, and he feels this wonderful surge of relief — not for the first time — that he'll never have to look at Louis and see him fogged over and alien ever again. No more morning afters with him acting like a pod person. No more record-skip confusion. Just Louis, just the guy at the bar Daniel was smitten by, and all the truth within him.
A deep kiss. Daniel keeps one hand on the back of Louis' head, fingers against his hairline, the other dragging down over the line of his back, perfect and smooth. He hitches up into the slow friction, blood warming again already. (Being a vampire fucking rules, actually.)
Forever is a lot, but Daniel is hungry for it. Taking in everything someone has to give, until they're sick of him. He's too blissed out to worry anymore, his mind whirring and working about only good things, way past the practical concern that Louis doesn't know what he's getting into with such an annoying asshole. Daniel just wants him. Grabs into those feelings, lets Louis feel his own in return. That's the most romantic fucking thing anyone's ever said to him. Thought about him. Whatever.
He will never give Daniel up again. They will never forget each other again. Louis can be with him, watch Daniel grow and change, live all the lives vampirism promises to him. He can watch Daniel become a better vampire than Louis was, is, will be.
No half measures. Louis is done with half measures.
"Forever," Louis whispers against his mouth. Doesn't ask Daniel to promise beyond what he's already said. It doesn't feel necessary. Won't they always find their way to each other? If Louis is certain of nothing else, he is certain of this. Daniel will find him. Louis will return to him. They are linked to each other so deeply.
Heady, to promise forever and mean forever.
"Come for me again," is a whisper too, murmured between one kiss and the next, the purposeful drag of Louis' hand. "I want to see you come again."
An impossible luxury, to think of knowing someone forever. That kind of constant. A north star. Daniel had long given up keeping anyone even for a mortal lifetime. Something for other people, who live other lives, in which they are easy to get along with and better at compromise. But not anyone like him.
And then, this. Louis.
They're the same kind of stupid. Maybe that's the trick.
Louis wants to see him come again. He can do that, and he murmurs something like a fond laugh into their kisses.
"Hedonist," he accuses, like Daniel isn't. Like everything in this new life hasn't been about returning to everything that he's ever gotten off doing.
San Francisco had been many things, but it had so rarely been about pleasure. Not a lasting kind of pleasure. Drugs and sex as a punishment, as a numbing agent. Whatever was good was fleeting.
But then, Daniel. Out of all of that misery, there was Daniel.
Now, Louis wants everything at once. All of him. Louis promises forever easy, a forgone conclusion, as he touches Daniel with a casual kind of possessiveness. Louis wants to know everything. They will have forever and Louis will see how the way they touch each other changes, because Louis is old enough to know the inevitability of it. Time works on vampires too. They'll grow together, change together. Louis wants that too.
Shit's been too difficult for Louis. Too much abuse. (Too much Catholicism, too.) He can have whatever he wants, now. He can do all the things he did to torture himself, and do it just for fun. Or do something totally different. Anything.
Daniel gives himself over to the feeling. Doesn't worry just yet about Louis, lets him have what he says he wants, what Daniel can tell he wants because they're in each other's heads. (He doesn't have to wonder if it was like this for Louis and Armand. He knows Armand would never open himself like this. For as much as he disdains the 'silence' between makers and fledglings, he's never honest about anyone in his head, either. A bitter pill, but irrelevant in this moment.)
"You make me feel fucking good, Louis." Breathless, needy. Getting back to the edge, letting Louis feel the rush in his mind as he shifts restlessly towards him, curling up a little, cradles his face, kisses him.
Everything had hurt for so long. Addition, aging, disease. Loneliness, heartbreak, bitterness. And now this. He gets to be immortal, he gets to have Louis, and they get to have each other forever.
It was easy with Daniel from the start. It was easy in that bar, effortless. It's easy now. It will be easy a hundred, two hundred years from now.
And Daniel should feel good. The extent of his illness, the pain of it, had been partially obscured from Louis behind Daniel's bluster and sarcasm, but it's absence looms large in his mind now. It is illustrative of what is no longer present.
"Daniel," Louis murmurs, soft against his mouth. "I got you. Let me see you."
Coaxing. Covetous.
"Show me," with a scrape of teeth. Unnecessary, when they are this deep in each others heads. (Who else has welcomed Louis this way? Wound him so deep into Daniel's mind that the lines between their thoughts blur?) Louis can feel everything Daniel is talking about. More. Every drag of his fingers, every last kiss, every nip of teeth, Louis can feel how what it sparks up in Daniel. He says this anyway as he touches him, coaxing, encouraging, teasing at whatever last vestiges of restraint Daniel might have left.
Louis, Louis, Louis. Louis who deserves everything good. Who makes Daniel feel so incredible. Maybe there's some other universe where they ran away from San Fransisco, and everything is different, even though Daniel is better now, even though Louis needed to be jailbroken with the truth and not just an escape.
He's going to come. He can feel Louis, physically, mentally, his own body is more than happy to spiral right along. Sparkling in the hypersensitive aftermath, it still feels incredible. He likes being a vampire, he likes being dead, none of it feels like being damned, it feels like he finally understands how life's supposed to work. And he gets to know this person.
He shows Louis, because the pleasure hitches up in him and he comes.
All he wants is for Daniel to say his name like this, over and over, forever.
Or not even just like that. Just this way. All the ways Daniel says his name, exasperated and fond and teasing and needling, the vast array of things Daniel draws out of him, Louis wants all of that.
He is greedy, he knows. Selfish. It is shades of how he wanted (wanted once, wants again) Lestat. All-consumingly. Endless. Daniel comes and Louis doesn't kiss him. He doesn't stop touching Daniel, fingers at his temple and his cheek, catching at his mouth, as he draws this pleasure from him, but Louis looks at him instead. Observing, attention focused so sharply on Daniel's face. Feel all the different layers of thought in Daniel's mind.
Tries, tries to take some solace in the ways Daniel likes his vampirism. Louis knew that he would.
By and by, hand slowing in its movement, Louis leans in to kiss him softly, a sweet brush of contact. Something to hold place for all the other things catching in his throat, words Louis never can say.
A 70-year-old face scrunched up in pleasure isn't anything to write home about. Charming, maybe, if one is especially smitten. (Sometimes Daniel wonders what the rest of them would look like, aged. Louis with grey hair, pronounced lines on still mostly robust skin, litheness serving him well. Would he end up in glasses? Return to the use of a cane, and poke around with it while doling out sharp wisdom?)
He drags in air just for the pleasure of feeling everything expand. His pulse is frantic still, though slowing from a peak, an indulgent drift down. His eyes blink back open, glassy, dilated, dreamy, and the overdense color they should be, still no trace of his maker. Banished by Louis' affection, maybe.
Daniel feels a little brain-fried by it all, but in a good way. He hopes Louis got something out of it, too, and he kisses him, raising his head to chase it and get more. Soft and sweet, fine, they can do that, but Daniel just wants to keep feeling him. Thinks about the taste of his blood a little, but he's loopy, surely he can be forgiven.
Daniel thinks about his blood and Louis cuts his tongue on a fang to let some trace droplets mingle into their kiss.
Moving again, straddling Daniel's hips. Touching him, hands cupping his face as their noses brush, nonsense murmurs between kisses.
"Daniel," then, a lower tease of, "Danny."
Needling as they kiss, heavy with the taste of blood between them. A little nudge to provoke, soothed almost immediately by another kiss.
Winds his way to, "My Daniel," with fingers cradling his face, hips slotted together. Chest to chest, Louis can feel the rise and fall of his chest, the slowing thud of his pulse. "Are you satisfied?"
A jolt, raw and electric, with Louis' blood. It yanks Daniel from the maybe-relaxing stage to an oh-fuck[positive]? stage. Barely any, just hints of being able to form a full picture of the taste of him. It teases claws in the part of Daniel's brain that wants to always demand more, makes his eyes shine brighter.
Danny. Ugh. He bites at Louis' mouth, flat teeth not meant to break the skin, still wary of his inability to reel himself in despite the strong, aching pull A grumbled complaint into the next kiss. It took him years to stop responding to Danny, who was a stupid kid that Daniel wants nothing to with.
"The hell kind of question is that?"
Hands at Louis' sides, they slip up over his chest, down again, feeling him everywhere. His skin is a luxury. He's so fucking beautiful.
Delighted, always, by Daniel's irritation, the sting of his teeth like a call and response. The sweep of his hands is brief distraction, holding Louis' attention even as Daniel poses this question in return.
"I'd like to know."
Though it is tempting to keep him here forever. Do this forever. A fantasy where nothing waits for either of them outside this bed, nothing is complicated, all is as they wish it to be.
"We can shower," comes as a murmur, soft against Daniel's mouth. "And we can hunt."
Louis knows Daniel has been hunting. Knows that what he gets up to with Lestat is messy and maybe brutal, more brutal than Louis would like to hear about. Even now, he reads everything, all the articles, everything that carries word of Daniel and now Lestat, back to him.
"Have you ever shared a coffin?"
A question asked before Louis can think whether or not he truly wants an answer. Does he want to know if Armand folded Daniel in alongside him in some closed space? Did Armand deign to lower himself into a coffin for Daniel's sake?
Daniel lets him feel: sure, he's satisfied, technically. But he could want more, right now. He could want to see Louis come again, evening the score. He could stay here all night with him, drag a blanket over their heads after, touch him languidly during the stay, and start again—
Which is a bit too much, probably? Daniel is always going to have this personality, though, more, and dying hasn't changed it. Just let him have it again. More, more, more. Drugs, sex, truth, blood.
But he'd also like to shower with Louis (he'll avert his eyes from the bathroom mirror, uncomfortable with his own deterioration vs the other man's physique, but he'll cope), and he'd like to vent the half-riled bloodlust onto someone he doesn't have to worry about stopping on. A headtilt for it, though. Louis doesn't like hunting. They don't have to.
I know forms in Louis' head. Yes, he knows. Yes, he wants more. Yes, it is a wrench to contemplate leaving the bed.
It's not only Daniel. There is something in Louis that wants and wants and wants, denied and curtailed by all the other pieces of his nature. But he feels it in Daniel, how the force of his desire hooks into his chest and drags all of Louis' wanting to the forefront. Close at hand as Louis shifts his weight over Daniel, a minor restless movement meant only to contain the urge to plunge them both back into the heady rush of their shared desire.
"Stay with me," Louis murmurs.
He'd offered, before, to retrieve Daniel's coffin. Off the cuff, something so effortless to arrange. But he wants—
More, yes. But Louis wants closeness. Wants to fall into sleep with their echoing heart beating back and forth between them. He wants Daniel under the warm spray of water in his shower and he wants Daniel sated, well-fed. He wants all the intimacy of these things, wants to know him in these ways too.
Speed-running getting sick of him? If so, Daniel might as well enjoy it while it lasts. He presses a kiss to Louis' mouth. The weight of him pressed down on him feels as good as everything else. He should really be spent, and maybe he is, but over-stimulation to the point of pain was something he was into even before. Not the type to roll away and call anything a night.
"Until you kick me out."
Yes. More than yes.
But even if he's not the type to pull the plug on this— he should probably not annoy the shit out of Louis with it? Right? Right. So.
"What's the game plan?" A light pinch to his side, teasing.
(Trying to parse out the answer is like ripping open a barely-scabbed wound. Remembering. Recalling what was once good, what remained good, what was eaten up by misery.)
Daniel pinches him and Louis bites him, a scrape of teeth along the jaw.
"I'm going to make you come until you can't," is decisive, indulgent. Attuned, maybe, to the silent flicker of thought in Daniel's head that wants more, and more, and more. A thought that Louis leans into, lets himself sink into it as he gives Daniel his thigh to rock against while they kiss. Murmurs, "And then wash you clean," into Daniel's mouth. "And see you sated, before I take you with me to coffin."
That declaration curls around something deep and just a little fucked up in Daniel, and Louis can no doubt sense his interest— and on the heels of that, the sheepish thought that he doesn't actually know what his limit is. The sexual partners he's had since transformation have all been mortals, before this encounter right here right now, and he's always stopped just a little beyond what should be normal for a human man (granted, one younger than him), and nothing past it.
Another half hour? ... A week??? Mysteries of the universe. Does Louis know? How much exhaustion kink does he get up to? Inquiring mind. Singular. This specific, inquiring mind.
"Sounds pretty cool."
Saying dopey shit on purpose, just to see if Louis will laugh.
And Louis does. Nothing to do with what he feels in Daniel's head, everything to do with how he sounds saying this, the curiosity that is so intrinsic to who Daniel is and always has been. Louis laughs, low and fond, presses his smile in against Daniel's cheek. Kisses the corner of his mouth.
"Pretty cool," Louis echoes, just to roll the words off his tongue. Tasting them, experiment with how Daniel's vernacular feels in his mouth.
Reaches down to take him in hand again, a loose curl of fingers. Touching just to touch, intent not quite materializing as Louis thumbs over the head of his cock.
"We'll find it together," Louis tells him, answering at least one unspoken question. Maybe he'll answer the others. Maybe Daniel will have to ask, pin him, corner him into an answer. The mingled experience between Lestat and Armand, so much ground covered in a century's worth of time, not all of it easy to recall. "What it is now, what it will be someday."
No desire to dig up bittersweet (or worse) memories and chill the mood; Daniel just can't help being ravenously curious about everything. He laughs into a nuzzle, shivers a bit at the way Louis touches him.
"Making plans," he observes. Louis likes plans. Daniel imagines him with a very detailed, very orderly bullet journal, one clean and organized without any washi tape or cute stickers, in his old lady cursive handwriting. He lets Louis see this fond thought as he sits up, shuffling them to be face to face, and Louis can sit beside him or with legs splayed over him to be half in his lap, whatever he feels like.
Because this goes both ways. Daniel's not just going to lay back and count nuts. He wants to see Louis reach his peak again, hear the way his breath changes, watch his face contort in pleasure. As many times as they each can. Louis had been torn on what position, wanting too many things at once, now he gets it if he wants it now. Daniel kisses him, touches him, loses count. Loses track.
Eventually his phone will ping. He's got a funny (and very loud) alarm an hour or so before sunrise. It's just that he usually loses track of time because he's working, not because he's fooling around.
The alarm makes Louis laugh breathlessly, fingers curling at the nape of Daniel's neck. Present, focused wholly on what he's been drawing out of Daniel, what Daniel has been drawing out of him. Counting in an idle way, interested in the number as a marker, something he might someday push Daniel past.
Here, now, the phone chimes and Louis laughs. Has migrated fully into Daniel's lap from their starting point, crowding him into the headboard. Skin gleaming with sweat, mouth bruised, hips rolling down in an easy sinuous movement, unbroken by the sound of the alarm.
"Once more," Louis coaxes. "Once more, right now, before we stop for the night."
Thumbs stroking the delicate skin behind Daniel's ears, fingers nudging at his hairline. Louis brushes his lips across Daniel's, their breath mingling.
The alarm is crazy, Daniel thinks. Has so much time passed? Has so little time passed? He grins and bumps his nose against Louis', feeling loopy and happy for it. He tastes Louis still, in the back of his teeth, has told him he could probably suck his cock for an entire night (or more), has found bruises that vanish, has been impressed by the pinkish sheen of sweat that comes off them both.
"Can you?"
Daniel shifts up, pressing his cock deeper into him, finding it effortless still despite the exertion and the impending call of the sun, soaking in the endless easy delight of no longer being human. It's possible he'll never take this for granted— being able to move just as he wants to, no pain, no struggle. Everything in service of making them both feel good, claw and tumble to the next height.
Another kiss, because he can't get enough, and he circles a hand between them to stroke Louis. Can't get enough of this, either.
An absurd thing to be thinking now, as Daniel fucks up into him and drives the breath out of Louis' lungs, but he can feel all these things in Daniel's head. The pleasure of what his transformation has given him. The gratitude. (Some part of Louis, jealous and hurt, flicks open an eye to remember that Louis had wanted to give his to him, Louis could have—) Daniel is so pleased and Louis feels it, lets himself mirror that joy.
Daniel, alive always. Healthy always. And they can have each other this way, whenever they want.
Daniel kisses him and Louis licks into his mouth. Possessive, pleased, tasting himself there. A humming whisper of thought: For you, anything. And Tell me you want me again.
As if it's not a foregone conclusion, once Daniel starts touching him with such clear intention as Louis meets the upward thrust of his hips. Daniel's pleasure is an electric thing, sparking bright like a livewire strung between their heads.
No regrets at all that it was Armand. Sure there was horror, but it's horror that won him something: the same line that connects him to his maker separates them. And there gets to be nothing that separates him from Louis. They can laugh in each other's heads, chat at all hours anywhere in the world, no phones needed. They can feel like this, pinwheels of emotion and sensation and happy reflections.
'I want you,' he tells him, lets him feel how much. How much, despite how many times already. Edges are starting to fray, concentration is starting to go glassy, but Louis said until you can't. Sunlight or unconsciousness. Daniel will indulge until he overdoses.
Out loud this time: "Watching you, feeling you come like this, is so good. I thought I'd never see you that unwound. I'll never get sick of it. I'll never get sick of being the one to do it. Come on, one more time. Just like this."
All this wanting, all this desire, Louis lets it reflect back. They have been fucking for an eternity, and it is not enough.
Maybe fifty years would come within shouting distance of enough. Louis doesn't know. Daniel says these things to him and Louis shudders down into the cradle of his hips, hands tightening around the sides of Daniel's face.
"Just like this," Louis echoes. Repeats again, "Anything for you."
Drawn in where Daniel's consciousness is blurring, savoring the quality of it. Fingers slipping, grazing over scar tissue, over new-made bite marks already healing into nothingness. (Grateful, unforgivably, that Louis left a mark on him. Bit it into him, a claim that endured even through Daniel's death and rebirth.)
Murmurs, "Come with me," even as he lets himself come all apart, panting against Daniel's mouth, spilling over under the pull of Daniel's fingers.
Verging on that place where everything is a little too rubbed raw and sore, but it doesn't quite tip over into it like it would for a mortal— Daniel can feel it, but it's not reaching him, and it just ends up heightening the experience. He'd go all the way to real pain if they had time and if Louis let him. And even then it wouldn't really be pain, because there are wires in Daniel that were installed incorrectly at birth.
But Louis wants one more time, and right now, and just like this, and anything, and he's there and Daniel feels his body clench around him, just as good maybe better than that his mind shimmer with it at the same time. One can really believe the whole 'little death' translation joke from this perspective; following dead blood into the darkness, following a partner's orgasm over a ledge into your own.
Too morbid? Too morbid.
In any event, Daniel fucks up into him and stills as he comes, holding Louis close and gasping against him, open mouth against him, too messy to be a kiss, just wanting to be near him and a part of him. Fractal fireworks, ecstasy, a hysterical peak of his heartbeat and the joy of it slowing like falling, like flying.
And even now, feeling Daniel tip and fracture and fall, Louis thinks, Again.
But no. The sun is coming up. Daniel is young. He needs to sleep.
Louis kisses his slack mouth. Scrapes nails up and down his scalp. Murmurs Daniel's name, low and intimate and so, so affectionate. Letting him find his way back to composure while Louis stays close, wound close still. Skin to skin, mind to mind.
I like you this way, Louis tells him. Smiles, admits, I like you every way I can have you.
Frustrating and irreverent and kind and now this, how Louis has him now.
"We'll need a whole day," Louis supposes, thoughtful. "A whole day to do something like this."
Having caught some stray edge of Daniel's thoughts, the thing he didn't quite ask for that Louis wants to give him anyway.
Daniel laughs softly, bumps forehead to forehead before he presses a blurry kiss to Louis' cheekbone. All a mess, reconciling with okay, that was the last one, enjoying it, because there is incredible sweetness to wrapping it up and moving to the next stage of intimacy, too. He hasn't showered with someone in decades, and sleeping in bed with someone else is a rare luxury, to say nothing of the as-yet-un-experienced coffin.
"Anything means anything," he says.
A whole day, or not, Louis doesn't have to steamroll himself for Daniel's sake. Though he'd absolutely go in for it.
More soft kisses, and touches that don't want to let go. Daniel finds the prospect of parting to be particularly brutal, but consoles himself with the fact that Louis is not yet tired of him. Spell not yet broken.
Physical detangling is a slow process. Louis, reluctant, taking long minutes to work up to leaving the bed. A long, indulgent exchange of kisses, Louis' hands sweeping across skin before coming to brace on Daniel's chest and lever himself up.
A tug between their heads as Louis reaches a hand back. Aware of the mess they've made of each other. His own skin damp with sweat, thighs slick, a pleasant ache smoldering in his body.
"Come on."
Beckoning Daniel to him, wanting already to be touching him again.
A shock to the system, getting up and remembering himself again, needles of insecurity and embarrassment at what he looks like. (Surely this cannot be a handicap forever, but he had a lot of time for these self-image issues to settle in, alright.) Bullied into submission by the past hours, the still-stick evidence of it, by Louis reaching out to bring him along for more contact, more closeness.
Alright, alright.
He follows him, presumably to the bathroom, where he clings to the notion of this being fine and does not look at himself in the mirror. The absurdity of being shy despite all they've done.
Daniel wants to touch him, feel him under warm water, help him get clean. Carefully wash away the mess they've made, but not forget it.
The lights stay low. Louis flicks a few switches, leaves the main room dim, the shower itself bathed in warm tones.
It's a different kind of opulent in this room. More earthy grotto than sleek minimalism. The shower itself is set into the wall, invokes the sense of a cave, low seats of cut stone behind the glass doors. Signs of Louis' occupancy in the products laid out on the counter, the silk robe, a towel hanging off a hook.
Louis pauses as the door closes behind them.
"Hey."
Louis knows he has to withdraw out of Daniel's head. He has begun the process, unwinding slowly. Perhaps catches the tailend of one thought or the other, or maybe just needs something to ease the ways in which they're separating. Indulges himself, reels Daniel in by their linked hands so he might lean up and kiss him again.
Daniel likes this better than Dubai's harshness, and he's glad for no blinding while to illuminate things he's still shallowly struggling with. It's warm, in a way, and he thinks that suits Louis much better than brutalist design. (What might he look like in modern takes on art deco? Too painful, or?)
"Hey yourself."
He allows himself to be reeled in, and he follows Louis, presses into that kiss, touches his hip with his other hand.
"Weird how cold it is, disengaging," he says, and thinks Louis will know he means about the telepathic closeness. "Thank you, for sharing that with me."
Opening his mind, accepting Daniel's openness in return. Tangling with him in their heads and feeling so much, knowing he was safe during the whole thing. It's been unlike anything else he's ever experienced.
Cold is the right word. The chill of separation is inescapable.
They can't live in each others' heads. Just like they can't stay a night and a day and a night in bed, despite what a good idea it feels like in the moment.
Daniel says this, offers this sweet expression of gratitude. Louis smiles, fingers grazing Daniel's jaw. A stray slip of thought, a lingering impression: I want to share everything with you.
Aloud, Louis tells him, "You let me in. Thanks."
Let him in. Let him stay.
Louis' fingers tighten around the link of their fingers, looking into Daniel's face. Missing him, absurdly. Missing him even though they're stood so close.
He lets go. The glass door slides open silently, and Louis twists the taps. Promises over his shoulder, "I'll run it hot."
"You're the only person I'd even think of trusting like that."
The sentiment echoes through feeling: the only person he might believe wants to share everything with him, the only person he'd let into his head that way. No one else is even a maybe. It's just Louis. Louis, who nearly killed him, who maybe should have, who went through hell with him, who remembered with him.
Not his maker. Better for it.
He slides a touch over the other man's shoulders, feeling a little reluctant to stay totally apart. Which is absurd, they're in a goddamn shower together, it's pretty fucking close.
"Do vampires like saunas? I guess we wouldn't have to worry about passing out. I used to do that when I was really broke. Chug cheap bottles of wine in the shower. Because I was too classy for huffing glue, you know."
A gift, this admission Daniel offers up to him. Louis, the only person Daniel would let into his mind that way. Louis feels the way that truth hooks behind his ribcage. Flutters next to his heart.
Who else would Louis let in? Lestat, only Lestat, and that's not possible. It will only ever be Daniel in his head. (How deep was Armand in Louis's mind? If Daniel delves deep enough, would he find traces? Familiar fingerprints set deep into the soft clay of Louis' head?)
The water runs hot as promised, a misty rainfall from two shower heads that envelope them both and Louis turns back around under the spray to Daniel. Smiles at him.
This is the most he's smiled in a long while, Louis knows. It comes easy, with Daniel.
"I like saunas."
A statement deliberately stripped of the we that could have, would have colored the answer in Dubai.
His palms flatten across Daniel's chest. Feel his heart, secure and steady. Cherishes this small fact, pieces of Daniel outside Louis' experience, outside the scope of books and interviews.
"Never chugged cheap wine though."
Louis de Pointe du Lac seeking only the finest vintages for his worst moments.
Maybe someday, when Daniel has the experience and the finesse, when he is familiar enough with Louis and familiar enough with the particular shadow-shapes the creature that made him leaves, he can take a look. Sift through and find anything that needs overturned, or mended. Help him in more ways than just sitting and talking.
A future consideration. Too soon, for an old man who is a young vampire.
He rolls his eyes fondly about cheap wine. Of course. Louis, who is even more beautiful when he smiles, would never stoop to cheap wine. Even the drugs he lured Daniel in with were high quality. He can't help but reach up and touch the corner of one of that smile, and marvel at it.
"'Then', like at the weird lowest points, or 'then', just being mortal? Something funny, something weird?"
Stipulates, "Nothing I already read in your books."
The parts of Daniel's life that Louis missed. The long absence where Louis only touched Daniel's life from a great distance. Collected what was curated. Daniel was a shockingly candid writer, but not every part of his life is in what had already been put into the world.
Louis catches his hand, the fingers at his mouth, and kisses Daniel's palm. Disengages to collect soaps and shampoos from one rough hewn shelf, an abundance of options to offer up for Daniel's inspection.
Time for soap, maybe time to get just a little handsy; sometimes a guy just needs to wash his own asshole, when it comes to post-coital showering. Practical thoughts from Daniel Molloy. But he will give Louis hell for the absurdly high-end items even in the shower. Does it actually make a difference, using this instead of grocery store 2-in-1? Pfft.
"Beth McLean once sent me an email with actual slurs in it," he says. "She was furious about how I talked about all the accounting in the Enron book, she thought I was making a joke about her own Enron book. Which did better than mine anyway. I never showed anybody, I just thought it was funny."
Twenty years ago, he could have ruined her career, but today he'd probably just improve her reputation among the freaks taking over the US. Oh, how times change.
"The first time I went to Russia, everybody kept making me drink. Like a trust thing. If I let myself get drunk around them, if I let them fuck with me, yadda yadda. But I just wasn't getting drunk fast enough and I kept pissing them off. So I tried to start acting drunk."
A grocery store 2-in-1 has never touched Louis' skin.
There is some practical distance. Louis beginning the routine of washing his hair, working product into a lather as Daniel speaks and letting the suds run down his neck and shoulders.
"Were they convinced?" Louis asks, diverting to the Russians rather than dwell on Beth McLean, whose finances Louis might ruin as petty little payback. "I remember your tolerance. They would have had to make a real investment in that goal."
Remembering San Francisco. Daniel, young and human and jubilant, downing anything put in front of him. He'd held it all so well that Louis had lost track as the night dragged on, kept sliding another and another and another into Daniel's hands. Endless. It had felt like the night would never end. That they could stay there together forever, floating in the close jubilation of confession, of Louis sharing the worst things and Daniel eager to hear more and more and more.
Louis shakes his head. Sprays suds and water everywhere, before he tips his head back into the spray, lets the water patter down over his face as he rinses away the shampoo.
Washing while talking. He likes being able to speak at a normal volume, isolate the sound of conversation away from the sound of the water; little things, interesting things, making this new life better than the old one. (You don't know what mortal life is like, man. You've forgotten.)
"I think so, it's always hard to gauge with cultural and language barriers, but I have some experience about what alcohol-impaired people act like."
One of his many extremely impressive skills.
"But they—"
Briefly dazzle-distracted by Louis rinsing water off of him like a woman in a soft-core erotic thriller from the 70s.
Anyway.
"So, they wanted to play the 'knife game', which doesn't have a name, you know the," here he gestures, one hand splayed out flat, the other gesturing over it, to mime taking a knife and stabbing between each fingers. "That thing. And I started to freak out because I wasn't going to be able to do that even sober, and I thought they were pressuring me to torture me, because they're deranged Russians. It turned out they thought I could probably just do it because they've only ever seen it in American movies, and would never have suggested it if they weren't hammered."
Louis, oblivious, reaching for another bottle of something glossy, herbal-scented, to begin working into his hair as Daniel speaks. Watching him from beneath the steam and mist, amusement on his face listening to this predicament.
Reaches to catch Daniel's hand. Lifts it, thumb running across his palm, to study first his hand, and then Daniel's face between his splayed fingers.
"I played it a few times back when," Louis admits. Back when harkening back to forgotten humanity. Side-steps it when he asks, "Do you think you'd do better as a vampire?"
An addition to Daniel's many talents, maybe.
Louis would play reckless games with him. Lick blood off his fingers after. Louis wants to hear all his stories, every piece that made up the long years they lived apart. He wants all the stories that are yet to come, all the stories they could make together. His thumb runs along the deep grooves of Daniel's palm, quietly possessive, as Louis smiles at him behind their hands.
"We could play over breakfast."
As if Louis wasn't searching for lost pieces of himself. As if Daniel didn't have another interview to return to.
Daniel is much less porn-adjacent, barring the weird side of porn. A melty wet rat, seeming slightly transparent when saturated, though at least his animated flair gives him some life. Louis takes his hand and it makes him smile, everything scrunched up pleasantly.
"What makes you think I didn't end up doing it in Russia?"
Teasing. Maybe he did. Maybe he just downed another cupful of shitty post-communist vodka and did a round, then screamed, then made friends for life, until most of those guys ended up executed for stealing bread or importing blue jeans, while Daniel went off to do the real interview.
Or he didn't. Or he panicked and definitely didn't.
A grin through Daniel's fingers, Louis' smile widening just a fraction.
"Could get one," Louis offers.
There is cereal in a cupboard in Dubai. Morocco is spared the expense of a well-stocked kitchen, of the punishing ritual Louis used for so long to feed himself.
But a switchblade, Morocco can yield up a switchblade.
Louis wants to do everything with Daniel. To be as reckless as they were in San Francisco, indestructible in it now. Louis wants to know every part of Daniel, wants to see him flex his new abilities over and over again.
"We could do everything you passed on."
A casual offering, easy as a shrug, as a drawn breath. They can do anything. Everything. Why shouldn't they?
(In the main room, stacks of papers languish. Monetarily ignored, never forgotten.)
"If you want to see me penetrated that bad, you could ask."
He touches the tip of Louis' nose with an index finger, playful. Daniel is scrubbed clean with washed hair by now, perfunctory about it, clearly having never touched a luxury grooming product in his life. Having only ever been in a spa to clandestinely fuck other men, eschewing all specialty grooming, it's almost like he could actually be straight.
Wait what—
"I came out here to bother you, Louis. I want to do whatever you want to do. We can pick something in the morning. Evening." He huffs a laugh. "You know what I mean."
Lately, he has been picking fights. Seeking out old memories and ghosts. Texting Lestat.
And now here is Daniel, smiling at him, touching him, making promises about time.
Louis yields back his hand, smiles a little back.
"I'll think on it," Louis agrees, minor acquiescence. Daniel, trapping him into choices. Annoying. (Fond.) He tips his face up into the spray, rinse product from his hair before reaching for another bottle. Conditioner, this time. It's a leisurely process, all of this. Louis is a relatively young vampire, but there are small ways in which he has slowed down, learned to take his time because there is no hurry, no looming end point to life.
"We don't have to stay in Morocco," Louis reminds, eyes opening to look at Daniel as he works palmfuls of conditioner into his hair. "Could go somewhere else. Sight-see."
Somewhere Daniel doesn't have any kill orders or whatever taken out on him. A jailbreak might be fun, but not until less of the vampire world wants Louis dead, and maybe Daniel is less likely to make headlines in the wake of whatever dashing escape they concoct.
Daniel doesn't want to make choices for Louis, and he doesn't want to be his guest. Daniel can entertain himself, he can be a solo traveler everywhere he goes in life. Louis, on the other hand, has had so much muffled. Nearly a century stolen. Daniel is conscious of that, and wants to find the right balance to strike between handling it appropriately and not treating Louis like a baby.
He's probably put conditioner in. It just took him thirty seconds, because he doesn't care too much. And now, his hair's frozen in place, so it doesn't matter. He can spend even less time on messing with it.
Leaves him time to admire the view, too.
"I know."
Gentle, fond. There really is no rush. As long as they're hanging out for a while, Daniel will be happy.
"You know," Louis repeats back, syllables further softened by the reemergence of his accent. Affectionate.
Daniel knows so much. Sees so much. A gift that will only sharpen as time goes on, Louis presumes, become something more impressive than it has been. Louis' fingers pull slowly through his hair, working expensive product through to the very ends, before reaching out to draw Daniel in to him.
"Give me a hand," he coaxes, which is just an invitation for Daniel's hands on his skin, to be touched, with the soaps and soft clothes and rush of warm water an excuse for it. "We gonna have to get you something when we're finished here."
Blood. Louis can offer his usual fare, blood in thick mugs, in elegant glassware. But it's too late for a hunt. Louis wants to give Daniel that too, but tomorrow. It will wait until tomorrow.
A shy smile as Louis pulls him close. (Shy, after all that, while being naked in here with him, whatever.) But he does touch him, takes a cloth, slides it over Louis' skin. Everything smells nice. Not as nice as the hints of blood Daniel got from him, but this feels... grounding. It's not the otherworldly ecstasy of vampires fucking around. A normal kind of intimacy that Daniel has lacked as thoroughly as everything else.
"Whatever you've got on hand. No cereal."
Blood in mugs and little dishes is fine. He'll cope. And he'll decide, tomorrow, if he thinks Louis seems like he'll actually be comfortable hunting or not. Daniel is adept at handling it by himself, so there's no pressure, no need of an escort.
"No cereal," Louis promises. Takes advantage of their proximity to sling arms around Daniel's shoulder, cup his face. "I got enough for us."
Louis likes this too, taking care of Daniel. (Always Louis' way, these demonstrations. Actions that hold place for what's too difficult to say.) He likes Daniel smelling of him, likes the scent of his soaps and shampoos on Daniel's skin. He likes Daniel touching him, even if it's just little grazes of fingertips or the warmth of his hand through cloth.
He wants more. Everything. To talk for a week, meandering through topics. Draw opinions out of Daniel one after another. To argue. To make up after. Wants to bite Daniel everywhere, drink him down. Wants Daniel to drink from him. Wants everything, all at once, all the newness of them and all the intimacy of what they will be to each other.
Louis takes Daniel's face in both his hands, draws him down just to kiss once more.
"I'm glad you came to see me," he murmurs under the rush of water. Achingly sincere.
Daniel wouldn't call himself touch-starved. Old people don't feel that sort of thing. You get old and you give up physical intimacy, a normal part of the life cycle; even if he had gone over the hill with a committed partner, they'd be past the point of fooling around and sleeping curled up together, bodies too prone to aches and pains and discomfort. And that's without Parkinson's.
And yet he finds himself sliding his arms around Louis' middle, when he's drawn in for a kiss. Like he still can't get enough of touching him, like he can drink him in through skin to skin contact alone. Under the warm water, against each other. It chases some of the chill of psychic separation away, which is interesting in itself— now that it's been a few minutes, the contrast of being apart, that coldness, feels almost like psychic sensory play, instead of something negatively disorienting.
"I'm glad you let me find you."
Even if Louis didn't do it consciously, he wasn't closed off. Not hiding. Daniel was able to track him down, see him like a candle in the dark.
Louis had tried. He had meant to hide from him, obscure things, hold back, and Daniel had cut through it all anyway. He'd done it easy, and done it mortal. Imagine what he can do now, a vampire.
"I always want you to find me."
Soft words as Louis's hands slide across Daniel's shoulders, down his back and up again.
"Wherever I am, I want you there."
No words for it, only a foregone conclusion. If Louis is anywhere, Daniel is welcome. In his head, in his homes, in his bed. Anywhere. Everywhere. Echoes of anything in the assurance.
A flutter of emotion. There have been a whole lot, tonight. Louis will no doubt be able to feel the tender pulse in Daniel's heart, feeling the continued weight of this, how much it touches him. He's always felt safe, in a way, with Louis. Even when it wasn't. Even when he was being harmed. Safe enough to talk to him still after a reveal of fangs, to curl into him and listen when he was burned up, to stay with him in Dubai even after their sparring, and the muddied memory of his near-murder.
Not a boy anymore, but a part of him will always still be Louis'. Scars, and fingerprints on his heart.
He splays one hand over the other vampire's, to that end. His chest, his heart.
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.
Daniel's not going to try anything until he's forgotten human food entirely. Let the memory hold its shape, enjoy it, even in the absence. And he'll go eat somebody who works at one of these places, drink deep of their own memories, and maybe that'll be even better.
Would Louis like that? Finding someone with memories they'd enjoy. Probably not. It's probably fucked up of Daniel to wonder, to be doing it at all. Lestat encourages the wildest shit, and Daniel doesn't feel bad about it— just feels bad about not feeling bad, now and again.
'Oh, uhhuh.'
A hand-hold, and a vision, Louis in his tower in Dubai, with a neon sign lit up over it that reads COME FIND OUT. No instigation at all. Piqued interest, though, about a laptop. A very capable lure, even though they both know full well they could make it an email.
All the same, how about some flirting?
'You don't have to snap people in half if you miss me, babe.'
Someday. Louis has complicated thoughts on this too, spurred by the frenetic scraps of information that reach him. Daniel and Lestat, and all they do together. Louis, jealous.
And then: the extreme complication of being jealous of both of them at once.
Put aside now, letting amusement glow between them at Daniel's offered images, at the flirtation that follows.
I gotta fill the hours somehow, is mock-mournful. Otherwise it'd just be me in the dark, missing you.
An embellishment in return: Louis on the floor of the penthouse in Dubai, scattered books and newspapers bearing Daniel's words everywhere.
Can't help it if I gotta take drastic measures when their company ain't measuring up to yours.
Which is exaggerated but true. Lots of momentary diversions, none that compete. It's hard when the bar is Daniel Molloy, is Lestat de Lioncourt. Louis isn't bored yet, but the diversions thus far have been passing.
Of course, Louis kills them because they try to kill him first. But still.
Daniel and Lestat. They have fun, but there's a tension that runs through it. Lestat hates the book, but loves that it exists; he feels eviscerated by it, and at the same time, he knows that without it, Louis would still be trapped under Armand's glass bell. Becoming a celebrity, saying that he is the tragic, romantic villain of the book, has a strong flavor of reclaiming a slur.
Daniel doesn't begrudge him this. He doesn't begrudge him most things, even though he could. He spent two weeks of the interview, and then long months writing, as the only person left on earth who was speaking for Claudia. But Daniel isn't a great person, in the end. He's more interested in watching the shit Lestat does than he is interested in contriving some form of justice. Which is probably bad.
The flamboyant monster hasn't yet confronted him about Louis, in a specific way. It's coming, though. He's well aware. Enjoying the both of them, in different ways, before his head gets punched off.
'You're so busy,' he accuses with a laugh. 'Talk radio can't shut the fuck up about you.'
Talk radio being, of course, vampires.
'You have as many people falling in love with you from afar as you're pissing off. All these stagnant immortals having to care about something all of a sudden.'
Maybe he had been talking about himself but he was talking about all of them too. Vampires circling around the edges of the world, plotting a take over because they had nothing else to do.
Now they can all hate Louis. Daniel's gift to them. Louis' indulgence.
Some of 'em are just mad that they aren't bored anymore.
The older ones. The ones Louis knows he'll have to handle carefully, if he must handle them at all.
A thought cordoned off, away from Daniel. Louis gives him instead eye-rolling amusement, the squeeze of linked hands.
You tuning into them?
Which, like. Of course Daniel is. It's just invitation to talk about any part of what he's heard, anything that might be weighing on his mind.
As Louis notes: of course Daniel is. An unfiltered fire hose of vampire gossip and complaining and posturing, full of completely insane undead people who have no idea that he's eavesdropping. Even if a few suspect that the writer has been transformed (and a few do suspect it), a fledgling of his age shouldn't be able to hear as much as he does. Sneaky.
'There's been some talk in Hungarian about going after Lestat, but I can't tell how serious it is. People are wary of him, because they aren't sure how old he is, and there's this weird cycle that a lot of them get into, where they want to use the book as intel but don't trust it, or think it'd be gauche to acknowledge it, even when it's the thing they're mad about. It's funny.'
Perhaps Louis needs to stir the pot in Hungary. Not that Hungarian necessarily indicates location, but it's an acceptable starting point from which to draw attention.
Louis doesn't like it. Doesn't like attention paid to Lestat (who in fairness is cultivating a vampiric scandal all his own.) when it was Louis' choices that started them all into this track. More or less, anyway.
A bit of silence, the mental sense of tangling fingers. Of Louis, briefly gone away and then returned, attention warming as he fixes all of it back to Daniel.
It would be something to worry about if they could coordinate, but they can't. The younger ones squabble like alley cats and the older ones are waiting to see how long I'll live.
Shrewd assessments.
They do think it's gauche, what I did. Speaking to a mortal. They'd have thought you beneath me. Them. It's as much about that as it is about what you published.
Social faux pas, that's what the laws really govern.
A notion he's considered before, but is more and more relevant of late. He thinks about how shocked he was when he first tried to publish the interview— how immediate the stonewall was. No time for anyone to research and verify his identity or who he'd spoken to. Immediate. The kind of speed and thoroughness that suggests a level of omnipresent awareness that outstrips the fumbling stalkers of the Talamasca by miles.
Lost in thought for a minute.
He comes back—
'I mean, that makes sense, it would be weird for me to have published an interview with a sandwich when I was mortal.'
Swerving from the possibility of this or that coven, those who might have been quick to attempt to influence publishing. Who might present a more united front, yes, but Louis suspects there is little possibility of coordinating beyond their own chosen clan.
If he finds out, he might tell Daniel about it. A bridge to cross when the information presents itself.
Instead of belabor either point, Louis asks:
Where did you go?
Daniel had receded just a little bit away. Been a little less present. Returns and Louis leans into the sensation, drawing closer into the link between them.
How to explain. Wheels around in his head; Louis may be used to sensing this particular kind of mechanic to the way Daniel thinks, by now— vampire advancements make everything almost too fast, processing on a level like reading ten books at once. Easy to get distracted, though he's getting better at focusing and utilizing things appropriately.
'When I published my memoir, my usual place wouldn't take it. Until the interview, it was the only book they wouldn't put through. It was a subsidiary of a decent market pillar, but it's gone now. Like shell company gone, gone. I dunno. Could mean nothing. It's not like the memoir did very well, compared to everything else, and my regular place knew it wouldn't.'
That was the excuse, at least.
'What's the first thing you looked for in it, when you picked it up?'
Familiar, yes, but not quite used to. Pleased to be adjacent to the hum of the machinery, to feel the buzz of Daniel tracing ten trains of thought at once, of Daniel unraveling tangles of information down to an answer.
He draws in closer, drawing carefully nearer. Easy to expel, if Daniel gives he slightest indication he doesn't appreciate Louis' proximity.
Your memoir?
Thinking back, recalling the day in which he'd lifted Daniel's book from the stand. Armand's hand had been resting at the small of his back. The clerk had handed Louis the book back wrapped in brown paper. He'd waited to open it, choosing a moment alone, let his fingers trail down the page.
Louis lets Daniel have these impressions, while he considers—
The night we met.
Louis had touched his mind that night, yes. But it had been years. How did Daniel remember it? Remember them?
Proximity is welcomed, psychic hands tangled, leaning, like showing him the book he's reading. And due to it, before he even responds, there's a sense of— yeah, exactly.
Had Louis reached out, then? Had Daniel never noticed? But how could he, mortal, preoccupied. What a warm thought. Neither of the realized just how much they missed each other.
But what he means is,
'Right. Because you're a vampire. If I wrote about it, no one would believe me, except for people who know vampires are real. The place that published my memoir didn't ask for a single edit, by the way.'
You sure it's all because I'm a vampire, and not because I wanted to see if the handsome writer I met remembered me at all?
A different kind of ego at play. Flirtatious, inviting.
And a little debate before Louis lets Daniel feel it too, the memory of nervous energy as Louis had flipped through the pages. Anxious anticipation, wanting to find some sign of himself, of them, wanting it to be absent.
It had been. It it had felt like it had been, because Louis had read his own words and not recognized them. Had not quite found himself in the summation of Daniel's recounting of his exploits. Remembers—
The odd, empty feeling. Disappointment? (Armand had named it later: Does our boy's latest work disappoint?) Relief?
Not relief.
He had flipped to the front, begun to read from the beginning.
What are you implying about your memoir's publishers? diverts, a little tug of Daniel's attention back to his theorizing.
Daniel is getting better about accepting compliments over anything but writing, but he's not out of the woods. Like. Maybe he was moderately handsome then, if Louis is being generous. But Daniel looks very different now, and in turn, looks very different than his immortal peers because of it.
Just kinda weird. Something none of them will ever understand, that he gets to deal with. But all the same, he makes sure Louis can feel his affection, like sliding a hand over his chest, to companionably settle on his shoulder. He gets it. Nervous about being remembered. Even with their highly edited scraps, they were important to each other.
'Dunno, exactly.' And here, a shrug. 'Our book got totally blackballed outside of Talamasca. My memoir may have been vetted. Something is out there.'
Miles and miles away, feeling the impression of a touch, Louis closes his eyes. The ache of missing Daniel stirs in his head, rising like silt, coloring the connection between them without fully coalescing into words.
Alongside that, a pleased glow over Our book.
It is complicated, Daniel's choice to publish. Louis' last minute reversal, hasty burst of fire seeking to claw back his story, come to nothing.
They haven't talked about it. What can be said?
But even with all of this, Louis still likes the sound of our book. Likes the way it sounds in Daniel's mouth, in their heads.
And he likes this too, this shared unraveling. Louis considers, offers, I can imagine there are those of us old enough to have gotten a hand into publishing. I don't know why they'd have paid attention to your memoir though.
Daniel hadn't remembered to write down the truth of San Francisco. Louis and Armand had made no claims, no shouts out into the many.
How will you find out for certain? About the memoir?
Daniel imagines reaching out, cradling Louis' face in his hand, stroking his cheek with his thumb. He wonders how much of it comes out. He loves getting to feel all of this, the way he and Louis can tangle together even from afar, and he appreciates — in a practical way, which might be funny, given everything — getting to learn and practice.
Complicated, but good. Their book. Daniel was always going to publish it, even if he had to print copies and hand them out. The craziest thing he's ever done wasn't about to become lost media. Even if he was still going to just die of Parkinson's, he'd have done it.
Louis' answer, meanwhile, sounds charmingly innocent to Daniel. Don't know why they'd have paid attention, but even Talamasca, shoddily put together stalkers as they are, knew more about the truth of what happened that week. The idea that there aren't other vampires, who are better funded, fueled by superpowers, and all that shit, that knew, is pretty wild in that context.
But—
'I won't, probably. I've got other stuff going on right now. But I want you to be careful, yeah?'
A tease of impression. Not enough, but welcomed all the same.
Uncertain when he will have Daniel again, be able to demand his presence and attention. Louis is investigating, but he has no real illusions about chasing down missing pieces of his memory being enough to hold interest. Daniel says other stuff and a question forms in Louis' mind, set aside so Louis can ask:
Of anything in particular? is a little teasing, a little curious.
Louis is well aware of the things he should be careful of. And maybe that's all it is.
Louis already knows about other stuff. Most of the other stuff, anyway. Mostly it's Lestat's tour, and some of it's writing little things he'd let fall by the wayside during the tail end of his mortal life. The rest, cloudy-eyed sacrifices left in his hotel rooms, a hundred dead roses preserved in glass, the severed head of the pundit who suggested he was dying of AIDS— that's his business. Louis doesn't need to know.
'Anything you're not sure about.'
Daniel doesn't know, exactly, what to look for. It's too vague, and it's too big for him to go after. He'll need a lot more time and perspective.
It's too big. A long list. Seventy-seven years of uncertainties, wondering over the possibility of absences.
Ambitious, even for Daniel.
The connection between them warms, tender affection kindling in the wake of these words. A wistful inclination towards touch, where Louis might put himself if given opportunity. (Into Daniel's lap, weighing him down, all the easier to kiss.) Can't say any of the soft things that come to mind, so Louis sends this.
Says instead, That'll eat up some time.
And then, lower, questions, When can I see you again?
A very mortal turn of phrase, a little funny for it's incongruity. They are not a pair of new-met humans enamored in the wake of a first meeting. They are something else entirely.
Louis asks still. Daniel can always tell him no. Daniel is always going to be busy, restless, chasing. The conversations around what they make of that, what they will be to each other and where—
Faith that Louis will notice things, if Daniel nags him enough, and that he won't do anything too reckless. Sort of reckless, sure, but he has to believe (because he has no other choice) that if Louis saw something really and truly weird, a situational equivalent of that sign posted in underwater caves with the grim reaper on it, he'd back off.
And then—
'Anytime you want,' is warm, with the impression of a fond laugh. 'Except noon in a cafe, I guess. But you have the schedule.'
Lestat's schedule, he means. It's up to Louis decide if he wants to come meet up, intersect with the tour, or if he'd like Daniel to skim off at some point during a break. Of course, Daniel doesn't expect him to swan in here and hold his hand in front of Louis' maker — he expects Louis to keep using Daniel as a buffer for a while and eventually go back to him, frankly — but he could always quietly book a room somewhere down the street, and they could meet up. Go on evening cocktail dates. Pretend to be normal, or. Well. As normal as a pair of people who look like a hired caretaker and his patient can seem.
The laptop clicks closed, balanced over his thighs.
Louis had admitted freely, I miss him, when Daniel had invoked Lestat. And it is true still. Louis misses him. He has the tour schedule. It has been discussed, whether or not Louis would attend a show.
It had been complicated then. It was complicated now.
The impression of tangling fingers, Louis' weight leaning in against Daniel. Chin hooked onto his shoulder. Telegraphed sensations of where Louis would like to be, how close he would like to be.
I could come to you, Louis murmurs. You have a few free days towards the end of the month, don't you?
If he lets himself, Daniel could easily fall into the trap of being starved for touch and affection. Louis makes it all so tempting, in person and through the shocking intimacy of telepathy. Daniel is of course plenty affectionate, but he does worry about being clingy and needy and letting his various insecurities dictate his behavior. Tough, though, when Louis makes him think of things like leaning against each other, wrapped up, swaying and laughing.
He really does love him. Almost embarrassing, how much.
'I do. Got your eye on a hotel somewhere that you like?'
Trying very hard not to immediately think of what Louis has so far and prioritize that over daydreaming about holding his hand. A proverbial gleam in his eye. Oooo, things he can dig into.
Lestat's people have arranged his tour through mostly cities, all the better for hunting. Maybe some of these cities aren't going to afford Louis the kind of luxury he is most accustomed to, but there will be options.
And there will be Daniel.
Let me make the arrangements.
Because Louis likes that; doing for the people he is most fond of. No clearer expression of his love than the way he seeks to provide, even if it's only a hotel room.
You think on which bad movie you're gonna take me to see.
Treading across things said in Dubai, half-forgotten, only recently recovered, feels dangerous. But Louis likes this memory, likes how it felt when Daniel was offering him that company when they still felt near to strangers.
'Alright,' is a warm laugh. Louis, precise in all things; Daniel has always noticed, but it's not until recently that he's really started to pay closer attention and consider it personally. The items of clothing Louis picks to wear when they spend time together, the places he chooses. Daniel's happy with anything, but it's clearly something that matters to Louis, so he wants to appreciate it.
And, maybe, try to reciprocate. Though he thinks he sucks at it. Maybe he'll try to find a classier post card. More stylish shoes?
Yes, Daniel would be happy with anything. Louis is aware.
It's not showing off, the quiet flex of wealth inherent in so much of what Louis does. He cares deeply for Daniel. He would like to give him the best of everything.
This is how it has always been for Louis. Affection telegraphed in the way luxury is laid out for them, the best of what they might enjoy caught and presented to them.
Admittedly, Columbus, Ohio, presents different options. Still, the details appear promptly in Daniel's inbox from Louis' personal email. A penthouse suite, staff instructed to expect Daniel's arrival. A coffin already arranged, discretion bought and paid for.
A brief message: Looking forward to seeing you.
Understatement. (Difficult to encompass the depth of feeling involved.)
There is every chance Daniel arrives first. The sweet-faced boy behind the counter is effusive in his welcome, and a handful of attendants appear in a rush to take his bags, offer to fetch anything he might want, is there anything the mini bar should be stocked with...?
He is advised: Mr. du Lac will be arriving within the hour. But here's a parcel waiting for Daniel, Mr. du Lac hopes it will keep Daniel entertained.
A white box on the coffee table contains a scuffed laptop, machine and its contents given over to Daniel's inspection. (The only sign of Rachida's presence, the diligence of her attention to every detail of Louis' intentions.) Louis' elegant handwriting marks out Daniel's name on a slip of paper, making the recipient of the offering clear.
The idea of love languages is bogus, and was invented by a freakish pastor in a desperate attempt to assure worthless right-wing men that their shitty habits are justified and loving— but let's pretend. What is Daniel's? He's wondered this about himself before. The conclusion he keeps coming to is he's just a shit guy who not even a self-help relationship book can diagnose, because all the answers he coughs up are 'nagging' and 'procurement of details', and like, who gives a fuck.
Louis is a provider, and he's attentive, and generous. Daniel doesn't think there's a single thing he could get him, especially not in Ohio.
He picks up a postcard. It has an unimpressive photo of the downtown Columbus 'skyline', and in big, loopy lettering, says, At Least It's Not Cleveland!, and in turn, it is at least not the other postcard Daniel considered, which was just a vintage photo of a naked woman. Lestat and every member of the touring band has autographed the back of it. Daniel sets it on the coffee table while he investigates the box, the box, what's in the box, oooo.
Is the power source fucked? Does it turn on, or is Daniel going to have to send it to a guy he knows? He's still digging through things when Louis arrives, and—?
The power source is functional, but the hinges are holding on by a thread, and the screen is cracked. But it powers on, and the screen is functional, if annoying, to peer at. Louis disabled the password, but the contents have been minimally combed through.
Louis' suitcase arrives before he does, delivered into the room by way of a fidgety young man Daniel may or may not recognize. His greeting is very polite, and very brief; he slips out of any attempts to engage in conversation, vanishing before the sound of a keycard activating the lock.
Revealing the reason for this hasty departure: Louis.
Soft gray sweatpants, immaculate sneakers, sunglasses hooked into the low v of his t-shirt, delicate fabric made more so by the heavy leather of his jacket. Expression warming as the door closes, as his gaze settles on Daniel.
"Hey," in greeting, crossing the room. "What have you made of it?"
As if they are only picking up conversation recently lapsed.
"These old guys are worse than me at technology," he says, not missing a beat on the conversation that's been on hold for a few days. "And I mean, me when I first started getting lost on shit like touch screens, I'm alright now. But they're real bad. These vamps believe the ads on Facebook and all of their passwords are 'BloodIsAwesome'."
Daniel looks up from the wreckage, and smiles. Louis, as usual, looks incredible— if Daniel didn't appreciate it so much he might take umbrage at his own vibe being so effortlessly upstaged, but it's impossible. Louis could wear a trash bag and look better than most people on Earth, alive or dead.
"Hey."
Warm. Just a little shy. Are they— does he get up, go to greet him, offer him a kiss? Are they those kind of people? He's not sure. It would be nice, but he doesn't want to be overbearing. So. He stands anyway, tries not to feel sheepish and dorky in his band tee and unremarkable shoes.
Daniel stands, and Louis isn't sure why it feels unexpected. Some thought of simply crossing the room, putting himself into Daniel's space, knocked just slightly out of alignment by Daniel rising from his seat.
A moment's hitch, pausing. Maybe picking up some of Daniel's anxiety, caching some minr flicker of the emotion as Louis continues on, meeting him. Grinning a little over Daniel's approval, at the computer laid open on the table.
"Hey," Louis echoes back. Fond. "You look good."
A grazing, skimming touch along the edge of Daniel's mind in tandem as he reaches for Daniel's hand, for the front of his shirt.
He steps around to meet him, inherent fearlessness mingling with that same shyness— it wasn't so long ago that he was telling himself he wasn't going to do anything like this, but here he is, because it's Louis. If only the genuineness of his feelings made him know, magically, how to take each step. He can't fall back on how he usually operates in relationships (is that what it is?), because those have all ended in disaster.
Also he's still—
Should he treat Louis like a woman? Probably not. But. How the fuck, etc.
More than any flustered nerves, though, is happiness at getting to see him in the flesh again. He squeezes Louis' hand when it touches his, and he covers Louis' other one on his chest. Green-blue eyes today, too dense, like pieces of a broken bottle washed in the sea for years and years instead of the clear water of his mortal ones, but at least not yellow-orange like his maker.
"Uhm— I dunno," and he has to laugh at himself, caught up in snooping. He glances at his watch (still ever-present, hasn't picked up a nicer one yet). "Little over half an hour, looks like."
Nonsensical, the way Louis thinks, We should never be apart.
There are many good reasons to give Daniel his space. For Louis to maintain his own. And yet.
"Sorry I kept you waiting on me," Louis says instead, and answers the question he is sure will follow: "Had an artist open up their studio for a showing."
Accommodating Louis' requirement to meet after sunrise. Gone are the days when it was him and Armand, and Armand could take a meeting at noon if it was offered.
Louis' thumb runs back and forth, knuckles flattening comfortably under Daniel's hand. Little touches, little contact. The feeling of a heartbeat under his palm.
"It's good to see you," offered instead of I missed you. Sentiments that rhyme, even if the former feels less urgent than the latter.
All well contained, but Louis is also uncertain of what now. What they make of this time. His disparate desires to simply take Daniel to bed and stay there maybe not welcome, nor productive. There is the computer, there are things Louis has dragged from the minds of dying vampire, but is it enough to hold Daniel's attention?
Still delighted by this fact, and so: waiting is no problem, especially when the payoff is Louis. Maintaining his smile, feeling sparks of too-young butterflies at the little touches. Way out of his league, but happy to be here for as long as he can. Tagging along with these talented, beautiful monsters, be it professionally with Lestat, personally with Louis.
Speaking (thinking) of, he could show Louis that card. Silly and a bit stupid, not ranking with artists that Louis is doing after.
But. Daniel looks like he's going to say something. Doesn't. Then tries again, finding courage—
"Can I kiss you? Are we the, you know, type to do that, 'Hey I missed you', and—?"
Because he's missed him. And it's good to see him.
Louis has no clear answers. He is trying to find his way, not to make Daniel uncomfortable in the process. Remembers Daniel saying, I'm straight, by the way, and recognizing it as something that deserved careful handling.
But Daniel asks him this, and the answer comes easy: "You can kiss me whenever you want."
No need for any particular occasion, no need to wait for an excuse.
He releases Daniel's hand to run fingers along his neck, thumb the line of his jaw, and tell him, "I missed you," and then invite, "Come kiss me."
He wants to enjoy himself, be comfortable, experience new things. More than that, he wants Louis to enjoy himself and be comfortable. Daniel knows that Louis is genuine, they've spent enough time fumbling in each other's heads and indulging in the warm, druglike intimacy of it. He believes he's happy. But he wants it to be fulfilling, too.
Daniel can't be Lestat. He's not the kind of guy who can sweep anyone off their feet. But maybe it can be fun. Maybe it can be worth it, for Louis, in this stage of his life. Daniel would like that. Being worth it, in whatever capacity he's capable of.
His pulse skips at that touch, that invitation. He squeezes Louis' hand against his chest. It really is good to be with him in person. Telepathy is great, but this is worlds better. He leans in, and kisses him.
Louis leans up into him, fingers sliding to the nape of his neck, thumb pressing down over the pulse beating in Daniel's throat. Reaches for his mind as they kiss, a skimming tease of contact tempered only by the awareness that Daniel might want to talk, just a little, before they fall into each other.
Teasing, and then alongside it runs a quieter, fretful impulse that is all questions, the muted impulse to ask, How has it been? How are you? What have you been doing? Are you happy, still?
They have been apart. Louis knows it's good for them both. And yet—
A slow parting, kissing Daniel again and then again after, soft and lingering, before saying, "Hey," again, into the narrow slip of space between them. "Missed you."
Like a reminder, a reassurance against the way Daniel shrugs off his own importance. Whatever they are, whatever they will be, he is always important. It will always be true.
Psychic fingers tangle, light and playful. Immediately tripping and falling into the abyss of coiled together minds is probably too quick, but Daniel will never shut him out. He's getting better at it rapidly, improving night by night, and though there's still an excitable, fledgling energy to it all, he's no longer accidentally almost bowling Louis over. Less of a mess inside, tidied up a bit, compartmentalized into work and and emotion and (things he's keeping sectioned away, thanks Armand) everything else.
"Missed you, too." Warm. Daniel offers another small kiss, chasing in return. Helpless against wanting him, even through the tangle of insecurities he may always be working through.
"I'm glad you're safe. And here. I know we can talk anytime, but I like seeing you."
Suppose they fall into each other. Suppose they tangle up in this hotel room, only emerging when the hunger is too great to bear?
Anything murmurs beneath the tangle of their minds, Louis sliding in among the neat order Daniel has been building within his own head. He learns so rapidly. It is different in some small way each time Louis touches his mind, sees how Daniel has grown since they last spoke.
"I'll stay stateside a while. Make it easier to show up when you got a couple off days."
And Louis has promised to attend concerts. Has been speaking to Lestat, text messages and phone calls. Similar reassurances. He is alive, he is safe, no one has harmed him.
Complicated.
Louis puts these things aside. Leans their foreheads together, slides his arm around his shoulders.
"You hungry? Or you wanna stay here and talk a while before we start thinking about those drinks you promised me?"
An invitation for Daniel to continue tinkering with the laptop, if he likes. Louis is willing to indulge, to enjoy the challenge of distracting him away from it in an hour or so.
Staying right here, wrapped up together, is alluring. Daniel could happily lose days and nights, knows it's the same for Louis— he's discovered he really has to keep himself on schedule, now that hes dead. He doesn't get tired the same way, and time passes almost the way it did when he was a teenager, flying by carelessly, brilliantly.
Louis being in the US is good. It makes him perk up, his eyes crinkling with the sincerity of his smile. Even if it's not completely for him, it's still good. Daniel likes the idea of him being closer, no matter the big picture reasons.
"I'm not hungry," he says, "but we could still go out."
Watching Daniel smile really diminishes the allure of heading out into the streets of downtown Columbus.
Armand had wanted him, yes. Louis knows this, has never felt any reason to doubt it. Armand had wanted him, but by the time they parted, the unseen fractures between them had swallowed up any pleasure they could possibly take in each other's company. How rare it would have been, to see Armand look at him with the kind of sincerity Daniel shows now, smiling at the possibility of sharing a continent with Louis.
They do need to be disentangling, but Louis leans up and kisses him again as if Daniel's expression is something that could be tasted.
"Buy me a drink," Louis entices, punctuates with a last light kiss brushed to Daniel's mouth. "I'd like that."
Echoes of the past, Daniel fumbling a crumpled bill onto the bar to buy Louis something cheap but strong. Louis letting him, even though he had a wallet thick with cash.
"You can tell me what you been doing since I last saw you."
Whatever Daniel hasn't already offered up, set into Louis' mind whenever they reached out to each other telepahically.
How is anyone not sincerely happy to see Louis? A mystery. Daniel was taken with him first thing in the bar, all those years ago. His heart had leapt (in panic, in curiosity) when he'd gotten the tapes, and he'd spiraled into aggressive fear and managed excitement seeing him again in Dubai. Happy to smile, now, happy to be happy, with him, and not in Dubai or anywhere else Louis has been getting into fights.
A conundrum, all that. He wants the information being collected, but he doesn't love the way Louis' been coping with things. At least for now, he's here with Daniel, and he can lean in for one last kiss and give his hand a squeeze, know that he's got him safe and sound for a few days.
"Hotel bar, or a walk?"
Daniel steps back, though slightly reluctantly; telegraphed in the way he keeps one hand linked with Louis'. He moves to snag the post card with his other, and holds it up—
Daniel keeps hold of his hand, and Louis tangles their fingers together securely. Maintaining contact, as long as feels comfortable. As long as what Louis feels coming off Daniel is content, rather than self-conscious.
The intention to walk is there in the casual tug towards the door, stymied as Daniel holds up the postcard.
And Louis smiles, even though behind the most immediate reaction is something more complicated.
"I bet they're giving you a run for your money," Louis says, reaching to take the card from Daniel's hand. Runs a thumb over the assortment of signatures on the opposite side, smile warming, shifting quieter in the wake of the initial grin.
"And I bet you got some stories. Maybe some you'll even tell me about."
Assuming the possibility of Daniel holding back. That some parts of him are private, and not meant for Louis, even if they involve Lestat.
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.
Something like an invitation. Daniel would tell him to leave if he didn't want Louis here, wouldn't he?
Was that what those weeks of silence, absence of response, was that Daniel telling him to fuck off?
Louis closes the door quietly behind him. Follows because he is helpless to do anything else, kited along by Daniel with new eyes, sharper nails, scent altered.
Stands in the quiet, looking around the room. Daniel has been here? Long enough that his scent is comfortably suffused within the space. He has been well fed.
He has been a vampire for—
"I didn't know."
Isn't an excuse.
Isn't even followed with the things Louis had thought, his panicky worries, all fears between Daniel's declining health and the possibility of having been cut off forever. Not for Daniel to carry, the things Louis had been turning over in his head.
"Daniel," repeated, softer. An appeal. Look at him. Don't brush this off.
He figured that was the case. Thought it had to have been, expected it, and yet still, somehow—
A rough exhale, like a laugh, and Daniel scrubs his hands over his face as he turns back around. Restless. He crosses his arms for something to do with his hands, and shrugs, though it's clearly an anxious gesture and not a dismissive one.
"I get it, because you were freaking out. You had to bail. I just— it's still a crazy thing to hear. Cognitive dissonance between completely understanding why you left the way you did, why you wouldn't have thought past the moment, needing to leave, and... what was going to go on when the door closed behind you. Because there was never a world where it was nothing."
So it's! Just! Crazy!
Daniel could laugh more. He could cross the room and hug Louis. Contradictions within him.
The memory in question is so, so sharp. How angry he had been. How deep the betrayal cut. The full knowledge of the lie, of what Armand had took, what Louis had permitted to happen.
And still, he'd had that sliver of trust.
"He'd never," Louis begins, and stops.
A foregone conclusion. Armand did this. Does Daniel need to say it?
Almost eighty years, and maybe Louis didn't know everything but he had know this: Armand had never made another vampire. He had been repulsed by it. He had never chosen it.
And behind that, the awareness of what Armand knew. Of what Louis had wanted, intended.
"I'm sorry," is what Louis settles on.
Louis' fault. Louis had brought all of this to pass. Put Daniel in this position. And now they are here, and Louis cannot undo any of it.
"Well," and Daniel is laughing again, incredulous and something like relief, "I'm pretty sure that's what he thought, too. But I guess some loudmouth old human who he should have killed fifty years ago hasn't ruined his life before."
A collection of pronouns instead of a name. Armand would find that funny, he thinks. Haunting them so clearly.
"Me too, really. I was very confident he was just regular killing me. So you can imagine how weird waking up was. But fortunately I had these fucking nerds around and I got a safe ride out of town without torching myself by accident. Ready for all my opinions about how over-dramatic you've made certain aspects seem?"
Hey, look, he's got insensitive jokes still. Just going to steamroll right past all the potential trauma, yep.
Lestat had been something like gentle with Louis. Lestat had given him a choice. But Lestat had not been Claudia. How could he have been? Maybe there was no other vampire who could ever have given the Gift the way Claudia had.
Louis had wanted to try. For Daniel.
It doesn't matter now.
"You can tell me," Louis invites, treading closer, further into the room. "Whatever parts of it you want to, or can."
What Armand had done.
How many ways Louis will have to make him suffer before he makes good on what he'd promised Armand before be left.
Doesn't say again I'm sorry, but it lives in his face still.
A pause, in which Daniel looks slightly anxious, like a cat being pet the wrong way. Fur inward.
"Gonna stay my business."
Whatever went on between he and Armand is forever behind the door Louis walked out of, as far as Daniel's concerned. Louis let it shut behind him, and went to New Orleans (so the nerds have said, maybe they're wrong), and it didn't occur to him that Armand had no reason in the world to obey, that Armand might be motivated to exact revenge on the person who'd set the bomb off, that Armand had spent two weeks with a psychic power drill held up to Daniels' temple right in front of him. And so that's where it's going to stay: behind the door, past which only Daniel and (unfortunately) Armand are privy to.
He exhales and internally shakes off the ill feeling. The idea of sharing anything about it, even with Louis, is just... strange. Daniel looks at him, small frown knit between his brows.
A thing that will calcify, cement the sense of blame to underwrite the responsibility Louis had already assigned himself.
Whatever he might have said, whether or not Louis would have asked something more direct, swept aside by the question Daniel puts to him. Louis looks taken aback. Somehow, the last thing he'd expected.
"You're asking about me?"
Confused.
"I should be asked about you."
And he will. If they aren't going to talk about the act, they can hash out the aftermath.
"Me," an incredulous tone. Daniel holds up one hand, palm flat. Perfectly still. "I'm great. Better than great. Either I've never actually felt this good, not even in my twenties, or I've been in so much pain for so long that prior stability seems fake."
Louis doesn't know what it was like to be sick.
(Armand does.)
"I sent each of my kids a couple million, and I got to talk about censorship and extremism with Samuel Beckett via shoddy Zoom call. You had your whole life blown up, and you ran out before I could even ask if you were going to be okay."
Hand in hand. Daniel is as aged as ever, but the quality to him is different; less fragile, less changeable, steady, and of course, colder. The diamond-hard claws that tip each finger are just too long to be appropriately subtle. He'll have to have excuses that go beyond lackluster maintenance. Maybe he can paint them black.
He looks at Louis.
What's easy? What does that mean? Growing up with immigrant parents terrified of genocide, being a hustler, being a drug addict, being the worst parent, being terminally ill, being tortured for weeks at a time? What's easy ever gotten him? But he thing is, he can say anything. He just isn't going to.
Behind tinted glasses, orange glints. Eerie.
"I'm fine, Louis. Don't rush me into hating it, okay? I've got a while, with any luck. Plenty of time to get miserable eventually."
Gently, but firmly, Daniel withdraws his hand and reasserts his personal space. Hurts a little, for a lot of reasons. In a way he feels too young— easily bruised, the delirious high of a renewed existence sending him stumbling around like a kid again. But in this, he's very much leaning on old man instincts. He's very aware of what it feels like to not be a priority, and as much as he cares for Louis (wouldn't have done what he did if not), he just doesn't want to fall down a fucking hole.
"Don't do that," he says, sounding tired. Not unkind, but still. Gentle but firm to match the retrieval of his hand. "I don't blame you, it's not like that. But you did leave me with him. Those two things co-exist. So I can't— just, none of that. The what you wanted stuff."
It isn't true, and if it is, Daniel would almost find it worse. Louis what, wanted to make him a wrinkly old man vampire? How fucking ridiculous. Daniel is happier like this already, but it's definitely not ideal. The alternatives are all just even less ideal. At least in this reality, he gets superpowers and he doesn't hurt anymore.
"Besides, you might decide you're angry with me, when I tell you why I'm still London."
Daniel says, Don't do that, and Louis relinquishes his grip, looks steadily back into Daniel's face and bites down on a true thing he might have said otherwise.
Daniel doesn't want it, and so Louis puts it away. What use is it, what Louis would have offered? What he had wanted? Daniel doesn't want to hear him say it, and so Louis doesn't.
Daniel says, I don't blame you.
And Louis does not believe him.
This too, Louis holds in his chest. Lets the quiet settle before gamely asking, "Why are you still in London, Daniel?"
This could have been a phone call, he thinks. It's an unkind thought, but he just feels vulnerable. He's had to figure out most of this alone, working with his 'education' from the interview and navigating the not-always-helpful help from the Talamasca, whose priority is transparently trying to lock him in as an asset over anything else. It's fine, because he's been fine, he's already gone through the adjustment of being alone in life.
Reckoning with Louis, wondering about how to manage his reactions and his feelings about it, is alien. This has nothing to do with you, he could say. Considers saying. Because while Armand might have had motivations surrounding Louis, Daniel's existence is his own.
It's just—
He doesn't want to be an asshole. Happens pretty often, though. Ask his exes. Ask his kids.
"They're helping me publish the book." He spreads his hands, shrugs. "Ten million and lighting my laptop on fire might have been okay if I was going to die in a few years, but I can't let it go, now."
Daniel can't let it go. He is taking Louis' life and publishing it.
Louis is quiet, eyes moving over Daniel's face. Taking in his eyes, the absence of familiar blue. Thinking of messages flung into a void, unanswered. Daniel's hand in his, in those last moments.
A shuttering in Louis' face, controlling the initial rush of emotion. He feels distance, and withholds in turn. Uncertain of them, of what connection has survived. Louis had left and had trusted Armand, and now this. Now they are here, and Daniel is telling him this without apology, without any give to the words.
Breaks the winding tension by stepping back, away. Circling a few paces from Daniel, gaze moving from him to the room.
Louis is still looking away from him as he asks, "Were you going to tell me?"
Or would it have simply been the book, released into the world?
Flippant. Louis had signed over the rights already before Daniel even got to the penthouse. What was that going to look like, if he hadn't blown everything up? Was Armand only pretending to let it happen, waiting for Louis to look away before he killed the journalist then shrugged about the book never happening? Or was Louis going to do it himself, one last step to closure? He'd certainly been willing to hurt Daniel over the course of it.
He doesn't really think so. But it's a plot hole, to so speak, and with his maker AWOL, he can't ask the person who probably has the actual answer.
But—
"Of course I was going to tell you. That's probably why Traitor Agent Rashid ratted me out. The nerds didn't want me to."
Talamasca muddles the picture. A whole other party, their own objectives. They didn't come to collect Daniel out of the goodness of their heart. They are not supporting the publishing of Louis' interview out of the goodness of their heart.
Something for later. This is about them, not the Talamasca. Not yet.
"I was never going to kill you," Louis answers. Easy honesty. Daniel has barred him from saying the rest, explaining the rest, so Louis leaves it there. Louis had always wanted Daniel to live, even when he didn't fully understand the whole of why.
How much to say to the rest? What he had wanted then, how much it had changed when Daniel had started digging? How much does it matter given what's been done now?
A breath, before asking, "Does it matter that I don't want you to publish it?"
Maybe that's what Louis really believes. Daniel's expression betrays his skepticism, though. Was Louis really going to let him walk out of there, perfectly (imperfectly, miserable, dying) alive, to go and publish their book, before he knew about Armand? ... No, he thinks. Even if Louis made himself believe that. No way. There was a plan he wasn't privy to. Daniel is certain.
A beat, then—
"Sort of." What an awful answer. Daniel is aware, but his awareness doesn't help much. "Not enough to throw it out. Look, man, I only have so much time left to do this as Daniel Molloy. And this is going to change the world, the world that I'm now a part of on both sides. I can't just not go out there with the truth of it, not after all that. And that's what you wanted, too. This half-life under a rock thing fucking sucks. You wanted to throw the grenade into the shadows."
Skepticism. Familiar on Daniel's face, not unexpected, but what does Louis do about it?
It becomes something to weigh in a hand as he looks at Daniel and listens to this answer. The appeal behind it.
"It was different then."
Daniel should know. Daniel had pulled down the foundation upon which Louis had been standing on. Uncovered truth.
He hadn't known about Lestat. Hadn't known where the blame truly laid for Claudia's death. Whatever Louis had thought the story would shake free, it hadn't been that particular revelation.
An observation after, "But now things have changed for you."
That Daniel won't be swayed. He wants this book. He wants to take Louis's story and shake the world with it. What can Louis truly do to dissuade him, if his own preference for the story isn't enough?
Very aware of that fact. He was there, after all. He saw it before Louis did, days before, maybe weeks before as soon as he got there, something rotten and fucked up and fake. If Daniel had been sicker, if he couldn't have come, Louis would still be stuck in a tower with Armand, playing house, having no opinions of his own, slowly wasting away.
Daniel doesn't want to say that. Doesn't want to say You owe me, because he hates that kind of shit, but it might be useful. Like he said, he does care— it's a personal kind of caring, because it's Louis.
But the story. He can't let go.
"Literal darkness is fine, for me. But figurative darkness isn't going to work."
It is only a little like being cornered, backed in and caught. Things have changed. Louis hadn't expected the end of his own story to become a reveal, to exonerate Lestat, to break him from Armand. There had been something misaligned. Louis had known that. He'd known Daniel would find it.
He had thought it was a fracture, something that would realign. The scope of it—
No.
Louis puts contemplation of it away.
Swerves anyway, direct, asks, "Why didn't you call me, not them?"
Did Daniel think he wouldn't have come? That Louis wouldn't have helped him?
Daniel tries not to look at him like he's grown a second head. Is maybe medium successful.
A pause that goes on long enough to touch the edges of awkward, as he regards Louis, before he finally musters up:
"I wanted to deal with it and move on."
No, he does not think Louis would have come, while he was in the midst of a total nervous breakdown and fleeing back to Louisiana. He does not think Louis would have helped him, at least not right away, and certainly not in a style that Daniel could have tolerated at the time. Might still not be able to tolerate now. He understands that Louis's lack of attention is not because he doesn't care (probably), but that doesn't erase the fact that he simply wasn't there. That he let the door shut behind him and kept walking even as Armand drained all the blood out of Daniel's body.
He doesn't remember if he called out. But it doesn't matter. Louis either didn't hear, or wouldn't have anyway, no matter how close he was.
"You still haven't told me how you are. Though I should have pressed for an answer there before handing you another bomb, huh."
Maybe, maybe a better idea to trap Louis into a status report before the past weeks and potential future are all drastically reframed for him.
But it's too late now.
Daniel is looking at him and Louis feels some stubborn, hurt impulse sparking in his chest. Vents it by treading away, further into the suite. It's a nice set of rooms. Not exactly on the level Louis would accept, but Louis is working with a very different budget. He runs a finger across the tabletop, disturbing none of the items laid across it.
"I'm fine."
Which was like, mostly true a few hours ago. A shrug of an answer, pushing past the question. Not important.
Turning, looking back to Daniel. Tugs out a chair, settles himself at the far end of the table. Familiar positioning. The interview is over but here they are, in a room, treading around difficult things.
"I'm sorry I wasn't there."
Is Daniel even going to allow this much of an apology?
It's shitty and he's aware, but Daniel is holding his ground about it. Not moving forward with the book is untenable, and always was— which Louis knows, somewhere deep down. He's partially responsible for it. Not just the content of the book, but for driving it into Daniel's head when he was a kid, giving him a throughline for his entire life. Always there. Always had a job, always wanted to work, even when everything else was sinking.
And things have been sinking in a very unique way, lately.
Watching Louis sit down, like they're getting ready for another interview, forces a lopsided smile onto his face. Things are tense and awkward, but he does care for Louis. A deep personal care completely sectioned away from his bullheaded inability to not publish, sure, but genuine. Louis, still all the things he is, and he gets to be them honestly now. Free from Armand. Even if Louis hates him for the book, Daniel's glad he blew everything up.
"I know."
Allows it, though whether or not that's accepting, Louis will have to decide for himself. Daniel's tone is soft, at least.
"And, hey." He shrugs. Considers a chair for himself, but does not yet pick one. "Armand can't get into my head anymore, which is a huge plus. Probably part of why he flipped and bolted."
Speaking the name into existence, making it real. Armand turned him, Armand is his maker, with his ancient blood from some pederast wannabe painter who walked the earth alongside Christ. Some real top shelf nonsense, given to the most annoying old man to ever live. Daniel's expression twists slightly, reluctant, shuttered. He can't stop himself from asking, and resents it.
The name. The name, pulled from the air and said aloud. The name linked with this silver lining Daniel is offering, met with a tilt of Louis' head, eyes searching as Daniel settles. Doubtful.
All his romanticisms and embellishments, all the ways Louis has described maker and fledgling, and there is the single truth: whatever form it takes, there is a link. Something to tie maker and fledgling together.
Something Armand will tug on.
Something Louis had wanted to tie, soul to soul.
Does Louis want to argue? Maybe. A little. Daniel is offering him options, things for Louis to kick against, if he decides it to be worth the argument.
In the meantime, the immediate question:
"No," Louis answers. "He was gone. He left no sign as to where."
Some things withheld: how entirely Armand has shielded himself from Louis. How long it has been since Louis walked the earth without feeling Armand at the edge of his mind, like the link of fingers.
How Louis has wondered whether that light touch was more than he realized then.
No sign for Louis to see, but did Louis really look into it? Did he put work into trying to track him down? Probably not, and Daniel can't expect to him to. And yet a part of him itches to ask to go through all his records, find every lawyer, alias, account number. Refrains. He can dig all that up himself, anyway, and has only been putting it off because other things have taken priority.
"Makes sense."
That's kinda funny, right?
Maybe not. Finally, Daniel sits down. Lets out a breath, and tries to find ease again.
"But I'm glad, for your sake. Glad he fucked off."
Daniel doesn't ask the question, and Louis doesn't volunteer anything more.
Did he seek Armand? Does he seek Armand now? Would he seek Armand if Daniel asked?
Varying levels of complicated, the answers to these questions. But there are answers. Louis holds onto them as Daniel moves them past the space in which they might be asked.
The sentiment is—
Daniel means it kindly. Sincerely.
Louis feels it like fingers pressing down on a bruise. Armand is gone. Daniel has paid a very high price to see this done. Louis is struggling with that now, the cost. Daniel is looking at him with someone else's eyes.
Abruptly: "I missed you. I been missing you."
The way Louis reached out, it had been for no other reason than wanting Daniel in his life. To maintain connection.
True now, still, even as Daniel seeks to publish Louis' story, deflects away his apologies.
Daniel had thought it was more likely than not he'd die, but that didn't mean he wanted to die. Weaponized insecure grandpa eyes at Raglan, an idle draft of his will the evening after, boldly downing a very good martini in a final salute then scrambling to try and get out when very professionally capslocked at— survival instinct's a funny thing. He's still spinning around a bit, adjusting, adapting, fixing his head with the situation.
A paltry summary. The situation. Jesus fuck.
Louis, now. Finds a way to wound him, bittersweet. In between hours writing and researching and coping with new sensations and needs, he has thought sometimes of Louis, and imagined some other world. A world he does not inhabit. Has anyone ever missed him? Genuinely? People have said it. But they don't mean him, they mean some role he fills, husband, father, employee, caretaker. He thinks Louis might actually be the first person to say it to him, and mean him.
"I thought about picking up," he admits. "And I'd think about you, after I didn't." His gaze ticks away, uncharacteristic. Daniel, who stares dead ahead, confrontational even casually, is not infallible that way; being alone with it had in fact been horrible, as Louis absolutely knows, he just doesn't want to talk about it. Another beat, orienting himself, and he looks back.
"I've been worried. They said you went to New Orleans."
How could it ever matter, that Louis had spent those days missing him? Would it ever matter that he had spent that time reaching out? Could it matter that Louis stubbornly clawed his way back into Daniel's space after all that silence, that he's here now?
He wasn't, when it counted.
Louis says it anyway. He had missed Daniel. All things are complicated and painful, but in the midst of it all, there is such relief to be each others company. Daniel looks away from him and Louis feels affection twisting in his chest.
Doesn't say, I wish you'd picked up.
Because he does, yes, but it wouldn't help Daniel to hear it. Louis would have come, would have helped. Maybe offered something more than the Talamasca had, than Armand did.
Doesn't matter.
"I did. Just for a few days," Louis confirms. Explains, "Called you on the way back."
That first call. The confusion at the absence of answer. Reaching out and finding empty space.
A similar experience trying to call Lestat, who must have almost immediately abandoned the phone Louis purchased for him. Abandoned, broke. Louis isn't certain. Has to make his peace with it.
"You shouldn't be worrying about me," Louis reminds. "I ain't the one with so much on my plate."
Another case of things co-existing. Daniel doesn't blame Louis, and Louis left him with Armand. Daniel missed Louis, and Daniel didn't want to face Louis. Days later when he first called was already ages too late, and Daniel had already decided how he wanted to move forward. No hand-holding, no sympathy, no rats, no lessons, just take what he'd already learned from the interview and forge ahead.
He'd made peace with being alone. Hell, he'd made peace with dying alone. Very handy, now, staring over the edge of the abyss of immortality. It had already been an easy enough concept to understand, the need for companionship driving an immortal insane, making them willing to do any and every awful thing to keep hold of it. Vampire loneliness, and tears rolling down cheeks, and very dramatic, and very sad, and all that.
So it was good, even if it was terrible. Start as you mean to go on.
Though, Daniel has to chuckle, soft and wry. "This has taken a lot off for me."
Another stark reminder that Louis doesn't know what it's like to be terminally ill, and he's never gotten old.
"Was it... I mean. Did I call it?"
Perhaps incredible to think, but at this point, Daniel doesn't know with absolute certainty that he was right, about Lestat. He's pretty fucking sure, but there's always the possibility of some other, unexpected angle.
No, he had never entertained the possibility that Daniel could have been wrong. It was never a sense that Daniel was infallible, only that Daniel was incisive, perceptive in a way Louis couldn't be when it came to his own life and what was amiss within it.
Daniel had pulled apart Louis' recollection of the trial, and put a finger upon the heart of the great lie: Armand didn't save you. Lestat did.
Incredible, that he is asking now if he was right.
A breathless shift from surprise to affection, bypassing any other emotion that might have lived in-between. (His life, in pieces. His life, rendered into a book.)
"Yes," Louis tells him. "You were right."
Lestat, glossy-eyed in low light, shrugging off Louis' questions. Confirmation of the act, no answer for the rest.
It's not really a relief, because he wasn't worried he was wrong, but there's still a great spike of satisfaction, and Daniel's smile is a smug one like a sure bet payed off. Victory.
"I was one thousand percent sure about Armand," he says. Something funny about his tone there, personal heel-grinding, before he continues. "And I really, really believed it, about Lestat, but you know—" he gestures. "Vampires and shit, what if there was a million year old alien who was puppeting everyone, he was full of sentient worms that slowly replaced his body over the previous twenty years, or something, and I couldn't guess. But I'm glad it was him. I really am, Louis."
One good reveal, in a series of utterly bullshit reveals. At least Lestat cared, in the end. Or 'the end', because there's still an endless road of immortality ahead of each of them, on which they can do anything, everything they want. Mend broken fences or never see each other again, at least now Louis can decide with all the correct information.
Affection still, expression softening as he takes in Daniel's reaction. Affection mixed with amusement, head tipping as he takes in Daniel's satisfaction. Standing at a remove, enjoying Daniel process his victory, Louis can sever away all the rest.
"I'm glad you were right."
About Armand.
About Lestat.
True, regardless of how messy Louis' existence is now. Standing in so much rubble, sifting through piece by piece, he is certain of this: he is grateful for Daniel.
Daniel, who saved him.
(And Louis failed him in turn.)
And then, carefully: "Do you want me to go?"
There's a possibility he is intruding. Unwelcome. Daniel deserves the opportunity to tell him as much.
"Only if you're going to evade telling me how you actually are," he banters back. And his tone is easy, but he does kind of mean it. If Louis is going to shut down, mire himself in mingled guilt and resentment because Daniel is no longer mortal, and Daniel is going to publish the book— fair enough, but he can do that on his own time. He's got plenty of it.
"But I'm about the blow this joint, anyhow, so you can think about your answer for a little bit, at least. You showing up is a pretty handy opportunity for me to leave. If you're in the mood to annoy some nerds."
A buffer, a little time in which Louis can think on what he intends to share with Daniel. What he might say if Daniel asks, direct and unwavering in search of an answer.
In the present moment, Daniel proposes an escape and Louis smiles at him across the able. Shark-sharp, a hint of fang. Some appeal in stealing Daniel out of this place. Some appeal in thwarting the glassed man in the elevator, in helping Daniel to pry himself free of their grip.
"Okay," Louis agrees, leaning elbows on the table, chin on one palm. "Yeah, let's fuck up their week."
Louis owes them something in kind. Not just for Rashid, and whatever he toted back from Louis' home.
Daniel laughs, a bright thing. If they really had run around together in the 70s, they'd have rewritten that whole town, he bets. (You're young again, he reminds himself, viciously pleased, but that's his business. Louis doesn't need to see just how far down he's going to be willing to go as a decrepit old man.)
"I figure if I'm not alone I can just walk out the front door," he says, shrug in his tone. "Just have to find where they put my laptop. Not the one you melted, I picked up a shitty overpriced one in an airport."
And then. Daniel makes a face, nose wrinkling, staring at Louis oddly.
'Can you hear me like this?'
He coughs, then, like something itches, and he rubs his nose. Trying very hard not to talk out loud while attempting telepathy, which is a bit too loud. Unpracticed, a radio dial swinging around clumsily.
Daniel laughs and Louis' grin widens, sharper for the promise of flexing their power, of walking away together. (They should have done this before. Louis should have taken him, before.) Glint of fang more pronounced, hunger for the promise of threats, of even minor retribution.
"We can find the laptop," Louis is saying, and then—
Daniel touches his mind.
An electric shock. All these years, all these decades. Who else has touched his mind but Armand? (Armand wearing grooves, familiar pathways, deep fingerprints pressed into Louis' head.) Seventy-seven years since Claudia was killed, and there had been no one, no one, no one but Armand.
And now Daniel.
Louis' mind opens up, welcoming. The sense of fingers sliding over Daniel's, steadying the dial.
I can hear you, comes back to him, Louis' gaze holding Daniel's. It'll stop feeling so difficult after we've had some practice.
No sea legs yet. Slipping around, but not quite as frantic as one might expect from a new vampire— maybe it's the power borrowed from Armand, the only fledgling of one so old, or maybe it's just Daniel, possessed of the kind of razor-sharp intellect that holds through metric fucktons of drugs, stress, decades of high octane investigations, and one special occasions, torture.
His head is like a cluttered, lively office space. Always quick thinking, always direct and cutting, but it's supercharged now, and it takes him a moment to really focus on Louis. The other vampire will be able to catch impressions of the way he's been practicing, mentally eavesdropping on mortals, all the while pretending he can't quite figure it out. No guidance, no mentor, oh poor unfortunate Daniel Molloy, who just doesn't know what he's doing.
Morons.
Anyway. He grins behind his hand. Louis! In his head, and he can feel him, like leaning against a phone in the kitchen, like holding hands. Not all like the ominous feeling of being too-closely observed when he was being dissected as a mortal.
'I swapped out the drives on my laptop already. They've got backups of a digital library in the basement, though, and I want those.'
"I think it's, uh. I think it's like... they've got it in the other room, with this agent."
Oh god, Daniel's actually pretty bad at being a secret agent.
Across the table, Louis' face is still lit with a smile. Pleased. Leaning further into Daniel, taking in the familiar dimensions of his mind. Sharper this way, all things more clear when the connection goes both way.
A little tug. Come to me telegraphed in the welcoming pull of the link between them. Drawing Daniel in, close, to the vibrant warmth of his mind. More impression of a space, mingled with color and heightened sensation. Emotion. Intimate. Not an empty room, not the clean minimalism of Dubai, but a space colored more by the feeling of Louis and the burst of his thoughts than anything else.
This too, a space in flux. Like all things about Louis in this moment, it is shifting and changing. Evaluated and repurposed as Louis finds his way in the wake of all this change.
You want to rob them, carries such clear interest. The sensation of linked fingers tightening as Louis' smile widens back at him. Pleased at the idea. Alright.
"Anyone we know?" Louis is saying aloud, straightening in his seat, tapping fingers on the table.
We can go ourselves. Or we can make someone go for us.
Clumsy but curious, Daniel is an accidentally fumbling mental guest. His presence is a kind one, though, and if Louis thought maybe he really was hiding any real resentment, this should clear it up: nothing in him but affection and fierce care, despite that inescapable need to push forward for brutal, scathing truth. (Maybe Armand was right. It's his drug. He can't stop.)
Not entirely an open book, he's already become adept at locking away certain things (iron vault doors, no access, memories of transforming, opinions about his maker) but welcoming. Happy to telepathically hold hands, even if he's not sure what that is besides a stabilizing gesture. Daniel rubs his nose again. Trying very hard not to match words aloud with words thought.
'They owe us both. It's just collecting the tab.'
Oh-so-innocent.
"No, your butler keeps his distance."
And if there's anyone else (the man with the silver hair, glasses?), it's not of note. Handlers in formalwear, old-fashioned, things Daniel has noticed like: they aren't tech-illiterate by any means, but the organization has been around for so long that they're constantly in a state of upgrading to every new modern era, and like any organization, it takes time. He's made the most of his middling sleight of hand, and so far, no one's noticed.
Even at this first brush of connection, Louis can sense the skill here. (A reminder of Claudia, how quick she had been to develop her skill without anyone but Louis to practice upon.) Daniel has tidied, swept away what he clearly does not wish Louis to see.
Some satisfaction in this too. Daniel will be a good vampire. He will make much of the Gift.
And he will be alive.
Abruptly, impulsively, Louis reaches across the table to Daniel, taking up his hand. A mirroring sensation, mind to mind, hands linked.
"I could ask regardless," Louis says, followed by He came to find me. I'm not sure if is at their direction or if he was acting on his own.
If it was a play to get Louis here, what was the purpose? Louis isn't certain of the immediate benefit. He isn't certain of what would motivate Rashid to take the risk. Unknown variables.
Good is relative, probably. He'll be his own. He'd have made a better vampire twenty years ago (at a minimum), but he'll do, like this. The horror of realizing the body he'd decided was fine for the last downhill slide is what he will be trapped in forever is something he's confronted, but can't let himself get lost in.
He looks at Louis with his uncanny bright eyes, amber-orange burning through lenses that attempt to keep them looking normal. The physical hand holding is unexpected, but he likens it to Louis seeing him as a sort of child, in this unlife. Anchoring. He supposes it makes sense.
"You could. They might try to recruit you, though."
Rashid is a puzzle. Louis can glimpse film-reel snippets as Daniel thinks of it, memories of the sushi restaurant in the lobby of the tower in Dubai, Rashid and the man Louis glimpsed earlier.
'Lucky for me, I guess, you were never too micro manage-y about your employees' thoughts.'
Like, they really got away with quite a bit, during the interview. Neither Louis nor Armand (? maybe?) seemed aware of the spy bullshit playing out. Daniel hasn't harassed Rashid much, but then, he hasn't seen Rashid much; he split as quick as possible after chucking the paper on the table. Not one of his handlers. Maybe not a real agent, and just an asset.
Was Armand? Maybe, maybe not. Louis hadn't asked, but wonders now if Armand had been keeping track. If the possibility of a human in their employ creating such a problem had struck him as impossible.
"They can make me an offer," sounds genuinely amused. Smiles, all shark teeth. Unforgiving. Louis holds a grudge. "I'd like to hear it."
They couldn't stop us from taking it.
Practical.
However, it begs the question: Do you want to be subtle? Keep them from knowing what you have?
Are any of these guys going to survive, if they piss Louis off without his shitty ancient insect ex to sedate him? Is this a good idea? ... Does Daniel care? Maybe a little. Rashid is probably safe, if he stuck around downstairs, and Raglan is gone.
So.
It'll be fine. Daniel squeezes Louis' hand, then lets go.
'I guess that would be ideal,' he communicates as he gets up and goes to grab a messenger bag, already half-packed with leftover vital pieces. Might as well move now. Do it live and all that. 'But I'm not standing on ceremony if we have to cause a problem.'
Stays close, lingering around the edges of Daniel's mind. Intimate contact, even as Louis keeps polite distance from the patter of Daniel's thoughts.
They took you, and they invited me. Borrowed trouble all on their own.
Maybe an oversimplification. Louis is comfortable being uncharitable.
When he opens the door, it startles away an unprepared eavesdropper. He takes a few steps backward, away, and Louis' expression shifts towards amusement.
"We're going," Louis tells him. "You can go on and hail us a cab."
Casual flex of monied expectations.
Louis looks back to Daniel. Queries, Elevator? in the same moment as he asks, "Do you have everything?"
It's a curious thing, the closeness of Louis' mind. Daniel is torn between shivering away from it, seventy years worth of privacy instincts leaning on him, and pressing closer to investigate. No doubt Louis can sense his dilemma, but they don't have time to dump into lessons that Daniel is past the point of circling back to.
A moment laugh, though, at the idea of the Talamasca taking him. Doesn't elaborate.
(Where was he supposed to go? Louis had abandoned him, symbolically destroyed what they'd worked on, labored over, suffered over! for those weeks, and Daniel was alone. It was call in his current stuffy 'hosts' or burn. He wanted a book and to live, and finally, he wasn't just making manipulative sad eyes about it.)
"Let's go."
An answer to both.
He thinks he's figured out that surveillance can't quite see him in the alcove just behind the door, and so after opening it, he pauses there for a while. Considering. Assuming, hoping, people are moving to intercept one way, while they're planning on heading elsewhere. To the elevator, then, and Daniel presses the button, waits, enters, presses another button, and then considers how to get out of the box while it's moving.
A sense of laughter, connected to something. Louis could unravel it further, maybe. He is older. Not as gifted in this arena as Armand, or even Lestat, but not incapable. He has some talent.
But no.
The laughter drifts between them, Louis' flicker of curiosity following in its wake. Set aside.
In the moment, following Daniel's lead. Trails him into the elevator, abandoning the pretense of speaking aloud to focus on their mental conversation.
Noises. Humming from the elevator, humming from the lights, and all else. Daniel's not great at it, and is certainly happy to let Louis take over. He'll watch him, of course, and continue to listen and parse through what's what— he could probably do the sledgehammer method and just yank out the whole overhead bundle of wires, but he doesn't actually want to get the carriage car stuck.
His phone beeps. Daniel checks it, a neutral inquiry from the agent in charge of this facility, asking him how his meeting is going. Very funny. He pretends not to know he's definitely being observed, and replies saying it's fine.
Yeah, think so. is throwaway reassurance on the way to, They been curious. They like to watch and make their little observations.
Maybe curious enough to let Daniel rob them, just to see how he'd do it.
Louis has spent decades erasing himself from public consciousness. The scrutiny rankles. Hard to tell if that's fully Louis' reaction or if Armand taught it to him.
Something to think about later. Louis reaches up with his mind, following the buzz and hum of machinery, of electricity, traces the subtle third frequency to its source and twists.
Somewhere, in some little room, a screen goes static.
You can blame it all on me if you like. I'm aware of what their files say about me.
Daniel's own curiosity is now doubt a tangible thing, watching Louis with bright psychic eyes, observing his ability to navigate the different paths on each technical hookup. Learning, always, consuming the world around him, sorting it into the chaotic library in his head.
Cool.
An impression of a laugh—
'Yeah, they've tried to talk me into being afraid of you. They've got an impressive collection of long distance paparazzi pictures of all of us from over the years, and don't seem to realize that's the thing that would freak me out, if any of it would.'
Just not scared of Louis. Maybe he should be, but he doesn't have it in him, not really. And especially not anymore. Even if Louis does decide to be violent with him — not out of the question, it's happened before, more than once — he'll be fine. Nothing hurts, anymore. Daniel can do stand in front of an oncoming train if he wants to, just to watch his bones come back together.
Sleight of hand time: letting the car stop at the ground floor as they weasel out the maintenance hatch, then go down the ladder to the actual basement level they're looking for. Maybe it's weird watching Daniel be able to do it, moving like a young person, looking like he does.
Joyous, seeing Daniel move easily, without pain. And then deep sorrow, deep guilt, because Louis cannot look at him without seeing how Daniel was gifted this relief.
A deep ache too, something that feels like loss. Louis had wanted to give him these things. Wanted to offer. It had been one error, and now they are here.
Complicated.
But Louis follows him out. Follows him down.
Another door, another spate of mortals. Cheerily arguing. The disconnected camera has raised no alarms this far down, apparently.
What would you like to do with them?
Just curiosity. Louis has his own ideas, but makes space for Daniel's. What are Daniel's intentions here? There are two. Perhaps they drink. Perhaps they don't.
Robbing them is fine, but he's not interested in going on a killing spree. They're going to publish the book, after all. A car crash on the bridge will do just fine where burning it down would be a bit much.
And it's not like he's starving. No farm, no cute fuzzy animals, but he's made do. A new vampire still, Daniel's hunger is ever-present, but he's topped off enough not to be held hostage by it. The dweebs on the other side of the door don't make him feel any particular sort of way, and besides, even if he would drain them and feel nothing about it should the only way out end up being through, he remembers Louis' hangups. Ones he doesn't share.
Should he?
Life's weird.
"Hey, fellas," Daniel says, upbeat, as he opens the door. His greeting is underscored by the crunch of the handle and lock shattering, and sudden frantic shuffling.
A sign, perhaps, of how little threat Louis feels the Talamasca to be. Humans, knowledgeable and nosy, but all the same, human. What is the worst that can truly happen? Their attempt at subterfuge is blown, and they leave anyway with what Daniel wishes to take?
Besides, he likes watching Daniel approach the door this way. Likes the bluntness of his entrance, likes the panic he inspires.
The door swings open and Louis smiles into the room, all shark-sharp charm and gleaming teeth.
"Do you know who we are?"
They must. And maybe no one is afraid of Daniel just yet, but Louis has a decades-long dossier and it is uniformly unflattering. Why not trade on this, just a little?
The Talamasca is going to know that Daniel robbed them, so might as well just say hello, I'm robbing you. Makes things easier, right? Right. And it's funnier, breezing in, seeing the reaction, and mapping it in their heads. Daniel can see, hear, read, so much clearer, all the anti-vampire measures they think they have, now that they're panicking and thinking them all so loud and up front.
And none of that shit's going to work.
"Mr Molloy," starts one, and there's some stammering, even as a young woman moves to grab a high powered UV flashlight. Daniel takes it from her, feeling like he's barely moved, but she gasps. He knows already all it'll do is itch, because it's not the fucking light quality, it's life, but the principle of the thing remains.
Rude.
He advises, "Just chill out," and moves past them to the workstation computer.
Distracted by the immediacy with which his partner is disarmed, the young man beside her is startled by Louis' fingers closing around his elbow.
"Don't," he advises. Don't pull out another little light. Don't push any buttons. Just don't.
A glint of fang is his mouth is convincing. The man is steered backwards. His partner is watching, her hands opening and closing into fists. Deciding how foolish she wants to be.
Into Daniel's head, Louis asks, How much time do you need?
'Not too long.' Clicking through things. One would think that outdated systems, typical of professional organizations, would be easier to navigate given his origin before the digital age, but to someone who's been using professional Apple products for years, it's a little counter intuitive. 'Probably.'
Clickclickclick. The young man is terrified of Louis in particular — Louis du Lac, hunter of young men, predator, the stuff of nightmares, as beautiful as he is deadly, he keeps thinking of the autopsy photographs, hundreds of them, every one of Louis' victims they could find. One or two over the years they've dissuaded by staging a car accident or a pulling a fire alarm, but this creature, the vampire holding his elbow, is in possession of a violent appetite that haunts the dreams of more than one agent.
So they all say. So someone said to Daniel, in a restaurant in Dubai.
He moves away from the console, looking for the isolate drive he's after. Ignoring her frozen co-worker, the young woman moves for a panel beneath the desk—
Edited (i forgot what he was going to be torn over so he's no longer torn) 2025-05-18 04:52 (UTC)
Louis has a finger pressed down at the edge of their minds, monitoring the flow of thought. Tasting the quality of their fear. Louis turns it over in his mind, this patter of memory of all his worst acts.
What Louis will make of it is anyone's guess. In the moment, Daniel is at work and Louis has this young man by the arm, sweeps his eyes around the room and—
Bad luck, for this intrepid young woman.
Louis sees her.
He moves so, so quickly. One moment he is scraping a thumbnail down the inside of this young man's elbow, the next he is hauling the young woman up off her feet. It's a graceful movement, terrifyingly so. The promise of violence is contained in it.
"He said, let's chill," Louis reminds her, lightly scolding tone. Confides, casually, "He's still very human. He wants to keep you alive."
The implication: Louis doesn't.
How true it is doesn't matter. It only matters that Louis says it aloud, and scares her enough that she believes him.
Daniel's attention flicks back, his amber-yellow eyes glinting for a split second past the tinted glass of his lenses. Wonders— is that true? Is it all for show, or does Louis really not care anymore? Or maybe it isn't a lack of care, but a lack of direction. If he were in the other man's position, he'd be tying himself in knots over the difference between his own desires and shit potentially constructed by someone else. By someone else, who constructed something in Daniel.
Does Armand know they're together? Does he still look through Louis' head like a psychic surveillance camera? Or has he fucked off entirely without so much as a thought for what's behind him?
Doesn't matter, does it.
"If you're that scared of vampires," he says for the benefit of these humans (so distant from him, and they would be even if he were still mortal, because they're young people working at a secret agency, what the fuck is that), "this is probably the wrong job."
The drive is extracted. Daniel pries it loose with pointed fingernails, and has to settle with hoping this is what he's after. He's not a fucking hacker.
Things that stick: the litany of thoughts unspooling in this young man's mind.
The worst of Louis' habits, unfettered. Twenty years ago, give or take, but still his. Still observed and collected and scrutinized. This boy is terrified, but this boy is not the only one who has seen them. This boy is not the only one who knows Louis' name.
Rashid was in his home for such a long time. They had thought, a controlled sort of breach. But then Louis had stopped listening and Armand had been meant to control the flow.
Louis is looking into this girl's face. She is thinking of autopsy photos. She is thinking something accusatory. She's embarrassed. Louis could tell her there's no reason to be. It's very human, to wish to live a few hours longer. No one needs to die in this vault.
"Have your souvenirs?" Louis enquires, gaze coming around to watch Daniel put the drive into his pocket.
Considers their two young hosts. The man hasn't moved. The woman has backed away.
It's in her mind. She'll push that button the moment their backs are turned. Louis offers this to Daniel, a brief little touch between their minds to convey the impression, like passing a note he found in her pocket.
Photos of Louis, recordings of Louis, always Louis, because Armand has curated himself so carefully. A horrible spider hidden away in his burrow, letting everyone else struggle in the webs left out. Daniel, too, features in the thoughts of these scared mortals; strange and offputting now that he's old, mismatched in their heads as until recently, his file was a footnote, and attached to it was a photo of him bruised and bloody and greyscale.
Will Molloy kill them? Agent James seems to think he's both safe and very sharp, and they're not one hundred percent sure what that means (he thinks it means Molloy is just lucky, she thinks it means he's fucking somebody, which she also thinks is gross), and—
"Think they can both fit in the storage closet?"
They're gonna, even if they can't.
It's cramped and full of replacement power sources, and both mortals get shoved in there, squashed together, socks shoved in their mouths, heavy server shelf shoved over the door and its smashed handle. There. No button. Daniel looks at Louis when it's taken care of. Proverbial dusting of hands.
Louis, who is so volatile. Dangerous. Lacking control, thankfully tended to for years by Armand. This is perhaps what has been noted in his file, an explanation for the dwindling incidents, the tapering and then end of autopsy photos and recordings. Maybe there is some other notation, marking the dissolution of their companionship. Maybe someone is waiting again for the incidents to begin.
Touching the minds of these young agents, Louis is aware that they are wondering if they will mark the start of a new spree.
But no, not today.
They are trapped into a closet, where they will surely be found. Door closed. Unable to push the button, alert anyone to what Daniel and Louis have done.
Good enough, for now.
Louis adjusts his jacket, brushes some nonexistent lint from the fabric. Yes, they're pushing their luck if they linger.
Back the way we came? Louis questions. Some real enjoyment in the idea of walking out the front door, if they can. We might meet some opposition.
No alarms raised, but the Talamasca hasn't survived this long without some healthy suspicion.
Options— stairs with fire alarms on the doors, and the elevator, which is no doubt being monitored. Daniel moves towards the stairwell first, but pauses, sensing activity on the floor above them. Getting pretty good at figuring out where people are, at least nearby. Maybe a modest single family home's worth of a radius.
Daniel does not really want opposition. Louis might find it interesting, or thrilling, Daniel doesn't know. He's not afraid, not of getting into a scuffle nor of Louis, but he's never been a violence guy. He'll offer a blowjob before he throws a punch, but the former definitely isn't going to help, here, so uh.
'Elevator, I guess?'
Will it even show up. Daniel pings the button, but after a moment, he just shoves the doors to the shaft open. It's clearly been turned off.
"They're on to us," Louis deadpans, spoken aloud even as his amusement glows in Daniel's head.
We can climb, is the more practical suggestion. Elevator shafts are made to be traversed, to some extent. It would be challenging to a human. It is not impossible for a vampire.
Louis ducks beneath Daniel's arm to look up, send his focus upwards to feel the absence of power. Find an absence of cameras. One advantage. An elevator shaft not truly equipped to monitor a pair of vampires scaling the walls.
We can pick any floor is more or less true. Amends, Maybe skip the lobby.
Vague impressions in Louis' mind. Dropping from high windows, landing in the street. Not discreet, but that's the Talamasca's problem to solve.
It sure is (their problem to solve). Daniel laughs a little, and watches Louis, how he darts around. Remembers the the last time he saw him, remembers flinching away, startled in the aftermath of violence against Armand. Who deserved it, true.
Louis is—
Beautiful. It strikes him, out of nowhere like a sucker punch. He's always known, he'd been smitten by him immediately fifty years ago. But with these eyes, transformed as they are, Daniel can see just how truly radiant he is. And he seems happy, or at least, he seems like himself. Dark and real, at least honest.
He shakes it off. Hopefully Louis didn't get much of an impression. Embarrassing.
A good moment for stray thoughts: Louis' attention occupied with mapping out the movements above, focus split away from Daniel, catching only the tail end of a thought, more impression than anything else. Enough to inspire some warm feeling in return, reassuring, a brush of fingers across knuckles. A minor acknowledgement, complicated feelings or no, of Daniel's care. Gratitude that Daniel cares at all for Louis' well being, given all that's happened. All Louis has permitted to happen.
"Stay close," is what Louis says aloud. Flashes a grin over his shoulder, and steps into the shaft. Begins to climb.
It's a pleasant enough exertion. Easy going, up and up and up, Louis' mind open to the buzz of Talamasca agent minds. Most shielded, but some cracks here and there. Enough to guide Louis' decision when he swings out from the handholds to begin levering open a door.
Third floor. Not abandoned, but not packed with opposition. A handful of agents rushing, chattering, occupied with their daily tasks.
No one immediately notices the elevator door pulling open, no ding of arrival heralding the occasion.
Daniel will always care about Louis. He did even when he only remembered half of him. He hopes Louis knows that, and believes that, despite everything. Despite the book he's going to force into existence, despite the way he shies away from that little psychic affection (embarrassed, private), despite being a walking, talking, reminder of Armand, heart beating only because of the fuckhead's blood, and sharing his unnerving, glowing eyes.
Fast, easy, and he's grateful for it— sometimes every so often he finds himself fumbling, and feels panic rise in him, thinking it's his hands trembling again when it's just baby deer legs. There's a half-open door with a clear view towards them, but Daniel quietly shuts it, like dropping a cover over a parrot's cage. Shh, nothing going on out here.
Sturdy windows, treated to see through from the inside while remaining opaque from the outside, security bars, a tiny tab that suggests an alarm system. Daniel runs a hand along it, trying to find the wire, and then jams his thumb through the wall below the frame. Clumsy, but, hm.
He pokes at the wire.
"Think an alarm will go off if we tamper with it?"
Louis doesn't sound very concerned but he suspects Daniel might want to avoid tripping an alarm.
It's a curious thing, these inner workings of the Talamasca. All these human precautions, and they are nothing for two vampires. A minor inconvenience. They'd be less of one if Daniel and Louis were different vampires.
"Are you worried about the alarm system?"
Direct.
They're in each others heads. Louis asks him this aloud anyway.
Does he understand the way Daniel cares for him? Yes. No.
It's complicated. Louis is many things. Depressive and guilty and angry. He failed Daniel. He is aware of it. It shifts his perception of who could feel what, of what Daniel could forgive and Daniel could feel for him, the person responsible for so much of what's befallen him.
Wry. Maybe he doesn't care, morally or ethically, no, but he might like to avoid a scene. A complicated relationship with these people. They owe he and Louis, but they also got him the real deal, the actual script, annotated by Armand. He thinks Louis would have wanted to believe him, without hard evidence, without the smoking gun that made all the smugness slide off Armand's face. But would he have been able to push all the way through?
So small, when he notices. Not a fully conscious noticing. An awareness like feeling pressure shift in a room. The door he closed, soft and quick to open again, and—
BANG.
A gunshot rings out a split-second after Daniel has grabbed Louis and pulled him close
CRACK.
It smashes into the glass, gets stuck in it, fucking Pope-proof windows, sending a spiderweb of a shatter. Daniel looks horrified, frozen in the heartbeat of a moment, suspended in time, slowly coming to terms with this abrupt change as the ticktick of one and a half seconds sluggishly drags on.
A bullet isn't going to kill Louis, but a headshot would lay him up for long months to heal. Louis knows this. His fingers tighten in Daniel's jacket, a brief squeeze of gratitude, before Louis' attention shifts and his lips peel back off his teeth to bare fangs at the agent in the doorway.
To her credit, she holds her ground even as he face goes pale.
There's more coming, Louis cautions, words blooming in Daniel's head fully detached from the savagery of the expression on Louis' face. We should break the glass.
Fuck the alarm, more or less.
Louis blurs from Daniel. The agent gets another shot off, bullet hitting a wall, and then screams as Louis breaks her arm. The gun clatters to the floor.
He's stunned for a moment. The second shot rings in his ears, on top of how the first was still ringing, and he feels disoriented. Logically aware that this is shock, that despite all the dicey, dangerous, tight spots he's found himself in over the years, he still doesn't like violence, still abhors gun violence in particular, still does not like finding himself in the same room (or hallway) with it.
He hears Louis, and he hears the scattered, static-y radio waves of panicked mortal thoughts, this agent and ones in other rooms, swiftly but carefully mobilizing. She hates these creatures who prey upon humans, she has seen so many awful, brutal things, and now one of those awful, brutal things is happening to her, because she did her duty and tried to rescue their asset from being abducted.
Guilt stabs at him. He makes himself break the window open anyway.
It can be attributed to Louis, all of this. All of the violence, all of the brutality. Daniel can be spared responsibility. Louis, volatile and dangerous. Louis, who should be feared.
And they do fear him. He can feel it. He can hear it in the cacophony of their thoughts.
Louis grips this mortal by the throat, and flings her bodily across the room, through the door where agents are gathering. Their shouts and her scream carry, are barely stifled by the door Louis closes.
"Let's go," he says, crossing the room. Touches Daniel's cheek, gentle, something meant to be grounding. "I have a car on the corner. Run to your right."
Louis takes him by the hand, turning to shattered windw. They can jump, and land without any injury. The sidewalk cracks under impact. It doesn't matter.
Numb, shocked, Daniel allows himself to be led. Louis takes his hand and, though on a delay, Daniel shakes himself back to the present and grips it tightly. There's something desperate in it, a thread of panic, sudden terror and worry over Louis. He spent so long in such shitty situations, and he nearly got his head blown off over Daniel.
Daniel should have just called, a week ago. Daniel should have slipped out the back door when Raglan told him to.
He didn't, he was never going to. It was always going to be this, because he's stubborn, and he's determined, and he prioritizes work over everything and everyone, no matter what it ruins. That doesn't stop the churning in his stomach that has nothing to do with the jump down, or the sprint to the right.
"Yeah," Louis reassures, warm even as he hustles Daniel. Rushing because the Talamasca's unwillingness to shoot out the broken window might not hold and Louis doesn't want Daniel to experience being shot or for him to watch Louis experience being shot.
The door slams. They break several traffic laws instantly.
Louis still has hold of Daniel's hand. Touches his mind, a gentle pressure drawing Daniel closer.
"We were moving too fast for them," Louis tells him. "And they didn't want to hurt you."
Shaken, Daniel squeezes Louis' hand like a lifeline, definitely too hard if he were human. Fortunately neither of them are. He braces against the dashboard with his other, thoughts racing, messenger bag stuffed with stolen items awkwardly cradled in his lap.
They didn't want to hurt him, but they would have hurt Louis.
"You've been through way too much shit to risk getting shot at over me," he says, sounding as upset as he feels. Adrenaline for a little sneaky crime, sure, but this isn't that, this is real fear.
Hm. Maybe not the kind of statement Daniel finds comforting.
"Daniel," he appeals. A little squeeze in return, the pressure of his thumb over Daniel's knuckles. "Daniel, I'm not doing anything I don't want to do these days."
Flexing autonomy. Chasing idle desires. Some of this manifests in decor. Some of it manifests in a heist. Louis is pleasing himself these days. He isn't averse to the messiness and danger of what they'd just done.
"I wanted to get you out. I wanted you to have your information. I don't care about the rest."
Maybe in a few days Louis can tell him it was fun, in a way.
Daniel could have gotten himself out. Maybe not tonight, but soon; he was restless enough to just use Louis. Use Louis, and the thought sits strangely in him, uncomfortable. Did he? He thinks about the concept of vampire lessons, and companionship, and something like panic threatens to rise up in his stomach.
He gets a grip, because he's not a child. But he notes it. Louis came after him, helped him out, now he might have made enemies when he should be finding himself and his life post-Armand, and some woman has a future of years in surgical recovery to save her arm.
Of course Daniel went along. He, too, wanted the information. He wanted it easy and immediately and it wasn't so bad seeing Louis do impressive things, it's all just—
He's not sure.
"Thank you for helping me."
So, there's that. Not a total asshole, even if he's already thinking about which red light he's going to get out of the car at.
"Louis." Daniel looks at him. A distraction while driving, whatever. "You needed yourself more than I needed you. I'm happy for that." He squeezes his hand. "I'm happy. I wanted more than anything for you to be free from it. For once, you had to take care of yourself, with your own head. I'm alright."
It'll always be true that Louis walked away and Daniel died. But it can be true, at the same time, that he's happier now, and that he doesn't blame Louis for what happened. Or how it happened. Life isn't neat, and very little is mutually exclusive. He will never hold it against Louis, but there will always be a footnote there, a reminder to be ready to protect himself. He can't ask to be anyone's priority.
And that's fine. That's always been him. An ocean of burned bridges, ruined relationships, "friends" behind him. Louis is so important. He can't... he just can't.
It is true, and it weighs so heavily on Louis. It had cost Daniel dearly, Louis' freedom. He'd forgotten himself, chosen to indulge the overwhelming need that had cracked open in him over Daniel.
Laces their fingers together more securely.
"I can take you home," Louis offers gently. "I'd like to."
Do the thing he should have done in the first place. Too little too late.
Take him home. Wouldn't that be nice. For a second—
Just for a second, Louis' driving him somewhere, they're near a less-impressive bridge than the one on all the postcards, veering towards Stockton, and a shitty apartment. Maybe it's 1973, and everyone's the same age that they look. 1992, maybe. He's divorced. He's going to get the fuck over himself, admit it all, finally, because the date he's on is maybe the best date he's ever had, and all that's happened is they laughed over a few drinks.
Wouldn't it be nice. Wouldn't it be nice, too, if it were six months from now, and Daniel was settled, and the idea of going on a flight with someone else, bringing them into his apartment, being scrutinized and watched over, didn't make his skin crawl. He feels bad about what he's about to do, but he also feel like he's going to claw his way out of the car if he doesn't do it. He's grateful for the help, guilty for the harm, and he just needs some space.
"The airport is fine."
Close enough to home.
"Or— couple blocks," he points, "should be a tube connection I can hop on. I've been to London fuck knows how many times. I just," man, this feels weird, "I'll make sure they don't take it out on you. I can make some calls. And I just need to figure it out, Louis. I need to know I can do it."
"I'm not worried about them," Louis says, the easier topic. "I don't want you spending your favors on me."
The Talamasca can do what they like. Perceive him as they like. Louis doesn't care at all. But he cares about Daniel, and whatever link he's cultivated. Better to shift blame to Louis, who wants nothing from them, needs nothing from them.
A tightening of linked fingers. Indulging the impulse to hold on.
A thought held behind his teeth: I just found you.
It's painful. This request is painful, more so because what can Louis do but acquiesce?
Carefully, attempts a minor appeal: "Say you ain't going to vanish on me. If you won't give me until the airport, give me that much?"
Not spending favors. Looking after Louis, having his back like an actual friend, not like someone trying to keep him in a dollhouse. Daniel squeezes his hand, reassuring silently.
"Hey."
Boyishly exasperated. Everything's a bit weird right now, but there's no need for doom and gloom. For one thing—
"I'm not the vanishing type."
Unlike his exes who've run out of steam and given up, and/or the vampires who dumped him in a crack house and vanished for fifty years. Ha ha. Daniel will follow through even if it risks killing him, as Louis damn well knows.
"If you don't take care of yourself I'm gonna be pissed, though."
Some minor objection. Daniel did vanish, for some months. Louis had reached out and reached out and reached out into nothingness and Daniel had not reached back.
He could argue the point. He doesn't.
"I don't wanna go such a long time without speaking to you again."
Trying to say a thing without saying it. Gripping Daniel's hand. Wanting to ask him to stay. To let Louis help, in whatever way would suite Daniel best.
Daniel didn't vanish, he was ignoring Louis. Huge difference. Let's not get lost in the weeds, here. Perhaps an unkind thing, but a necessary thing, and a boundary thing. A thing that Daniel is being pretty gracious about Louis crossing, but honestly, he's missed him. It makes his heart ache to leave, but the feeling doesn't drown out the need to assert independence.
Vampire loneliness, horrendous crimes over coupling, eternal lives ruined, children executed. He doesn't want any part of a coven, he doesn't want a companion, he doesn't want an almost-companion. Maybe in time, he'll figure out how to regulate how he feels about it. But he's not going to figure anything out while someone's watching.
What's he going to do, take care of Louis? No. Daniel is a bad partner and a bad parent. The idea of being responsible for someone else makes him want to find the nearest escape hatch. Always has. Being ransomed also has little effect on him— he knows he's not actually vanishing, knows he's not a suicide risk, and so, Louis has nothing to worry about.
"Don't change your number, then." Assuring. Look. They'll figure it out. "And think about the book, huh? You wanted to change the world. We're gonna."
A sentiment so entirely divorced from these past months of silence.
He had missed Daniel. He had been missing Daniel, years of missing him, without even fully understanding or recognizing the feeling. The way Daniel says this thing, it reminds Louis of the night they met. It reminds him of the way Daniel talked about his interviews, fussing with the strap of the bag holding his tape recorder.
World-changing. Daniel has done his fair share already.
Daniel could open the door and step out of a moving car if he wanted, but Louis doesn't make him. He pulls to the curb, as directed. Daniel is going to leave. Louis is going to let him. Daniel will publish the book. Louis is going to let him. Inevitable, all of it.
Louis wants it to be inevitable too, that they come back to each other. But he doesn't know how to draw that out of Daniel, so bites back the urge to appeal more strongly to him.
"Call me," he says instead. "I want you to call me, anytime you like. Or need."
Hands detangled (he feels cold), bag re-shouldered. Still fiddling with the straps, though there's a laptop inside of it, now.
Louis' eyes are so green. He's so beautiful, even looking unhappy with him, in the dim light of the car, with the highlights from outside. Flashing neon colors from the traffic signals, and the false warmth of yellow street lamps.
Daniel reaches over to touch his shoulder. Leans in, presses a kiss to his cheekbone. It feels friendly and chase, it feels too intimate, it's half electric and half gutting. He loves him. He wants to stay. But all of that puts fight or flight into him like a cornered animal.
Not ready. Might not ever be.
"You're gonna get so annoyed when I figure out how to really call you."
A grin, and wink, and he hops out of the car. Into the night.
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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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What is he doing?? Get a fucking grip, Molloy. Don't say goodbye, even though that's what he feels like doing, suddenly. He's exhausted. He's already dying of Parkinson's, it's at least slightly more interesting to expire while kidnapped by a fucking ancient demon instead of in palliative care. Christ.
"I'm fine."
Another thing that there's no time to detail is what Armand is starting to force him to do in lieu of appropriate medical care. Daniel feels insane.
"My kids, will you do that? I have to go."
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"Daniel," softer, fervent. "I'm coming. Stay there, and I'll find you."
A promise. Louis will put himself into that room if he has to. Simple as that. He's older than he was. Has drunk down Armand's power for eighty years.
And he could never leave Daniel to his fate.
If Louis had been more careful, it simply would not have come to pass and Daniel would be home. Could do as he pleased with the money Louis had wired to him.
"I'll see you soon," Louis promises, as if they are only arranging a visit. As if Daniel doesn't sound terrified. As if Armand couldn't simply kill him at any moment.
Armand won't. If he had intended to, he'd have left Daniel's body for Louis to find upon his return. He is doing something else.
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It doesn't matter how much he's heard, he can just pull it out of Daniel's head easy as breathing.
Stay there, as if Daniel has any control over where they go, and now Armand knows that trying to pass through Moscow to move west is an unwieldy risk. Though, as Armand takes Daniel's hand in both of his and guides him back to the lobby elevators to return to their quarters, he thinks he might have told him anyway; he really doesn't want to go to a fucking Siberian work camp.
Things for Louis to find: CCTV, glimpses of an anxious hostage scenario versus the unnervingly docile way Daniel walks beside Armand the last time they leave the hotel, telltale obviousness of being mentally controlled. Rooms upstairs hastily vacated, some papers with notes scribbled on them left scuttled under one bed, a list of names and places Armand has mentioned. The lingering scent of Armand's own blood, and empty glasses with deep red stains.
It's not difficult to track their abrupt movement through the city, though it becomes fuzzier when they make an overland crossing into Kazakhstan. The drive to Almaty is only about four hours, and they stop at a quaint photo op area on the long road. Armand tells him more horror stories. In the airport, there's only one nonstop flight to anywhere in Europe, and it's in ten hours. Not acceptable. They end up hopping one to Istanbul, and Armand keeps a hand on Daniel's elbow the entire time, like a dutiful caretaker of his aging father-in-law.
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But setting into motion a hive of smugglers and thieves doesn't get him to that hotel before Armand takes Daniel from it. Days too late, but the room itself preserved for his arrival. Sealed so Louis can walk through it, a handful of his staff gathering all evidence of Armand and Daniel's stay. A list in Daniel's handwriting, shaky, perhaps from haste or from fear.
CCTV footage collected, a little trail of images between this hotel and the airport.
How far behind them is he? They can trail after to the airport, to the same ticket counters, to dig answers from the people behind the counters. Istanbul. Armand took Daniel to Istanbul, perhaps to another room, another place Louis may well find empty but for whatever clues Daniel could manage to drop as he goes, more blood-stained cups.
But Louis goes to Istanbul, sealed in the cargo hold of a private jet.
Remembers being here with Armand, once. The hotel they'd chosen, the art they'd purchased, long hours walking the streets together. Wandering.
It's the place Louis tries first, after he finds its still standing in the exact place he left it. A gamble. Maybe Armand would choose it only to punish, to dig a knife into Louis before he moved on. He goes, mind tightly closed, to pick at the mind of the woman behind the counter.
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The woman behind the counter works the swing shift, and her mind is as open as any mortal's. During daylight hours she had assisted an older American man, certainly drawn to her thanks to the subtle button on her lapel signaling her fluency in English. There's nothing unusual about the way the interaction begins. He asks about the restaurant in the hotel, and she's happy to provide information.
He then asks her to look up a guest's room number. Louis de Pointe du Lac, he tells her, and they have a brief exchange about how pretty that name is. But he's not a registered guest at the hotel. The American smiles and says that's alright, he just hasn't checked in yet, but can she hold this for him for when he shows up? Of course. He hands her an envelope with that name written on it, and she sets it aside behind the counter.
When he leaves, the man in line behind him - Indian or Bengali perhaps, she's not sure - leaves with him; she had assumed he was just another customer waiting. Apparently not. But there's yet another customer after, and so she moves on with her work day.
Until now, staring at Louis, waiting with a small smile to assist him. Only another hour or so left of her shift. She would like to go home.
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"My name is Louis de Pointe du Lac. I believe you may have an envelope for me?"
All very polite. Ease he doesn't feel. Offers up his identification, if she requires...?
They were here, they were here, they were here. Armand's face reflects back at him from her mind.
Can they be a step ahead of him infinitely? Louis chasing Armand across the globe until what? Until Daniel is gone?
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ID, yes, but really who else has that name. She's happy to hand it over. If he needs anything else...?
The envelope is a normal white envelope, and within it is a normal sheet of paper folded into thirds. A message is there on it, written out with a blue ballpoint pen. No sinister signatures in blood, no ominous tokens. Just Daniel's shitty, uneven handwriting, which he struggles to keep on even lines.
Parkinson's has not miraculously let up in between the last time they saw each other and now. He's felt like he's been getting extremely good medication while being made to drink Armand's fucking blood, but there are psychological downsides. Mostly it's very annoying. The note continues.
Armand, apparently, opted not to force him to rewrite without the hostility. How nice. Not silencing a writer's voice etc etc. What a guy. In any event, they are not staying in this hotel, though Armand did permit Daniel to stop in and have lunch. They left before sundown, and are now...? Somewhere. Istanbul connects to the rest of the whole fucking world. But they left the airport. So it stands to reason they might still be in the city, with Armand hopeful that Louis won't have even made it this far.
Armand's mind is surely closed off, but Daniel is just a human.
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Does he need anything else?
A room. The penthouse suite will do. No need to worry after his luggage, he has staff, but if his American friend returns, please, he would like to be notified immediately.
Door closed, staff dispersed to the airports to gather what information possible about departures, Louis removes his shoes and coat. Drains a blood bag. Answers Lestat's three text messages. He will need to sleep, cannot put it off forever.
But not yet.
Smooths Daniel's letter across one knee, and reads it again. Lets his fear give way to anger, lets the anger become fuel.
Reaches out, falling into the flow of thought swirling in the air, vampire and human alike, touching all the overlapping, intertwining threads, until the familiarity of Daniel snags him like a hook on a line.
Daniel, as a whisper. So, so tentative. Aware of the risk inherent in this.
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He hears his name, and it sounds like Louis.
Is he losing it?? Maybe. Daniel looks over his shoulder—?
No psychic powers, no ability to say anything back, but he's listening.
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Does it now, to the extent he is able, venturing further into Daniel's mind. Louis touches that exhaustion, that pain. Finds the marvel of Daniel's empathy, and feels his heart turn over in his chest.
I have your letter, Louis tells him. More importantly: I'm not going to leave you with him.
Louis understands the threat. Knows he simply can't live with it.
Can you envision anything that would help me make my way to you?
The sensation of Louis winding closer. A presence in Daniel's mind, warmth, sunlight, rich color at the edges of Daniel's thoughts. Gentle contact, a clasped hand. Here. He's here.
Show me.
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Not worth it. A dying old man. He wanted a book, he wanted to get out alive. Neither of those look like they're going to happen. He'll take getting Louis out and staying out.
Scattered memories. Armand talking to him about faith, his struggle with it, resentment and revulsion and terror, the way he wishes he could saw it out of himself; Daniel struggles to look anywhere but the floor of the car they're in as they end up wherever they are right now. Regular asphalt parking lot, to a sidewalk, to ancient cobblestones. He doesn't glimpse the exterior. His attention is fixed on his hand in Armand's. Armand has been holding his hand quite a lot on this journey. If he tries to remove his hand, nothing will happen. The grip is gentle, the grip is fucking iron.
He doesn't know what Armand is looking for in here, if anything. Daniel thinks there must be tombs beneath it. A church that seems like it used to be a mosque, and used to be something else before that.
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Louis makes himself a blanketing presence inside Daniel's mind. The impression of his atrium, the scent of earth. Warmth. Faint notes, piano, perhaps. Pebbles and stone rolling underfoot.
I'm coming, words like a melody. Words like a decree from on high.
It is enough. What he has from Daniel will be enough. Louis will put it into the head of someone who knows. Who can direct him.
Sleep can wait. Louis can't afford the delay. All things sacrificed in this pursuit, money, humans drained dry, and perhaps Louis' newly gained freedom, it is all deemed necessary. Essential.
Hold on a little longer for me. I'm coming.
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He sits there as though Louis is holding him, and Daniel is tucking his hands into the arms around him, and it's all very strange and surreal. He doesn't know if he feels safe (no such thing), but he feels better, even though there's still a churn of unease in him about Louis taking this risk. And an even stranger feeling about Armand, who Daniel had been so angry at (is still angry at), but despite that, couldn't scrape together any satisfaction for when Louis chucked him across the penthouse in Dubai.
Violence just sucks. Is it going to be bad, when Louis shows up? If he makes it?
What the fuck is Armand even doing here. Daniel doesn't want to die in a fucking church, he doesn't believe in any of this bullshit. He stands up. Maybe he can just... leave. Just walk out. Armand's been gone for a while, and Daniel can't hear anything from outside.
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Don't tempt him to chase you.
Armand's favored way of feeding, giving chase. Measuring himself against his meal.
Would he reverse his assertions, the ones he made Daniel put to the paper pinned beneath his palm? If given the chance, would Armand pursue and devour Daniel and leave Louis nothing but a husk as punishment and warning both?
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Well that, uh. That sounds bad.
Daniel pauses before the door, a hand laid on the push bar. It's a metal thing, probably installed in the 90s; before regulatory bodies started to think that old places like these should be restored and maintained as-is, not retrofitted. There's a sticker on the bar warning of steps outside of it.
He thinks of the other times he's tried to walk away before now— getting lost in a crowd in the first major airport, bailing out of the hotel in Islamabad. Armand every time showing up and collecting him, disapproval on his face. Was Daniel punished? If he was, he doesn't remember.
But he trusts Louis, and so he drops his hand away from the door. Thinks of the Talamasca next, and wondering if they've been tracking this at all, but Armand had turned Rashid away with an ease that made mind control obvious, and that fucking organization thinks Armand isn't a threat. A docile housewife looking after younger, more volatile creatures. They might not have even been bothered by the sight of Armand escorting Daniel out of Dubai.
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Louis collects them, as he rises slowly to his feet. Not as effortless as it would be for Armand, this multitasking, but essential. Slipping the note into his pocket.
I'm coming to you, he promises again, the echo of spoken words reverberating behind this murmur. (I need a car, and the smuggler, Fayiz, I don't care how busy he claims to be—) The connection holds, Louis' presence clinging close, a hand on Daniel's cheek.
A pause, then:
Do you know where he went?
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Thinking about it like that, it does feel an awful lot like he was left here on purpose, and that begins to fill him with uneasy worry again. Maybe he should just bail, even if Armand might give chase. They'd know where he is, and maybe it'd force Armand's hand. Something, anything.
But these thoughts pass through him and he begins to settle. Armand wouldn't actually do that. He's been extremely courteous to Daniel so far— he was in Dubai, too, despite the way they sniped at each other. He'd overreacted in San Fransisco, and Daniel of course holds a grudge about that, but why wouldn't he. It's reasonable. It's also reasonable to recognize that Louis was the biggest threat to him in that penthouse. Louis who triggered his tremor into violence, Louis who mocked him viciously about Alice. Louis threw things, Louis lost his temper with Armand. What's Louis going to do if Daniel doesn't comply, right now?
Daniel is a sharp and clever human, but he's still a human. He doesn't realize what's happening to his own head, sitting in this room where Armand left him, like a fucking cupcake out on a counter at child-height.
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Louis had thrown Armand so hard. A delineating moment, reframing all that came before, all that would come after.
A slamming door. A hasty conversation, descriptions shared back and forth. Hemming and hawing, the exchange of currency. Louis' voice sharpening towards violence at the perception of further delay.
But he is told where he must go. It is night. Louis has a vehicle.
Daniel, like a tug of a sleeve. Daniel, I know where.
A reassurance dropped into Daniel's mind amidst these recollections and reasonings.
I'm coming.
No further plea. No other information, no divulging the people waiting at the airport to observe and follow if Armand is too quick to move. No mention of preparations, of what lives were drunk down to even the catastrophic imbalance between Louis and Armand.
No need to let Daniel try to convince him of anything other than this: Louis will come to him. He will take Daniel away from this place. It will not happen again.
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This conversation never happened. But it feels like it did, inside of Daniel's head.
He thinks: Please fucking stop, I'll stay if you fucking stop, and there's apparently magic in that concession.
Armand has, of course, being doing nothing but standing on the other side of the door and observing Daniel's mind for the past hour. That door finally opens and he crosses the small room to take Daniel's face in his hands, and look into his eyes, and look directly at Louis.
Then it ends. A blanket draped over the mind of the mortal he's absconded with, completely obscured.
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Daniel is gone.
A matter of thirty minutes. Twenty. Such a short sliver of time. Louis had let himself hope, find comfort in the contact with Daniel's mind and what felt like an increasingly real possibility of success.
Louis breaks the metal door. The chair. Daniel's scent hangs in the room, mingled with Armand's, a reminder of how near he'd been.
Reaches out, trying again, finds nothing.
Feels the urge to fall to the ground.
Boxes it away. He promised Daniel. He knows what Daniel would have to say. He can almost hear him, succinct summation of Self-defeating bullshit.
So he returns to the hotel. Is buoyed in he smallest way by what waits for him; all the eyes scattered through the city have something for Louis. Three of his people, observing Armand, Daniel caught at his side. A flight number, a destination.
So Louis goes. Spends the travel time alternating between reaching out for Armand and reaching out for Daniel, seeking any form of contac.
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A rescue was a nice thought while it lasted; Daniel holds the fact that Louis actually came and tried close, like a lifeline. Like the words he burned into his head and that they both forgot about, but still felt. He and Armand move around, and Daniel is eventually allowed to leave Louis another letter. A similar delivery method as the first, with a similarly shaky hand.
In it, he apologizes. He doesn't want Armand to fuck with his memories, and remembering Louis as it all really happened is more important than getting away. Please look after yourself, he closes it with, and wonders when he stopped thinking about his own fucking children. Maybe a long time ago, actually. Christ.
He and Armand do a lot of talking. Most of it veers between points of miserable and hostile, but some of it's alright. They have a kind of rapport about some things, and static about others. Daniel drinks an awful lot of his blood, and by the time they do make it to Italy, he's sure he's going to die. Probably not even by Armand's hand, because Armand mentioned (seemingly by accident) having mailed all of Daniel's things back to his apartment in New York. It's the fucking sickness, and stress. He's in pain a lot. Sleep is elusive, he has trouble wanting to eat anything. Moving around like this is difficult. Armand holds his hands on flights and train rides, and he hates that it's comforting, but hates that he's with him more.
Venice is beautiful. He doesn't notice.
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Louis had relayed this dispassionately to Lestat. They speak often. Lestat worries. Argues sometimes, but worries more.
Louis chases Armand to some final, terrible confrontation and Louis has stopped thinking very rationally about it. This terrible game of keep-away while Daniel suffers and Louis pours money into his pursuit and thinks about passing days, hours minutes.
Begs sometimes, into the absence that is Armand. Please, I'll do anything.
Does he mean it? Some days, yes.
But Venice is promising. Louis has friends in Venice. He has eyes in Venice. Enough eyes to see Daniel before Louis ever reaches to touch his mind. This time, Louis is waiting nearby, no distance to travel, reasonably sure that he's been led to the right place when he tries to reach out, hook a finger like he could snag Daniel by the collar. Catch his attention, call him away.
I'm here.
Unspoken: are you?
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I'm here, the faintest echo.
Is Daniel here? He supposes he is. He feels exhausted, irritable, and roiling with resigned pity and hostility towards his captor, who has poured out so much of himself. So much that may or may not be true. Difficult for Daniel to judge— it has become increasingly difficult for him to read Armand. He's never needed telepathy for anything like that, just intuition and attention to detail, but they've hit the point where Armand isn't sure if he's telling the truth, or not.
He thinks he's going to die. It's not a sentiment he allows Louis to eavesdrop on to scare him or rush him. It's just there, a strange feeling of certainty. His blood pressure is through the roof, his vision is constantly glassy. He is fucking tired in a way he's never experienced before. He doesn't want Louis to feel bad about it. Daniel was always going to die, he's old and he has a very annoying disease. It'll be okay.
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The sense of Louis drawing closer. A feeling of circling arms, an embrace.
Daniel feels muted. It scares Louis, feeling even this implication of decline. Daniel is sharp and sarcastic and insightful and smart, had retained all things even with the disease. The sense of Daniel dwindling, exhausted and remote, it is just—
It cannot be permitted.
Louis has a cigarette in hand, the first time in a long time. He grinds it out. Listening, eyes closed, to Daniel. To the hum of the pedestrians and city around him.
Close. They're close to an end to this. Louis holds that thought like truth, a ward against panicky fear building in his chest.
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Daniel doesn't want to give up, but he doesn't want Louis to end up hurt. To his knowledge, Armand hadn't fed at all since that fateful lunch out in Dubai, but this morning he drained three people in front of Daniel, who could do nothing but offer deadpan commentary on his technique. He doesn't know where the corpses went.
Is Louis alright?
Talk to me, he thinks. He can't really formulate replies, but he just wants to think about something besides what's happening.
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But Daniel isn't asking, so Louis needn't do anything with that truth other than hold it in check. He isn't alright. He can indulge that when Daniel is safe.
I loved Venice, Louis tells him. Loved it the first time we came, been back every couple of years since.
Does Armand love Venice? Louis isn't sure. He is unsure of so much now. Has he known anything of Armand? What parts of their lives together are true and which were only cultivated for Louis' sake?
Louis is in motion. That comes through alongside the words.
I'll show you the best of it tomorrow, Louis promises. Mind wound so close in beside Daniel, anchoring. Tethering. Be here. Don't go away. There's a place I think you'd like.
Louis doesn't say where. Just in case.
Armand could likely guess. The house by the sea is in Louis' name, but they have shared everything. Everything. Armand will guess.
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I don't understand why we're here. A thought that makes it through. Inelegant, a mortal's artless effort.
He doesn't know if he wants to like Venice.
Armand is in the room with him again, now. Surely he notices Louis. He's been in Daniel's head like he belongs there, for weeks. He sits across from Daniel and looks at him, and neither of them say anything.
Until:
"I'll give him to you."
Armand breaks the silence, and Daniel isn't sure if those amber eyes are looking at him or through him.
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They don't need to talk through Daniel. Armand is not his maker. (Armand made him into something else, transformed him over nearly eighty years of attention.) They could forgo Daniel. Speak directly.
Louis doesn't withdraw. Doesn't blank Daniel from the conversation, from his response.
Please, Armand.
A tremor carrying through.
This offer laid out like a bear trap, waiting to break Louis' wrist when he reaches for it. Knowing he'll reach, because he cannot leave Daniel there.
Moving. Running. Faster, watching Armand through Daniel's mind.
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"Wait," Daniel says, but Armand doesn't.
He doesn't know how to scramble for Louis. His pulse kicks up, a surge of panic, Armand looming close, so close, and then—
Nothing, because Armand kicks Louis out.
It doesn't take long. Daniel's surprised. Doesn't know why. With the right injury, an adult human can bleed to death in a matter of minutes. This isn't getting stuck in the thigh and left to bleed out, though, and so minute becomes hours, for the whole ordeal. Which is still too short a span of time for Louis to search all of Venice and find him. But what would he do? Interrupt? Does it even work when it's half and half, the whole way? Or would Daniel just not take? He thinks about it, staring at a baroque ceiling in need of restoration; he thinks of not taking. But there's nothing for it. Armand is too old, too powerful. It takes like a sharp knife sinking in through the softest flesh, inescapable, smooth, fatal.
In the end, Armand just turns his phone on and texts Louis an address.
He leaves Daniel alone, barricaded in a bedroom, with several mortals waiting in the lounge area. Docile and glassy, they sit obediently where they've been told, no thoughts in their heads. Sacrifices as his last goodbye to a fledgling he hadn't even been able to look in the eye after.
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As if they are all three of them back in that apartment. As if Louis hadn't thrown Armand through the wall. They are all three locked together again, and Louis can feel Daniel's fear, Daniel's panic, before Armand simply expels him. Doesn't matter how tightly Louis dug in to Daniel's mind. Armand wills it, and Louis is simply gone.
Left alone with his panic, his terror. The understanding of what Armand means to do and his own inability to stop it.
Armand's mind is closed to him. Daniel is an absence.
The address is a knife twist. Louis had been close.
The scent of him is still lingering in the room when Louis opens the door. Moving too fast, made single-minded by his panic.
"Daniel," like a plea.
Not a single mortal reacts. But they are not the only occupants of this place.
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He sees different. Hears different. Disoriented and starving and in— pain? Not quite. He was. Daniel's head swims and he tries to right himself, looking for something still in a stormy sea. Intellectually, he understands what's happening, but actually feeling it is worlds different than hearing it described.
He hears his name, and recognizes—
"Louis?"
Fuck. He's glad he's already puked up blood all over himself.
Daniel is still in this back bedroom, collapsed between the bad and the far wall, but he makes himself get up. Woozy, everything spins. Processing everything so much faster than his brain is used to.
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The scent of blood is so heavy in this room. Overwhelming, the mingling of Daniel's and Armand's. A fundamental shift in Daniel's scent, only one marker of what had been made clear to Louis the minute he'd opened the door.
"Daniel," sounds like a sob. Relief. Agony.
Louis tries almost instantly to reel that overwhelming flow of emotion back. Control himself.
"Daniel," again, hands catching and releasing and catching again, fretful points of contact as Louis tries to reassure himself, tries to avoid overwhelming Daniel. "Go slow. It's alright."
It isn't. Louis knows that it isn't.
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"I'm sorry."
Sorrow. Shame. He didn't wait long enough, he couldn't find a way to talk Armand out of it. He'd asked for it at twenty, and he dismissed the mocking suggestion of it at seventy, but here he is. He should have just offed himself in a bathroom, or something. The worst of the transformation is over, but he feels on edge still, fucking crazy, a failure. He was already dying, already making end-of-life care plans, but a thousand little things suddenly overwhelm his head on the heels of the interview. Stupid. What does chewing gum taste like now? Did he look long enough at Venice in daylight?
It feels like a loss even though he was going to die anyway. Maybe it's just that Louis looks so fucking disappointed, and shattered. Daniel tries to steady him, but he's too unsteady, himself.
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Shattering too, hearing Daniel apologize. Apologize for being taken, dragged across the globe. Changed.
Between them, it's Louis who should be sorry. But what use is an apology? This can't be undone. Can't be rectified. Louis couldn't save him. He can take Daniel from this room, but it erases nothing.
And Daniel is covered in blood. Smells different. Eyes changed. Louis' hand lifts, a fretful slip of fingers across Daniel's neck. Seeking the scarring Louis left there, decades ago.
"What do you feel?"
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"I..."
How to even describe it. Daniel keeps blinking too fast, still adjusting. Pale blue-green eyes are darker now, denser, uncanny. Similar to Louis', but as he stands there they start to refract and turn amber. Reminiscent of the person who gave him the bite that's not visible on his neck. Armand had gone at the other side, as though the scar Louis left on him was too much of a condemnation to face. Still there, textured under Louis' fingers.
"Everything."
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But Louis had felt such joy. He remembers that. Lestat and him, laughing together. The moonlight catching in Lestat's hair, the blue of his eyes electric whenever their eyes met. They'd gone tearing through the night together. It had been all adrenaline and exultation and Louis' first staggering steps had been haphazardly shepherded along.
This is not anything like it.
An apology, choking Louis. Wanting to say over and over, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
"Sit," Louis coaxes instead. "You're half-finished."
Not quite true. The thing is done. Daniel is only acclimating to it. His body is only catching up. Daniel's eyes shifting and Louis' hands coming up to cup his face, watch the sharp flint-blue of them be swallowed by jeweled amber instead. Feels it like a loss.
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As if the gothic romance vibes weren't already a lost cause. Too fast, all of it. Armand had only known what he was doing through textbook knowledge; Daniel saw, in the transfer of blood, that the too-old monster has no real memory of his own transformation besides pain. The last thing he'd said to Daniel, sitting on the edge of the bed with his head hung over, was You'll feel better now.
Fucking asshole.
Daniel doesn't know what his eyes are doing, can't see himself, obviously. Mood-ring bullshit, green-orange-yellow, shifting between a reflection of his own genetics and something borrowed.
"Are you okay? How long has it been?"
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But maybe there is nothing more. Maybe the strain of Armand hauling Daniel around the globe, whatever had passed between them in those long stretches where Louis could not hook into contact with them, couldn't get eyes on them, maybe that was enough to ease the transition. Louis had been young, healthy. There had been so much life to wring from his body.
But Daniel—
Maybe this is the only blessing. The only easy part of this.
Louis is already nudging him back towards the edge of the bed. Not letting go, only easing back.
"It's been..."
Too long. Too much time.
"Months," Louis answers. "I'm sorry," breaks loose at last, his chest cracking apart as he watches Daniel's eyes.
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Maybe more complaining would come, layers on layers of reality sinking in, but as he sits down he hears Months and it shocks him.
Months? He thought weeks. Nobody caught him in customs on any of these airports, nobody noticed he was gone, huh. Well that's. Kind of fucked, but not surprising. Louis only noticed because he called him.
Louis. Daniel looks at him, and his own face falls, seeing how sad the other man looks. He gets a hold of him again.
"Don't do that. Just don't. I shouldn't have called, I should have just let you move on. It's okay, alright? I'm okay."
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"You were right to call."
As Louis lowers himself too, until he is looking up into Daniel's face. He can't stomach the idea of it, of never knowing.
"I thought," goes nowhere, stops abruptly. Things Louis doesn't need to say because they only excuse him, won't be a comfort to Daniel. "I called," he says instead. "I missed you."
Did Daniel think he was so easily forgotten?
Louis pushes past the uncertainty of it, asking, "How do you feel?"
Hedging around the necessity of hunger. Of pain. Trying to gauge well-being when Louis has so little understanding of how Armand had done about this. Louis had wanted to make it near-painless. He had learned from Claudia, what it could be. He wanted that for Daniel, suspects it is no what came to pass.
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So it makes sense for Louis to have bailed, and it would have made sense to not care at all about Daniel after. He said his goodbyes, he lit his fucking laptop on fire (the guy who doesn't have a TV doesn't know about cloud storage), he maybe wired him some money. The end. Hearing him say he called, he missed him, makes red swim in Daniel's vision.
Red?
Christ.
"Disoriented. I don't know."
It's a lot. Daniel squeezes Louis' forearm where he's holding onto him, like a lifeline.
"Is this." Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. His voice cracks with emotion. "Is this really happening."
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It is unfair.
It is worse, perhaps, that Louis is crying. Tears sluice down his cheeks, a miserable reflection of that crack in Daniel's voice.
"I'm sorry," again, because it is happening. Because Louis cannot make it stop.
Louis had wanted to give Daniel a choice. But they are here now, and it doesn't matter what he'd intended.
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A clumsy surge forward, arms around his shoulders. A messy hug, making Louis a mess too, but he doesn't know what else to do. For a minute he has nothing more than the ability to cling to him and try to take in a breath, finding himself not-quite-gasping. Strangled by emotion. Choked by it. Red over his own face, bloody tears, and he can feel and smell and taste the difference; everything is different, the way air feels in his throat, the pressure in his sinuses, the texture of fabric under his hands.
"I didn't think anyone would notice. Or show up." Finally, eking this out. Louis doesn't have to apologize. He came. He tried. "You kept me from losing it."
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Had Armand asked? Louis had wanted that for Daniel, a choice.
Daniel smells of so much blood. His own, Armand's. Louis holds him so tightly, a hand at the nape of his neck. Crying silently, hating himself for that too, because how dare any part of this be about Louis' regrets, his grief, his relief that Daniel is still breathing?
"I noticed," again, admission stripped of the self-pitying bullshit. Thinking Daniel was sick of vampires. Thinking Daniel was ignoring his calls. Foolish. Maybe if he'd been more suspicious sooner—
"I'm gonna stay," offered up to Daniel, thick-voiced. "We'll figure it out together, alright?"
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"I couldn't have called any sooner anyway," he says with a huff of wry laughter. He'd tried to get away, but it was hopeless. Armand was a black hole. (Callback. It's brutal, to know everything Armand accused Daniel of in San Fransisco was projection. He can taste the ancient vampire's self-loathing, now.)
"Alright."
Alright.
"I'm still sorry. Fuck, Louis."
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Hardly Daniel's fault. It was Louis. Louis' misjudgement. Louis' recklessness. Louis' misunderstanding.
Trusting Armand's revulsion so thoroughly that he had never even considered that Armand might do this. Might force the Gift on Daniel. The kidnapping, yes, but the rest—
"Don't be sorry," Louis repeats, fingers scraping slow through Daniel's curls. Breathes him in, blood and sweat, scent washed clean of the remnants of medication and illness. "This wasn't your fault."
Practicality has Louis measuring the necessity of the mortals waiting in the next room. Whether Daniel would feel better washed clean of blood first or if it wouldn't matter, given the inevitability of navigating that first meal.
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But even as he thinks this, starts to become aware of the way wanting to withdraw is just a way to try and hide from the reality of what's happening, it starts to feel farther and farther away. A different feeling sweeps over him, an empty pit in his stomach that grows and starts making him feel weak.
Dying, after all? Is it rejecting him?
Daniel tries to ask Louis something and just makes a strange sound, disoriented. A sharp pain, gnawing on his insides. It's so different from how he recognizes hunger that it takes him a minute to realize that's what it is.
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No, Louis recognizes. Recognizes immediately the sound Daniel makes, what it signifies. What need it conveys.
"Look at me," as Louis draws back. Cups Daniel's face in his hands. "I know you're hungry."
Does Daniel even know that Armand left a handful of people for him? Humans made into meals?
"I can't make it easy," Louis whispers. Maybe it would be easy for Daniel someday, but the first time—
"Do you want to drink from me?"
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"What?"
What. He can't. He can't. (Even though he might have fucking tried blood, when offered, but there was no way he was going to play into their weird game.)
Louis offers himself, and something in Daniel surges up to demand he say yes, demand he lunge forward. He can feel himself tremble. Do you want— too much of a question for him, for a mind that's starting to truly freak the fuck out.
"I don't want to hurt you."
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Maybe.
But Louis doesn't want to be Armand.
"You won't," Louis tells him, promises him. Easier to drink from Louis than to kill, because it would kill any of the mortals patiently waiting for their death in the next room. Louis would survive.
And whatever vampire Daniel intended to be, he could become it with a clearer mind.
"Daniel," soft. Despairing. Worried. Entreating.
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The monster that lives inside of him now — that is him now — is starting to scream, ears ringing, near panic at the idea that blood is being offered and he's not taking it. Daniel's considerable experience with managing cravings and fits is the only thing keeping him lucid. The part of his brain that could say I know you want more heroin today but we're going to have to go to work and make himself cooperate has survived transformation.
But even that's hanging on by a bare fucking thread.
"Alright." Alright. God help him. "How the fuck do I .. fucking do this."
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Louis puts it aside.
They are here, in this room. Together. Daniel is hungry and he is afraid.
Louis wants this to be easy for him. His fingers are gentle at Daniel's cheek, watching the shift of color in Daniel's eyes.
"I'm going to go in the next room and drink what Armand has left for you."
Whether or not Daniel knows that Armand had, in his own way, tried to provide for him, Louis isn't inclined to lie.
"You're going to go wash the blood off your face," Louis tells him. As if that will make him feel better about what's to come. "And when you're done, I'll open a vein for you."
The rest will come. Louis is somewhere between impressed and worried that it hasn't already.
"Okay?"
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All of his precision is gone, in this state. Just huh, instead of being able to ask what the fuck Armand left for him, his mind racing faster than ever before yet going in circles, struggling to hold onto anything but hunger. Some horrible animal thing attempts anger, that Louis is going to go have something meant for him, like a predatory creature growling over a slain deer, and Daniel revolts against the feeling.
"Sure. Okay."
Wash his face. He must look like—
Jesus, who cares.
Daniel makes himself get up, unsteady in a way he's never been unsteady before, because everything about him is lighter, and there's no tremor making it difficult to find his center of gravity, and the pull of the earth seems to be less concerned with him. Eventually he'll realize this is because he's stronger, but right now, he just feels like he isn't real. Not nailed down correctly in reality.
A pause, distracted by the view out the window. Too dark to see anything out of, just a few hours ago. The water is a dozen deep jewel tones now. Eventually he starts moving again, one hand out in front of him like he might need to catch himself, not trusting his vision and the way it swims so vividly.
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Louis hadn't been able to stop him.
But Daniel goes, and Louis straightens. Maybe has some similar animal instincts that balk at encroaching on what Armand has left for Daniel, hesitate over how many how much.
Remembers how much he had wanted, how the thirst had felt bottomless. Like it would swallow him. Like it would tear him apart if he didn't sate it. (Louis' gift, this prodigious hunger, this love of his prey.)
Stood there among blank-eyed humans, skimming their minds and finding nothing at all, Louis has the urge to press farther. Find Armand. Scream into his head.
He sinks his fangs into the throat of the nearest unresisting mortal instead. The man's life flows into Louise' mouth as he hangs limply from Louis' arms. (Shades of the tenor from so many years ago: a sweet life, a little sailboat, a father swinging him up into his arms.) Louis drains him down to nothing and lays him down. Feels the blood in his body. Listens to Daniel, still alive. Still here.
Drains a second mortal, the sweet-faced woman sat on the settee. (A little dog, a half-completed canvas on an easel, a woman turning in her arms beneath a white sheet.) Feels sick. Feels anger.
Louis leaves the rest. Practical, isn't it? Having prey that will make it easy for Daniel to learn. Crosses back into that blood-splattered bedroom, mouth painted red.
"Daniel?"
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Control slips away like blood into the drain. He holds a towel (patterned, delicately embroidered on the end), stands in the doorway back into the bedroom, and the world does something strange. It feels... euphoric, and terrible.
"I can feel myself losing it," he advises. To his own ears, he sounds far away. "Lost it already, I think. If I. Louis, if."
He can smell the blood. Taste it in the air. His eyes change again, green vanishing into yellow. Staring at himself from some spot high up, observing the interaction. Ears ringing.
"You'll make me stop, right?"
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A promise given softly, sincerely. Daniel has heard all of Louis' turning, listened to Louis describe that first kill.
Louis can spare him that, at least. Spare Daniel a clumsy, frenzied attempt at drinking down a human while out of his mind. What comes later, they can manage it together. What Daniel wishes to attempt. What sort of vampire he decides to be.
Louis takes the towel carefully from his hands.
"You won't hurt me," Louis promises, laying the towel aside. Reaches up to take Daniel's face into his hands. "Look at me. Can you hear my pulse?"
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Too quick of an answer. Daniel is blinking too rapidly, pupils quickly dilating, fangs appearing in his mouth. He touches Louis, startles at the difference, having only become properly aware of the way his nails have changed while washing his face.
Yes turns out all he's capable of communicating. Stuck after that, knowing better than to try and struggle against Louis on a lizard-brain (monster-brain) level, but unable to formulate anything else. He's so fucking hungry. Everything in him is dead, made up of crumbled, burned paper, and if he doesn't get blood, he's going to turn to nothing but ash, even just standing here in the middle of the night.
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Wrenching, to watch Daniel struggle. Louis had wanted to give this to him, to have made it easy. Something Daniel chose.
He can only make this easy. This, the sating of his hunger. Filter the blood through Louis, let Daniel have as much as he needs without leaving a corpse behind.
Fangs gleam in Daniel's mouth. Louis' heart aches. Says anyway, "Keep listening to it."
The sound of blood moving through his veins. His heart, steady, even as Louis uses a nail to slice open his wrist.
"It's for you."
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Holding Louis' wrist in his hands, simultaneously cradling him carefully and clutching with ravenous desire. Reality moves too fast for Daniel to think about. Consciousness is buried away somewhere behind a brand new monster's wild desperation. Blood, in his mouth, around fangs he doesn't know how to use. It's like light painting his insides. He doesn't have the presence of mind to compare it to Armand's (different, insane, an incident he will spend years unpacking), too wrapped up in it.
Not just food. Life, pleasure, connection. Does he feel Louis? Too much, for right now. He drinks, and loses himself.
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Louis feels Daniel. (Had Lestat felt Louis like this?) Louis is not Daniel's maker. The Gift has been given, and Louis is granting him nothing but nourishment after the fact. It's painful. But Daniel is drinking, is taking what he needs, and Louis will survive it. That is more important than anything else in this moment.
The connection it forges between them—
Louis' eyes are wet again. His freed hand hooks into the blood-sodden front of Daniel's shirt, reeling him closer so Louis might hold onto him. Murmur encouragement. Lays his hand at Daniel's nape, give over to the depth of connection between them.
There is the instinct to give everything, and then some. Let Daniel drain him to dregs and filter the remainder of Armand's offerings through his body once more. Take it all. Anything. Everything. It's what Louis owes him, wants still to give him.
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In fiction, vampires are bats, and spirits, and wolves. This is something else, some other order of thing, demonic and angelic at once. Unearthly. Here-but-not.
And Louis—
The flinch at seeing him open his wrist comes back. It hits him, in the wave of feeling. Daniel won't drain him, he won't do this even if Louis is caught in a trap of despair. He recognizes that Louis is clinging onto him and has tears on his face, and he shifts, pulling his mouth away from his friend's wrist and grabbing at his side, then more, scrambling at him until he can hold him. Fierce and sorrowful but thankful.
Stay with me, he thinks, and he means here in this world on this plane of existence. Don't go. The thought echoes, out of his control, away from him and into Louis.
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What had flowed between them? So many things. Assortments of memory, of deep affection, deep regret. All of it accessible to Daniel, beyond even the boundaries of what Daniel had wrung free of Louis in Dubai. All the rest, all that Louis did not speak of, it flows into Daniel's jaws.
And then stops. They stop.
Daniel holds him so tightly that Louis can do nothing but wrap arms around him in return. The wound is still bloody, a ring of teeth marks sunk in to the flesh of his wrist. It doesn't matter.
"I'm here," Louis promises, voice gone thick. "I won't leave you."
Doesn't occur that Daniel is seeking a promise beyond their immediate circumstances.
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Maybe they're both shitty people when you get right down to it. Daniel who ruins marriages and children, who picks apart peoples lives; Louis exploited women, digs deep into capitalism, and now Daniel has joined him in being a blood-draining monster. But Daniel's world is better for Louis being here. He is a light, and for every harsh word and cruel trick they played on the other during the interview, for all the horror they survived one week in the past, Daniel might just fucking love him.
"I'll be okay. We'll be okay."
How, he's not sure yet. But Louis made it, and that gives Daniel hope.
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"I'm here," Louis promises, a soft repetition. "I ain't leaving you."
A promise skewing near to what he had once offered Claudia: As long as you walk the Earth, I'll never taste the fire, you understand me? Similar, but not the same. He and Daniel have suffered together, survived together. They are linked. They walk into rooms and emerge side by side. Daniel is alive. They will survive this too.
Louis is holding Daniel so tightly. His wound is healing, but not quickly enough to avoid trickles of blood soaking into the back of Daniel's shirt. Cradles Daniel's head, allows himself to shudder through the rush of relief, held in check while so much else demanded Louis' attention.
"You aren't doing this alone. I got you."
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But he can sense Louis' relief, and finds his own in how tightly they're clinging to each other. Louis doesn't feel like he's about to slip away over guilt. Fuck, this is ... a lot.
"This is—"
What is it? C'mon, Daniel, you're a writer.
"Fucking crazy," is what he ends up saying, teary laughter in his voice.
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Though it doesn't quite compare. Lestat had rushed Louis, but he'd been present. He'd provided some kind of guide. He'd offered, Louis had accepted.
Daniel had none of that.
The guilt will come later. It waits, circling at the edges of Louis' mind, waylaid by all that requires his immediate attention. Holding on to Daniel, feeling his breathing, the lingering closeness that comes from Daniel's teeth in his skin.
"Do you need more?" softly, fingers playing gently with the curls at the nape of Daniel's neck. "Or do you need the blood washed away?"
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No matter what happened after, Louis spoke with such reverence about his changing. He loved Lestat, he got at least the illusion of a choice. This seems fucking stupid in contrast, but Daniel's stubborn, he'll deal with it. Memories of 1973 were stranger— in a way, it's a relief to have this overwith, and stacking onto that, he's kind of annoyed that Armand didn't stick around so Daniel could yell at him.
Shit to think about later, when his head's not turning itself inside out.
"Probably both." Another weak laugh. Incredulous. "It doesn't... feel like hunger usually does."
Feels, again: fucking crazy.
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Had thought of how gentle he would be with Daniel, who still wears the scars of Louis' fangs on his skin.
"It won't. We call it hunger, but it's something else," is a little lofty, even as Louis draws just slightly back. Cups Daniel's cheek with his hand. "Does it still burn you?"
Hunger so vast and overwhelming that it is like drowning. Like burning alive. Like suffocating.
His fingers hook into the front of Daniel's blood-sodden shirt. Remembers San Francisco. Daniel hooking off his own shirt, a single easy motion. Does he still move that way? Had age slowed him, and has that now been restored?
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"It does. It is." But he doesn't feel as insane as he did before he drank from Louis. Not sure he wants to do it again, worrying too much about the despair he could feel in the other man. "I need to just— I need a minute, I think."
A glance down at his shirt, with Louis touching it. Gross. Great.
"I can change," he says. What else is there to do? "He supplemented my luggage like a considerate freak."
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"Shower," Louis tells him softly. "Use hot water."
Daniel needs a minute. Louis understands this as, perhaps, his cue to step away.
He is finding that difficult.
"You'll feel better afterwards," is true. "You can feed again. We can decide what to do."
How much privacy had Armand given him? None, Louis would guess. So he owes Daniel this. A closed door. A few minutes.
Only it is very hard to convince the animal instinct kicking in the back of his head to let go.
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Months ago?
Doesn't matter. It's all different. He doesn't have the same priorities, he doesn't have the same life.
"Come here," he ends up saying, and pulls Louis into a hug again. A shuddered exhale, and he stays like that for a while. Longer than necessary, probably. His own nerves feel fried and tangled, and Louis' presence, despite being part of the aforementioned fucking everything, is grounding.
After a while, he brings his hands up to hold Louis' face, and looks at him. Silently checking in.
"Help me pick something out, yeah?"
A task to do besides sit and wait. Best he's got. Unless Louis wants to come scrub blood off of him, insert bleak laugh.
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Had Daniel tasted despair? Guilt? What had lingered in Louis' blood, what pieces of the long, frantic chase had been there for Daniel to taste?
A passing concern. Dispelled, momentarily, by Daniel's offering. (Louis wouldn't not remain, but—) It sparks up some deep tenderness in him, undeserving as he is. Daniel, taking care of him still.
"Don't rush," Louis tells him. "I don't mind waiting on you."
It makes him feel itchy with anxiety being even a room away. But Daniel deserves privacy. A closed door. A chance to gather himself without an audience.
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"Thank you," he says, before stepping back. "For being here. I don't know what I'd have done. Today or— with any of it."
Get eaten, probably. Failing that, panic and accidentally torch himself. Nothing good. But Louis came after him, and that means everything. Daniel squeezes his hands, the reluctance tangible - especially now that there's a sympathetic telepathic echo possible between them - but he does step away. Ultimately he decides to leave the bathroom door half open, in case he ... what? He doesn't know. Passes out, or something. It leaves Louis with a view of the vanity, nothing scandalous, and Daniel spends an unknown amount of time (to him) staring at blood running off of him. 'Hunger' continues to gnaw at him, and his senses make him feel like he's on another fucking planet, but he manages not to do anything embarrassing.
Mummified in towels when he emerges. Daniel has been thin and wiry his whole life, he's not especially ashamed of what he looks like naked, being seventy. In decent shape all things considered; the most impactful years have been the last few, disease catching up to him at last. But in front of Louis it's a big ask.
"You better not have found a clown suit in there," he says. Look, he's got shitty jokes, he'll be okay.
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Swathed in towels, emerging in a cloud of steam, Daniel can almost be mistaken for the mortal he'd been in Dubai.
But his eyes. His eyes cannot be masked.
Louis had loved Daniel's eyes. He has been thinking of this, sat at the foot of the bed, task put to him completed. Louis has had so much time to think of all the ways he was fond of Daniel, all the things that appealed. He is thinking of them now, taking stock the way a man standing in the remnants of a scorched building might anxiously put fingers to what's most valuable.
Daniel is himself still. But his eyes—
Is this what Grace had felt, when she'd taken Louis' glasses from him and found not their shared brown but gleaming green?
"No clown suit," Louis reassures. "Only your usual fare, without the addition of spilled blood."
Spoken aloud knowing that Daniel is hungry still. Louis had been hungry. Claudia had been hungry. (Had Madeleine? Louis had felt her, but she had been gone from him so quickly. Claudia would have known.)
"Better?" Louis questions, a slight smile on his face signaling some awareness of how absurd the question is.
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"Thanks." Wry. Blood seems like it's going to be a reoccurring theme, from now on. Speaking of: "Do you want a shirt?"
He's not sure how much transfer Louis got stuck with via sad hugs. He collects his change of clothes and goes to get dressed, still leaving the bathroom door partly open so they can talk.
"I have no idea what that word means," is almost a laugh. Better. "I feel sort of like I'm on acid. I'm distracted by the thought of— eating."
Eating.
"Am I going to go batshit crazy if I don't get something?"
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Maybe. Less an objection to the splotches of blood on his own, more of a balm for the inevitability of Daniel's scent on the fabric.
Louis gives himself time to turn it over. Listens to Daniel shedding towels, dressing himself. Considers the question.
"Maybe," he admits. "You'll need to drink often, these first days."
And Daniel knows everything about what it was like for Louis at the start. About the tractor salesman. About Louis' reluctance.
"I don't mind, Daniel. If you'd prefer to drink from me until it's more manageable."
Until Daniel can better control the fate of his prey. Decide to take a life, rather than his hunger dictating what comes of their meals.
"He left others. Enough to blunt the worst of it for now."
What did it matter, what Daniel could glean from Louis in the process? Daniel has everything already. All that he is, it's already in Daniels hands.
"Or we can try together. If you like."
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What the fuck is wrong with Armand. (A lot. A lot of things that Daniel knows specifically, now.) Why did he do this? He pokes at the thing in his head, inelegant, but nothing happens; no return rush of feeling, no shift, no closure. A new phantom limb, in addition to everything else.
He re-appears, dressed and with one remaining towel that he rubs over his hair, glasses clipped to a shirt pocket. He doesn't seem to need them, suddenly, but it feels weird to discard them.
"You tasted miserable," he says bluntly. "Which of those options is going to make you feel the least like shit?"
Daniel can fucking cope, he's not the one with suicidal tendencies. He's the Actually I'm busy this weekend in the face of an eldritch monster coaxing him into sleep one.
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"It's not about me," Louis says frankly, though he isn't certain that's true. Maybe in the most immediate sense, this is not about Louis. But Daniel is a vampire. Armand had dragged him from their home, all across the world for weeks, had made Daniel write letters.
Maybe some part of it is about Louis.
But Louis is leaving that aside.
"It's about what you can live with," Louis cautions. "I want to make this easy for you."
And so had Armand, apparently. Louis is certain that's what those mind-broken mortals were meant for. An easy hunt. An easy first kill.
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(Armand had explained himself, in bits and pieces, concerning the trial, but Daniel doesn't know how to feel about any of that. Maybe he'll relate those pieces to Louis sometime, but it feels like taking an axe to trauma, and so, maybe he won't.)
He considers saying something like What would be easy is clear guidance, but it feels pedantic. Daniel hadn't had a choice in transforming, but he has choices now. He should take the luxury while he has it.
"Do they have to die? Is it... am I not going to be able to stop? Are they going to be fucked up forever even if I do?"
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It barely has time to register before Louis is taking Daniel by the hands. The lines are all blurry. Who is standing on ceremony now? They'd had something like professional boundaries, and now everything is in pieces.
Louis draws him down, coaxing Daniel to sit alongside him.
"I think Armand broke their minds. I think they will never be as they were. They are alive only to preserve their blood for you."
A guess. Armand has had hundred of years to hone his gift. Louis is outclassed. (They needn't invoke their own personal experience of Armand's gifts.)
Louis has not let go of his hand. He imparted his own story. He had relayed the things that had made sense to him, Lestat's tutelage, his personal experience. But Daniel asked.
"It is hard to take only a sip. It took me a long time to master."
To be safe enough that Damek is an employee rather than a corpse.
"You can learn to stop. But you're very new. Your hunger will be strong, and that will make it hard to stop while they are alive."
Does not add: I'm sorry.
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What now? Those people aren't carefully curated, there's no way. Just random individuals with lives. Does he care? Is it worse if he doesn't? Was he a monster before, worse for not having an excuse? Daniel's other hand presses to his face, pinching either side of his eyes, tries to center himself through a long breath.
His hands don't shake. Steady.
"I'll just do it." Quiet. "You don't have to watch."
Louis has already pulled from some, he's said as much. He shouldn't have to cycle through more and feel like shit just for Daniel, just because Armand is an asshole.
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Just as Louis doesn't have to be here at all. Didn't have to chase after Daniel. Didn't have to stay once Daniel was found.
His fingers lace through Daniel's.
"I want to be there with you," Louis murmurs. "I'll pull you back."
The mortals were there to drink, but Louis can make himself a tether. Keep Daniel from drowning.
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Daniel stays where he is for a long moment, just getting his shit together. Coping with the things he can feel, and hear. Trying not to spiral thinking too hard about his future, his kids, getting back to New York without getting turned into a pile of ash. He needs to drink blood, and he needs to do it soon, or he'll go fucking bonkers.
Soon enough: they're out in the other room, and Daniel is contending with the sight of people Armand left. A strange feeling lances through him, perverse relief that they aren't tied up and terrified. The ancient vampire must have lobotomized them— Louis can probably hear the ragged thought, bordering on hysterical, Is this how I looked in that fucking apartment?
Daniel survived San Fransisco, these people aren't surviving Venice. Bad luck.
He's going to say something. Ask a philosophical question. Work it out. At the very least, point out it was stupid to put a clean shirt on before this. It flies out of his head, and he's not thinking, there's nothing, nothing but fangs in flesh and blood on his tongue, hot and horrible and alive.
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(What Louis looked like? Like Daniel? Had there been any difference?)
But San Francisco is pushed from Louis' mind as Daniel falls to drinking. Louis remembers it. Remembers how desperate he had been. How inelegant he had been, scrabbling across the hardwood, biting for veins.
The mortal doesn't struggle. Daniel's mind is a blank, plunged into the necessity of feeding. Impenetrable, in a way. Louis allows himself to be drawn in alongside Daniel, fingers trailing across Daniel's shoulders. Grazes bare skin at the nape of his neck as Louis sinks into his mind.
Louis can feel the mortal going, going. Life draining away. The echoing taste of blood rich in Daniel's mouth, an absence on Louis' tongue. Louis' fingers slipping through Daniel's hair, soft silver beneath his palm as Louis reaches to temper that grasping urge towards the last drops.
Daniel, comes as a murmur. On to the next now.
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Louis' hand on him, strange, surreal. That soft voice in his head jolts him and he feels embarrassed about it for a moment, pulling away and—
Whatever he might have thought (laughing at him to put his shirt back on in '73, a mocking offer months ago) is gone, staring down at a person who he has now killed. The man - a human, a mortal, something Daniel isn't anymore - is fading away, greyish already. How much fucking blood did he have to take, to make someone lose color?
One person left, still alive. They sit there and see nothing, like a reformatted drive, blank. Daniel is more aware this time as he pushes their head back and leans down, but wishes he wasn't.
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Louis would have drunk down four if he could have, that first night. He's drunk thousands since.
His fingers remain, Louis drawn along in Daniel's wake as he sinks teeth into the throat of this last mortal. Fingertips running along his scalp, grounding. Anchoring.
I'm here, whispers in the back of his head. Stay with me.
Drawing Daniel's attention, a step back from the life dwindling away between his jaws.
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Fuck you, Armand.
Louis' hand on him feels crazy. All of this is making him cognizant of how long it's been since anyone's touched him in a way that hasn't been medical, or, recently thanks to Armand, gently threatening. He blames the resentful misery of this last victim.
Too many fucking emotions. He's dead, he's not dead, this can't be happening, this is very much happening.
Staring down at four bodies, the final one shivering their last. Blood on his mouth, a bit on the shirt, but it's not so bad. Too hungry to let anything go to waste. At least he feels more grounded, now, the thing inside of him demanding more, now, more, has shut up. He can still sense it, a creature that's grafted into himself like a fucked up horror movie monster, but it's been temporarily tamed.
"Okay."
Okay??? Tries again.
"Okay." A breath. "I have a question, and I want to preface it with saying that I don't want to, and that I'm asking from a purely practical standpoint, considering the logistics and morals of it all. Given that there's no fucking reason to have turned me into a vampire, and how many people I will apparently have to eat, and there's apparently thousands more vampires around today than at any time in history— should I just torch myself? Or sit in a locked room and starve? I was dying anyway. I had a lot set up to just go."
Again, he doesn't want to, but it might be a decent fuck you to Armand. Oh yeah, jerk?
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And Daniel says this thing. Asks this question.
Louis' whole body flinches away from what he invokes.
"No," is so raw. Louis reaches for him again, hands lifting to bracket Daniel's face. "No, Daniel."
Thumb at the corner of Daniel's mouth, over that smear of blood. Holding on.
"Don't go."
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Louis touches him again, sounds so shattered. It makes Daniel feel cared for in a way he hasn't in decades, but there's also a contrary part of him that's— you know, like, hey, you didn't even consider that from a logical standpoint.
Death has not changed him from being a weird asshole, apparently.
But Daniel makes himself crawl up out of his own bleak pragmatism, and reaches out to rest his hands on Louis' sides.
"Alright. Alright, Louis. I'm not going anywhere."
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In the coming days, weeks, he'll turn Daniel's question over and over in his head. In the moment though, Daniel touches him, and it is steadying. Eases the panic the had risen in him at the thought of Daniel walking into the sunlight.
"Stay," he repeats, soft. "We can figure all of it out, together."
Vampirism. The demands it was going to make of Daniel. How he'd answer them.
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—Sounds a little lost, but sincere. Not his problem-causing Yeah.
Standing in a room, holding on to each other, surrounded by bodies. How much money has Louis blown, chasing after him? Where the fuck is Armand? What is he going to say to his kids? Is he ever going to see them again? (Does he care?)
"Do we... put these in a vat of acid, or some other horror film shit?"
It's Venice, though, maybe they just go out the window into the canal.
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Louis' thumbs stroke over and over Daniel's cheeks. Smooth away the traces of blood. Find reassurance in the warmth of him, breathing and alive, caught up between Louis' hands.
"I'll take care of it."
Penance, maybe, for the number of bodies Armand dealt with on Louis' behalf. His turn now, to clean up.
"I'm not so far out of practice that it's beyond me."
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Unfortunate facts, and please. Shit has to get way more traumatic than dying for Daniel Molloy to not want to know something. There's no fucking way Louis' going to magic anything else away while Daniel sits quietly in the other room.
So. The clean up.
Having something to do, no matter how gruesome, centers him. A project to work on, take mental notes on, even as he occasionally spaces out due to sensory overload, or looks spooked because his hands are steady and it's starting to sink in how much pain he isn't in anymore. Neurons repairing themselves, or the elusive, half-theoretical lifelong neurogenesis is happening now, erasing or otherwise outpacing the flawed ones. Armand gave Daniel his blood instead of medication, while they were traveling, and maybe it kept Daniel slightly more stable than nothing, but it hadn't healed him like this. A mortal can't properly benefit from death. The damned work best with the damned.
By the time they're finished he's nearing the ability to say I'm okay and mean it.
A deep breath.
"What now?"
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Which does beg the question—
"Whatever you want," is the truth, even if it sounds regretful in Louis' mouth.
He knows what he wants. To stay near to Daniel. Never let him out of sight again, never endure the frantic search while he slips farther and farther away.
They could go to Dubai. They could go to the States. They could go anywhere.
"You'll need to sleep," is true too. "And eat again before any prolonged travel."
Softer: "I would pay your ticket, wherever you wished to go."
Because Please stay close sticks in his throat. Uncertain. What does Daniel want? To never see Louis again? To go be a vampire where it pleases him, keep his own company?
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The idea of home feels daunting. His apartment is far from sun-proof. What if he shows up thirty minutes before dawn? He's got blackout curtains, but how good are they? Has his editor reported him missing? Fucking declared him dead? Has anyone besides Louis noticed? Should he just 'die' now, or go work on the book?
Because
he's still going to write the book. Obviously.
The impression he got is that Louis is no longer as enthusiastic about the idea of publishing it (the whole laptop fire and whore number thing), but yeah, no, he's not complying with that, and figures Louis owes him for leaving him with Armand anyway, so it's fine. They'll be even.
Speaking of Louis, Daniel looks at him, and wonders if the longing he thinks he hears in him is imaginary, or... fucking mind reading. What's that about.
"What if I wanted you to keep me company for a while because I'm fucking lost?"
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Which is to say, rarely. Which is to say, with only Daniel in the room, not at all.
Maybe it will come to Louis in time. Recall that Daniel is a vampire. Recall that Daniel is a reporter. But in the moment, it is as open as Louis' face, looking at Daniel as he asks this thing. The Yes forms there before Louis says:
"I'll stay as long as you like."
Maybe there are better choices for touchstones, for teachers, than Louis. Louis who is newly returned to the world. Louis, who had been sequestered for decades.
Louis, who Daniel is intimately aware has been far from an adept vampire.
It's fine. They have Lestat for all that Louis is incapable of.
"I want to stay," Louis amends. Before Daniel can second-guess him.
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He doesn't know why - he's not a touchy person, neither is Louis, he doesn't think - but he reaches out and grabs the other man's hand again.
Not totally to support the older vampire. Daniel is also freefalling a little still.
"Let's get the fuck out of here first, then."
Staying can come after. Daniel crams everything he has left into his abused suitcase, startles a little at picking it up (! weighs nothing ? cool), and then they can just... get out, and away, and he will try not to stop every three feet and stare up at the sky or out at the ocean.
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Louis does not relinquish his hold on Daniel's hand. The link of contact remains, soothing the fretful anxiety that Daniel might vanish. That Armand will simply take him, play keep away as effectively as he had before.
They've walked a little ways before Louis asks him, "Would you like to go back to New York?"
It would make sense to Louis, who couldn't bring himself to leave New Orleans for thirty years. May never have left New Orleans, if it had gone differently with Lestat then.
May go back still, because Lestat is in New Orleans. Might intend to stay in New Orleans, if not in the waterlogged cottage.
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Because Armand sent everything back there, apparently. Bought him a different suitcase and clothes on the fly. He's not one hundred percent sure what all is in the shit that Armand (allegedly) sent off to his Brooklyn apartment— the ruins of his laptop, at least, but who knows what else. A part of him is itching to know. Did Armand post a dead cat in there? It could be fucking anything, the guy's got every mental illness known to humanity and probably a few extra ones no clinician has ever been confronted with.
"I don't think New Orleans is practical," he says. "I know you're an almost-billionaire, but the infrastructure from flooding and bad politics basically ensures you're exposed or stuck on a floating piece of driftwood at high noon within a year."
No awareness of where he picked up thoughts about New Orleans from, or that Louis hasn't said any of that out loud. Has not quite fished out Lestat, but they aren't talking about people, they're talking about where to go.
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Daniel hits a key combination anyway: New Orleans and infrastructure, New Orleans and flooding.
Triggers a flutter of memory:
Car window grinding down, Louis' face turning into the passing breeze.
A hurricane rattling shutters.
Lestat's eyes widening as Louis crosses a damp, low-lit little room.
In this present moment, Louis slanting a look sideways at Daniel. A twist in his chest, thinking so immediately of Armand. How Armand must have known and perhaps shared some opinion on it with Daniel.
"It still feels like home," Louis admits, before saying, more practically, "I still own property in New York. And California."
A healthy real estate portfolio is nothing to sneeze at.
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(That'll be the thing, probably. Hunger he can cope with, to a degree, with his experience in the trenches of addiction. But the cascade of variables - power plus a potentially inherited knack plus curiosity plus his inherent journalistic aggression - will equal a harder impulse to control.)
If he gets an impression of Lestat as he looks back over at Louis, he doesn't realize what it is; doesn't even realize what he's doing. There are other people out at night, wandering in the late hours and scoping out scenery or heading towards early shifts at bakeries and so on— one of them is thinking loudly about a fight with her husband that turned violent, and Daniel flinches and looks over his shoulder, trying to sort out what jumped into his head.
"I, uh."
Christ. What the fuck. (Tired of thinking What the fuck.)
"You didn't keep that shitty apartment, did you?"
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But there is a moment where Louis finds himself uncertain. Tests the porous edges of that memory, all that had come before or after now suspect.
"Yes," Louis says at last. Testing the answer, knowing it to be true. "The building's been renovated."
Modernized. Is now handled by a property manager.
The floor still slants to the north. Louis knows this without any reason to still have possession of that fact. He hasn't set foot there in years.
"I can have a direct flight for us to New York," hooked onto the tailed end of this. "We can make arrangements for things you'll need when we get there."
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So
having a normal time, tonight.
"That's funny."
He still has it. Daniel can go see it. Check if it's haunted or not. (With what? The ghost of things he can't remember? A poltergeist made of the junkie who should have died in the 70s?)
"What were you doing before this?"
New Orleans, something about New Orleans. Something about having to get home before the baby wakes up, but something something, he doesn't speak Italian. What? Daniel rubs the bridge of his nose.
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Is Louis being exasperating? Not at this exact moment. But the rest —
"I was in New Orleans," Louis answers, truthful because what reason does he have to obscure this? "I wanted to go home."
To open the car window, to turn his face out into the night and feel all things familiar carried to him on the air.
"I wanted to find Lestat," is true too. "And I did."
And now he is here. His fingers soft in the bend of Daniel's elbow, keeping him near as they navigate the ebb and flow of mortal foot traffic. As Louis draws him off to a small fountain, a place to sit. Watches Daniel's face, assessing. Worrying.
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Is it surprising? A little, despite the fact that Armand had made it clear that's where Louis was, had berated Daniel for sending Louis back to someone who will eventually beat Louis half-dead again. Despite that, it's almost uplifting. Louis got to put some things together, get a resolution, for good or ill.
"Is he okay?"
This question comes out slower than is normal, for Daniel. He feels like he's speaking underwater, suddenly, trying to be heard over a crowd. Voices, thoughts, impressions trickle in, then flood, then stop, then surge up again like a wave, and the water is too loud, and a woman walking by is thinking in Spanish which means he actually understands her, and Louis is worried about being exasperating but Daniel doesn't know why he'd say that, and, and, and,
his hand over his forehead, now. He wants to know about Lestat, but also:
"How do I turn my head off?"
A weak question. Lost, exhausted, disoriented.
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It had been days for him, for this skill to manifest. Longer for it to become something that needed to be managed, curbed. (And then something that made feeding intolerable, much to Lestat's chagrin.) It has been hours, for Daniel.
The earlier question discarded for the moment. They can talk later about New Orleans, Lestat, anything Daniel likes.
Here, now, Louis takes Daniel's face in his heads.
"You can hear them?" Louis questions, worry creasing across his face as he draws them these last few steps. The fountain perhaps a mistake. There are others milling about here, humans enjoying the scenery, children playing, lovers chattering, an elderly couple with their little dog. Not ideal, but they are here.
Focus on me like a little tug at corner of Daniel's mind as Louis opens his own head to him. Makes himself an eclipse, all-encompassing, a shelter in which only there is only the quiet patter of his own thoughts, the subdued flow of emotion, running alongside Daniel's presence. Stay here.
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Who cares about dying. Wasn't scared of Armand threatening him. What are you going to do, kill me, but that would have been easier than Armand's psychic tentacles in his head.
These thoughts bump into others, spinning around and outward, hearing, feeling, observing. It takes a second for him to find balance, using Louis as a fixed point, but he gets there.
Stay here, Louis says, and Daniel finally manages to get a decent grip on him.
'Think I'm gonna puke,' he warns Louis, though this is not the case. He might pass out, though.
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Louis' heart aches for it, for this resignation. For Daniel thinking he is going to die and accepting it, dispassionate. Still unable to consider a world without Daniel in it, even now that Louis is assured it will never come to pass. (Is this Armand's idea of a gift?) His fingers bracket Daniel's face, stood so close their breath mingles, noses brush, Louis disregarding personal space on the far side of the fountain.
Breathe, Louis instructs. They are no longer in a blood-soaked hotel room. The air is clean, the fountain behind them a waterfall of sound. Louis' mind opening up, steady. Familiar terrain, perhaps. There are only two others who might claim to know Louis as well or better than Daniel does.
Called it peeling back, when I first started out hearing them all around me, comes this murmur. I didn't think it'd come to you so fast. Peel back on me. I'll keep it quiet.
Louis, who wished for death so differently than Daniel did. Who turns the face of a gray-haired man in Daniel's mind back and forth, lets it drift beneath the surface of his thoughts.
Says aloud, "Use me to orient yourself, while you get your bearings."
While Louis tries to pluck up some relevant memory, something like instruction. Here is Lestat, pivoting round on a lamp-lit New Orleans street. Here is Armand, lounging in bed, eyes alert. Lessons overlapping, linked in Louis' mind.
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Thoughts of death and negotiation around it filter away. He stays with Louis, thinks of peeling — doesn't really work, someone nearby is thinking about potatoes and preparing them — tries something else. Then something else, then something else, and he sees Lestat, like he's there walking alongside them, disoriented and out of place, and he sees Armand—
Sitting with him in Dubai, aware Louis is asleep in the next room, talking to Daniel about solar power. It's a completely normal conversation, except for the way Armand is looking at him.
Gone, and it's just Louis and Daniel, in Venice, by a fountain. Daniel manages to close the fucking box around himself, and he takes a shuddering breath. Realizes he's holding on to Louis' sides again, probably clinging a little too intensely, but he can't make himself let go. He feels like he'll sink into the fucking abyss if he does.
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But he is aware of the process. How Daniel tries, tries again, troubleshooting. Something innate, skill Daniel has already in his possession, that severs himself from the drowning flood of mortal thought.
Louis' hands have shifted into his hair. Set their foreheads together. Daniel's hands are gripping tight at his waist, and Louis has not dislodged him. Senses Daniel to be steadier but not steady, and so remains. Their noses brush. Their breath rises and falls in time. A passing awareness of too close, set to the side.
"I got you," comes soft, reassuring. "And you got hold of it. You're still here."
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The prospect is as daunting as it is interesting.
Puking up his liver (or whatever) was much easier.
A shaky breath, then another, steadier one. So close to Louis, closer than he's been to anyone in... years, definitely. That thought is there, in the shelter of Louis' mind, and it's somewhat of a marvel until Daniel realizes what they must look like, Louis cradling some decrepit old man out in public in a fucking tourist hot spot, and he winces. Embarrassment colors his relief, and Daniel withdraws with a wry feeling of apology.
"I'm okay," he says, straightening up. Convincing himself that it's the truth, that he's okay. Repeats it. "I'm okay."
Maybe. Crosses his arms, self-soothing.
"If we could just. I dunno, get the fuck outta here, I guess."
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Louis must contend with the instinct he has now, which is to hold fast. To fold Daniel in against himself, clinging and close like that can dispel all the unsteadiness of transformation. Of walking into the world as something new.
Of how Daniel was vulnerable for so long, hurting for so long, alone with Armand.
Armand, who is now silent.
Louis lets go. (Recognizes, in some way, the thing that had lived in Daniel's face when Louis had made an offer to him months back, mid-interview.) Touches Daniel's cheek briefly, fingers light at his cheek before Louis too straightens. Finds some composure, so he might look less split open by their present circumstances.
"We can go."
Softly.
You don't have to be okay, as a whisper in the back of Daniel's mind. Louis' voice, private, just for Daniel, as they begin to walk once more. You don't have to be okay with me.
New Rashid is already collecting what little luggage Daniel has. Louis' hotel is not a far walk. (Lavish, old building, beautiful artwork upon the walls, a breath-taking view from the window.) They'll need only spend a few hours, long enough for a flight to New York to be arranged. They can simply go. Louis has so much money. It makes all things possible.
Almost.
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To that whisper. No way for him to know how to only send it in his mind, and so he says it out loud, despite hearing Louis internally.
"I just need to be okay."
For as much as he can, he trusts Louis. And he's grateful beyond expression for this rescue— because that's what it is. He's not sure that Armand would have ever let him go if they hadn't been followed. If there was no pressure, he expects he'd have just died of his illness, probably had a stroke from anxiety, or Armand would have lost his temper. The end.
Different end, now.
Louis is a safe haven. Daniel wants to cling to him, too. Doesn't know how. So: the hotel, and he thinks of getting on a flight, but realizes he ... can't. Not for logistical reasons. For other reasons, one that don't fit together right in his head. Flight, drive, escape, hotel, fleeing, arguing, flight, hotel. Does he have anything to go back to? Is there a point to New York?
"I think I'm having a panic attack," Daniel observes, tone mild.
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Privacy, for the moment.
"That's normal."
Maybe. The concept of a panic attack is relatively new. Louis had been turned under vastly different circumstance.
He snares Daniel's hand in his own, draws him down to sit. No stones here beneath their feet, nothing but solid wood floors and Louis himself, playing tether.
"Talk to me. I'm here."
Shorthand for You're safe.
Or maybe, Everyone around us is safe from you.
Dual worries, things Louis would guess at but can't be certain are at the forefront of Daniel's mind without touching his thoughts. Is reluctant to do so without invitation or dire necessity, after Daniel has likely gone so long living with casual intrusion into his head at Armand's whims.
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Classic signs. He attempts to identify the source so he can confront it. But, well.
The source seems to be everything.
"Maybe," he sounds unsteady, uncertain, "we could wait a day or two before leaving."
To think. To not think. He grips Louis' hand.
"I don't know what I'm going back to."
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Louis' hand finding the center of Daniel's back, smoothing slow circles there.
"I got a place," implies more comfort, more privacy, maybe better equipped for care and feeding of vampires than a lavish hotel. "Could post up there, send someone on ahead."
Though Louis isn't entirely sure it's the not knowing. But offers this, sweeping contact across Daniel's back, a murmur in his mind: Breathe. I got you.
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He was prepared to die. He didn't want to die, but he'd done the trench work to get ready, since no one else was going to. He's interviewed enough people with suicidal desires to know that envisioning reactions and the state of the world after is a big part of the fantasy. (Louis, even, thinking about his cane and his pile of ash.) But that's never been Daniel. Someone would clear out his apartment and that would be that. He didn't even want to be buried. Cremated. Dumped in the ocean somewhere, just so no one would have to accidentally on purpose lose an urn. And then, nothing, because he's been so absent from anything of consequence anyway.
Here he is, in that fucking fantasy zone, except the fantasy's never been his.
"Will you tell me," he says, staring at his feet, thinking about taking solace in that touch to his back but not entirely sure how to go about it, "about what you were doing before? I interrupted you. About Lestat. Are you okay?"
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A moment of quiet in the wake of the question. Not withholding, not really, only parsing out his answer. Trying to pin down a thing he's scarcely given thought to himself.
"I'll tell you," he acquiesces, between he sweeps of his hand, observing Daniel's face in profile. "After I remind you that you haven't interrupted anything."
Insistent on this point, unwilling to let even this glancing comment stand. Continuing on, without leaving Daniel the space for an objection.
"I went to New Orleans," softly, a murmur into the space between them. "I wanted to go home."
Home. Louis' voice softening further over this word. New Orleans. Lestat. The two mingle, intertwine.
"I found him there."
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Maybe his instinct to push outward, away from himself, ask questions is a bad one. But Louis wants Daniel to use him as an anchor, and so, that's what he's doing. Trying to listen, trying to make his pulse calm down.
He thinks—
Of how fucking happy he is, genuinely. It floods him like the release of a painfully held breath. Louis got out of Dubai and found Lestat, for better or worse. Daniel didn't pull pack the curtain on something that couldn't be given closure. He doesn't pretend to know what that feels like - his relationships have deteriorated for far more mundane reasons. No pining involved. (Alice, a little. But does he miss her, or his fucking youth?)
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His fingers scrape lightly at the nape of Daniel's neck. Palm sweeps back down his back once more. Back up again. Steady, continuous contact.
"We forgave each other," Louis says slowly, feeling his way through the answer. "I'm glad for it."
Fumbling towards an answer to the actual question.
"I feel lighter," makes him feel guilty too. "It was good to see him."
After so many years. After so much misunderstanding, so many lies.
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"I'm glad about it, too. I am, Louis. You deserve to feel lighter about fucking something."
A dry laugh—
"Armand made it clear I ruined his fucking life."
It wasn't a major, active worry, that he had also ruined Louis' - somewhat preoccupied at the time, given the abduction - but it was there. He feels the resurgence of that worry now, and can let it go. Feels fucking great, actually, to be able to let something go, in this mood. He doesn't ask more, doesn't want to pry into things now when he's already driven a bulldozer through so much of Louis' privacy (invited, but still).
"I can tell he's still in Venice, by the way. Is that weird?"
It's weird.
"Will you go back to New Orleans?"
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Says nothing, for a moment. Just touches him, because Daniel is permitting it, and because for the moment it seems to be helping. Squeezes his hand back. Waits out the tremor in his chest that is all guilt and sorrow, because Daniel has enough to weather without Louis' internal conflict. He keeps it tucked away, walled carefully off, separate as his own mind touches Daniel's, something akin to a light lean, shoulder to shoulder.
"What happened was of Armand's own making," at last, simple dismissal of a thing Louis knows to be more complex than he's acknowledging. Moves onwards to admit, "It's not unusual, feeling your maker."
Louis feels Lestat even now, the threads between them all the more solid for the relief of their reunion, the time spent together. Long parting ended, and now some rebirth, renewal, whatever they make of it.
What will he do?
"I'll go where you go," Louis reminds Daniel quietly. "Brooklyn, and then wherever you like."
🎀 territory?? unless you had further desires
Louis is okay, Louis feels terrible over what's happened to Daniel, but he found Lestat again. He's out from Armand's control. Daniel is— coping, bit by bit. (Bite by bite??? We have fun)
The prospect of sleeping during the day feels daunting, for some reason, though he manages it; the next night, still jittery in stops and starts, but feeling more capable of thinking things through without forcing himself to. A breather, even if they're still here, in just one more place he was abducted to. Enough time to see something interesting, listen to Louis' opinion about it, associate the place with more than just Armand. Though Armand feels carved out somewhere inside of him now, permanent.
He has a long time to think about that. No rush to do it now.
They'll figure it out.
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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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"You're flattering me."
But Louis isn't contradicting him. Is conflicted about how much he wants to hear. How much he should hear. Lestat deserves his privacy.
"Come sit. Tell me how it's been. How you are."
Not necessarily about the interview. Maybe about the TikToks Louis has heard about, secondhand recounting when Rachida has clocked something worrisome enough to raise it onto Louis' radar.
They break apart. Louis turns to sweep his papers into tidier piles, a vague sweep of his hand inviting Daniel to the plush low couches, the cup of blood sitting untouched and warmed by a single candle. Meant for Louis, but easily given over. Daniel has traveled far. He must be hungry.
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Lestat? Privacy? They're recording, man. But, Daniel sits anyway, and looks at the cup being offered. An instinct to decline, because Louis doesn't eat people — had Daniel hoped he'd pick it up again? maybe — but it feels rude to. Even Armand had deigned to sip out of a little glass dish towards the end, as though he was afraid of being ordered out of the room again for not dining.
"I'm alright. Really. Good, even."
He takes a drink, because why not, it's like sharing a cigarette. Not horrible, but still like a microwave TV dinner versus real food. Which Louis must know and struggle with, or else he wouldn't have live donors. He doesn't drain all of it, sets it back down between them.
"Missed you." He shrugs. Might as well admit it. "And I've been having weird dreams, sometimes of San Fransisco, sometimes of Dubai, I dunno. Just wanted to see you, corny as that sounds."
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He'd wondered whether after all was said and done, interview concluded, book published, if Daniel would simply close the door on him and move on. Louis wouldn't have blamed him. It has been a lot.
How good it is that this is not the case.
"I've missed you too," Louis murmurs, lifting the cup. Content to have offered something, some small extension of hospitality.
He puts his mouth to the same place on the glass as Daniel had, tips his head back to drain the last remnants. It's fine. Enough for Louis for tonight.
"Do you want to tell me about the dreams? Or do you want to tell me about the tour?"
Choose your own conversational adventure.
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Not companions, not coven, not family, not tied by the bonds of shared blood. Maybe friend is a good fit. The only real one Daniel's ever had. Louis is singular enough in the world already without that dubious honor, but all the same.
"To everyone's great horror, the tour is being filmed."
Daniel sounds almost fond, despite himself. Lestat does not qualify as a friend, but he's fucking something. Every once in a while they even get along.
"It'll be a great documentary and you'll be off the hook about a sequel, if any of us live. But if you want early spoilers..."
In short: Louis gets to pick, tour or dreams. Whatever he's most comfortable hearing about.
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Louis worries. Struggles over to how ask without being invasive, whether Lestat is still as fragile as Louis had found him. If Daniel might be just a little gentle, just this once. A late request, but maybe Daniel would indulge him.
Put aside anyway, because Louis had promised himself not to interfere.
"No," Louis decides. "He shouldn't have to worry about my reactions to your work together."
Which is what Louis really means when he considers privacy. Lestat allowed to say whatever it is he feels, and Louis will absorb it all whenever it becomes available on streaming. Or whatever medium Daniel chooses.
The papers are shuffled, stacked. Louis occupies the seat diagonal, an echo of their interview. Elegant still in how he settles himself, crosses one leg over his knee. Color in his wardrobe, deep oxblood cardigan tonight laying bare his collarbones, sleeves rolled back off his wrists.
A weighing moment. Does Louis want to be off the hook?
"Tell me about the rest then."
The rest. Not the interview. The dreams. The raucous nights out that keep making it into articles that Rashid inserts in Louis' workflow. Dealer's choice.
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"Maybe I'm going nuts," is what he ends up saying. Decides for dreaming, instead of anything else. Tales of partying are kind of a whatever, and holding their own potential for memory issues, though granted, for far more mundane, self-inflicted reasons. Turns out vampires can still get blackout drunk. "Just imagining things, my brain trying to fill in the gaps. I try not to think about San Fransisco, but sometimes I go through the whole thing again while I'm asleep."
As though sleeping during the day has had some kind of additional supernatural effect on him, conjuring up the past that his mortal mind had forced to forget. Or maybe being severed from Armand telepathically has made it freer, more accessible, but requiring subconscious contact first.
Or, and this is the most likely explanation, these new edits are simply not real.
"Blank, in places where it was always blank, but sometimes..." Daniel shrugs.
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Daniel describes this and Louis says:
"I understand."
Sometimes, there is a hazy shape of something. A memory. Something Louis has no names for and only the blurriest recollection of. A thing he can guess at but can't grasp.
"Maybe it's a benefit of your transportation," is only a guess. "Your mind repairing itself the way your body has."
Or maybe just something intrinsic in Daniel, a human gift made stronger in death.
"You don't have to describe it to me," is meant as a kindness. Nothing in that room would be easy to recover. What they pieced together between the two of them was a horror. Louis suppresses the urge to pry after what Daniel has, what only he and Armand could ever know. No one but the three of them in a room. All of it recovered only because of Daniel, tugging at loose threads.
Louis and the historical documents, trying to put together all his missing pieces. A comedy.
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Though with would be nice.
"You know, in some vampire fiction, vampire blood makes them physically younger. Speaking of my body repairing itself."
Raw deal!! He still looks old!! No fair at all. But he offers this with dry humor, not about to actively complain about anything to Louis. Heaven fucking forbid he get caught in the riptide of guilt.
"But I don't know. Am I seeing newly recovered snippets, a picture starting to fill itself in, or am I making shit up in my sleep because I spend so much time while I'm awake ... worrying about you, worrying about Armand, even. Differently, of course. But still."
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No one has even taken a run at him this week.
Of course, no word on what kind of worry should be directed at Armand. There is a ragged tear in Louis where Armand came away from him, a wound that inspired pain and anger and regret by turns, but never quiets.
Daniel doesn't need to hear about that though.
Louis moves on, suggesting, "I don't know. Lestat might. I'm limited in my understanding of the mind gift."
Of how its workings may deteriorate over time. Whether Daniel's curiosity alone is enough to wear at the edges until he can gather glimpses of what was obscured or altered.
"Does it feel real, what you've been dreaming?"
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So, worry it is. Mirrors in their own ways. Louis' wounds from Armand are significantly worse than Daniel's, so much that Daniel can't conceptualize them, not really, not the depth. And yet he's still got these fucked up entry wounds in his soul from the guy, so here he is, circling the drain infinitely about what the fuck do I do about it.
Then he pulls a face, about the idea of telling Lestat. Absolutely not, apparently.
"Sometimes." He knows that word isn't helpful, but it's all he's got. "As much as dreams can, where it just could be, and other times I forget it's a dream at all, until I wake up. I mostly see you. We're both fucked up and I'm trying to make you laugh. I think I'm going to die, I think you're probably going to die. You've told me to hang on but there are moments when I'm not being actively hypnotized and it's, you know."
He's in a shitty apartment with a dying monster and a very alive one who wants to kill him.
"I think Armand left to get me a sandwich, at one point. I was probably going to die from lack of nutrients after the blood loss after a few days. So I was locked in the room with you. Does that sound real?"
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Louis' expression has lost all of the easy warmth with which they began this conversation. The look he wears now must be familiar; it is the same expression he wore in Dubai, across the table, listening as Daniel methodically laid out which pieces he had, what he had made of them, looked to Louis to fill in the rest. Tension and focus and a flex of worry. Not for himself.
Daniel is still so young. Young for a vampire. Young even in comparison to Louis, who had lived out lifetimes before Daniel had ever grown old.
But they are not in that room. There is no one who will stop them piecing through what's been lost but them.
Louis draws a breath. A little restless tic of movement works through his body. Readjusting the cross of his legs, his perch on the edge of the cushion, drawn unconsciously closer as Daniel speaks.
"I haven't dreamt that."
Only enough to know his fears of missing pieces are real. To know that things have been lost, or taken from him, and that Daniel and his tapes won't recover them.
Daniel is asking him about that room. Louis closes his eyes.
"But it sounds real," comes softly, slowly. "I remember..."
A door closing. A hand rattling at the lock. Sunlight filtering through newspaper. An agonized groan that could have been him, might have been Daniel.
"I remember your voice," Louis admits. "Closer than I thought you should be."
Acclimated to Daniel in the main room, his screams and moans of pain carrying through the sometimes locked, sometimes open door. But the discrepancy Louis worries at now, like plucking at a loosened thread, rolling it between fingers.
"I dreamed you were blocking the sun."
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Comfort, apology.
"So have I just implanted a false memory in you?"
The trouble with this kind of shit, is that there is so much trouble with this kind of shit.
"I don't know if I'd have known to do that. I'd like to think so, though. I'd do it now."
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Is it all a dream? A story they're telling themselves?
It feels real. The shape of a thing that fits into the pain-blurred voids they hadn't managed to parse out in the span of a single lunch break.
Louis turns Daniel's fingers in his own, thumb moving across his knuckles, grip tightening and loosening by turns. Familiar. Tethering, while Louis' thoughts turn inwards by degrees.
"I don't know if it's false. It feels real."
And then:
"You're the only other person in the world who would know. And you're better at this. Putting together what we lost."
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No conscious positioning, everything incidental, until Daniel laid down because the Lovecraft monster was no longer controlling his body, but he was too exhausted and in pain to do anything else. Desperately in need of actual rest, and not the kind that came from invisible tentacles in his fucking brain.
Daniel's hand feels inelegant, next to Louis'. Thick fingers warped with age, nimble again now but no more attractive for it; nails a little longer than he'd like, but he supposes they echo his fangs. Strange, all of it. Not unwelcome. Nothing's perfect, especially not death, but it beats the way life was.
"I just have perspective. You didn't know there was any other way to look at it."
Inhale, exhale.
"If you don't want to be bogged down by all this..."
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"You aren't bogging me down."
No hesitation. Firm over the words, intending to dispel any instinct Daniel might have to withhold.
"I want to be here with you."
Even when here required them to be there. Who else had this perspective? Who else could understand even a fraction of what Louis is struggling with? Pieces of him, missing. Pieces of him simply gone, excised over decades. He'd never known. He wants to know now.
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And not just in that apartment, in that room, in his dreams and invasive flashes now and again as he tries to go about his nightly life. Louis is real, he's alright, he's not a charred corpse, he's not back under Armand's thumb, he doesn't have to hear him scream and beg from the other side of a closed door.
Whatever happened, more or less or whatever they remember or don't, it's behind them, and they're here. Daniel squeezes his hand. His lifeline, since then.
"I promise I'll eventually get over needing to check in with you in person. No ETA on when, though."
Maybe it'll take a hundred years. Louis' stuck with him.
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Missed you, Daniel had said. Louis hadn't said it back. He should. Daniel is intuitive, but Louis has learned not to leave some sentiments to the intuition of others.
And now he has this memory, coming into clearer focus. Daniel, on the bed beside him. Agony and comfort mingling together at his closeness, the nearness of his body jostling Louis' charred limbs but too much of a comfort to forgo. Real. It's real. Louis knows it in his body, truth like it had been truth in Dubai when Daniel dragged the reality of that week out of the dark.
"How long can you stay before the tour beckons you back?" Louis asks. "Long enough to sort through a few more dreams with me?"
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Trying to, for the moment. This surprise attack on Louis' peace is enough, and Daniel feels like some strange pressure has been bled out of him for it. He's left feeling grateful, but definitely sheepish.
"A few weeks." Maybe more. Maybe less, if he gets a hysterical phone call, but that'll only happen if Lestat figures out who he's with. "What are you doing here, anyway? — Should have been what I led with, probably."
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It wouldn't have surprised Louis if Daniel had guessed at what he had been working on.
His thumb runs along Daniel's knuckles, fidgets lightly with the hand caught in his grasp. Should let go. Holds on anyway.
"I've been looking for the pieces I'm missing," Louis admits. "In my mind, there's..."
A trailing shrug of an implication. Maybe Daniel knows. Maybe it's the same for Louis as it is for Daniel, thinking of that room in San Francisco and feeling places where the story lapses. Where they cobbled together enough, but not everything.
"I think there's memories that are gone. I've been trying to recover them."
And then, a smile, head tipping slightly as Louis adds, "Lestat thinks it's a kind of vacation. I haven't corrected him."
Doesn't want to worry him, distract from the interview, the tour. It's Louis' problem to fix. Lestat has his own to occupy him.
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Real surprise. Daniel wonders at it. Coincidence alone, or was there some subconscious call between them, drawn to the same missing pieces? Well. It's not like there will be memories of Daniel anywhere besides San Fransisco, so probably coincidence. He doesn't have anyone else to go to about it (except Armand, but he's out of the question).
Louis might, he realizes. He could uncover any number of people. A slightly sick thought, and probably nothing compared to how Louis feels about it.
"He misses you. He'll live, though."
Sentimentality and assurance offered at once. Daniel does not mention that Lestat loathes his association with Louis and passionately hates that they have a past connection, because there's no point. He gets it, anyway. And as dangerous as Lestat is, as fucked up as his relationship with Louis was (is), there's a part of him that wonders if either of his marriages would have lasted longer if one of them went really, really crazy over it. If it wouldn't have been romantic.
"What brought you here specifically?"
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What does it cost him to say this to Daniel? Daniel, who cut through all the stories Louis told himself for almost eighty years to find this truth.
A little smile, head tipping as he contemplates Daniel. Daniel who Louis doesn't need to miss, because he is here. Who Louis will miss when he goes, because he doesn't expect Daniel to stay when he is a newly made vampire and the entire world is laid open at his feet.
Contemplations Louis moves past to devote himself to Daniel's question.
"We lived here, for a time," Louis tells him. Something he guesses Daniel knows, because he found his way here. "I thought I would find something left behind."
Something. Someone. Louis keeps the feeling to himself, the terrible, aching swoop as he contemplates what's been taken from him. How he was kept, things excised from him over the passing years.
"I've been looking at documents. It hasn't been very enlightening," he admits. "So you're a welcome interruption."
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would not be a nice thing to say, even with a fond smile, and so he doesn't. Significant to hear Louis admit it out loud. He spent the entirety of two interviews talking about Lestat, for good or ill. A mutual obsession. Daniel wants Louis to be happy and safe. He wonders if those are mutually exclusive things, but he hopes not.
"Do you have day to day, or night to night would be a better way to put it, recollection of things tied to the papers you're going through?"
He leans in to see what Louis is looking at. Sorting out gothic romances is beyond him. But this. Getting the story straight is something he can help with.
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"No," he admits. "I have...pieces. And these are financials, not diaries."
A boon, maybe. Armand might have doctored a diary, but the record of where Louis' money had been going seems more or less untouched.
"I thought I'd look through local archives. Hope for something to jog my memory."
Body counts. Extravagance. The kind of tragedies tailored to cover up a vampire who had lost control.
"Or for your friends to make an appearance."
A sly, needling look. Invoking the Talamasca.
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No wishy washy nonsense like does this feel real. Does Louis remember buying this thing, on that day? Can he remember the circumstances? Who worked for him at the time, how long were they on payroll, at what point did staff change, were they discharged and mindwiped, forced into NDAs, killed? Did they pay taxes?
A wealth of information and potential reminders. Good call, Louis. Daniel is busy looking at his financials when he realizes he's being looked at, glances up, laughs a little.
"Hey, you had the chief butler as a spy long before they tried to rope in my inept ass. I was so bad at it that Armand noticed me, thought I had maybe been contacted by them, but then after he looked into it, decided I was just fumbling like a moron and he was imagining things."
Fun.
"But, I do have a bunch of their shit, still, if you want me to look up any dates in particular."
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Louis is here partly because of Armand. What Armand neatly snipped out of his mind. (What Louis willingly discarded, perhaps.) They shared a life for seventy-seven years. Louis chose him. Louis had believed him, when he had said Yes in answer to that fateful question.
Daniel is smiling. Daniel laughed, and Louis likes hearing him laugh very much. He lets these things offset the spiraling cascade of thoughts in his head, circuitous and guilt-drenched and angry, and draw him back.
"I could make a list," is only a stop on the way to: "Are they still hoping to rope you in?"
Or is it disqualifying, the vampirism?
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But he pokes at it anyway. A constant source of low-level stress. A permanent tether.
"A list would be a great start." Because he actually will look it up for Louis. Then, hm. He shrugs. "Sometimes. They've made pitches."
Attempts at begging, attempts at intimidation. But Daniel was almost impossible to wrangle into cooperation as a mortal, and now, it's basically impossible. He will do whatever he wants to do.
"It's interesting to me, their whole gig. I just hate the secrecy and I hate the drama."
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Watches Daniel's fingers on documents containing years of Louis' money, moving in and out of accounts. Assets multiplying. The accounts of this household, the accounts of what it cost when Louis and Armand lived here and hunted here and careened wildly through the streets.
"What will you do instead?"
Louis won't hold his attention forever. Even this, the piecing together Louis is attempting, is limited in scope for a man who can do as he wishes, seek answers more incisively than he had ever done as a mortal. The quiet pleasure at his company is limited, Louis reminds himself. Daniel will return, first to Lestat's tour, and then to whatever work draws his attention.
Louis will be pleased to read it all, as he has for long years.
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Like Daniel did not spend a year literally embedded with 'ex' KGB. Please, Raglan.
"Finish projects I'd stopped working on because I got sick. Still got a limited window."
Maybe he should fuck Raglan. A guy might shake things up, particularly given Daniel is still adamantly heterosexual. Being able to have sex again has been great, even though fucking humans while inhuman is a sometimes-dicey situation, already tipping towards a pattern he recognizes. Less and less fulfilling each time, like every hit of something really bad is less and less good with each high. Be with your own kind, some nagging animal instinct calls, and to that he says Fuck off. Because: no. He's not doing the companion thing, and he's not seeking out anyone who might want to take his head off for publishing the book.
If he thinks about things sometimes—
Daniel misses Louis, Louis misses Lestat.
It's not that Louis wouldn't be worth the attempt. But Daniel would lose, and badly, and he knows that. Sometimes dreams aren't memories, they're just dreams. Armand in the reading room, looking at him. Armand in the reading room, a touch sliding over his shoulder that's sensual for a moment before it turns. His daughter burning, and Louis, reaching for him.
Just dreams.
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"You should," is quiet encouragement, Louis watching the reordering of documents. "I'd been interested in your upcoming projects."
Of course Louis was aware. He'd observed the press releases, the curated website. Everything is different now, but his enthusiasm remains.
"How long can you stay now?" is followed a little hastily by: "I don't expect you to put aside your work for my soul searching."
Which is a fucked descriptor, something Louis only catches after the fact but can't retract.
He wants Daniel to stay. He doesn't want to infringe on Daniel's pursuits. It's difficult to balance.
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Collections to be compiled, sure. Interviews with North Korean escapees, published here and there throughout his career, being turned into a book. His (former) publisher announced intent to formally put out unedited interviews with all the rock stars he's ever known. Daniel has half of the connective tissue of it written. But there's more— stories he got halfway through, research done to the near-pinnacle but never completed. He got sick. He burned bridges.
Now, though.
"Two weeks, at least." Louis' sudden minimizing catches his attention, and Daniel leans in, giving their hands a little jostle. "Hey. Parts of our souls are overlapping now, I think. Just some tiny fucked up corner."
Shaped like an apartment in San Fransisco. Shaped like an angel.
"If you need me for longer than that, then I'll stay longer. I'm a sad old seventy year old man, I get too sick to fly all the time."
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Louis missed him. Misses him. Hand opening into the little knock of knuckles and wrist, the suggestion of interlocking fingers without indulging himself. Laughs, quiet but clear, for the excuses as to the rigors of traveling.
"I'll take two weeks, to start," he says, knowing this already as indulgent. "I know you have work waiting for you."
Daniel and Lestat should complete their work together.
"And I'll do a better job of staying in contact with you both."
Find the balance between too much presence in their periphery and too little. Louis has stepped back out of politeness, but—
"I have missed you," he reminds Daniel. "A whole hell of a lot."
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It seems like there's nothing else Daniel could do, besides pull Louis in against his side and hold him. Soothe that ache of loneliness, comfort him, hug him like he might one of his girls if they didn't all hate each other, or like a friend if he ever had any he became close to. Or even like Alice, who he used to jog up beside and sling an arm around so he could become an annoying dead weight against her while she gave up and laughed her bad mood away.
Of course he doesn't do any of that. But like the obviousness of Louis' urge of Stay, his instinct is a tangible thing, hidden parts all made detectable by supernatural powers. Hands near each other, touching now and again. He doesn't know what to make of their friendship.
Louis misses him, Daniel is reminded. And he does believe him.
"We've got time," he says, a bit muted. Careful with the moment. "Centuries of it."
He can work anywhere.
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Centuries of time now. Nights ahead of Louis where he is himself, mistakes and sins and flaws and all, and able to move through the dark with them as they are. No one to tease them into less offensive shape.
A terrible thing, to know all of what had been done to him and still find himself missing pieces of the well-manicured life he'd kept for so many years.
But out of all of the ugliness and pain: they are here.
"I wasted decades of it," Louis murmurs. Isn't talking about Armand. How had Louis been spending that time? And how long he had gone, content to live with pieces sliced out of him so neatly it left no scar.
"Wasted at least fifty I could have spent knowing you," as if that had been an option available to him. As if it would have been permitted.
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All the centuries Louis wants, to do anything. Everything. Live until he can touch the sun again, live until he can want to see another sunrise. Live until he doesn't sound so dismissive of himself, A rougher thing.
And then a huff of a laugh, and he jostles there hands again, teasing.
"Come on, you've have been sick of me so fast."
Daniel would have made a much better looking vampire in decades gone by, but he'd have been a much more insufferable one. There are reasons he's twice divorced (and none of them are waiting in the swamp for him, no one is holding trials, no one's keeping him locked up in a cage), why he has no friends, why his kids hate him.
"What happened wasn't better," he says. "But now has its own merits."
Silver linings, like skipping Daniel in the early 90s.
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He does not say this to Daniel, offering reassurance and optimism. Yes, Louis has more. He will have more years and Daniel will have more years, and perhaps Daniel will permit Louis to lay claim to a handful of them even though his story is told and what's missing may well be less compelling than what's already been put to page.
Daniel will be fascinating still. Louis has no doubts.
He lets a smile slant between them, warming to Daniel's teasing. Doesn't matter if he holds fast to these doubts and regrets; it matters that he warms to Daniel, easier than he might have if they dipped too far towards what happened.
"I'd have had a good time arguing with you then."
And Daniel would have gotten better at it. Louis observed his progress in glimpses of late night appearances, print interviews scoured to find familiar voice in each line.
"But I'll give you this one. Now's got some merit."
Daniel, in his home, no longer shaking or in pain.
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Different for Louis. But in the same pool. Daniel doesn't want pull another Cheer up buddy, but he does want him to stay buoyant. The only thing with a set time is the past, he doesn't have to go into the sun or... fucking bury himself, or whatever.
"I like now. I like you, here."
Teetering on profoundly sappy, the both of them.
"And I like that my cosmic timing involves showing up when you could use an investigator."
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Pushing the point.
Louis can't say the important things. Can't say what matters, no mater how deeply he feels it. And Daniel must know this, or at last, have the shape of Louis' failings when it comes to those he cares for the most.
But he can say this. He always wants to see Daniel. His door will always be open for Daniel. And for now, that can be enough.
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Not that he's surprised— well, maybe he is. That Louis would address it out loud, and furthermore, that Daniel actually has to think about it. Kneejerk is Of course I know that, but does he?
For a moment he just looks at Louis, and considers the merits (hah) of the of course answer.
"I guess I don't know that," is what he ends up saying, because it's the truth, even if it sounds pretty fucking bleak. "Not because of any failing on your part. I can't remember the last time I spent any time with someone and it wasn't about work, or a doctor's appointment. Maybe I don't know how to do anything else."
I think it was the Yeah that pissed her off the most, yeah?
No off button—
But it's not just that. Daniel doesn't think he's got much (or anything) else to offer. What does he have? Is he a good friend? No. Is he good company? Not really. Louis is charming and engaging and Daniel is the first vampire to ever have The Annoying Gift.
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Though Daniel can be forgiven, can't he, for assuming otherwise?
Fifty years of absence after a week of torture. Leaving him behind in the penthouse. And now Louis' distance, while he skirted around vampires seeking to kill him and the pressure of mortal attention. He has not done much to counterbalance the perception that his investment in Daniel centers in their shared work.
Trust, Louis has considered his failings, whatever Daniel has to say otherwise.
"I don't know that I can compete with Lestat," is a minor needling. Yes, Louis reads the news. "But I think we could have a good time together outside of these."
Reaching a free hand to flick the edge of the sack of papers, dismissive. As if it is a small thing, finding which pieces are unaccounted for over the course of eighty years of life.
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A bit of an ah, there it is.
Daniel misses Louis, Louis misses Daniel? Louis had spent all of San Fransisco and all of Dubai speaking of Lestat. Louis misses Lestat. Is Daniel envious? ... Yeah, a little. But he puts it away. What an embarrassing thing to expose.
"Well, kiddo," we have fun here, cajoling dad voice, "it's not a competition." Daniel nudges the papers back into a neat alignment. He sighs, and more seriously: "That's work, too. And that's shit I have to be on guard during in a very real way. We can talk about it, if you want."
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When else will he get to say this? A joke, creating some space in which Louis can consider the offer that followed after.
"I want to know how you are. How it's been."
Not details as it relates to what Lestat is saying. Louis might have let the entire subject drop if it hadn't been for the implication of guardedness, of needing to be alert. Daniel is sturdier now than he had ever been, but Louis worries for him still. Even now.
"You ask after me. I want to do the same for you."
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Louis has yet to see Daniel pull a 'just a confused old man having an episode in public' routine to get away with being somewhere he shouldn't, or lure in a victim. Maybe he'll have an opportunity to do it sometime out here, a lost elderly tourist on private property, and they'll see who loses it and laughs first.
He doesn't want Louis to worry, or fixate on Lestat more than he already seems to. (Can he be blamed for this belief? Both interviews, the entire time, Lestat, Lestat, Lestat. Now, needling him just a bit about it.)
"It's been interesting. I haven't spent much time with another vampire, and now all that, and there's other people around, and shit's crazy all night every night. I'm learning a lot, both about how to deal with this existence, and how to shoot a fucking documentary. Elements of feeling like an idiot kid again fumbling with learning how to drive, and being geriatric baffled at smartphones. Except some of it's camera batteries and some of it's, you know. Hey quit reading my fucking mind."
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"Are you happy?"
A heavy word. Can Daniel be happy as a vampire?
Louis wants him to be. Wishes he could be. He'd wanted to ask and for Daniel to say yes.
That isn't how it happened. And now they are mostly apart and Louis has to be envious of Lestat and Daniel by turns, wishing to join them, knowing all the reasons why he shouldn't. Why it is better to be alone, doing what sometimes feels like healing and growing and sometimes feels nearer to destruction. Regardless, Louis knows all the reasons he should be doing that on his own. All the reasons he shouldn't take two weeks of Daniel's time even, why it's selfish and why he hasn't stopped himself.
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"I have millions of dollars, I'm not in pain, I get to 'leave' my kids money, and I can have sex and do drugs again. I have fucking superpowers. I'm happy."
That boy who fumbled over his tape recording device (shut the fuck up, Armand!!) has always been in here, yes. Daniel is still who he's always been, if sharper, meaner, older, more vindictive. More insightful, too. World weary in a way that will (hopefully) let him mitigate his worse instincts, especially as time goes on.
But for better or for worse, he is who he is.
So.
"Does it disappoint you, that I'm not taking it more seriously? It's not a joke. I know that. But I'd been dying already, Louis. It's hard to not feel better."
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Is it enough? Louis can only take Daniel's word. Remind himself of all the ways they are different, and let that ease Louis' fears for him. Push aside the question: will all of that be enough in ten years? Twenty? Ninety?
"You could never disappoint me."
Says Louis, who is not on TikTok. Who has only the barest understanding of what Daniel and Lestat are doing together between stops on the tour.
"I only want you to be fulfilled by this. I already know you're able to make something of the Gift," and then, softer, "I want you to live."
To live better than Louis had, though the bar for that is admittedly low.
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More than fair. He'd sworn off longterm companionship before he ever knew the c-word had special vampiric connotations. Weirdos are fine, and Daniel doesn't need another divorce. But it must be particularly strange for someone eternally young and beautiful to look at and think about.
"You say that," is wry, with a touch of humor. About disappointment. Maybe they shouldn't spend more than a week at a time together. Minimize the risk of Louis realizing what a catastrophe Daniel is capable of being.
"You don't have to worry about that. Not with me."
Not even Armand could talk him into wanting the end, all his hypnotic powers pressed pedal to the metal, when Daniel was twenty years old and psychologically terrorized and on death's door from exhaustion. I like my life. I have a thing in the city. He didn't ask for the Gift because he wanted to die. He wanted to feel better.
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The world has so many dangers even aside from the vampires who are bent on killing Louis, who thrash mutinously about Lestat's tour. Who can say whether Daniel is spared their ire for being only the medium through which their stories are relayed to humanity, not once but twice?
Daniel's skin is warm beneath even this light touch of fingers. Louis has been careful to stay out of his mind, but even surface-level awareness telegraphs a thing Louis mistakes as discomfort. Weighs against the linked fingers, his touch to Daniel's face. Too much? Too intimate? His fingers skim along his cheek, his jaw, lingering even as Louis angles towards disengaging.
"I'm glad you're here," is a layered thing. Glad Daniel came. Glad he lives still. Glad he will live long centuries. Glad for the privilege of knowing him, whatever shape that knowing takes in the coming years.
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"Hey, do you."
Another pause. Daniel looks at Louis, and it's a slightly weird calculating look, like Daniel is considering rolling the dice. That's what he's doing, for the record. Sometimes he's easy to read.
What should he say. 'You seem off', 'You still seem lonely,' 'Are you sure you're okay,' all things that seem like an Interview Question when Daniel has been told very recently that Louis likes to see him just to see him. He returns to a previous instinct.
"Do you want a hug?"
How does friendship.
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Is this friendship? Are they friends? Is that what it is now, when it was always more complex than that?
Maybe there is nothing else to be but complex, given how they stared. Given the sudden urge in Louis to slide his fingers down beneath Daniel's jaw and reassure himself that the marks his teeth left on Daniel's throat are still just as he recalls.
And Daniel is still waiting for an answer while Louis thinks this, looking into his eyes that are no longer blue but still familiar.
"Do I seem like I need one?"
Needing and wanting are different things, Louis knows. It is difficult for him to consider the latter. Of wanting, and indulging that want.
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"I don't know what you need. I don't know if I'd be able to give it to you, if I did."
As touched on earlier, he has limited applications. An aggressive investigator, a sharp-edged conversationalist, an elusive off button. He did puzzles when he was sick, to try and make his hands work. Before that he mostly did drugs and went to bars. What hobbies. What social life.
But there is still that instinct. Pulling Alice against him, annoying the shit out of her until she laughed. (Out of everyone, he loved her best, and losing her hurt the worst; she is remarried now, and Louis does not need to see if she thinks of him, because Daniel knows she doesn't, she is remarried and she does not see any dream versions of him, just frowns when their daughter says something mean in a particular way she knows to be inherited, and tries not to regret her choices.)
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Still, a measuring look, a memory of Daniel across from him at a small table with a clunky tape recorder. Revelation.
"You could."
Decisive.
More complicated than this answer acknowledges. Hardly defines what it is Louis alluding to. This thing they are to each other. How he breathed easier when Daniel appeared in this building. How he misses him as he misses Lestat, a similar depth and longing and jealousy. Daniel is not Lestat, he is something else and Louis doesn't have a word for it either, but he has this certainty.
Yes, Daniel could. Daniel already has. Maybe it is a gift only for Louis, maybe it's been true since Louis gravitated into his space at that bar all those decades ago. True now, with the two of them so changed by the course of their lives, all the missing pieces between them specifically.
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So this is where he says, I also had this other dream, right, because truth.
Of course not, that would be weird.
"What do you want to do, for right now?"
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"Come lay down with me," is not exactly a clear answer as to what Louis wants or wishes to do. His palm lays softly, briefly, across Daniel's cheek, before his hand drops and Louis uses the tether of their fingers to draw Daniel to his feet as he rises.
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Hey what!
What!!
The expression on his face is comically youthful, eyes wide and scandalized. 'Kiddo' jokes not clearing after all.
"Are you tired?"
The dumbest question in the world.
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"No," is mostly true. Louis is tired, but not the kind of tired that requires a nap. He is tired of the business of piecing together his own mind, his own history.
But that's nothing to do with his request, not really.
"I want to lay down with you."
Half an intention. Maybe it goes no farther than the two of them in the lavishly appointed guest bedroom, because Louis closed the door to the one he'd shared with Armand when he'd emerged at dusk, and has no desire to lead Daniel over the threshold now.
"Is that alright?"
Daniel has a say in this, of course.
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There aren't established boundaries for connections like this. No playbook. Maybe not even between vampires. How often does this happen?
"Yeah, it's alright."
Daniel silently vows to try not to embarrass himself. Confidence in avoiding it entirely is low, but might as well give it a shot.
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Of course, until Daniel had arrived. And then he had noticed Daniel's noticing, and the sound had been made new to him again.
Here, Louis leads Daniel by the link of their fingers from the main room with its lovely windows and tastefully worn furniture. More color in this place than Dubai as well, though the beginnings of its absence can be seen. Walls washed clean, stripped of natural woods, a blank canvas upon which paintings must once have been displayed.
They leave Louis' paperwork, financial touchstones from decades ago, in Daniel's assortment on the table. Louis pushes open the door to the guest bedroom. Brings Daniel along with him to the sprawl of bed.
"I can have a coffin brought for you, while you stay, if you didn't bring your own." Louis murmurs, loosening his grasp only so he might recline, settle himself onto pillows against the headboard. This too, not so far removed from the understated luxury of Dubai. The markings of a shift in shared design sensibilities. He reaches a hand back out to Daniel, inviting.
Asks, "Will you tell me about your dream?"
A little like asking to see a puzzle piece. A little like asking for permission to test its fit.
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Trying not to appear so cautious as to be offputting, Daniel is peeling off his jacket - suboptimal for whatever's going on here - when Louis questions him.
"More about my dreams of San Fransisco?"
He hasn't mentioned any others. A thread of nervousness. Has Louis been...
"I know you don't have a TV in here to throw a movie on, but that's kind of a bleak alternative."
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The unspoken query: why be apart at all?
Because Daniel will go back to Lestat and the tour and the interview and Louis will go back to his search, to the war he's started. They have two weeks.
Louis hitches an ankle up. Watches Daniel, intent.
"I know," doesn't contradict. It is hardly light conversation. "But I want to hear what you dreamed. I want to see if we can remember it together. You only told me part of it, earlier."
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He wants—
Is he allowed? Is it a good idea?
Daniel sits on the edge of the bed. Louis watches him, and Daniel watches him back.
"Some of it... you wouldn't have seen. Maybe heard a little."
This will be a pattern: Armand, that person-shaped wound they share, which is far worse for Louis when it's agitated. He listened to the tapes again and again. He eventually remembered Daniel would need food and water. He waited until his body had made enough new blood cells before he attempted to drain him.
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Remembering.
A moment where a memory of a dream of Lestat comes to his mind, the sweet encouragement of Tell me, mon cher. Tender in a way Louis feels now, as Daniel looks at him, begins this recitation.
"I wasn't all there sometimes. It was harder during the day."
To be lucid. To stay in his body when he was burning and burning and burning, agony exacerbated by laying beneath windows papered in nothing but newspaper to block the sun.
"Sometimes I heard you."
Because Daniel would be screaming, agony loud enough to carry through the door that was sometimes open, often closed. Armand had stopped screaming, by then.
Louis' hand stretches along the coverlet, maintaining the invitation. A silent Come here open, for Daniel to bend towards to whatever extent he feels inclined to indulge.
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About daytime. Daniel remembers - has been remembering, over the time they've been apart - the feeling of dawn, how it turned from Will it be over now? to I'm alone with him now, aware that it meant Louis would fall silent. Just him and the boyfriend and his horrible eyes.
Daniel has the same eyes, now.
He toes his shoes off, and moves up onto the bed properly. Accepting the invitation and sitting close to Louis, hand going to his.
"I felt like it was my fault. I think I apologized to you."
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Words almost to himself, even as Louis feels some specific attachment to the thing Daniel is putting voice to. How an argument within a marriage could feel like it was his fault, his responsibility to fix.
Of course, this is very different from the du Lac household. This was not Daniel's fault. It has been Louis'.
His eyes open. Louis had closed them as Daniel turned attention to his shoes, as he levered up into the bed. Let himself feel it. See what the sensation shook loose.
"It wasn't your fault," Louis tells him now. "Did I tell you that?"
How could Daniel even have known that Louis ran into the sun? He'd been bleeding out. A gap of time that existed only on the tapes: Daniel, unconscious and bleeding on the floor. Daniel, hauled upright while Louis screamed from the next room.
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"I don't remember what you told me."
Not an admission he's happy to make, but—
"It was later. I remember.. pieces of us walking. I don't remember what I was thinking. Probably nothing. You were on one side of me, and I felt like shit, and I knew you felt like shit."
Armand was carrying most of their combined weight, no matter that Louis was on Daniel's other side. They were both shattered, still, and the sense-memory of it is that they were clinging to each other to a degree that was mismatched for the situation. Daniel was out of his mind, but he still... He thinks he still tipped his head down against Louis', whispered, Hey, I'm sorry.
And Louis...?
He doesn't know. He was so far under, then, about to be deposited in the crack house, with the rest of the trash.
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He'd like to think he'd murmured something. But he just doesn't know.
A slight shift, setting hip to hip without disturbing the relaxed sprawl of his limbs across the bedding. The dig of heel against the coverlet. His thumb strokes over and over Daniel's knuckles, listening. Thinking.
"It hurt to carry you."
Clarity. Memory, not conjecture. Louis barely healed, still a horrendous sight beneath the hooded sweatshirt he'd tugged up over his healing face. Every step had jostled Daniel between them. All Louis' breaths had been sharp hisses of pain, but he'd clung tighter as they'd walked.
"Hurt more when I let you go."
Harder to tell if this is a memory or only what Louis knows to be true of himself, reasoned through with what he has of that night and knowing it to be a likely outcome.
"Tell me about when he left. What you dreamed of us in a room."
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Little things, lost. But he held onto Louis.
"In the room..."
which he pronounces like a fucking fraud that's not how californians says room, eric
They weren't sat like this. They were laying down, side by side, and then at some point they'd each turned to look at the other. Daniel... had he reached out? Touched a little patch of skin that didn't look too burned, trying to conceptualize what had happened to him?
"I said 'I don't think your boyfriend was cool with it after all', and you made a noise, like. I don't know. Maybe I imagined it, since I was trying to lighten shit up. I don't know why. Maybe you did laugh, or maybe you were trying to tell me to put a sock in it. I told you I didn't have enough strength to get away. That was probably true, I was exhausted, but looking back on it I know it was because Armand told me not to get up."
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"I'm not sure I realized you were really there at first."
The combination of the daytime, the newspaper-filtered light exacerbating his pain, lending a layer of unreality to the sense of Daniel on the bed beside him. It had taken everything in him to turn on the mattress towards him.
"I wanted you to run," slowly, feeling out the words. Truth. "I remember your blood, and how hurt you felt."
The scent of him had lingered, even when Daniel had been extricated from the bed and bidden to eat, drink. To live, so Armand could continue on with their sentence.
"I think I told you to try to sleep."
And maybe it would have felt like a joke too, offering Daniel actual sleep instead of what Armand had been pushing onto him. Rest like a sledgehammer, like a hand forcing Daniel's head down beneath the sea of his own exhaustion. Louis had been in too much pain to sleep, had been too overcome with the selfish comfort of Daniel laid alongside him in the ash-flecked sheets, but Daniel could have slept. Might have. Louis has trouble recalling what came next.
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Some kid from a bar. Louis had taken 'home' so many. Suddenly one was still there, was brutalized, while Louis was slowly burning to death. Daniel remembers the smell, and the heat of him. Once he'd finally figured out what had happened, he thought—
"I couldn't sleep," he says. "I was too terrified. I think I asked you why you weren't in the shower in an ice bath, or something, but you were asleep then, I'm sure. Maybe I was blocking the light well enough."
Just a little from the newspaper-gauze windows, but Daniel had still between between Louis and the wall, shielding him. He thought of safety PSAs in school. You were supposed to hold a burn under running water, because it might still be burning inside your skin. But Armand had just left Louis there.
"I'm glad you survived." Daniel reaches out, touches Louis' cheek in a mirror of how he'd touched Daniel on the sofa. "I know you know. I hope you know. But I might not have ever said."
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Then Daniel says this thing, and it takes Louis by surprise.
What a complicated sentiment. Complicated for its in-betweenness. Had Daniel been glad then that the monster that had dragged him into danger was still alive then? Maybe. Maybe because Louis had been able to save him, in the end. Maybe because they are something to each other now, because it is clearer that those days in that apartment linked them in ways more intrinsic than they could have known when Louis invited Daniel to leave the bar together.
Had Louis known Daniel felt this? Maybe. But it is different, hearing it said aloud.
Louis watches him silently, taking in the familiarity of his face, the newness of his eyes. Reaches up to cover Daniel's hand with his own, turn his head to kiss the center of his palm.
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Does he need a reason? Is he lifting Louis' surprise, or is it just that Daniel is incapable of shutting up for long? The latter, probably.
"You're you. And now that I know you, now that I remember everything." His breath catches when Louis kisses his palm. He doesn't know what that means. It's not a platonic, friendly move, but he still has these incidents in his mind: banished to putting his shirt back on, the completely untenable 'offer' at the dining room table. And a dream is just a dream.
"I couldn't go through with this vampire shit if I didn't at least know you were out here. Everything else is screwing around. Being able to bother you in the middle of the night makes it real. I hope you feel real, too, now."
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Louis' head lifts.
"I'm always here, when it's you. You're always welcome in my head."
No small offer. Who else can say the same? Claudia, gone. Lestat, unable. Armand, who had once been trusted above all others, now barred.
But Daniel—
"You help me feel real again. I felt like I wasn't. So much was missing..."
San Francisco, yes. But emotion. Color. Daniel brought all of those things back to him. Shattered Louis back into the world, disrupted long decades of stasis.
Real. Louis holds that in his palm. Let's it unspool there, a memory of a mid-morning, of a conversation Louis only half recalls.
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Earnest. Daniel believes this. If they can shake loose 1973, then Louis can find anything, everything he's looking for— even if it just turns out to be that nothing is missing, and he gains proof of that, and peace of mind. Daniel rubs Louis' cheek with his thumb. (Thinks about the kiss pressed to him, searing the center of his palm. Thinks about dreams.)
"And I'm not going to ever let you go quiet. I'll always be around to annoy the shit out of you and make sure you're here, and not reading our book, and rolling your eyes at me from afar. Or this."
Whether it's shouting at him from the other side of the planet or tracking him down. Stuck with each other. Forged in stupid ideas and drugs and misery and this lifeline they've drawn. Louis who prevented Daniel from dying in the next crack house, Daniel who prevented Louis from losing his free will permanently.
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Or this, Daniel says, and Louis' expression softens, looking back at him across the pillow. Real fondness for Daniel, annoying and insightful and just as stubborn as Louis. Fondness for the promise of having these things always.
"I'm glad you came," Louis tells him. "I'm glad you're here."
And even in the deep, painful snarl of emotion that surrounds the circumstances of Daniel's turning, Louis can appreciate this: the thing he'd hoped for, Daniel's long life extended, his illness erased. Eternity in which they might know each other.
A pause. A breath drawn beneath the sweep of Daniel's thumb.
"I have been so," a break. A small smile, Louis' hand hooking restlessly at Daniel's lapel. "I have been so glad you're alive. That you didn't throw away my letter and ignore my invitation."
Daniel would have been entitled to that. Louis would have accepted it, felt the disappointment like a knife until he stopped feeling anything at all. You're real, Daniel reminds him, quieter here than he had been—
Than he had been there, Louis remembers. A fragment of something turning over in his head.
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"I had to know," he says, and he smiles a little, though he feels constricted with emotion. "Just about anything else I'd have let my editor or my doctor talk me out of. Louis du Lac. I've seen you in my dreams for fifty years."
Dreams. Don't.
"I just. Had to know. I was always going to come."
He's missed him for fifty years. Is that it? Is that the emotion that threatens to strangle him, sitting where with a hand on Louis' face, Louis' hand at his shirt collar?
"What are you thinking about?"
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Feels it in his chest, this thing Daniel tells him. Fifty years. Fifty years of Daniel dreaming him. Fifty years of Louis missing him, following him through paper and ink and never considering anything more.
"You."
And then, more specifically:
"Did you ask me..."
A trailing quiet, Louis ordering his thoughts. Circling around a soft spot in his mind, an incision so neat Louis may never have realized it was there.
"Did you ask me before, if I felt real?"
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Did he?
Daniel's gaze darts away. Confusion and something else, embarrassment?
"I think I really am implanting false memories," he says. "I have nightmares about—"
Armand, killing my kids
"Doesn't matter. Impossible shit that I know never happened."
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"I'll tell you mine, if you tell me yours."
Are their nightmares the same?
Where does this foggy impression come from: Daniel, asking Do you feel real, here?
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A quiet plea. He hasn't looked up. Show you mine if you show me yours. Both vulgar and innocent, and Daniel is still grappling with messages that weren't mixed until now. His palm itches. His mind doesn't reel, but it digs into embarrassment, the same kind that made his face turn red with frustrated retroactive shame when flogging himself over the 'cheer up' routine to Louis in 1973.
Get a grip, Molloy. He has to.
So much for not doing anything excruciating.
"You know what I thought about you. What I kept being reminded of, with the performances you were putting on in the first week out there."
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He sets fingers beneath Daniel's chin, silent coaxing. Look at me.
Wanting to see him, even as Louis asks, "Am I a nightmare?"
Louis had been—was a monster. Had failed Daniel. Maybe he's a nightmare too.
Stay out of my head Daniel had snapped at him, sharp and angry. Afraid but it never tempered anything, never curbed Daniel's instincts, never made him pull his punches. Louis had admired that.
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"No." Emphatic, real. "Never."
As insane as that sounds. Never, not even then, not even when Louis was trying to kill him. A technicality maybe— Daniel was too high to really understand what was happening, and it was fucking crazy, but there was also an expected element. Daniel was always out rolling the dice, his life had been threatened before, but his addictions, desires, needs, were stronger than fear.
But it's not the 70s. They're here, now, and Louis is not a nightmare.
"I see your reading room a lot. The fake atrium light. I don't know why, maybe... because so much went on in there."
A breath in, and out. Armand's reveal, the diaries introduced, Louis' rocks, their memories dredged up, the end. And it was where he and Armand had the majority of their daytime interactions when Louis was sleep. Of all the recordings he has of them one-on-one, they're all there, under the artificial light.
"I see my daughters there sometimes. It's just nonsense."
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"Sometimes I see her there. Claudia."
Claudia. Claudia, burning to ash beneath the light. Sometimes, lately, Claudia sitting, smiling, looking at him.
"Sometimes I dream you there."
Maybe nonsense. Maybe. His fingers remain there, thumb at Daniel's chin, knuckles brushing Daniel's throat. He can feel the inhale, exhale of his breath. The beat of his pulse. Daniel, alive. Indulging Louis in this conversation, in this stolen closeness.
"I changed some things," he murmurs. "Could show you, next time you got a couple weeks to spare."
Assuming Daniel ever wanted to set foot in that penthouse again.
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"I see you sometimes. Never as a nightmare."
It seems safe to admit. Dodging admissions of shamefully daydreamed intimacy. That Louis didn't press after You know what I thought about you tells him he was worried for nothing, and that Louis isn't about to open that door. Daniel thought they'd had a sexual encounter and Louis laughed; Daniel had been on the defensive foot with the fetish roleplay Louis and Armand had been acting out when Armand was still disguised.
Louis not wanting to hear more makes sense. It doesn't disappoint Daniel, because Daniel doesn't actually want to be exposed to new depths of shame, and he doesn't like men that way anyway. Just transactional. Louis isn't transactional.
"I'd like that, sometime. Give my subconscious a clean slate."
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A thing which only matters in small ways. Louis would come to him. He has already promised to come to Lestat. He would travel, carefully, covertly, to see Daniel wherever he wished. But he wants Daniel to see the changes he'd made. Paul's portrait. Claudia's dress. New paintings. Color in places where there had been none.
"How do you see me?" he asks, contented with the latter, circling back to pluck at the former.
Not any direct question about what Daniel thought, but near to it. Skimming towards a similar topic, adjacent if not identical.
"Is it different now? Changed?"
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Mm. Almost dodged the topic, apparently. Daniel looks at him, quiet for a moment.
"I'm having a difficult time figuring out the boundaries of what's happening here," he ends up saying. Might as well just spit it out.
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Daniel touching him, his face, his hip I have decided you can't stop me. Louis' hand on his chin, knuckles grazing his throat. This nearness. The way Louis dreams him, dreams San Francisco and Dubai. Holds this new piece of the latter close, the two of them together in a shared bed, Daniel blocking the light, talking while Louis drifted and burned in a haze of agony.
The first two impulses towards deflection are discarded. Louis looks into his face, trying to feel his way to a clear answer, though he is not exactly certain of where he's leading them either. Only that he wants Daniel here.
Steps past the question, failing to come up with a clear answer as his eyes hold Daniel's. Stalls out, quiet stretching between them as Louis' fingers move along his skin, seeking the raised scarring his teeth left in Daniel's throat.
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It's happened before? Louis leaning over him, the reading room made dim for the evening, not yet cycled into its dawn hours. Louis, looking at him, and there's a can of Coke with Arabic script on the branding on the table, before, before—
Just a dream.
"Louis."
A pleading note, starting to sound lost. Daniel doesn't want to shove him away, but he doesn't want to be fucked with, either.
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He's jolted back from contemplation of it by Daniel, saying his name. Sounding this way. Something in his voice that makes Louis want to put arms around him.
"I'm sorry," sounds lost too. Louis is sorry to do anything that makes Daniel sound this way, sorry to be so uncertain himself.
"I..." Louis begins, trails off. Fingers following the near-circle of his own teeth in Daniel's throat. His heartbeat rising. Uncertain of what feels familiar in this moment, no connective tissue to hook into between now and—
When? San Francisco?
Daniel didn't have a scar yet, in San Francisco.
Takes a breath.
"I wanted," he starts and stops again. His finger catches on the low edge of the bite. Says, "I missed you," even though it isn't an answer. "I keep dreaming you."
Daniel. Lestat. Claudia. Fragments coming together easier in his subconscious than with conscious effort in his waking hours.
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Louis' touch seems to connect a circuit. Does funny things to him.
"What are we doing, when you dream about me?"
Pushing. He has to know. He was always going to come to Dubai.
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Daniel didn't have this in San Francisco. Had the raw, ripped open mess Louis bit into him and Armand had begrudgingly healed, late enough with little enough effort that the scar remained under the crusting blood. Louis hadn't touched Daniel at all in Dubai, not until he was leaving.
But he's touched him here. Remembers. Daniel's breath had hitched just this way. It could only have happened in the near present.
"Talking," comes slowly. "I dream of us talking so much."
Memories caught between two rooms, pastiches of burning and chilly serenity. Daniel old and young and old again, tape recorders and microphones and the slant of his smile a constant.
"Sometimes I—"
A pause. Louis' fingers continue their slow loop of progress around the bite.
"Sometimes you let me get close," Louis says quietly. "Sometimes."
Tempered with, "Sometimes you tell me I'm a monster. You leave."
But less, that last one. Less, since Armand had gone. Since Louis had left Dubai. Louis feels the chill of suspicion, of understanding.
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A confession-that's-not, because Louis is already here, close. Daniel's smile is sheepish and self-deprecating, sitting practically tangled up with him. He could lean forward, press a kiss to his forehead. But why would he do that? They're not...
They're just not. Armand wasn't ever going to look at boats.
"But I'd never do the rest of that."
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But he believes Daniel when he says it now.
"I know."
A dream that worked before. Before what they put together after. Before Daniel saved him.
"Will you tell me what you meant earlier?"
But Louis guesses anyway: "Did I remind you of San Francisco? Before it got away from us?"
Before it turned into a nightmare.
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Scans the past few minutes, but he's not sure what Louis means. Tips his head, brows knit together. Pretty sure they've got it all out, fumbling all the way, even though Louis has still not established any boundaries or given him a straight answer. Daniel's starting to feel like he might be permanently lost with this. But he supposes this is what he gets for trying to have a regular, meaningful conversation, and not an interview. Bad at acting like a real person.
"You'll have to be more specific?"
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"You said I should know what you thought of me. About my performances, when you first arrived."
Something left untouched at the moment, something Louis comes back for now.
"We can leave it," he offers, hand fanning across the bite mark on Daniel's neck. "I only wondered."
Not a complete thought. Louis comes to a stop, watching his face. Trying to get a grasp around an absence in his mind. A fragment, an outline where maybe Louis was touching him and maybe Daniel wasn't pulling away. Maybe a dream, nothing else, and he's embarrassing them both.
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—Not pleading this time. Mildly exasperated. Louis will be able to feel the sudden flush that blooms on his neck, up to his cheekbones. A silent are you kidding me vibe.
"I thought we had sex. And you were putting on your weird kink thing like I wasn't going to notice it was a weird kink thing."
Armand was certainly aware that Daniel thought about him (them) sexually, even if he wasn't doing anything about it - couldn't, thanks to illness and medication. Just a creepy old man sitting about the past and then dying of mortification when Louis had laughed and said they'd never slept together.
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And something deeper, something in his chest turning over as he feels Daniel's skin warming under his fingers.
"You told me to stay out of your head."
A technicality. Ha ha.
"Is it different now?"
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Louis had gone fishing a few more times after that Daniel knows of. Unreasonable to think he had never done it without remarking on anything— again, he knows Armand did, Armand has an itemized list of the nastier things Daniel idly thought of, and has informed him, in explicit detail, because Armand is insane.
Everyone was thinking about sex in that goddamn penthouse. Rashid was. Raglan wasn't even there except to look very startled in the hallway when collecting Daniel and he was.
"I friendzoned you," he says, forcibly deadpan. Just a little strain. "Try to contain your disappointment."
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"Okay," first, and then, "I see."
Recalibrating. Feeling Daniel's pulse beat beneath the scarring, the warmth of his skin. Fitting in friendzoned alongside everything else they've said, that Daniel's said.
Turns over a handful of things in his mind. Stalls on what to say, what to ask. So looks at Daniel instead, into his face, his fingers still at Daniel's neck even as he loosens his grip on Daniel's chin. A little compromise, while Louis finds his footing.
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Does he—
What the fuck are we doing.
"It was a 'no' in San Fransisco, and then you laughed about it in Dubai," Daniel says. "I'm trying not to be a creep about it, but you're taking me in here, sitting in bed with you, kissing my hand. Are you fucking with me?"
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Yes, maybe he had been fucking with Daniel in Dubai. In those first weeks. It had been meant to serve a purpose, and it had failed anyway. Louis lost control of the interview. His whole life came apart. It hadn't mattered that he'd sat Daniel down to watch him drink deep from Armand's throat, in the end. Daniel hadn't been wrong-footed in any meaningful way.
Daniel lays these things out. Louis had said no in San Francisco. He'd laughed in Dubai. And they are here now, after all those things, and Louis finds himself unsure if he should be touching Daniel at all.
Asks, "Do you think I don't want you?"
Semi-aware that the answer must be yes, given the question.
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His voice goes up at the end, like it's a question, even though it shouldn't be. But apparently it is? Once again: what the fuck are we doing.
"Because you don't."
An echo, an internal flinch, He didn't even want me in the end, like that was somehow more wounding than being nearly violently murdered. But Daniel could be murdered by a car or a bad stumble down the stairs, the sexual rejection was somehow much worse.
"All that and— you spent weeks talking to me about Lestat, and now I know the guy, and he's obsessed with you, too. And maybe, maybe when I was a kid I was alright, but I know what I look like now. Which is fine. There are upsides." Rambling. Oh god, get him out of here. "I'm just— I'm saying, it's fine. You don't have to, whatever this is, you don't have to offer me table scraps, I understand the score."
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But he isn't certain Daniel would welcome it, wouldn't take offense, so the impulse is swept aside. Feels Daniel's heartbeat ticking up and up underneath his fingertips. Waits out the rush of words until Daniel pauses to take a breath.
"I want you."
Curbing the impulse to say a handful of other things first that Daniel might argue his way past.
"This isn't about me and Lestat. There are no table scraps," he presses on. And on and on to murmur, "You don't have to want me back. It's alright if you don't."
Because maybe Daniel doesn't. Louis won't touch his mind, doesn't cheat and look inwards to see if the answer rises to the surface.
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Wry, but fond. Daniel's already told him point blank how he's thought of him. Friendzoned, ha ha, is a measure about respect, but about self-preservation, too. He doesn't want his heart broken. He doesn't know if he feels enough to be broken-hearted about the inevitable draw back together between Lestat and Louis (he isn't fucking stupid), but it's as close as anything, probably. Louis means so much to him.
What to do. Well.
Just fucking send it.
"I don't want to lose you, or fuck anything up. Will you talk to me about how you feel? I just... I don't really get it, not that I'm not flattered, but... you have to understand, I've had a fair amount of time to resign myself to dying alone and being full stop undesirable."
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Louis alone now for the first time in his life. Has been in contemplation of it, and even that is nothing like what Daniel is speaking of.
Will you talk to me about how you feel? prompts a small smile, aware of his failings. Aware that he is uniquely unequipped to vocalize the things he feels. They are bigger than he is. Bigger than his body, bigger than any of the words he could speak aloud to try and tell Daniel what he feels for him.
"You'll never lose me."
As a side-note. A certainty offered casually off the cuff. There is no world in which Louis would cut himself off from Daniel.
But he is keeping a hand to himself, does not reach back for Daniel's face even as his opposite hand lingers, possessive in spite of how lightly his fingers are set, over the ringed bite at Daniel's throat.
"You don't get it? Why I feel the way I do for you?"
Hedging, a little. Stepping around the enormity of the emotion, the instinctive flinch away from the vulnerability of it.
Daniel talks to Lestat. It can't be a surprise, that Louis falters here.
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"I can get it halfway, probably," he says. Trying to be the straight shooter since it seems like Louis is stuck in mysterious mode. "And I don't just mean 'emotionally yes, physically no', because emotionally I know where your bed is made, we spent weeks dissecting it."
Yes, Daniel talks to Lestat. The man that appears to be the north star on Louis' emotional compass. In turn, it can't be a surprise that Daniel is incredulous that Louis is offering up this reveal.
"And... it." Ok. Okokok. He can articulate this, he's a professional writer. "I'm lucky. Some guys get old and they can only get off thinking about girls that look like they did when they were in high school. That was never me. There's never been a decade where I didn't think Jane Fonda was hot. I'd give Mark Hamill a handjob in an airport bathroom today, he's still a cute twink as far as I'm concerned. My tastes expanded with me, aged with me. It's not that I think people who look younger than me are offputting now, but there's definitely a disconnect that I've cultivated on purpose. My oldest daughter is 40."
..ish? 40ish? Is she 38? Ah fuck. Well anyway
Perspective. Wordvomit.
"I felt guilty thinking about you, thinking about fake 'Rashid' and his Sharia French maid outfit, whatever else. Not as guilty as I should have, probably, but still. And I've fucked some women that are way too young for me because they're freaks into old men, now that I can. Same thing. But you're not that, you're not a lunatic in line to get a book signed who I'll never see again. So—"
Where the fuck is he going with this.
"You're right, I don't really get it. I get me about you. You about me, I don't get."
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It's late, for an apology. Maybe a smaller harm when set alongside the many other ways Louis has failed Daniel.
Maybe an apology, when Daniel will let him give one. Later.
In the moment, Louis' eyes move over Daniel's face. Watches him. Takes in all these things he's saying.
"Daniel," Louis murmurs, voice low into the space between them. "I've been thinking of you for fifty years."
Every book. Every article. Interviews. TV appearances. The only threads of connection Louis could maintain, keeping his distance because he'd thought he'd almost killed him. Daniel. The fascinating boy. Louis had wanted him from the start, sitting at the bar with his clunky tape recorder and eager fumbling. Had wanted him in Dubai, with his sleek laptop and needling questions.
Daniel, honing the thing that made him different all those years ago. Daniel looks at a person, and he sees the truth. Has learned how to dig it out, arguing all the while. As appealing now as it had been then.
Voice edging raw as he admits, "I still remember what you taste like."
Are these things enough? Louis, hyperaware of all the places Daniel is touching him. Of his fingers on Daniel's skin. Louis says these things and they're only half, because the rest is overwhelming. Too much to say.
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And waiting until I look like this was the best bet? You couldn't have asked me to dinner at age fifty-five? Fifty-five was a pretty good year. You paid attention that whole time and I never annoyed the shit out of you? My Twitter account is so bad. My second wife published all of our angry emails and I look like a psychopath in them.
He has all of that, incredulous and insecure defense mechanisms, a rocket barrage as always, covering his escape. Good at reading people, and Louis didn't want him, and Daniel was hurt, stupidly hurt, and for some fucking reason there's still a bruise, even though he knows - especially now, he knows - that if Louis had fucked him he'd have killed him. No interview, no mood turn, just the routine like all the other boys.
What's death beside the next trophy, though. Maybe Daniel didn't think he'd die.
And look. He didn't. Armand killed him and he's fine, and this train of thought is going places because Daniel's mind is still whirring, until, until—
What?
He's going to say all that, but he doesn't, because Louis says something he's said before, but he hasn't. Has he? Daniel is staring at him in a different way, a sharp frown on his face. A jolt. Reality, shifting.
"Bitter, at first."
Sounds like a quote. No.
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They're laying down, but Louis feels unsteady anyway, hearing Daniel—
Did Daniel pluck this from his head? Unlikely. Uncharacteristic. If he'd been prodding around Louis' mind already, he'd hardly have needed to coax Louis into saying anything aloud.
And Louis has all this dread. This disorienting sense of retreading, recognition attached to nothing, no structure to hang this thought upon.
"Yes," Louis says slowly, thumb coming to rest in the hollow of Daniel's throat. "Are you listening to me?"
Listening as shorthand. As in: are you touching my mind?
A question that Louis knows has a single answer.
A question that leads them to a different question, harder to map out.
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"It was a dream," sounds uncertain. A plea. Let it be a dream. "That you'd look at a dying old man. Not something that would actually happen. And you said that, in the dream. And you told me, because I asked you."
And Louis had touched him, the scars he's still fascinated with, and come so close, even closer than they are right now.
A dream.
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Louis touching him now, feeling the world tilt. Expression on his face familiar because he'd worn it before sitting alongside Daniel, no longer at the opposite end of the long dining table but near. Near enough that Daniel could see so clearly how Louis' face crumpled into hurt, into confusion. Memory coming slow to him, all things colored by betrayal.
He'd wondered what else he was missing. What more had been neatly pruned out of his head.
A dream, Daniel says. Louis' breath coming too fast, unsteady, heartbeat loud in his ears as he says, "Bitter, at first. I could taste the drugs, and the beer."
Disorienting, yes. Words that echo into an absence. Watching Daniel's face. Saying this aloud, unable to stop.
"You were underneath," as Louis' thumb draws up and then down Daniel's throat. "Black licorice. Tea like Grace'd make me when I lived in our mama's house."
A flashpaper memory of Daniel straightening beneath his fingers, looking up at him. Detached. A dream. Watching Daniel for recognition, for a repetition of something they have already done together, once.
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"What'd I ask you to do?" Eyes open again, staring at Louis. It couldn't have been real. "Before you got up,"
like there's a sequence of events in dreams, come on
"I asked you to do something."
Don't. It can't be real, Armand was in the room, wasn't he? Louis wouldn't have done anything with Armand standing in the entryway, watching them, like he watches everything in all of Daniel's dreams, a glow-eyed grim reaper.
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And Louis does falter.
Not because he doesn't know the answer to the question. He has it, brow creasing into a frown as he thinks back. The memory comes hazily into focus, soft-edged, fogged even as Louis says, "A movie."
Half a thought, answer pared down to bare bones, while Louis' mind races ahead of the question. Dreamy flashbulb pops of recollection, the afterimage burning behind his eyes.
Armand looking down at him, his fingers in Daniel's hair.
How blank Daniel's eyes had been.
And after—
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Like Louis isn't aware of that.
"There? In Dubai, in real time."
A shaky breath. Daniel feels anger wash up and over him, because he's seen Armand, seen him several times, and it's fucked up, sure, everything between them is a mess, and Daniel has always assumed there's more just because Armand is a minefield of bullshit, but are you kidding him.
"In the dream, there's like— it's two layers. What I'm dreaming of, you, and my separate awareness of it being ad ream, and Armand is there the whole time. It had to have been a dream."
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Daniel kissing him, and kissing him, and kissing him.
And then Armand.
Armand with his hand in Daniel's hair.
Armand holding Louis' gaze as his own flared bright as Louis asks quietly, steady in spite of the look on Armand's face, Don't hurt him, Armand, and Armand touched his cheek, claws pricking skin, as Armand told Louis, Rest, Louis.
Here and now, Daniel is touching him. The only thing anchoring him to his body.
"He didn't leave me anything."
So he remembers it now. Daniel brings the memory back to him, just as he'd done before.
"But I..." a trailing pause. "I have some of it now."
And then, "He wasn't there, at first. He was in our bed."
Until he wasn't. Until he was touching Daniel, his fingers at Louis' jaw drawing him up and out of their kiss.
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A little horrified, but fond. Louis had been pacified into believing Armand was too docile of a creature to ever be a real threat, but Daniel had taken one look at him and knew it was a fucking megalodon. An old, old predator, made for nothing but hunger, and teeth. And Louis went and sat on Daniel's lap and made out with him while that thing was waiting in their marriage bed.
And Daniel let him. Encouraged it. Pulled him closer and kissed him back. Because he wanted Louis. In the 70s, in Dubai.
Now. He's tried to kill it, but he still does.
"I don't think I remembered - dreamed it again - until after." After dying. "Must have something to do with... getting patched up."
Last minute swerve away from Armand's blood. His blood, disintegrating the stitches on his own power left within his fledgling's mind. But then again, maybe it's just healing. Parkinson's isn't a brain disease quite like that, it hadn't left a mark there so literally, but the stress had.
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"We had an arrangement, for a while."
Louis says this almost too himself, a murmur spoken with his attention still turned inward. Remembering. A blur of recollection, holding all Louis' focus even as Daniel says these things.
Louis had wanted Daniel. Maybe wanted the argument too, something in his body clawing desperately out of the stasis he'd been held in so long. Living seventy-seven years and wanting the things Armand kept on a high shelf, pushed far to the back. Things Louis had never been allowed to touch unless they were fighting, and they hadn't fought in years.
(That he remembered.)
A little flutter of focus. Enough of a tug at the edges of his attention to draw out, "You've been better than me at it. Remembering."
Even as a human.
"It's your gift."
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"The Annoying Gift," he deadpans.
An arrangement. Oh, Louis. After a moment of hesitation, fighting with himself over the dumbest shit, he leans forward and presses a kiss to the older vampire-younger man's forehead.
"Gotta wonder if we're just crazy. For all of it."
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A kiss pressed to his forehead. Louis feels the strain of self-control, containing the impulse to lean up to catch Daniel's mouth as if he has any right to it at all. Daniel kisses his forehead. Louis shudders out a breath.
Says, "No."
Not crazy. No. Crazy is all the rest. The choices Louis made before. Daniel was something else entirely.
Or if it's crazy, it simply manifests the same in them both. Mirrored instincts, a choice that was so simple it was hardly a choice at all.
"Not crazy. It was crazy to spend fifty years away from you."
To say nothing of what else Louis had locked himself away from. What he had made of almost eighty years.
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And doesn't Louis deserve that kind of devotion, no matter how fucked it is? Yeah. He wishes it could come without the danger of intimate violence, though. It makes his heart ache.
Louis says—
That.
Doesn't know why it touches him so tenderly, but it does. A disarming fantasy, to be wanted so sincerely. Maybe that's why he has such an irritating kernel of understanding for Lestat. They both run people off by being themselves.
"We can do fifty years easy, now." Another forehead kiss. At this point he's just venting the desire for something else, and not subtly. Restless, conflicted. "I wish... I could remember it normally."
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Fifty years. A hundred. Two hundred. Louis can imagine these things, dreamy possibility. The ways they'd keep each other busy, the war that would burn itself out and whatever new thing would occupy them. Whatever they were to each other. Whatever Louis and Lestat became. All these pieces easy to align now that Louis isn't looking at Daniel and seeing time and life slip away from him.
(Seeing his eyes, and knowing, inescapably, who they have to thank for it.)
Louis winds fingers into the front of Daniel's t-shirt. Knuckles against his chest, a restless kneading sort of contact. Impulse restrained. Wanting, wanting, wanting. Reluctant to overstep.
"What do you remember now?"
As if they're taking accounting still.
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(Still. Over him, like a shroud. Armand, Armand, Armand.)
"I remember we were talking. About getting out of the penthouse, the tower, just doing something. It felt like... kids sneaking out past curfew."
Even though it wasn't going to happen, and maybe Daniel knew that even then. Intuition telling him that the next time he saw Louis, he'd be placid again, having shaken off his restlessness and be ready to gently decline. Now he knows getting out just for the fuck of it would have been the thing Louis wanted most.
"And then you came over to me. And I couldn't really believe it, but I just. Wanted you too much to argue about it, even if you were fucking with me. Even though I couldn't do anything but that."
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Careless, as if it were so easy. Maybe it had felt easy. Like Louis had forgotten how contained he was.
"I like when you argue with me," is barely a surprise. They've been trading jabs since the beginning. Daniel, irreverent from the start, still dismissing Louis blithely while inhaling a line of Louis' cocaine. He'd liked that so much. Too much to fuck Daniel just inside the door the way he had any of the others.
A breath. Shallow, eyes moving from Daniel's mouth to his eyes, telling him, "I remember touching you here."
Fingers tracing a circle around the bite. Offering this fragment while he tries to drag the whole of it out of the haze in his mind. What Daniel's face had looked like. What his pulse had done.
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Except for now, he could say, but there's a lopsided smile that covers it. Daniel likes it, too. Likes that Louis likes it. Likes that he puts up with it, getting poked about how serious and dour he can be. Likes, too, how serious and dour he can be. I like you better this way, all...
"You did." And Daniel shivers. Had he then? His eyes flutter closed, remembering then, enjoying now, and open again. "I've had to make up so much weird shit over the years to explain it. But I never got scar revision done, even when a dermatologist tried to sell me on it."
Easy cosmetic fix, these days. But he couldn't.
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The scar Louis gave him. Bit into him.
"I wanted to take a little," he admits, hushed. "A small drink, before you went. I thought maybe you'd let me, if I asked."
Because that had been the half-formed thought already. He wouldn't kill Daniel. Daniel would live. It wasn't even about hunger. Louis had wanted so badly to taste him.
"But I lost control."
Daniel had pissed him off. Louis regrets it.
"I'm sorry. I don't think I was able to say it then."
Maybe he had, somewhere in that stretch of time with Daniel laid alongside him on that little bed. Louis, delirious with pain and exhaustion, saying things into the slip of space between them as he drifted in and out of awareness. Maybe he had apologized.
Maybe he should apologize now for how much he likes the scar that remains.
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Considering the insane thing that Daniel asked. An awful part of him wonders what Louis thinks of that now— Daniel, immortal, through someone else's blood. But though he's got a nasty insecure streak about it having happened at 69 (nice), twenty would have been too fucking stupid, and in the world where he's Louis mortal gopher as they wait for him to be 'ready'... well, that sounds like a disaster.
"I forgave you ages ago."
He rubs Louis' cheek with his thumb. Starts to say something, stops. Thinks about it, as he watches Louis closely.
"You can, now, if you want to."
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If he wants to, Daniel says. He wants. He wants so much, so deeply. Has this soft-edged memory in his mind that is porous and detached. Daniel is touching him, has kissed his face, says this thing while his eyes shift green and Louis is overwhelmed by all of it in combination.
"I want to kiss you," Louis whispers, despairing. "I want to taste you again."
Has the presence of mind to wonder if Daniel tastes different. Would that shatter Louis in some way, to drink from him and taste traces of Armand?
"I don't want this to be a dream anymore."
This, the way they want each other. The way Louis has kept so many of his desires this century. Hidden, compressed.
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What's the point of a heart if you don't break it every so often. Who better to shatter it against, than the person he cares for most in the whole goddamn world.
"Okay," is soft, and tense with emotion. "Yeah. Louis. Come here."
Smooth? No. He's never going to be.
But this time when he leans in, the kiss lands on Louis' mouth.
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Eager. Wound up, more than he'd realized before Daniel put hands on him and drew him into a kiss.
Louis makes a low, ragged sound against Daniel's mouth. A relief, to be kissed. To feel Daniel's hands on his face, holding him as they kiss. There is a creak of mattress and whisper of fabric as Louis closes the space between them. Hooks an ankle around Daniel's knee, tangling them together.
They kiss. The memory snaps together, grows clearer as Daniel holds him. As Louis' nails scrape so lightly across Daniel's nape beneath the soft collar of his cardigan. Idle wandering; his fingers always return to the mark his teeth left.
They break for breath. Barely enough time between one moment and the next for Louis to murmur, "Was it like this?"
Prompting. Tell him, Daniel. Say what you remember.
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What else? Can't think of it now, it's too fucking much. He has Louis, feels him, smells him, everything is just Louis, the itch in the scar on his neck, the beat of dead hearts. A thought starts to surface, if Armand will know, if Armand will make him answer for this, how bad the fight will be— but he sends it away. Fuck off, all of that.
"This is probably better. I'm not half-hoping you aren't serious so I don't embarrass myself further."
Poetry. But what do you want, his dick literally did not work, then.
"You sat on my lap. I didn't care about it," (because it was uncomfortable, because Daniel was in constant pain, but Louis sapped it out of him), "I wanted you too much."
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(Armand's claws pricking at his jaw, the expression on his face like ice, anger so cold it sliced, it cut.)
"I didn't know."
No denial that Louis had been in his head, touching his thoughts. Fascinating still, always, endlessly. Distracting. But not with enough depth to know. Or maybe Louis simply hadn't been allowed to look at what it was Daniel felt for him.
Louis, a monster. Louis, who had bitten him. Almost killed him. Louis hadn't known there was anything else. Daniel, wanting him like this. Different than the kind of attraction Louis had cultivated like a jump scare, like an elbow to the ribs that Daniel would always, always return in kind.
Speaking so close their noses bump, their lips brush, telling him, "I am. Serious."
Corrects himself, "I was serious. I'm still serious now."
Knows this even with only parts and pieces, with only the sense of Daniel's expression looking up at him.
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He'll have to run these down. Because he has to run everything down, the instinct in him can't be killed, not even by weeks of power-tripping on a rock tour while newly undead.
Has to know, because he has to know. And maybe because he has to tell Louis, too. Louis, who he cares for so much, who deserves to have all the things taken from him restored. Thousands of victims, but Daniel still thinks Louis is the better person. Too many reasons. He wants Louis to be happy— and it's so strange to think Louis would have him be a part of achieving that.
Just some junkie. Still. And yet Louis says serious.
"What do you want? Right now?"
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"Too much."
Tempering, obscuring. Louis wants too much from him. He had described to Daniel what it had been, wanting Lestat. Knows that to be within him, still, knows that holding himself apart from it is necessary. He knows that the way he wants Daniel runs on a parallel, and knows Daniel would find it unbelievable.
"But we got time."
A couple weeks. Then what? Daniel goes back to Lestat. Louis continues hunting the past across continents, continues fights he isn't telling Daniel about. They come back together, when?
Logistics and practicality that Louis stops, puts out of his head for the moment.
"Will you tell me what you want?" comes as Louis winds impossibly closer. Narrows the space between them, hooked in by his fingers in Daniel's shirt, his knee hitched around Daniel's leg. Practicing restraint, when Louis wants to kiss him again. Spend hours on just that, making up for lost time.
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No YOU answer!!
Daniel pulls him closer, and kisses him. For real, this time. I am serious, even if he's nervous about it all still. But he wants him. Badly, and so much. Just like in San Fransisco, wanting Louis most of all the things he wanted, recklessly pulling his shirt off and trying to bait it first thing. Just like in Dubai, where he wanted to do the interview and get out of there alive and have the book, didn't want to end up fucking murdered by Armand, but wanted Louis more.
Like now. He wants to talk about it, wants to not end up screwed over, but he wants Louis. More. Most. He wants to know what his fucking tonsils taste like. Unfuckingbelievable that Louis wants him, but Daniel doesn't have enough moral fiber to keep saying no to something he wants. It's Louis' bad decision, Daniel's done all he can to dissuade him.
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They should talk about it. Louis should do better, give Daniel the conversation before they pitch headlong into anything.
Except they are something. They've always been. Louis has been serious for fifty years. Serious even when Daniel was half a memory, when they were missing pieces of each other.
They can talk about it. They will. Daniel will ask his questions and Louis will answer, and they'll argue a little, maybe. (Probably.) Louis tells himself all of these things as they kiss, as he licks into Daniel's mouth, crowds him like they aren't already as close as can possibly be. Tells him, "I'd give you anything," between one kiss and the next. Bites down on his lower lip, breathes, "Anything" against his mouth, easy promises to make Daniel, who has already offered this to Louis.
Easy to promise him anything. They've survived everything together. Louis trusted him with all of himself before they even knew who they were to each other.
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"Except a direct answer this whole time," he teases him in a faux-annoyed tone. Daniel kisses him, and kisses him, unreal, until he pulls Louis closer (somehow), "because you're so mysterious. And a dork."
Art nerd. Fashion diva.
Daniel rolls onto his back and takes Louis with him, easy like this, as a creature, and he looks up, obviously marveling. It had hurt in Dubai, but he was willing to ignore it. Now, there's nothing. Not even discomfort. He can just look up at Louis, hand on his cheek, and closeness is all there is.
"I'm straight, you know that?"
DANIEL.
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Might have pressed the point, if Daniel hadn't said this other thing.
"Oh?"
A choice to offer polite interest in this timely assertion, as Louis settles himself over Daniel. Loose-limbed still, sprawling across Daniel's chest, aligning their hips, tangling their thighs. An easy drape of contact, fingers tracing idle circle over the scarring at Daniel's throat. Touches his face, now that their position better affords him the leeway. Close. Not close enough.
From this vantage point, Louis takes a moment to consider him. To weigh this statement. Parse whether or not Daniel is telling him this thing like a joke, or something else.
Louis wants to kiss him again. Louis has to content himself with fingers toying with the curls at Daniel's temple, waiting for him to expand on this point before they go any further.
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He is sexually attracted to men, he's had a lot of sex with a lot of men, and he still considers himself straight, because—
Because. Wrapped up in the behaviors he was supposed to have left behind, and so he left that there there too instead of the harder thing, and took all his feelings of repression and survivor's guilt out on a book, because what else does a writer do. He's had sex with men since, and in non-transactional contexts, but those, too, are painted in shades he might not be entirely proud of. Infidelity, lies, abandonment.
"I guess we all tell ourselves things."
How did Louis phrase it. A lie he told himself about himself, and Daniel looked at him and said it was just about drugs, so. He's out of practice, airport handjob jokes aside.
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How Louis had swaggered into bars and picked up young men and called himself queer, but somewhere deep in his body for a very long time had felt shame. Sometimes still feels shame.
And Louis has lived many more years than Daniel.
"Is that still something you want to tell yourself?"
Even after Louis had stopped telling himself the lie, it took decades for the truth to come easy, settle without discomfort. Thinks less of Daniel's warning against fumbles and more of Daniel's comfort, of what Daniel will want in the future.
As if it's so simple as this, navigating these identities between them.
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And now—
Now, he's still only fucked women, and he's got bigger things to be dishonest about. He just doesn't want to be dishonest with Louis. For some reason that's worse. (If Alice could kill him with her mind she would.)
"Not right now."
Maybe later. He can't silence a lifelong habit overnight, and he'll probably grapple with it. But not now. He touches Louis' face, looks at him in wonder. In awe. Even though he's still a nerd who can't give him a straight (hah) answer, the reticent vampire. Daniel wants to be here. Now. With him.
"Is that okay?"
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Easy. Louis knows who he is. He can let Daniel wind his way towards that knowledge in his own time, so long as Daniel doesn't stop touching him, reaching for him, wanting him.
And then Louis' weight shifts, a sinuous arch of movement up to brush a kiss to Daniel's mouth. Suppresses the urge to bite him, to lick into his mouth, to be too hungry too much too overwhelming even if the traces of that desperation live in his body, telltale for someone who knows where to look.
"Will you still take me to a terrible movie?" is a real request, even if it a little like deliberately pressing down onto a wound. This memory Armand took. The way it had felt to kiss him, that first time. The way Daniel had looked at him, the way Daniel had kept kissing him, over and over.
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Daniel makes a sound like a laugh, sharp and bright. Wound or not, what a request. (Sometimes bruises feel good. It's the ache.)
"Still want to go on a bad date with me?"
Like, that's what it was, surely. Daniel lifts his head to press a kiss to Louis.
"Yeah. Yeah, let's find ... whatever, who cares what's playing."
It's 2023, there is nothing.
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It only took fifty years or so.
"I want to go everywhere with you," Louis tells him. A giddy kind of promise, aware of the potential unfurling ahead of them. Years and years to go where they like, anywhere Daniel has ever wished to see or visit. Years to do as they like, together. "Any kind of date, any place."
Louis has been laying low, out of sight. But who would ever look for Louis du Lac in a movie theater, seeing whatever Daniel chose for them?
And there is real appeal in distracting Daniel, even from a terrible movie.
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But it's incredible. He feels better than every fantasy, and fuck, but there have been a lot. Even before, even in those fifty years, sometimes Daniel's attention would stray, and past the fear and panic of twisted memories he'd wonder.
"Louis du Lac, at Disneyland." More kissing, in between it. Daniel hitches one knee up to encourage Louis to settle on him. "Actually, I don't know how long Disneyland is open after dark. Might have to break in."
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An inordinate amount of money would change hands in the process, but Louis would pay it.
Louis certainly has never been. Has no desire to go. Has no sense Daniel is serious in this proposal, but offers anyway: Louis would engage in Disneyland, if Daniel had real desire to go.
Breath gone shallow, fingers tightening and loosening in Daniel's hair as Louis settles into the cradle of his hips. Kissing him and kissing him and kissing him, a restless rolling movement of his body down into Daniel's, eventually finding his way to, "I'd take you home."
Home, a concept in flux. Some sense of wavering, Louis' thoughts split between New Orleans and Dubai. Lestat. And Daniel, home is Daniel too.
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No, quiet dark places, the back row of a movie theater, or a bar somewhere. Casino at a push. Beautiful outdoor scenery. Because Louis can go wherever the fuck he wants, doesn't need to arrange a car unless he wants one. Daniel has no romantic or even very interesting spots tucked away. Haunts only pedestrian places and temporary, liminal spaces, brief stops on all his investigations. Similar, now, to touring. Belongs nowhere. A Californian in New York, a shitty American in the world of the night.
His breath hitches. Louis' weight is good, grounding and inflaming at once. Intimacy is so different like this. Dead, it just feels better.
"Wherever you are works for me," he murmurs.
Home. Daniel doesn't know where he's going, either.
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Wherever that might be. (Daniel has to finish the tour. Louis has to finish chasing ghosts.) Maybe Brooklyn. Maybe New Orleans. Maybe Daniel would never want to return to Dubai, given the givens.
A luxury, to decide together. To live together in dozens, hundreds of places. To find one that will be theirs.
Louis bites his lower lip, a nip of blunt human teeth, before Louis asks in a low murmur, "Will you tell me what you want?"
He could guess. He doesn't want to guess. Slotted together this way, hips to hips, chest to chest, nails scratching lightly along Daniel's scalp each time Louis' hand tightens in his hair, Daniel occupies all of Louis' attention. This is good. Kissing the breath from Daniel's mouth is good. Having him laid out beneath him on the bed is good.
In Dubai, Louis knows he had taken the deep intimacy of Daniel's hands on his body and his mouth under his as enough. It is enough now still, even as Louis' body trembles wanting more. Wanting to bite him all over. Wanting to clutch him closer, so close the boundaries between their skin blur.
And then, lower, voice fraying breathless as he says, "I would kiss you like this for hours. It doesn't need to be anything else tonight."
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What would Daniel have done, fifty years ago. Scrambled to grab Louis' hand and run away with him into the dark, probably. It's still difficult to fathom, now, that he could be wanted this much, no matter that he's let go of the ledge and let himself wade into these waters, no matter that he can tell Louis is practically vibrating out of his skin for want of more.
He could laugh at himself. Since when are you so scared, Molloy. Just been a long time is all, he supposes. Not since somebody wanted to screw around. Since he gave a fuck about it. Since he really, truly wanted it. And not it, who. Speaking of who, he could also laugh at Louis, who says it doesn't need to be anything else when he feels like he's going to explode.
"Don't hold yourself back like that," he says, against Louis' mouth. Kissing him, touching him, winding himself up and up. "Not when I want you anyway and we both know I like it when it's too much."
Daniel's just bitching and prevaricating because that's what he does. Angles, even with himself, like a lunatic.
"Can I fuck you?"
Inelegant. But an honest desire.
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Some flicker of caution behind this immediate desire. Wanting to be good to Daniel. Take their time. Be careful with him, a real feat when Louis wants him this way.
Desire held in check for fifty years, known and unknown to Louis. Overwhelming now, finding it met and reflected back to him.
It had been the truth. Louis could do this for hours, torturing them this way. Kissing and kissing until they're both a shuddering mess. Louis wants to see Daniel flushed with the way they want each other, wants to take him all apart, let Daniel take him all apart.
They have time. Louis has to keep reminding himself of that. They have time for everything. Anything. All that they might desire from each other.
"Now?" asked like a private little joke, Louis' hips rolling down against Daniel slowly, deliberately. Fingers catching in his hair, mouth at his jaw. Offering. Assessing.
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"Yeah, why, are you double booked or something?"
It's all in a rush, Daniel stumbling over the hurdles of disbelief and identity. But what if they wait and Louis changes his mind. Wakes up tomorrow after they've made out for hours, and realizes he's made a mistake. Shitty and opportunistic for Daniel to push forward now, greedy despite his nerves and insecurities, but, well, he is who he is.
"Is that what you want?"
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Has to breathe a little laugh at himself, for the thought of delay. Wanting to go slowly while simultaneously wanting all of Daniel now, immediately, and then over and over again after.
"I want you," is corrected with a punctuating nip of teeth as Louis raises his head to look at Daniel. Grin, offer him something more, "I want you every way you can think of. More besides that. I been dreaming of it. You."
All this underscored with the insistent roll of his hips. Instructive. See, it's all true.
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Intakes of breath as Louis bites him, doing something to him, there's a new part in his brain since transformation that says Yes more of that harder draw blood now, which is. Fucking weird, and fucking wild, and he thinks he likes it. A lot. Too much? More than bears inspecting, for now. Chill.
"Alright." Breathless as Louis moves against him. Daniel's hard by now, he's sure Louis can tell. Inhale, exhale. Repeats, just a little giddy, "Alright."
Daniel kisses him again and then shifts them once more, now that he's satisfied about feeling Louis' weight on him. Over him, so that he has leverage to push his hands beneath the other man's shirt, feel him as he kisses him, peels back fabric so he can taste his skin as it's exposed. If it's all true, he wants to feel it, taste it—
"Why do I want to bite you everywhere?" is asked with a laugh. Like, he can guess, but.
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"We're vampires," Louis deadpans, even as he tries to parse out the question. Had he wanted to bite Lestat everywhere when he first saw him? Had it been he or Armand who sank fangs into the other first? Is it intrinsic in him, even if he had never been a vampire? Something innate, wanting someone so badly there is nothing else to do but sink teeth into them?
The way he wants Daniel now, wanting to keep biting him, even with blunt human teeth. Wanting to leave marks and bruises, to hear the sounds Daniel makes, taste him. Press his fingers down onto the marks tomorrow, make new ones when they fade.
Louis' nails scrape lightly along Daniel's nape. Arches up off the bed as Daniel strips off his shirt, drawing his face up to kiss again, and again.
"Gonna make you wait," he murmurs, a low promise. "Gonna make you wait until you're inside me before I let you get teeth in me."
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Again, again, again. Daniel paws all over him, down his chest, tasting the hollow of his throat and lower when he can pull back from kissing. Though it's difficult. He wants more of Louis, who is so fucking beautiful. Who feels like. Like he doesn't know. Can't describe it. Not like the humans he's hooked up with. There's some other quality to it, thrumming between them, an undercurrent to the fishhook of sensation that already links them, electric and magnetic.
"Jesus."
That thought—
Too good. Louis will be able to feel an echo of the flinch that goes through him, desire spilling over into telepathy, unable to be contained.
But.
"Some other time. I can't reliably stop."
This person I'm eating is dying will snap him out of it, but he's yet to get anywhere close to moderation. Hanging out with spiraling rock star Lestat hasn't helped. Excess, indulgence, insanity. No little drinks.
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A flicker of thought to Lestat, to Lestat and Daniel. Things Louis hasn't quite asked about being it feels invasive, prying where he shouldn't.
Daniel had offered, offered to let Louis drink from him, kiss him, keep him in whatever way they wind their way to. His skin burns everywhere Daniel puts his mouth, flushed fever warm under Daniel's hands, and it's overwhelming while simultaneously not being anything near enough.
Louis wanted him. Louis wanted him even when he could hardly remember Daniel.
"I'd let you," is familiar recklessness, is deep trust. Is Louis shivering in response to the flinch of thought that passes between them, feeling Daniel want him and wanting him all the more in return. Louis' fingers hooked beneath Daniel's jaw, tugging him insistently up to bite himself a kiss before Louis tells him, "I want you to. You won't hurt me."
Louis is capable of stopping him, if Daniel can't stop himself. There is blood enough in this building for Louis, for them both, if they go too far.
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He tells his brain: Do not. But there's still a thought, one he's had before. That he's probably in love with Louis. What an idiot. Daniel knows better. And yet, and yet, and yet.
"We don't have to go completely off the edge of the cliff first thing," he says, fond and amused against Louis' mouth. Returning that bite, flat teeth. (Fangs ache to extend, with this talk. He resists.) "Just... let's just. See. If I still even know what I'm doing."
More kissing, he can't get enough of it. Tries not to think about what Louis' blood must taste like. Tastes his skin instead, and leaves a quick-fading hickey on his chest. Slides hands down, lifting off only briefly when he becomes away of how cold the metal of his watch is; takes it off, before palming over the front of Louis' trousers.
(Can't be serious? Can he?)
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But restraint is difficult. Surprisingly so for Louis, who has felt so little in the past eighty years. The way he wants Daniel is a breathless, consuming rush of a thing, wanting to give him everything, anything. All of it at once, an unshakeable awareness of two weeks measured against the promise of fifty years, a hundred years, two hundred years. Not enough time. There will never be enough.
"Tomorrow then," like a little joke. Ha, ha, waiting twenty-four hours to veer off the edge of a cliff together.
Polite, restless touches roaming across Daniel's shoulders, the nape of his neck, down his back. Curbing the impulse to strip off Daniel's clothing in turn, aware of some discomfort, some self-consciousness, and as loathe to tread over tender territory as Louis is impatient to touch him in turn.
Murmurs, offers, "We can go slow. Figure it out together."
It's not a hardship to linger here, trading kisses back and forth. Letting Daniel's weight bear him down into the mattress while Daniel touches him, while they breathe together, wind each other up to some unbearable height. As long as Daniel is here, as long as Louis is still kissing him, it's enough.
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So—
Not quite slow. But Daniel does balk, slightly, at the idea of pulling his own shirt off. Says he can leave it on, does not say why, but it's obvious why. He does not look the way sexually desirable people look, does not feel the way sexually desirable people feel. Louis is sweet enough to want him despite all that, and so Daniel is in no hurry to shove his face in it. Definitely in a hurry to bite the soft skin of Louis' belly, though, even with flat teeth that he makes sure are not elongating in any way.
With hands at the other man's waist, fingers digging beneath clothing— "Can I?"
Pull this back, expose him, touch him, feel him.
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It's overwhelming. Louis remains settled, propped up on one elbow to keep Daniel in his eyeline, only by some miracle of restraint. His heel nudges at Daniel's hip, a small, insistent point of contact as Daniel bites a bruises into his skin.
"Anything," Louis breathes. Says, "Yes," before Daniel can start in about the absence of direct answers.
Presses the word into Daniel's head as Louis sinks fingers into silver-white curls.
Anything.
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But Louis also says Yes. And so Daniel undoes his trousers, pulls them down just enough, and mouths over the curve of his cock held in by underwear. If he had any grand ideas about taking his time and savoring this, though, they go out the window quick. He doesn't remember the last time he did this (yes he does, but it was cruel of him, and so he leaves it elsewhere - years, in any event). But he wants to, and not for altruistic reasons of giving Louis something worth it from fucking an old man. Just because he likes it. And wouldn't it be nice, if he's still good at it. Maybe he can get good at it again, if he's not.
His own arousal is so cranked it doesn't bear thinking about. If he pays attention to it he'll go insane. Instead: his mouth, on Louis' cock, thick fingers circling him, and seeing if giving head is like riding a bicycle after all.
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Remembers seeing this in Daniel's head fifty years ago, remembers saying no because more than anything he had wanted Daniel's attention, wanted his voice, wanted to talk to him while the recorder spun on the table between them.
Wants his voice now, absurdly.
His fingers tighten in Daniel's hair. Holds there too tightly, forcibly loosening his grip over and over and over, always sliding back. Some hindbrain need to keep hold of Daniel running away with him, the same urge that wants his teeth in every inch of Daniel's skin.
Maybe it should be embarrassing, how easy it is. How easy Louis is, for this. For Daniel. A thought that swims through his mind and finds no purchase at all, slides away as Louis' thighs flex tight around Daniel's shoulders. His heel has set into the small of Daniel's back, resting there as Louis' breath goes haywire.
"Just—"
Comes all apart in Louis' mouth. A pause, a breath. Some skimming link of his mind across the surface of Daniel's, unsteady impulse narrowly averted. Louis tries again: "That's good. You feel so good."
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Now, he doesn't have to try and hide anything. He can just like it. And he does. Likes even more that it's Louis, finally. He gets to taste him and feel him, the softest, most delicate skin, where sweat and scent pools the most profoundly, finding shapes to press into the eager heat of his own mouth.
Daniel's hands don't shake anymore. He can touch him without fear of losing control of his motor skills, he can hold and stroke him, and run his thumb over the head of Louis' cock when he pulls back. Breathless, even though he doesn't strictly need to breathe. It all just feels good.
"I felt you against my mind," he says. "We can. Will you show me how?"
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"How to let me in?" Louis asks unsteadily, even as Yes, anything blooms into Daniel's mind, true regardless of the question. Louis had meant it, his offering earlier. It beats between them in time to their heartbeats, Louis' ragged breathing, the tremoring flex of his thighs and the hand in Daniel's hair.
Lets it be obvious too, the effect the question and offer inherent in it has on him. Louis has kept out of his mind for some time now, polite even when they speak telepathically. He's never delved as far as Daniel might have suspected him of. Contemplates the intimacy of it now, feeling want of it as some complicated thing.
Wants Daniel close, wants him inside in every possible way. (Cannot help but remember Armand, who had been so welcome in Louis' head, and what he had made of that, how their intimacy had become something else.)
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"Yeah. I think."
He thinks a lot of things. Things Louis can see, feel, hear, read, whatever it is that happens. Profound affection. Intense desire. He wants Louis to have whatever he wants, and if it's psychic, if he wants to touch his mind then: yes. Here. He can have it, and Daniel will like it, too, because Daniel likes everything when it's too much and overwhelming.
Drugs. Sex. Blood. Arguments. All of it. Hands on Louis' body, resting against him, ready to take him into his mouth again, and mentally all awash and ope for him.
"Oh and— fucking, am," he laughs a little, fucking, haha, he knows how to do that. But. "Am I going to hurt you with my goddamn nails?"
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Love, so hard for Louis to put to words. Love is here, intertwined among mirrored desire, affection, growing desperation as Daniel touches him. Louis lays himself bare, all impressions and thoughts rising from his own head blooming vivid among the order of Daniel's mind as his fingers drag slow through Daniel's hair. His thumb catches at Daniel's lower lip, intent on the reddened quality of it, of how kiss-bitten his mouth and how badly Louis wants to keep kissing him.
"No," Louis tells him, easy reassurance tempered only by, "Go slowly."
They heal quickly. Louis trusts Daniel to be careful, wants him enough to weather the passing flash of discomfort if he is not.
You feel so good murmurs, a thought telegraphed between them, a thought that has little and less to do with the way Daniel touches him and everything to do with how Louis fits into his head, the space Daniel makes for him here.
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Love and pride and desire and trust. Daniel is so fucking happy for Louis above everything.
"Contradictory," he points out, through a kiss. Does he say it out loud, telepathically? Not entirely sure. They feel like a wonderful clash, right now, bright paint colors spilling into each other. No but go slow sounds like Yes you can, and so, Daniel will just be careful, how about that.
'So do you.' Dizzying. Now's probably when somebody should grab lube if they actually want to fuck, but they don't have to. (Don't have to fuck, not, don't have to grab lube if they do. Important distinctions.)
Is Louis sure, about this—?
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Something in the way Louis settles into his mind akin to how Louis eased his way into Daniel's lap. Close, and now closer, drawn in, shuddering at what they fall into, what Daniel feels for him. Overwhelming, to be so well-loved. To feel what Daniel feels for him, to know Daniel can feel him, nowhere to hide when linked so closely. Louis, who has been missing Daniel for months, who wanted him for decades. Who feels it, love, but has no words for it.
Who didn't kiss him in 1973. Who can remember kissing him in Dubai only in parts and pieces. Daniel, who asks if Louis is sure when he has always been so certain about Daniel from the first moment they met.
"I'm sure," is a murmur against Daniel's mouth. Sunk so far into Daniel's head that the words echo there even as Louis says them aloud. As the enormity of his desire mingles in with Daniel's pride and love and trust, a heady mix. Tangling and overlapping, distinct only in the tenor of what belongs to Louis', desert dry giving way to New Orleans warmth and circling back again, and all of it a beating heart, all of it tender and desperate, held so long inside him even before Louis fully knew he'd carried it from that little apartment. Half undressed now under him, offering anything still, anything because he trusts Daniel so much, so deeply.
Can't you feel how much I want you?
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Just. Old man things. Daniel has been humbled by age, and some of his behaviors after resurrection have been to spite (actively, to spite it, not in spite of it, he is doing it on purpose) that humility. Cranky notes, prickles of discomfort he can't be rid of, that obviously Louis would prefer someone who was beautiful. Daniel is not drowning in self-pity about it, or anything, but. Still there.
Many things are true at once. Daniel wants him and he knows Louis wants him in return. This is real. He is reckless and enthusiastic, he is insecure. He wants to bite Louis and say fuck it, let them make bad decisions, and he wants to be responsible.
Extra difficult to compartmentalize when he's mostly thinking with his dick, now, too, so there's also that. ANYway,,
"Do you have anything?"
He can't just sit here and dither, they have things to do, or Daniel thinks he will probably die for real.
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Says, "Yes."
Says, "Let me..."
Trails into implication, already sinking back into Daniel, already catching his mouth for another kiss.
Daniel is not obliged to retrieve anything from the specified drawer. Louis is already coming up off the mattress, crowding into Daniel as he kisses him. Hands bracketing Daniel's face, curling into his hair, heels of his palms at Daniel's temples as he creates some minor space in which he might move.
Terrible, having to let go of Daniel even by halves, even for a moment. But Louis stretches out, hooks open the drawer. Does not think of Armand. Does not think of what he is studiously ignoring: no one has touched him at all since he and Lestat parted ways, resolved to attempt standing on their own.
Transparently expensive, Louis' choice in lube. Just as all the product in Dubai had been expensive, all things betraying the casual flex of wealth Louis has come to appreciate, find security in. He presses the jar into Daniel's chest.
Noses back up along Daniel's jawline, yielding Daniel's mouth for whatever commentary is sure to follow.
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A sensual murmur,
"Did you render down an endangered vegan seal for this?"
Daniel tries not to laugh against Louis' shoulder. Not laughing AT him, of course, and their minds winding together like excited foxes (who haven't been ground into lube) will show that. It's just fun, and giddy, and he likes Louis, he likes all of it.
"What do you like? Don't say anything. I get it. But pick something."
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It would have been like this, Louis knows. It would have been like this if they'd come together before. It's just easy, between them. It's easy now, drawing Daniel into him, fingers sunk into the curls at the nape of his neck. Feeling laughter in his body and finding himself so pleased with it, with Daniel's irreverence and good humor.
Pick something, prompts an inscrutable little flex of emotion across his face. Dampens some of the vibrant glow of his thoughts, some more serious timbre bleeding in. Weighing the question as he rocks a thigh up against Daniel's groin, nips at his lower lip.
Has anyone ever asked him this question? (No.)
Lets the little jar fall to the coverlet alongside them, freeing a hand to draw Daniel down with him against the pillows. Close, tangling together as Louis lets a hazy pulse of memory drift between their minds. What does he like? Piecemeal impressions, a mix of experience: hands on his body, weight heavy over him, a bowed spine beneath his fingers, the burn of overextended muscles, skin reddening under his palms, the sharp pain of fangs at his throat. Pain, pleasure, tenderness, all things mingling as Louis sorts through over a hundred years of entanglements (Lestat, Armand, distinct in his mind, maybe distinct in this accounting even as Louis pares these recollections down to overwhelming sensations.) as he winds his way to an answer.
"I want you to fuck me," can't be cheating, it's a choice, even if it's something he's already said yes to. "I want that, and not only because you asked."
A pause, a slow bite of a kiss. He can taste himself in Daniel's mouth, and lets Daniel feel how much he likes that too.
"I want to find out what we like," feels like a distinction to Louis, a difference clear in his thoughts as he says this against Daniel's mouth. "Together. We have time now."
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Daniel's turn to say Anything.
Feels all these things, sees all these things, kisses Louis deeper all the while. Only a brief flinch back, followed by a warning nuzzle, because, fuck, if he thinks too hard about biting then Daniel's not going to be able to keep his fangs from stretching out, aching and desperate.
"Okay." A fond concession. Louis is just not a simple answer guy, Daniel should know that. Let the tale seduce you. Let the fumble in bed after memory trauma seduce you. Well. Daniel is not that seductive, but he'll give it a go.
Another kiss. More clutching at him. Time. They do have time. Finally.
"You can turn around if you want, I'm not gonna..."
Be bothered if Louis decides he does not want to stare at wrinkly old man skin. His dick is still in perfect working order, he's always been lean so the whole affair isn't that bad, but compared to Armand, Lestat, Louis himself, it's pretty tragic.
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Trying to tread carefully, aware of some tender stretch of terrain here. Aware of potential to nick something vulnerable in Daniel, and angling away from it. Still, fingers heavy in his curls at the nape of his neck, a hand falling down his chest to lay over his heart.
"I want to see you," softly. Offering, "I want you to see me."
Daniel had seen him. Daniel had come to Dubai and argued and needled and dragged truth out of Louis even when all Louis had to offer was a story he'd been telling himself (A story Armand had been telling him too, a quiet chorus shifting and omitting and realigning Louis' life.) for so many years that it had felt like all there was. Daniel had seen something else.
They're linked so closely. Louis is sunk so far into his head, bleeding desire like sunlight. Wanting. Offering pieces still, hazy answers to join the impressions he'd already given over to Daniel. (Teeth sunk down into the flexing muscle of a thigh, wrists caught up in one hand, bruises blooming livid in the wake of kisses laid to the throat and collarbone and chest and hip—) Savors the sweetness of Anything he finds in Daniel's mind, an offering passed back and forth between them.
"Come on," is lightly impatient, deeply affectionate. "Come on, Danny."
Is deliberately goading, teasing. Words murmured into the corner of his mouth as Louis leans up to kiss him.
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And yet.
Tremors of uncertainty. Not just Louis' sensibilities to contend with. Daniel still thinks Jane Fonda is hot, but maybe he doesn't like himself very much. Maybe he hasn't in a long time. One thing to say you don't care about aging, it happens to everyone, and then watch yourself change out of your own control in the mirror. One thing to make peace with it because it'll all be over soon anyway, and then have nothing be over, indefinitely.
And then this, and— Danny, and Daniel is giving Louis' shoulder a hard, (still flat) bite. How very dare you.
"Start down the 'boy' path and I'm really turning the screws on you over shit you're into," is deliberate teasing in return.
Okok. He can do this. His boner, for sure, believes he can do this, and has no qualms about physical appearance. Get with the program.
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Amusement warming the link between them, coloring everything, everything.
Louis' voice dips lower, shifts to dig his heel in at the back of Daniel's thigh as he says, "Come on, Daniel."
Shades of anything in the way Louis' thoughts shift, the way he draws Daniel in closer. Anyway that Daniel wants this, wants him, Louis will have him. Aware of some discomfort in Daniel, trying to quietly assuage it.
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What a thing. A sticky-note for the back of Louis' jacket, but instead of Kick Me, it will say I Like To Call Grandpas 'Boy'. Creep!!
Anyway.
"It's always been anything." Okay. Okay. "With you, anything."
Drugs, sex, interviews, going to Dubai. Daniel has wanted him for so long. Only another bracing moment, before he relents, and starts to peel off articles of clothing. The rest of Louis', too. Bandaid off.
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Anything whispering between their heads. Louis holds it in the palm of his hand, a precious offering from Daniel who Louis had met only by chance. Daniel, who saved him.
"Come here," again, reaching up as Louis yields back down, shoulders hitting mattress. "Come down here and let me kiss you."
A ghost of Dubai: Tell me I can kiss you. Wanting him so badly, any way he could have him. Even a kiss, even a touch. Anything, anything.
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And this, too, finally. Bare skin on bare skin, and it's so novel and such a relief that he forgets to feel self-conscious about the difference in textures. Louis feels so good, and Daniel is helpless to do anything but grant him his request, and kiss him.
Just a little bit of hiding against him, but Daniel rallies. Lets Louis touch him, even look at him if he wants, only a moment or two of looking away himself. Different, when it's somebody he gives a shit about and not just some nutjob at a book signing he'll never see again. Who he thinks is so gorgeous, precious, and holds in such high esteem. Touches him, kisses him, sets flat teeth against the side of his jaw, rocks down against him and feels hard on hard, making him shiver.
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All this for Louis, who is not so certain of Daniel's esteem. (Louis, who failed him. Left him.) But soaks in the glow of it all the same, lets himself bleed it back. All this affection. All this admiration. Louis has oceans of it, for Daniel.
"I've got you," is a breathless murmur, as they move together. As Daniel bites him and Louis shudders all through his body. Touching all the while, fingers in his hair, at the nape of his neck, down his spine and up again to follow the flex of Daniel's shoulders. Hooks up an ankle on the coverlet, reaches down to take them both in hand as Daniel moves and shiver and breathes. Louis can hear his pulse, wants to put teeth into it.
Just barely refrains.
Instead, asks soft as Daniel bites a bruise beneath his jaw, "You want me to make it easy for you?"
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Really happening.
"What's that mean?"
Knees push into the bed, and he rocks down, into Louis, into that grip he has on them. Fucking, but not quite. He braces one hand by Louis' shoulder and lets the other roam, stroking over his body everywhere he can get to, playing with one nipple before moving to the curve of his hipbone, touch teasing to join hands between them. Waiting, just to keep feeling Louis' hand, and his dick, uninterrupted.
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"Could roll us over," Louis says, watching Daniel's face. Aware of how enmeshed their minds are, how maybe Daniel can see Louis' proposal even before Louis speaks it aloud. "Lay back for me, and let me have you."
A possibility. Some aspects of the picture in Louis' mind hooked back to Dubai, a different place, different time. Daniel's mortality, the pain in his body, things Louis had accounted for when he'd imagined—
A flicker of complicated, bitter feeling. He'd imagined. He half-remembers that he had.
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"Hey." A husky whisper, and he presses in for a kiss. Emotion grabs at him, like a rough hug. Daniel, continuing to be clumsy from lust an inexperience, but so earnest. "Hey, we're here. It's just us, and it's all really happening."
They won't forget it. They can't, not anymore. Daniel kisses him and kisses him, and leaks against his hand, and takes his own to clutch him close, fingers and hardness and desire.
"Thought about that? Wanted to take care of me, even then?" It makes his head spin. That Louis could want him so much, want him despite, in spite. All of it. It seizes at his heart and makes it all feel so fucking tender. He wouldn't have even been able to, no matter how considerate Louis was. Maybe he'd have wept with it, overwhelmed by the attention, the offer, the thoughtfulness. How long had it been since anyone wanted him that much? How long has it been?
"We can take care of each other. Be here now, yeah? We can do that, if you want. I'm not gonna be picky, Louis." And there's a breathless laugh, as he slides his hand down lower, stoking over Louis' balls and into the cleft of his rear. Just his knuckles, then, brushing over so-soft skin, leery of claws. "I just want you. I've wanted you for ... most of my life."
Fifty fucking years.
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—
A little miraculous, all that had to happen to bring them here. A miracle Daniel made happen, whether he admits it or not.
Louis' body jolts, an all-consuming spark of movement as Daniel touches him lower, with something like intent. A technicolor flare of emotion in his mind as Daniel tells him these things, says I just want you. Says, we can do that, if you want. Overwhelming, what Louis wants. Fifty years of longing all the more potent for being contained and suppressed and obscured, thinking of how he would have put himself into Daniel's bed, how they'd have touched then. Different from how they touch now.
His heel hooks higher, better leverage, permissive, encouraging. Coaxes the slow slide of their fingers, tremors working through his thighs at the slickness of them, how easy it makes the stroke of their palms.
Says, "Don't stop touching me," while his thoughts circle through every single touch Daniel has laid on him from the moment he broke into this house and the way Daniel is touching him in this specific moment. Wanting all of it at once, even the innocuous, polite way they'd touched each other before.
A break in his voice, hitching over, "I just need to see you. I don't care about the rest."
Years and years to explore every possible entanglement, isn't that one of the benefits of eternity? They could joke about it. Maybe later, after. Right now, Louis is hard pressed to be particular. Even to try and pick some specific preference out of Daniel's head. Unlikely to be successful anyway. Louis can feel him, is slid so far into Daniel's mind that he is very aware of how true Daniel was when he said he wasn't picky. They just want each other. Louis feels that truth like a hook caught behind his ribs, helpless with the meaning of it.
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Louis is here, with Daniel, it's alright. Finally. Even though Daniel just decided to show up, be his annoying, nosy self— impossibly glad he did. That he followed some little instinct. Pulled by fate, or more likely, just Louis.
Minds twisting together, tumbling colors, feelings. Daniel thinks he physically feels a reflection of what Louis does, a marvel of a thing. He strokes him carefully, still not uncoiling his fingers for caution's sake, but he can't linger there forever. Or. Well. He could, but he doesn't think either of them are patient enough for it, right now.
"Show me how to do this, huh?"
With hands or mental images. He grabs the lube, taps Louis' hip with the points of his nails.
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The impatient, careless thing first: Now, just come here, we don't need anything else. Just wanting, urgent, willing to toss aside all the care Daniel is trying to offer him. Daniel lets go and Louis makes a wounded sound, some muffled groan against Daniel's jaw.
Lets go, only in favor of taking Daniel in hand, idle touches while Louis cups his cheek. Nods, wordless, before reaching down. Hitches an ankle up further, lets his thighs splay. Reaches for Daniel's hand as he says, "You won't hurt me."
Louis' already felt the resolve to go gently in Daniel's head. Here and now, his fingers thumb over Daniel's wrist, already drawing his hand down, guiding him closer. Touch me blooms between their minds, lurid imaginings laid out for Daniel to observe. Louis has been thinking of him. Lays out a kaleidoscope of desire at Daniel's invitation, instructive and aspirational all at once.
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See. Works fine, with both of them. Daniel kisses him until he can't do both that and concentrate, and he leans there with his forehead against Louis', his gaze unfocused between them. He has no intention of forcing Louis to act like a frustrated, delicate flower, but he wants to know what the fuck they're doing, and it's important to him not to look at potential injury with a we'll fix it in editing attitude. Always has been. (Well, for his partners. He's always been fine with getting completely fucked up. Sometimes that's part of the fun. And maybe it will be, someday, with them. But that's not what right now is for.)
Careful, not nails on places he's never put nails. He feels Louis physically, and he feels Louis in his head, and he pays attention to both. Probably too much lube, it's been a while, he doesn't fucking know how much anybody needs these days, some guys want an hour of this, some guys could just drop their pants and that's enough preparation. Louis seems impatient enough for the latter, but Daniel's being stubborn.
Not too stubborn. When he believes it in his head, he relents, and gently nips his jaw as he pulls his fingers out, and swears through touching himself to get excess over his aching flesh.
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And it does, in part. Louis' fingers following Daniel's, guiding, encouraging. Breath coming in heavy pants as Daniel touches him, as Louis strays further and further into his head. Desperately present in his mind as Louis' thumb strokes his cheek, lets Daniel have all the sounds his work drives out of him.
He lets Daniel have this too: how much he likes the way Daniel touches him, how much Louis has imagined him touching him this way. The way Louis has imagined having him, laying Daniel out across his bed, across the floor. Throwing a thigh over his hip to sink down onto him, hitching Daniel's thighs up around his hips to drive into him.
And how he might bite him. Louis' teeth in his thigh, his throat, the sounds Louis would make, the sounds Daniel would.
Look at me like a shorthand for what Louis means to do. To let Daniel see him, as clearly as possible through the haze of desire and impatience coloring all Louis' thoughts. Drags his fingers down Daniel's nape, across his shoulders, tangling fingers into Daniel's to slow the pace, direct the way he touches himself.
"Daniel," is strained, breathless. "You done making me wait?"
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Like the surface of the sea shifting up and down, with one heartbeat he wants to fuck him more than bite him, and then the next, bloodletting takes over. Then back, and back again, and, and, and...
"Yeah."
Doing something here. Daniel pinches Louis' thigh in affectionate warning about the biting shit. He really won't be able to control himself. But fucking, he's done before. Though it's been a while. One last frisson of nerves—
(A torrent of things he only partially remembers as a kid, not because of telepathic interference but because of drugs and risky bullshit, an affair he had that was maybe the worst thing he ever did to his second wife, the clubs he kept visiting all throughout every marriage, a fellow reporter who would have left his own wife for Daniel, and all of them, Daniel buried, like an asshole, like a callous, awful person who used survivor's guilt like self-harm but kept on with it all.)
—but he's over it, because Louis is here, and he wants him so bad it's tipped over into needing him. And yes, done making them both wait. He pushes into him and thank fuck he still knows what he's doing. Something still trembles in him, and he clutches onto the other man, eyes bright and dilated with thin green circles and not like his maker's at all.
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The sound Louis makes is a low, ragged groan. His hands clutch at Daniel's hips, encouraging and impatient, begging more and deeper with the dig of nails and flex of thighs around his hips. Begs until Daniel can simply give him nothing else, settled in so deep, and Louis' hands scrape up his back, his shoulders, cradle him, cup his face with one palm.
A brief, clear impression in Louis' head: Daniel's eyes, all the ways Louis remembers them. Across a stained table in a small apartment bathed in yellow light, looking up at him on a muted gray sofa, watching him across a gleaming table in the filtered light of the atrium —
Blue, Louis remembers. He remembers.
"Yeah," echoes back, delayed. Shades of relief in the way Louis breathes it out, leaning up to kiss Daniel's mouth. "Yeah, like this."
Feeling refracting, reflected back, see how badly Louis wanted him, see how much better this is than anything he'd dreamed about. The thing behind it, the overwhelming feeling that has no name but has shape and sensation and is all for Daniel. Louis thumb runs along his cheek, the corner of his mouth along cheekbone and back again, and again, and again as Louis tells him, "I was waiting for you."
Fifty years. Fifty years, waiting and not knowing he was waiting.
"Go slow," has nothing to do at all with gentleness or care. It's only the clinging, deep-set urge to make this last. Maybe some fear that Louis doesn't get this again, that this is all and he needs to hang on as long as he can before it is over.
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No, that's not true. Louis has been in flux the entire time Daniel's known him, struggling to free himself of the very pretty net laid over him. Now here he is, and he and Daniel are something like equals, and the desire and affection courses between them like sunlight. Like sunlight should be, clear and warm.
"Don't say it like that," he breathes out, shaky. Waiting for him. "You couldn't have been, Louis. I."
Emotion chokes him. Buried deep in Louis, he ducks his head down, overwhelmed. Deep breath in and out, settling himself, clutching close and trying not to do something tragic like cry. Who else does he have, besides Louis? His kids are better off without him, Armand is a fucking nightmare. It's Louis, it's been Louis since that horrible apartment, becoming his lifeline.
"Okay," he whispers when he can, finally. "Yeah."
He kisses the side of Louis' face, artless, mindless, as he slowly rocks into him.
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Holding these threads of though as Daniel moves, and Louis' entire body shudders through the sensation.
"I saw you," he says, a dreamy kind of unraveling. Daniel's curls are a mess, rucked into wild disarray made wilder now as Louis' fingers scrape slow across his scalp. Encouraging. "I knew you."
Looking at the boy Daniel had been across the bar and knowing then, him. Only him. No one else would have done. How easy he had been to talk to, easy for the first time in so many years. Long decades of holding pieces of himself in check, talking of everything but the most important parts of himself. Seeing him after, over and over, on screens and book jackets, knowledge locked away but always there.
"You," comes breathless, aching. Daniel is moving so slowly and it is agonizing. It is perfect. He is thinking of biting him, kissing him. Of bruises that would fade too quickly now. Louis' affection threads through all these things, burns brighter as they move together, the vast and overwhelming sea of Louis' affection-love-desire flowing forth as he whispers, "Me and you, if you want it. As long as you want it."
Forever whispering beneath this, because that's what Louis wants. Daniel, forever. Always in his life, always linked. Nothing new about it, this well-worn wish. It's so familiar. It weaves in alongside everything, held in its usual place.
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But what the hell, huh? Daniel knew heroin was a bad idea when he injected it, ever time. Accepting this might be a bad idea. He might get hurt. Will get hurt, through no fault of Louis'. Because Daniel knows better. But Louis' worth that, isn't he? Worth the shattering, like he thought before. Worth the heartbreak. No one better to endure it for. If they have forever for each other, then Daniel has forever to get over it when things inevitably fall apart.
"Ask me again when we aren't doing this," Daniel breathes out against him, humor in his tone as he rocks into him, back out, pushes in again. Everything is blood-hot, slick, velvet, perfect. "I'll think it's a serious offer when you're making it while I'm ignoring everything else to follow a lead."
He snaps his hips in quicker, just for variety. Just to dig all the way in and connect them, deep and firm, grind into where it feels like Louis likes best; he can feel it in their minds, reflections of every spark.
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Forever in whatever form forever takes. Possibility like a shimmering ocean laid out in front of them as Daniel fucks into him and Louis holds onto him, encouraging, all grasping hands and drum of his heel at the back of Daniel's thigh. More telegraphed in all the ways Louis moves under him, the flash-fire catch of sensation in his mind.
What has Louis learned in a century on this earth? He's learned that things shatter apart and come back together after.
Forever. Forever, because Louis cannot parse out any future where Daniel is not desperately important to him. Where Daniel isn't everything, precious and vital and beloved. What changes that? Nothing. They've already been all the worst things to each other. Louis left him, when he should never have strayed from his side. What can be worse than that?
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Things to think about later. Or not at all.
Feels too good to let it get muddy with his cynical brain. Their minds are tangled together and it's as good as being locked together with him physically, buried deep inside, pressing his cock all the way into the clutch of his body. Feels like forever since he's done this with another man, never done this with another vampire. It thrills him that it's with Louis, who he's wanted for so long, who's welcoming him with a force of desire he could have never expected.
"Good?"
Caged close over him, folded in, nose to nose. Daniel slides a hand over Louis' chest and lower, so that he can wrap fingers around the older creature's own arousal. In no hurry to have it all end, he just wants to feel him more, and more, and more.
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Admiration of it all distracts, enough so that Louis is jolted by the slide of fingers, the clasp of Daniel's hand.
"Yeah," falls out of his mouth, exhaled against Daniel's mouth. Swallows, thrusts up into Daniel's hand as he says again, "Yeah."
Brings his hands up, fingers pulling slow through Daniel's curls. Takes Daniel's face between his palms.
"You feel so good," Louis murmurs. Their noses brush. Louis' breath coming in shallow pants. One breath, then another, then another, Louis grasping for some composure before he offers, "Like a dream."
Except they get to keep this. All of it. It's real, and it's theirs.
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No more lost memories. Only making new ones.
New memories that include: this, driving into him, finding the angles that make Louis gasp, the best way to press into him, and all of it is good for Daniel, who feels like something is once again being rewired in him. Sex shouldn't be on the list of revelatory potentials, at over seventy years old, especially with his history, but he can't deny the elated things happening to his brain chemistry. Allowed to have this, to enjoy this, and it feels right. It feels correct in a way that should be terrifying, because it's everything he's put away and denied for so long.
And maybe he does know, has always known, but there's a difference between knowing and setting it aside, and knowing and being present within it.
He kisses Louis, and feels something in him, some emotional, intangible thing, shiver loose. It belongs to Louis, whatever it is; the man who had chosen him at that bar, who wanted to be interviewed by some idiot kid, who saw him as more than a hookup to be used despite what they'd both walked into the building for.
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"I want to feel you," is a little nonsensical, given their current position. But it's spelled out in Louis' head, wanting Daniel to come apart. Louis' dreamed this too, and he dreams it now, how Daniel would feel, what he would look like.
His fingers drag down Daniel's spine. Coaxing. Encouraging.
They should do this forever. They should do it again, and then again. Again after. Louis wants. Just wants him, helplessly.
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He's close anyway. It's too good. He's been trying not to think of it climaxing because, as expected, the second it enters his mind he's right there on the edge and everything is cranked up past when the dial's supposed to stop, tense and desperate. Near breaking.
Just—
They can do this forever, again, then again; helpless, starving, lonely, enamored. And yet Daniel isn't ready for this right now to be over. Not yet. He holds Louis close, grinds into him slow and deep, winds tighter together in their minds. Another minute. Just another.
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Refrains from teasing, because Louis can feel it. All this in Daniel's head, it is in Louis' now.
"Stay," he whispers, fingers tightening and loosening and tightening again Daniel's hair. Breath gone haywire, uneven panting as Daniel rocks into him. The lines between their minds are so blurred that there are moments when Louis cannot say with certainty which sensation belongs to who. Coaxes, "Stay here with me."
Not kissing, but close. Noses brushing. Louis' forehead against Daniel's. Unclear in the moment if the pulse in his ears belongs to him or to Daniel. A drifting itch of fangs in his mouth, wanting this too, wanting to bite Daniel all over while Louis has him caught up here.
A quiet truth running like a current beneath all else in their minds: there has been no one, since Armand. A true thing that exists disconnected from specifics, but exists all the same. Louis' thighs tighten around Daniel's hips and he breathes into his mouth and his mind shimmers, wanting him with a kind of absurd desperation, as if Louis doesn't have him already.
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A private special thing, then, for Daniel. This moment. This encounter, this act. A thing he will guard jealously for the rest of his existence. That Louis chose him, after. A first time after for the both of them, albeit different afters. Louis thinks 'You and me' like Daniel was born yesterday, and yet, he knows so much of this will be kept and held onto preciously. Forever.
Maybe he can let go soon. It's starting to get hard to hang on, to draw it out. He doesn't need to breathe yet his breath feels tense and labored; all of him is coiled, pulled tight, near breaking.
'You can,' Daniel lets him know. Fangs, in his throat, or wherever else Louis wants them. Daniel can feel the sympathetic ache of his teeth. 'Anything you want.'
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Says it against his mouth, "I want you, I do."
A luxury to say it aloud. The only hush in his voice because they are both so breathless, wound so tightly in against each other. Louis, free to say this thing. Free to keep it, without any fear of it being lifted out of his hands or diminished down to nothingness. As near as Louis can get to the thing that lives behind it, that Louis has never been able to say when it truly matters, when he feels it most deeply.
His hand slides free of Daniel's curls. Fingers find his throat, the faded imprint of teeth Louis left there once. Shudders, fangs pricking at his gums, thinking about putting his mouth here. Some hazy dream of a fantasy not quite coming into focus, a dream Louis had once that he hadn't been allowed to keep. An impression, carrying some formless pulse of desire.
(I wanted you for such a long time, a whisper that isn't meant to tantalize; directed inward, a discovery. A confirmation.)
Louis puts his mouth over the old scar, sucking kisses across the skin. Teasing. Clutching on to Daniel, anchoring himself to that fraying restraint.
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And then, the touch to his neck. The scars there. Louis' scars, carved into him. It makes his breath catch, his movements stutter, and he grasps him harder and flexes his hips into him where he's buried deep, with Louis pinned to the mattress.
"See. You've been there the whole time."
A part of Daniel. Tangible. Even when they couldn't remember. Louis was there, written on his flesh, like a signature.
"Come on."
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Beneath him now, Louis blinks hard against the prick of tears. Remembering because Daniel gifted him the memory, dragged it out of Louis' head with a tape recording and sheer determination. Because of him Louis can remember this: dropping his fangs for Daniel, who startled and laughed and asked to see them again.
His thumb circles the scar as he draws in an unsteady breath. When he speaks, his fangs glint up to Daniel, though Louis' voice sounds wrecked-raw as he murmurs, "You've always been mine," as his nail scrapes feather-light across Daniel's skin. Voice falling to a whisper as he echoes, "This whole time."
Half-statement, half-question. Louis says it and doubts it in the same breath. How unlikely, that Daniel would want to be kept. Louis stealing two weeks from him, audaciously demanding hundreds of years after. Can't help himself. Can't do anything but hang on tightly to everything that's been lost to him for so many years.
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Daniel may not want to be kept and restrained, but that has nothing to do with being Louis'. His friend, the person on the other side of a lifeline, the one that's tethered between each of them. He feels utterly confident that he can pull on it, and never be alone, just like Louis can always pull for him, and Daniel will be there. Louis isn't his maker, and Daniel might even accept someday that's what Louis wanted, but look— they have this, instead. They can feel each other, they can sink like this, and it's so good.
Louis, the scariest and most enchanting thing Daniel had ever seen. Louis, who nailed him to the world and said you deserve this life.
"Yours."
He strokes Louis with intent. Not going to last much longer.
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Arches up, brushing a sharp-toothed kiss to Daniel's mouth on the way to his throat.
Louis has held his place, his fingers over the scar that's remained, all these years. Daniel touches him, and Louis' whole body is flush with the sensation, fine tremors betraying the way Louis' self-control is fraying apart. He kisses Daniel's throat, mouths softly over the scarring before Louis bites him there.
Delicate, the way Louis breaks the skin. Hard-won finesse, the best of his capabilities, holding himself in check as he bites down.
They're already sunk so deeply into each others heads. Daniel is treated to the way Louis receives his blood, the taste of him, the way Louis' emotions flare bright as the blood forges a link of its own. As he drinks from Daniel, swallows down the familiar taste of him. Thoughts a blur of overlapping images and feeling, such deep, overwhelming affection as Louis drinks slow, luxurious swallows from Daniel's throat.
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Louis can see all of him through his blood. A flipbook of adoration, the struggle to adjust to this unlife always pinned by the stability of knowing Louis is out here. The way he missed him, the way he's always missed him even when he wasn't aware that's the thing he was feeling. And, maturely, how fucking hot he thinks he is.
Daniel pulls his arms around Louis, lifting him enough so that he's not jostling fangs from his throat as he fucks him, because it's out of his hands, now. Louis wanted to feel him unravel and now he is, everything is too much, shattering, barely aware of how desperately he chases after it over the edge. Tension snaps in a perfect way as he comes, his mind an explosion of stars.
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And then it's Louis' shoulders coming up off the mattress, arms looping up around Daniel's shoulders to keep himself there as Daniel fucks into him. As Louis drinks, deep swallows as his whole body flushes under what he feels and tastes in Daniel now.
Louis is sunk so far into Daniel when he comes apart. All that sensation, mirroring, echoing. Overwhelming, what Daniel feels, what Louis feels for him in return. Overwhelming, the moment Daniel comes. It whites Louis out, draws him in after Daniel as he comes, as Louis' self control breaks all apart. His lips open over Daniel's throat, panting, mouth rich with the taste of his blood as his fangs scrape across Daniels skin.
The same taste. Black licorice. Tea.
Unconscious instinct, the way Louis rolls them over. He's made a mess out of Daniel, he knows. The aftershocks make him unsteady, shaky, but he's still capable of draping himself across Daniel's chest. Teethmarks in his throat oozing sluggishly, momentarily abandoned as Louis presses a clumsy kiss to Daniel's mouth.
Daniel, colored through with such affection, thick with tenderness. Nothing but his name, not even trying to prompt a reply. Just his name, said for the pleasure of saying it, for his fingers in Daniel's hair and the taste of blood in his mouth.
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Why do vampires ever do anything else? How are immortals bored? C'mon. Give Daniel a break. They could be doing this every night.
Blood and sweat and come (which is more blood, he's pretty sure), harsh breathing though they don't fucking need to, and the sound of their heartbeats. Different, out of time, and beautiful for it. Daniel speaks Louis' name back to him in their heads, and slides a hand down between them to touch him, get his hand wet, and bring it back to his mouth. Still a disgusting black hole junkie, sorry, but if he doesn't taste Louis somehow he's going insane.
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Louis leans in to kiss him. Licks into his mouth, aware of the open punctures at Daniel's throat.
Heady, to be wanted this way. (Louis is still, always, in some ways the man standing in a courtyard, asking if he is enough.) Heady to know that Daniel wants him this way. To feel it so clearly. They are a mess and exhausted and Louis wants him again. Louis can taste himself in Daniel's mouth. Has Daniel's blood on his own tongue. He is still catching his breath, and yet—
But he's older now. Has learned something like patience in all his long years on this planet. He can hold one desire in check, focus on where they are now. Daniel under him, the rhythm of their hearts, the warmth of his skin. Daniel tastes him, and Louis kisses him again, deep and slow, before he lowers his head down to the bite he'd left, the slow drips of blood at Daniel's throat.
Louis catches them, arms around Daniel as he applies lips and tongue to the trailing droplets. Kisses over the wounds slowly, no urgency.
Better than I remembered, is true, but also a kind of joke. How much does Louis truly remember? Enough, enough to know, but there are blurred aspects, things damaged by Armand, by the injuries Louis survived.
"How do you feel?"
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Between their minds, an impression of a laugh, both for taste and because— what, why put the brakes on? Does Louis have somewhere else he needs to be, right now?
Still. Sure, it's worth savoring the moment. Daniel cradles Louis' face and looks up at him. He's forgotten all about how he's supposed to be ashamed of how he looks, and everything is just warm, and good.
"I feel fucking great."
But Louis knows that.
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How many years with the taste of Daniel somewhere in the back of his head? Half a memory, something that survived despite how immediately wrecked Louis was, how hard the drugs hit after those first swallows. He had carried that away with him, the way Daniel tasted beneath the bitterness of just so much alcohol and so many hits.
No, there is nowhere else. A certainty. Decades and decades where time and obligations all moved at whatever pace Louis chose, it is no different now. They can stay here, carry in all the papers from the next room, draw the curtains, lounge in bed. (Two weeks. Daniel has two weeks to spare.) He slots his weight into the cradle of Daniel's hips, scrapes a smile across the skin of his throat.
You feel so good, drifts as a murmur between them. Louis wants to bite him everywhere still. He wants him again, wants to stay in this bed as long as Daniel would allow. Louis lets all of this warm the connection between them, as his teeth nip along Daniel's collarbone.
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It doesn't spark anything immediate, just adds to the dreamy, sparkly (and sweaty, and messy) soup of afterglow. Daniel continues to touch him just because he can, stroking feelings of affection and happiness into him. A little bit in awe, like he had been as a kid; like he had been as an old man, too, though he always brandished sarcasm or a biting comment instead of allowing it to be expressed. Safe to express it now.
He's just always thought Louis is so cool. Still does.
Hands slide up to cradle the back of Louis' head. (Is he allowed to touch his hair? The instinct to act permission is there, but his brain's a little fried from climax. Help.) An encouraging thing. Anything that Louis wants. Two weeks, sure, but it's not like somebody's falling off a ledge into non-existence after two weeks. There's life after two weeks. It's exciting. What else will there be?
"Maybe I didn't think I could anymore," he says softly. Feel good. For someone else. "I'm glad it's you."
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Would Daniel have wondered over touching Louis' hair in 1973? Louis wished he could know the answer.
It had been right, leaving Daniel human. Louis is certain of it. But he cannot help but mourn the lost pieces, the long years apart. Daniel couldn't have become the man he is now with Louis hovering over him, but Louis was so far. He was so distant, he missed so much of what guided Daniel's becoming.
"I missed you," is a specific thing. Louis missed Daniel so deeply. These long months between the interview, between the terrible things Daniel survived, between the tour and Louis ranging away from the complicated things he feels for Lestat, Louis chasing memories, Louis trying to excise himself from a process he understands broadly but doesn't know anything about in particular. Or at least, doesn't know how Lestat and Daniel are conducting their interview, and doesn't wish to compromise.
But he missed Daniel. Deeply. Endlessly.
Louis' tongue draws over the punctures, licks a hot strip up Daniel's throat. There is some mirrored movement in Louis' body, the way he balances his weight, the friction and shift of their bodies. They are a mess. Louis likes that too, likes the tangible signs of how they've come together. Likes the taste of blood on Daniel's skin, the hint of himself in Daniel's mouth.
"Can I touch you?"
Can Louis lean into how oversensitive and spent they are? Wring something more from Daniel, because he doesn't think he can contain the impulse otherwise.
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And now he understands he doesn't know shit.
Except: that Louis missed him. That Louis wants him. And how much he wants Louis in return.
Daniel kisses the side of his cheekbone, his ear, nuzzling at wherever he can as Louis toys with the punctures and the scars they're layered over. What a perverse relief that they didn't vanish when he was transformed. They didn't need to heal. They're not a mark of pain, not really.
"Anywhere, as long as you want," Daniel tells him, with elated laughter in his voice.
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Not romantic, except in the ways these things can be, for vampires. Or for Louis, possessive even when he didn't have a right to be.
Louis does touch him, hips shifting just enough so he might take Daniel in hand again. Marvel at the slick slide of his palm over him, while Louis' head lights up wanting him all over again, as if they had done nothing at all together yet.
An innate sense of restraint running alongside this, wanting to put his teeth back into Daniel, knowing he is already flirting with how much he should drink. Louis opens his mouth over the punctures once more, over damp skin and the rapid thud of Daniel's pulse, lets his thoughts paint a picture of how Daniel should put hands into his hair, the way Louis likes to be touched, fingers at his nape, teasing the ends of soft twists, the rare sink of fingers in along his scalp at the back of his head—
A break in this thought as Louis drags his tongue along his own fangs, a shortcut to close up his own handiwork in slow, regretful strokes of his tongue.
Whenever I want picking up, as Louis noses along his jaw. Strokes him, slow, careless drags of his palm as the fingers of his opposite hand slid down Daniel's arm, following veins, the delicate bones of his wrist and hand.
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A new life, in so many ways.
He touches Louis how he's shown, taking his time and indulging at once, wanting to make sure everything feels this good for the both of them. No fumbling discomfort, if they can avoid it. He lets Louis feel wherever he's curious about, his cock, his wrist. Rough hands, inelegant, always a little too big and square for his wry frame. He would just make shoe size jokes. (Hey, who's joking?)
That taste of him was not enough. Not by a long shot. But Daniel tucks the desire away on a shelf; they have time. They have an eternity. They don't gave to go on every ride at the theme park in one go.
'I've never known anyone as long as you, did you know that?'
Discounting the gaps. Louis missed him. Daniel missed Louis. Core parts of each other, now; fifty years. Daniel's parents died before he hit fifty. He didn't meet his first wife until after that week in San Fransisco. Friends from college, high school, scattered, forgotten through mundane means. But Louis has been with him all along.
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No. It illustrates something for him about Daniel, brings into clearer focus the shapes yielded by memoirs and interviews, by what Daniel has said aloud in Dubai and otherwise. It is arresting. It draws Louis up from his ministrations at Daniel's throat to look at him, to feel all the ways this hooks into the parts of Louis that want to sink teeth into every inch of Daniel's body, to splay over him and pin him down and keep him. Possessive, always possessive.
I didn't know that.
As Louis kisses him, warm and open. Licks into his mouth, tasting of Daniel's blood mingled with his own.
Who knows Louis still? Lestat. Armand. Daniel. And of the three, Daniel has the clearest picture of Louis. Lestat missing great swaths of time that neither of them have been able to touch. (Armand, something else. How deeply does Armand know Louis? Deeper than Louis ever knew him.) But Daniel—
Daniel saw Louis, more clearly than Louis saw himself. Still does, even now.
I want to know you forever.
No mincing the sentiment by casing it in years, decades, centuries. Louis wants forever. Always. Reflects the enormity of it back to Daniel as they kiss, the drag of his palm slowing down to a torturous drag. See how precious he is to Louis? How vital? See how wanted he is?
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A deep kiss. Daniel keeps one hand on the back of Louis' head, fingers against his hairline, the other dragging down over the line of his back, perfect and smooth. He hitches up into the slow friction, blood warming again already. (Being a vampire fucking rules, actually.)
Forever is a lot, but Daniel is hungry for it. Taking in everything someone has to give, until they're sick of him. He's too blissed out to worry anymore, his mind whirring and working about only good things, way past the practical concern that Louis doesn't know what he's getting into with such an annoying asshole. Daniel just wants him. Grabs into those feelings, lets Louis feel his own in return. That's the most romantic fucking thing anyone's ever said to him. Thought about him. Whatever.
'We can do that.'
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He will never give Daniel up again. They will never forget each other again. Louis can be with him, watch Daniel grow and change, live all the lives vampirism promises to him. He can watch Daniel become a better vampire than Louis was, is, will be.
No half measures. Louis is done with half measures.
"Forever," Louis whispers against his mouth. Doesn't ask Daniel to promise beyond what he's already said. It doesn't feel necessary. Won't they always find their way to each other? If Louis is certain of nothing else, he is certain of this. Daniel will find him. Louis will return to him. They are linked to each other so deeply.
Heady, to promise forever and mean forever.
"Come for me again," is a whisper too, murmured between one kiss and the next, the purposeful drag of Louis' hand. "I want to see you come again."
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And then, this. Louis.
They're the same kind of stupid. Maybe that's the trick.
Louis wants to see him come again. He can do that, and he murmurs something like a fond laugh into their kisses.
"Hedonist," he accuses, like Daniel isn't. Like everything in this new life hasn't been about returning to everything that he's ever gotten off doing.
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Because it had never quite been—
San Francisco had been many things, but it had so rarely been about pleasure. Not a lasting kind of pleasure. Drugs and sex as a punishment, as a numbing agent. Whatever was good was fleeting.
But then, Daniel. Out of all of that misery, there was Daniel.
Now, Louis wants everything at once. All of him. Louis promises forever easy, a forgone conclusion, as he touches Daniel with a casual kind of possessiveness. Louis wants to know everything. They will have forever and Louis will see how the way they touch each other changes, because Louis is old enough to know the inevitability of it. Time works on vampires too. They'll grow together, change together. Louis wants that too.
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Daniel gives himself over to the feeling. Doesn't worry just yet about Louis, lets him have what he says he wants, what Daniel can tell he wants because they're in each other's heads. (He doesn't have to wonder if it was like this for Louis and Armand. He knows Armand would never open himself like this. For as much as he disdains the 'silence' between makers and fledglings, he's never honest about anyone in his head, either. A bitter pill, but irrelevant in this moment.)
"You make me feel fucking good, Louis." Breathless, needy. Getting back to the edge, letting Louis feel the rush in his mind as he shifts restlessly towards him, curling up a little, cradles his face, kisses him.
Everything had hurt for so long. Addition, aging, disease. Loneliness, heartbreak, bitterness. And now this. He gets to be immortal, he gets to have Louis, and they get to have each other forever.
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And Daniel should feel good. The extent of his illness, the pain of it, had been partially obscured from Louis behind Daniel's bluster and sarcasm, but it's absence looms large in his mind now. It is illustrative of what is no longer present.
"Daniel," Louis murmurs, soft against his mouth. "I got you. Let me see you."
Coaxing. Covetous.
"Show me," with a scrape of teeth. Unnecessary, when they are this deep in each others heads. (Who else has welcomed Louis this way? Wound him so deep into Daniel's mind that the lines between their thoughts blur?) Louis can feel everything Daniel is talking about. More. Every drag of his fingers, every last kiss, every nip of teeth, Louis can feel how what it sparks up in Daniel. He says this anyway as he touches him, coaxing, encouraging, teasing at whatever last vestiges of restraint Daniel might have left.
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Louis, Louis, Louis. Louis who deserves everything good. Who makes Daniel feel so incredible. Maybe there's some other universe where they ran away from San Fransisco, and everything is different, even though Daniel is better now, even though Louis needed to be jailbroken with the truth and not just an escape.
He's going to come. He can feel Louis, physically, mentally, his own body is more than happy to spiral right along. Sparkling in the hypersensitive aftermath, it still feels incredible. He likes being a vampire, he likes being dead, none of it feels like being damned, it feels like he finally understands how life's supposed to work. And he gets to know this person.
He shows Louis, because the pleasure hitches up in him and he comes.
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Or not even just like that. Just this way. All the ways Daniel says his name, exasperated and fond and teasing and needling, the vast array of things Daniel draws out of him, Louis wants all of that.
He is greedy, he knows. Selfish. It is shades of how he wanted (wanted once, wants again) Lestat. All-consumingly. Endless. Daniel comes and Louis doesn't kiss him. He doesn't stop touching Daniel, fingers at his temple and his cheek, catching at his mouth, as he draws this pleasure from him, but Louis looks at him instead. Observing, attention focused so sharply on Daniel's face. Feel all the different layers of thought in Daniel's mind.
Tries, tries to take some solace in the ways Daniel likes his vampirism. Louis knew that he would.
By and by, hand slowing in its movement, Louis leans in to kiss him softly, a sweet brush of contact. Something to hold place for all the other things catching in his throat, words Louis never can say.
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He drags in air just for the pleasure of feeling everything expand. His pulse is frantic still, though slowing from a peak, an indulgent drift down. His eyes blink back open, glassy, dilated, dreamy, and the overdense color they should be, still no trace of his maker. Banished by Louis' affection, maybe.
Daniel feels a little brain-fried by it all, but in a good way. He hopes Louis got something out of it, too, and he kisses him, raising his head to chase it and get more. Soft and sweet, fine, they can do that, but Daniel just wants to keep feeling him. Thinks about the taste of his blood a little, but he's loopy, surely he can be forgiven.
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Moving again, straddling Daniel's hips. Touching him, hands cupping his face as their noses brush, nonsense murmurs between kisses.
"Daniel," then, a lower tease of, "Danny."
Needling as they kiss, heavy with the taste of blood between them. A little nudge to provoke, soothed almost immediately by another kiss.
Winds his way to, "My Daniel," with fingers cradling his face, hips slotted together. Chest to chest, Louis can feel the rise and fall of his chest, the slowing thud of his pulse. "Are you satisfied?"
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Danny. Ugh. He bites at Louis' mouth, flat teeth not meant to break the skin, still wary of his inability to reel himself in despite the strong, aching pull A grumbled complaint into the next kiss. It took him years to stop responding to Danny, who was a stupid kid that Daniel wants nothing to with.
"The hell kind of question is that?"
Hands at Louis' sides, they slip up over his chest, down again, feeling him everywhere. His skin is a luxury. He's so fucking beautiful.
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"I'd like to know."
Though it is tempting to keep him here forever. Do this forever. A fantasy where nothing waits for either of them outside this bed, nothing is complicated, all is as they wish it to be.
"We can shower," comes as a murmur, soft against Daniel's mouth. "And we can hunt."
Louis knows Daniel has been hunting. Knows that what he gets up to with Lestat is messy and maybe brutal, more brutal than Louis would like to hear about. Even now, he reads everything, all the articles, everything that carries word of Daniel and now Lestat, back to him.
"Have you ever shared a coffin?"
A question asked before Louis can think whether or not he truly wants an answer. Does he want to know if Armand folded Daniel in alongside him in some closed space? Did Armand deign to lower himself into a coffin for Daniel's sake?
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Which is a bit too much, probably? Daniel is always going to have this personality, though, more, and dying hasn't changed it. Just let him have it again. More, more, more. Drugs, sex, truth, blood.
But he'd also like to shower with Louis (he'll avert his eyes from the bathroom mirror, uncomfortable with his own deterioration vs the other man's physique, but he'll cope), and he'd like to vent the half-riled bloodlust onto someone he doesn't have to worry about stopping on. A headtilt for it, though. Louis doesn't like hunting. They don't have to.
The coffin, though.
"I haven't."
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It's not only Daniel. There is something in Louis that wants and wants and wants, denied and curtailed by all the other pieces of his nature. But he feels it in Daniel, how the force of his desire hooks into his chest and drags all of Louis' wanting to the forefront. Close at hand as Louis shifts his weight over Daniel, a minor restless movement meant only to contain the urge to plunge them both back into the heady rush of their shared desire.
"Stay with me," Louis murmurs.
He'd offered, before, to retrieve Daniel's coffin. Off the cuff, something so effortless to arrange. But he wants—
More, yes. But Louis wants closeness. Wants to fall into sleep with their echoing heart beating back and forth between them. He wants Daniel under the warm spray of water in his shower and he wants Daniel sated, well-fed. He wants all the intimacy of these things, wants to know him in these ways too.
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"Until you kick me out."
Yes. More than yes.
But even if he's not the type to pull the plug on this— he should probably not annoy the shit out of Louis with it? Right? Right. So.
"What's the game plan?" A light pinch to his side, teasing.
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How long since there was teasing, in Louis' bed?
(Trying to parse out the answer is like ripping open a barely-scabbed wound. Remembering. Recalling what was once good, what remained good, what was eaten up by misery.)
Daniel pinches him and Louis bites him, a scrape of teeth along the jaw.
"I'm going to make you come until you can't," is decisive, indulgent. Attuned, maybe, to the silent flicker of thought in Daniel's head that wants more, and more, and more. A thought that Louis leans into, lets himself sink into it as he gives Daniel his thigh to rock against while they kiss. Murmurs, "And then wash you clean," into Daniel's mouth. "And see you sated, before I take you with me to coffin."
Kick him out. Unlikely. Impossible.
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Another half hour? ... A week??? Mysteries of the universe. Does Louis know? How much exhaustion kink does he get up to? Inquiring mind. Singular. This specific, inquiring mind.
"Sounds pretty cool."
Saying dopey shit on purpose, just to see if Louis will laugh.
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"Pretty cool," Louis echoes, just to roll the words off his tongue. Tasting them, experiment with how Daniel's vernacular feels in his mouth.
Reaches down to take him in hand again, a loose curl of fingers. Touching just to touch, intent not quite materializing as Louis thumbs over the head of his cock.
"We'll find it together," Louis tells him, answering at least one unspoken question. Maybe he'll answer the others. Maybe Daniel will have to ask, pin him, corner him into an answer. The mingled experience between Lestat and Armand, so much ground covered in a century's worth of time, not all of it easy to recall. "What it is now, what it will be someday."
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"Making plans," he observes. Louis likes plans. Daniel imagines him with a very detailed, very orderly bullet journal, one clean and organized without any washi tape or cute stickers, in his old lady cursive handwriting. He lets Louis see this fond thought as he sits up, shuffling them to be face to face, and Louis can sit beside him or with legs splayed over him to be half in his lap, whatever he feels like.
Because this goes both ways. Daniel's not just going to lay back and count nuts. He wants to see Louis reach his peak again, hear the way his breath changes, watch his face contort in pleasure. As many times as they each can. Louis had been torn on what position, wanting too many things at once, now he gets it if he wants it now. Daniel kisses him, touches him, loses count. Loses track.
Eventually his phone will ping. He's got a funny (and very loud) alarm an hour or so before sunrise. It's just that he usually loses track of time because he's working, not because he's fooling around.
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Here, now, the phone chimes and Louis laughs. Has migrated fully into Daniel's lap from their starting point, crowding him into the headboard. Skin gleaming with sweat, mouth bruised, hips rolling down in an easy sinuous movement, unbroken by the sound of the alarm.
"Once more," Louis coaxes. "Once more, right now, before we stop for the night."
Thumbs stroking the delicate skin behind Daniel's ears, fingers nudging at his hairline. Louis brushes his lips across Daniel's, their breath mingling.
"Can you come for me one more time?"
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"Can you?"
Daniel shifts up, pressing his cock deeper into him, finding it effortless still despite the exertion and the impending call of the sun, soaking in the endless easy delight of no longer being human. It's possible he'll never take this for granted— being able to move just as he wants to, no pain, no struggle. Everything in service of making them both feel good, claw and tumble to the next height.
Another kiss, because he can't get enough, and he circles a hand between them to stroke Louis. Can't get enough of this, either.
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An absurd thing to be thinking now, as Daniel fucks up into him and drives the breath out of Louis' lungs, but he can feel all these things in Daniel's head. The pleasure of what his transformation has given him. The gratitude. (Some part of Louis, jealous and hurt, flicks open an eye to remember that Louis had wanted to give his to him, Louis could have—) Daniel is so pleased and Louis feels it, lets himself mirror that joy.
Daniel, alive always. Healthy always. And they can have each other this way, whenever they want.
Daniel kisses him and Louis licks into his mouth. Possessive, pleased, tasting himself there. A humming whisper of thought: For you, anything. And Tell me you want me again.
As if it's not a foregone conclusion, once Daniel starts touching him with such clear intention as Louis meets the upward thrust of his hips. Daniel's pleasure is an electric thing, sparking bright like a livewire strung between their heads.
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'I want you,' he tells him, lets him feel how much. How much, despite how many times already. Edges are starting to fray, concentration is starting to go glassy, but Louis said until you can't. Sunlight or unconsciousness. Daniel will indulge until he overdoses.
Out loud this time: "Watching you, feeling you come like this, is so good. I thought I'd never see you that unwound. I'll never get sick of it. I'll never get sick of being the one to do it. Come on, one more time. Just like this."
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Maybe fifty years would come within shouting distance of enough. Louis doesn't know. Daniel says these things to him and Louis shudders down into the cradle of his hips, hands tightening around the sides of Daniel's face.
"Just like this," Louis echoes. Repeats again, "Anything for you."
Drawn in where Daniel's consciousness is blurring, savoring the quality of it. Fingers slipping, grazing over scar tissue, over new-made bite marks already healing into nothingness. (Grateful, unforgivably, that Louis left a mark on him. Bit it into him, a claim that endured even through Daniel's death and rebirth.)
Murmurs, "Come with me," even as he lets himself come all apart, panting against Daniel's mouth, spilling over under the pull of Daniel's fingers.
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But Louis wants one more time, and right now, and just like this, and anything, and he's there and Daniel feels his body clench around him, just as good maybe better than that his mind shimmer with it at the same time. One can really believe the whole 'little death' translation joke from this perspective; following dead blood into the darkness, following a partner's orgasm over a ledge into your own.
Too morbid? Too morbid.
In any event, Daniel fucks up into him and stills as he comes, holding Louis close and gasping against him, open mouth against him, too messy to be a kiss, just wanting to be near him and a part of him. Fractal fireworks, ecstasy, a hysterical peak of his heartbeat and the joy of it slowing like falling, like flying.
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But no. The sun is coming up. Daniel is young. He needs to sleep.
Louis kisses his slack mouth. Scrapes nails up and down his scalp. Murmurs Daniel's name, low and intimate and so, so affectionate. Letting him find his way back to composure while Louis stays close, wound close still. Skin to skin, mind to mind.
I like you this way, Louis tells him. Smiles, admits, I like you every way I can have you.
Frustrating and irreverent and kind and now this, how Louis has him now.
"We'll need a whole day," Louis supposes, thoughtful. "A whole day to do something like this."
Having caught some stray edge of Daniel's thoughts, the thing he didn't quite ask for that Louis wants to give him anyway.
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"Anything means anything," he says.
A whole day, or not, Louis doesn't have to steamroll himself for Daniel's sake. Though he'd absolutely go in for it.
More soft kisses, and touches that don't want to let go. Daniel finds the prospect of parting to be particularly brutal, but consoles himself with the fact that Louis is not yet tired of him. Spell not yet broken.
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A tug between their heads as Louis reaches a hand back. Aware of the mess they've made of each other. His own skin damp with sweat, thighs slick, a pleasant ache smoldering in his body.
"Come on."
Beckoning Daniel to him, wanting already to be touching him again.
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Alright, alright.
He follows him, presumably to the bathroom, where he clings to the notion of this being fine and does not look at himself in the mirror. The absurdity of being shy despite all they've done.
Daniel wants to touch him, feel him under warm water, help him get clean. Carefully wash away the mess they've made, but not forget it.
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It's a different kind of opulent in this room. More earthy grotto than sleek minimalism. The shower itself is set into the wall, invokes the sense of a cave, low seats of cut stone behind the glass doors. Signs of Louis' occupancy in the products laid out on the counter, the silk robe, a towel hanging off a hook.
Louis pauses as the door closes behind them.
"Hey."
Louis knows he has to withdraw out of Daniel's head. He has begun the process, unwinding slowly. Perhaps catches the tailend of one thought or the other, or maybe just needs something to ease the ways in which they're separating. Indulges himself, reels Daniel in by their linked hands so he might lean up and kiss him again.
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"Hey yourself."
He allows himself to be reeled in, and he follows Louis, presses into that kiss, touches his hip with his other hand.
"Weird how cold it is, disengaging," he says, and thinks Louis will know he means about the telepathic closeness. "Thank you, for sharing that with me."
Opening his mind, accepting Daniel's openness in return. Tangling with him in their heads and feeling so much, knowing he was safe during the whole thing. It's been unlike anything else he's ever experienced.
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They can't live in each others' heads. Just like they can't stay a night and a day and a night in bed, despite what a good idea it feels like in the moment.
Daniel says this, offers this sweet expression of gratitude. Louis smiles, fingers grazing Daniel's jaw. A stray slip of thought, a lingering impression: I want to share everything with you.
Aloud, Louis tells him, "You let me in. Thanks."
Let him in. Let him stay.
Louis' fingers tighten around the link of their fingers, looking into Daniel's face. Missing him, absurdly. Missing him even though they're stood so close.
He lets go. The glass door slides open silently, and Louis twists the taps. Promises over his shoulder, "I'll run it hot."
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The sentiment echoes through feeling: the only person he might believe wants to share everything with him, the only person he'd let into his head that way. No one else is even a maybe. It's just Louis. Louis, who nearly killed him, who maybe should have, who went through hell with him, who remembered with him.
Not his maker. Better for it.
He slides a touch over the other man's shoulders, feeling a little reluctant to stay totally apart. Which is absurd, they're in a goddamn shower together, it's pretty fucking close.
"Do vampires like saunas? I guess we wouldn't have to worry about passing out. I used to do that when I was really broke. Chug cheap bottles of wine in the shower. Because I was too classy for huffing glue, you know."
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Who else would Louis let in? Lestat, only Lestat, and that's not possible. It will only ever be Daniel in his head. (How deep was Armand in Louis's mind? If Daniel delves deep enough, would he find traces? Familiar fingerprints set deep into the soft clay of Louis' head?)
The water runs hot as promised, a misty rainfall from two shower heads that envelope them both and Louis turns back around under the spray to Daniel. Smiles at him.
This is the most he's smiled in a long while, Louis knows. It comes easy, with Daniel.
"I like saunas."
A statement deliberately stripped of the we that could have, would have colored the answer in Dubai.
His palms flatten across Daniel's chest. Feel his heart, secure and steady. Cherishes this small fact, pieces of Daniel outside Louis' experience, outside the scope of books and interviews.
"Never chugged cheap wine though."
Louis de Pointe du Lac seeking only the finest vintages for his worst moments.
"Tell me something else. From then."
Pieces of Daniel's human life.
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A future consideration. Too soon, for an old man who is a young vampire.
He rolls his eyes fondly about cheap wine. Of course. Louis, who is even more beautiful when he smiles, would never stoop to cheap wine. Even the drugs he lured Daniel in with were high quality. He can't help but reach up and touch the corner of one of that smile, and marvel at it.
"'Then', like at the weird lowest points, or 'then', just being mortal? Something funny, something weird?"
He's done a lot. Sometimes by accident.
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All of it.
Stipulates, "Nothing I already read in your books."
The parts of Daniel's life that Louis missed. The long absence where Louis only touched Daniel's life from a great distance. Collected what was curated. Daniel was a shockingly candid writer, but not every part of his life is in what had already been put into the world.
Louis catches his hand, the fingers at his mouth, and kisses Daniel's palm. Disengages to collect soaps and shampoos from one rough hewn shelf, an abundance of options to offer up for Daniel's inspection.
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"Beth McLean once sent me an email with actual slurs in it," he says. "She was furious about how I talked about all the accounting in the Enron book, she thought I was making a joke about her own Enron book. Which did better than mine anyway. I never showed anybody, I just thought it was funny."
Twenty years ago, he could have ruined her career, but today he'd probably just improve her reputation among the freaks taking over the US. Oh, how times change.
"The first time I went to Russia, everybody kept making me drink. Like a trust thing. If I let myself get drunk around them, if I let them fuck with me, yadda yadda. But I just wasn't getting drunk fast enough and I kept pissing them off. So I tried to start acting drunk."
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There is some practical distance. Louis beginning the routine of washing his hair, working product into a lather as Daniel speaks and letting the suds run down his neck and shoulders.
"Were they convinced?" Louis asks, diverting to the Russians rather than dwell on Beth McLean, whose finances Louis might ruin as petty little payback. "I remember your tolerance. They would have had to make a real investment in that goal."
Remembering San Francisco. Daniel, young and human and jubilant, downing anything put in front of him. He'd held it all so well that Louis had lost track as the night dragged on, kept sliding another and another and another into Daniel's hands. Endless. It had felt like the night would never end. That they could stay there together forever, floating in the close jubilation of confession, of Louis sharing the worst things and Daniel eager to hear more and more and more.
Louis shakes his head. Sprays suds and water everywhere, before he tips his head back into the spray, lets the water patter down over his face as he rinses away the shampoo.
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"I think so, it's always hard to gauge with cultural and language barriers, but I have some experience about what alcohol-impaired people act like."
One of his many extremely impressive skills.
"But they—"
Briefly dazzle-distracted by Louis rinsing water off of him like a woman in a soft-core erotic thriller from the 70s.
Anyway.
"So, they wanted to play the 'knife game', which doesn't have a name, you know the," here he gestures, one hand splayed out flat, the other gesturing over it, to mime taking a knife and stabbing between each fingers. "That thing. And I started to freak out because I wasn't going to be able to do that even sober, and I thought they were pressuring me to torture me, because they're deranged Russians. It turned out they thought I could probably just do it because they've only ever seen it in American movies, and would never have suggested it if they weren't hammered."
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Reaches to catch Daniel's hand. Lifts it, thumb running across his palm, to study first his hand, and then Daniel's face between his splayed fingers.
"I played it a few times back when," Louis admits. Back when harkening back to forgotten humanity. Side-steps it when he asks, "Do you think you'd do better as a vampire?"
An addition to Daniel's many talents, maybe.
Louis would play reckless games with him. Lick blood off his fingers after. Louis wants to hear all his stories, every piece that made up the long years they lived apart. He wants all the stories that are yet to come, all the stories they could make together. His thumb runs along the deep grooves of Daniel's palm, quietly possessive, as Louis smiles at him behind their hands.
"We could play over breakfast."
As if Louis wasn't searching for lost pieces of himself. As if Daniel didn't have another interview to return to.
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"What makes you think I didn't end up doing it in Russia?"
Teasing. Maybe he did. Maybe he just downed another cupful of shitty post-communist vodka and did a round, then screamed, then made friends for life, until most of those guys ended up executed for stealing bread or importing blue jeans, while Daniel went off to do the real interview.
Or he didn't. Or he panicked and definitely didn't.
A mystery.
Daniel looks at him and flexes his fingers.
"What, you got cereal and switchblades?"
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"Could get one," Louis offers.
There is cereal in a cupboard in Dubai. Morocco is spared the expense of a well-stocked kitchen, of the punishing ritual Louis used for so long to feed himself.
But a switchblade, Morocco can yield up a switchblade.
Louis wants to do everything with Daniel. To be as reckless as they were in San Francisco, indestructible in it now. Louis wants to know every part of Daniel, wants to see him flex his new abilities over and over again.
"We could do everything you passed on."
A casual offering, easy as a shrug, as a drawn breath. They can do anything. Everything. Why shouldn't they?
(In the main room, stacks of papers languish. Monetarily ignored, never forgotten.)
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He touches the tip of Louis' nose with an index finger, playful. Daniel is scrubbed clean with washed hair by now, perfunctory about it, clearly having never touched a luxury grooming product in his life. Having only ever been in a spa to clandestinely fuck other men, eschewing all specialty grooming, it's almost like he could actually be straight.
Wait what—
"I came out here to bother you, Louis. I want to do whatever you want to do. We can pick something in the morning. Evening." He huffs a laugh. "You know what I mean."
They can do some work, they can play hooky.
They've got time.
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Lately, he has been picking fights. Seeking out old memories and ghosts. Texting Lestat.
And now here is Daniel, smiling at him, touching him, making promises about time.
Louis yields back his hand, smiles a little back.
"I'll think on it," Louis agrees, minor acquiescence. Daniel, trapping him into choices. Annoying. (Fond.) He tips his face up into the spray, rinse product from his hair before reaching for another bottle. Conditioner, this time. It's a leisurely process, all of this. Louis is a relatively young vampire, but there are small ways in which he has slowed down, learned to take his time because there is no hurry, no looming end point to life.
"We don't have to stay in Morocco," Louis reminds, eyes opening to look at Daniel as he works palmfuls of conditioner into his hair. "Could go somewhere else. Sight-see."
Somewhere Daniel doesn't have any kill orders or whatever taken out on him. A jailbreak might be fun, but not until less of the vampire world wants Louis dead, and maybe Daniel is less likely to make headlines in the wake of whatever dashing escape they concoct.
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He's probably put conditioner in. It just took him thirty seconds, because he doesn't care too much. And now, his hair's frozen in place, so it doesn't matter. He can spend even less time on messing with it.
Leaves him time to admire the view, too.
"I know."
Gentle, fond. There really is no rush. As long as they're hanging out for a while, Daniel will be happy.
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Daniel knows so much. Sees so much. A gift that will only sharpen as time goes on, Louis presumes, become something more impressive than it has been. Louis' fingers pull slowly through his hair, working expensive product through to the very ends, before reaching out to draw Daniel in to him.
"Give me a hand," he coaxes, which is just an invitation for Daniel's hands on his skin, to be touched, with the soaps and soft clothes and rush of warm water an excuse for it. "We gonna have to get you something when we're finished here."
Blood. Louis can offer his usual fare, blood in thick mugs, in elegant glassware. But it's too late for a hunt. Louis wants to give Daniel that too, but tomorrow. It will wait until tomorrow.
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"Whatever you've got on hand. No cereal."
Blood in mugs and little dishes is fine. He'll cope. And he'll decide, tomorrow, if he thinks Louis seems like he'll actually be comfortable hunting or not. Daniel is adept at handling it by himself, so there's no pressure, no need of an escort.
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Louis likes this too, taking care of Daniel. (Always Louis' way, these demonstrations. Actions that hold place for what's too difficult to say.) He likes Daniel smelling of him, likes the scent of his soaps and shampoos on Daniel's skin. He likes Daniel touching him, even if it's just little grazes of fingertips or the warmth of his hand through cloth.
He wants more. Everything. To talk for a week, meandering through topics. Draw opinions out of Daniel one after another. To argue. To make up after. Wants to bite Daniel everywhere, drink him down. Wants Daniel to drink from him. Wants everything, all at once, all the newness of them and all the intimacy of what they will be to each other.
Louis takes Daniel's face in both his hands, draws him down just to kiss once more.
"I'm glad you came to see me," he murmurs under the rush of water. Achingly sincere.
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And yet he finds himself sliding his arms around Louis' middle, when he's drawn in for a kiss. Like he still can't get enough of touching him, like he can drink him in through skin to skin contact alone. Under the warm water, against each other. It chases some of the chill of psychic separation away, which is interesting in itself— now that it's been a few minutes, the contrast of being apart, that coldness, feels almost like psychic sensory play, instead of something negatively disorienting.
"I'm glad you let me find you."
Even if Louis didn't do it consciously, he wasn't closed off. Not hiding. Daniel was able to track him down, see him like a candle in the dark.
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Louis had tried. He had meant to hide from him, obscure things, hold back, and Daniel had cut through it all anyway. He'd done it easy, and done it mortal. Imagine what he can do now, a vampire.
"I always want you to find me."
Soft words as Louis's hands slide across Daniel's shoulders, down his back and up again.
"Wherever I am, I want you there."
No words for it, only a foregone conclusion. If Louis is anywhere, Daniel is welcome. In his head, in his homes, in his bed. Anywhere. Everywhere. Echoes of anything in the assurance.
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Not a boy anymore, but a part of him will always still be Louis'. Scars, and fingerprints on his heart.
He splays one hand over the other vampire's, to that end. His chest, his heart.
Anything, agreed.
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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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Would Louis like that? Finding someone with memories they'd enjoy. Probably not. It's probably fucked up of Daniel to wonder, to be doing it at all. Lestat encourages the wildest shit, and Daniel doesn't feel bad about it— just feels bad about not feeling bad, now and again.
'Oh, uhhuh.'
A hand-hold, and a vision, Louis in his tower in Dubai, with a neon sign lit up over it that reads COME FIND OUT. No instigation at all. Piqued interest, though, about a laptop. A very capable lure, even though they both know full well they could make it an email.
All the same, how about some flirting?
'You don't have to snap people in half if you miss me, babe.'
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Someday. Louis has complicated thoughts on this too, spurred by the frenetic scraps of information that reach him. Daniel and Lestat, and all they do together. Louis, jealous.
And then: the extreme complication of being jealous of both of them at once.
Put aside now, letting amusement glow between them at Daniel's offered images, at the flirtation that follows.
I gotta fill the hours somehow, is mock-mournful. Otherwise it'd just be me in the dark, missing you.
An embellishment in return: Louis on the floor of the penthouse in Dubai, scattered books and newspapers bearing Daniel's words everywhere.
Can't help it if I gotta take drastic measures when their company ain't measuring up to yours.
Which is exaggerated but true. Lots of momentary diversions, none that compete. It's hard when the bar is Daniel Molloy, is Lestat de Lioncourt. Louis isn't bored yet, but the diversions thus far have been passing.
Of course, Louis kills them because they try to kill him first. But still.
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Daniel doesn't begrudge him this. He doesn't begrudge him most things, even though he could. He spent two weeks of the interview, and then long months writing, as the only person left on earth who was speaking for Claudia. But Daniel isn't a great person, in the end. He's more interested in watching the shit Lestat does than he is interested in contriving some form of justice. Which is probably bad.
The flamboyant monster hasn't yet confronted him about Louis, in a specific way. It's coming, though. He's well aware. Enjoying the both of them, in different ways, before his head gets punched off.
'You're so busy,' he accuses with a laugh. 'Talk radio can't shut the fuck up about you.'
Talk radio being, of course, vampires.
'You have as many people falling in love with you from afar as you're pissing off. All these stagnant immortals having to care about something all of a sudden.'
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An echo. Louis has said this before.
Maybe he had been talking about himself but he was talking about all of them too. Vampires circling around the edges of the world, plotting a take over because they had nothing else to do.
Now they can all hate Louis. Daniel's gift to them. Louis' indulgence.
Some of 'em are just mad that they aren't bored anymore.
The older ones. The ones Louis knows he'll have to handle carefully, if he must handle them at all.
A thought cordoned off, away from Daniel. Louis gives him instead eye-rolling amusement, the squeeze of linked hands.
You tuning into them?
Which, like. Of course Daniel is. It's just invitation to talk about any part of what he's heard, anything that might be weighing on his mind.
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As Louis notes: of course Daniel is. An unfiltered fire hose of vampire gossip and complaining and posturing, full of completely insane undead people who have no idea that he's eavesdropping. Even if a few suspect that the writer has been transformed (and a few do suspect it), a fledgling of his age shouldn't be able to hear as much as he does. Sneaky.
'There's been some talk in Hungarian about going after Lestat, but I can't tell how serious it is. People are wary of him, because they aren't sure how old he is, and there's this weird cycle that a lot of them get into, where they want to use the book as intel but don't trust it, or think it'd be gauche to acknowledge it, even when it's the thing they're mad about. It's funny.'
Vampires are weird.
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Perhaps Louis needs to stir the pot in Hungary. Not that Hungarian necessarily indicates location, but it's an acceptable starting point from which to draw attention.
Louis doesn't like it. Doesn't like attention paid to Lestat (who in fairness is cultivating a vampiric scandal all his own.) when it was Louis' choices that started them all into this track. More or less, anyway.
A bit of silence, the mental sense of tangling fingers. Of Louis, briefly gone away and then returned, attention warming as he fixes all of it back to Daniel.
It would be something to worry about if they could coordinate, but they can't. The younger ones squabble like alley cats and the older ones are waiting to see how long I'll live.
Shrewd assessments.
They do think it's gauche, what I did. Speaking to a mortal. They'd have thought you beneath me. Them. It's as much about that as it is about what you published.
Social faux pas, that's what the laws really govern.
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A notion he's considered before, but is more and more relevant of late. He thinks about how shocked he was when he first tried to publish the interview— how immediate the stonewall was. No time for anyone to research and verify his identity or who he'd spoken to. Immediate. The kind of speed and thoroughness that suggests a level of omnipresent awareness that outstrips the fumbling stalkers of the Talamasca by miles.
Lost in thought for a minute.
He comes back—
'I mean, that makes sense, it would be weird for me to have published an interview with a sandwich when I was mortal.'
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Swerving from the possibility of this or that coven, those who might have been quick to attempt to influence publishing. Who might present a more united front, yes, but Louis suspects there is little possibility of coordinating beyond their own chosen clan.
If he finds out, he might tell Daniel about it. A bridge to cross when the information presents itself.
Instead of belabor either point, Louis asks:
Where did you go?
Daniel had receded just a little bit away. Been a little less present. Returns and Louis leans into the sensation, drawing closer into the link between them.
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How to explain. Wheels around in his head; Louis may be used to sensing this particular kind of mechanic to the way Daniel thinks, by now— vampire advancements make everything almost too fast, processing on a level like reading ten books at once. Easy to get distracted, though he's getting better at focusing and utilizing things appropriately.
'When I published my memoir, my usual place wouldn't take it. Until the interview, it was the only book they wouldn't put through. It was a subsidiary of a decent market pillar, but it's gone now. Like shell company gone, gone. I dunno. Could mean nothing. It's not like the memoir did very well, compared to everything else, and my regular place knew it wouldn't.'
That was the excuse, at least.
'What's the first thing you looked for in it, when you picked it up?'
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He draws in closer, drawing carefully nearer. Easy to expel, if Daniel gives he slightest indication he doesn't appreciate Louis' proximity.
Your memoir?
Thinking back, recalling the day in which he'd lifted Daniel's book from the stand. Armand's hand had been resting at the small of his back. The clerk had handed Louis the book back wrapped in brown paper. He'd waited to open it, choosing a moment alone, let his fingers trail down the page.
Louis lets Daniel have these impressions, while he considers—
The night we met.
Louis had touched his mind that night, yes. But it had been years. How did Daniel remember it? Remember them?
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Had Louis reached out, then? Had Daniel never noticed? But how could he, mortal, preoccupied. What a warm thought. Neither of the realized just how much they missed each other.
But what he means is,
'Right. Because you're a vampire. If I wrote about it, no one would believe me, except for people who know vampires are real. The place that published my memoir didn't ask for a single edit, by the way.'
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You sure it's all because I'm a vampire, and not because I wanted to see if the handsome writer I met remembered me at all?
A different kind of ego at play. Flirtatious, inviting.
And a little debate before Louis lets Daniel feel it too, the memory of nervous energy as Louis had flipped through the pages. Anxious anticipation, wanting to find some sign of himself, of them, wanting it to be absent.
It had been. It it had felt like it had been, because Louis had read his own words and not recognized them. Had not quite found himself in the summation of Daniel's recounting of his exploits. Remembers—
The odd, empty feeling. Disappointment? (Armand had named it later: Does our boy's latest work disappoint?) Relief?
Not relief.
He had flipped to the front, begun to read from the beginning.
What are you implying about your memoir's publishers? diverts, a little tug of Daniel's attention back to his theorizing.
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Daniel is getting better about accepting compliments over anything but writing, but he's not out of the woods. Like. Maybe he was moderately handsome then, if Louis is being generous. But Daniel looks very different now, and in turn, looks very different than his immortal peers because of it.
Just kinda weird. Something none of them will ever understand, that he gets to deal with. But all the same, he makes sure Louis can feel his affection, like sliding a hand over his chest, to companionably settle on his shoulder. He gets it. Nervous about being remembered. Even with their highly edited scraps, they were important to each other.
'Dunno, exactly.' And here, a shrug. 'Our book got totally blackballed outside of Talamasca. My memoir may have been vetted. Something is out there.'
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Alongside that, a pleased glow over Our book.
It is complicated, Daniel's choice to publish. Louis' last minute reversal, hasty burst of fire seeking to claw back his story, come to nothing.
They haven't talked about it. What can be said?
But even with all of this, Louis still likes the sound of our book. Likes the way it sounds in Daniel's mouth, in their heads.
And he likes this too, this shared unraveling. Louis considers, offers, I can imagine there are those of us old enough to have gotten a hand into publishing. I don't know why they'd have paid attention to your memoir though.
Daniel hadn't remembered to write down the truth of San Francisco. Louis and Armand had made no claims, no shouts out into the many.
How will you find out for certain? About the memoir?
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Complicated, but good. Their book. Daniel was always going to publish it, even if he had to print copies and hand them out. The craziest thing he's ever done wasn't about to become lost media. Even if he was still going to just die of Parkinson's, he'd have done it.
Louis' answer, meanwhile, sounds charmingly innocent to Daniel. Don't know why they'd have paid attention, but even Talamasca, shoddily put together stalkers as they are, knew more about the truth of what happened that week. The idea that there aren't other vampires, who are better funded, fueled by superpowers, and all that shit, that knew, is pretty wild in that context.
But—
'I won't, probably. I've got other stuff going on right now. But I want you to be careful, yeah?'
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Uncertain when he will have Daniel again, be able to demand his presence and attention. Louis is investigating, but he has no real illusions about chasing down missing pieces of his memory being enough to hold interest. Daniel says other stuff and a question forms in Louis' mind, set aside so Louis can ask:
Of anything in particular? is a little teasing, a little curious.
Louis is well aware of the things he should be careful of. And maybe that's all it is.
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'Anything you're not sure about.'
Daniel doesn't know, exactly, what to look for. It's too vague, and it's too big for him to go after. He'll need a lot more time and perspective.
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Ambitious, even for Daniel.
The connection between them warms, tender affection kindling in the wake of these words. A wistful inclination towards touch, where Louis might put himself if given opportunity. (Into Daniel's lap, weighing him down, all the easier to kiss.) Can't say any of the soft things that come to mind, so Louis sends this.
Says instead, That'll eat up some time.
And then, lower, questions, When can I see you again?
A very mortal turn of phrase, a little funny for it's incongruity. They are not a pair of new-met humans enamored in the wake of a first meeting. They are something else entirely.
Louis asks still. Daniel can always tell him no. Daniel is always going to be busy, restless, chasing. The conversations around what they make of that, what they will be to each other and where—
Not yet.
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Faith that Louis will notice things, if Daniel nags him enough, and that he won't do anything too reckless. Sort of reckless, sure, but he has to believe (because he has no other choice) that if Louis saw something really and truly weird, a situational equivalent of that sign posted in underwater caves with the grim reaper on it, he'd back off.
And then—
'Anytime you want,' is warm, with the impression of a fond laugh. 'Except noon in a cafe, I guess. But you have the schedule.'
Lestat's schedule, he means. It's up to Louis decide if he wants to come meet up, intersect with the tour, or if he'd like Daniel to skim off at some point during a break. Of course, Daniel doesn't expect him to swan in here and hold his hand in front of Louis' maker — he expects Louis to keep using Daniel as a buffer for a while and eventually go back to him, frankly — but he could always quietly book a room somewhere down the street, and they could meet up. Go on evening cocktail dates. Pretend to be normal, or. Well. As normal as a pair of people who look like a hired caretaker and his patient can seem.
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The laptop clicks closed, balanced over his thighs.
Louis had admitted freely, I miss him, when Daniel had invoked Lestat. And it is true still. Louis misses him. He has the tour schedule. It has been discussed, whether or not Louis would attend a show.
It had been complicated then. It was complicated now.
The impression of tangling fingers, Louis' weight leaning in against Daniel. Chin hooked onto his shoulder. Telegraphed sensations of where Louis would like to be, how close he would like to be.
I could come to you, Louis murmurs. You have a few free days towards the end of the month, don't you?
Free on the schedule, but maybe not so free.
I'll bring what I have so far for you to look at.
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He really does love him. Almost embarrassing, how much.
'I do. Got your eye on a hotel somewhere that you like?'
Trying very hard not to immediately think of what Louis has so far and prioritize that over daydreaming about holding his hand. A proverbial gleam in his eye. Oooo, things he can dig into.
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Lestat's people have arranged his tour through mostly cities, all the better for hunting. Maybe some of these cities aren't going to afford Louis the kind of luxury he is most accustomed to, but there will be options.
And there will be Daniel.
Let me make the arrangements.
Because Louis likes that; doing for the people he is most fond of. No clearer expression of his love than the way he seeks to provide, even if it's only a hotel room.
You think on which bad movie you're gonna take me to see.
Treading across things said in Dubai, half-forgotten, only recently recovered, feels dangerous. But Louis likes this memory, likes how it felt when Daniel was offering him that company when they still felt near to strangers.
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And, maybe, try to reciprocate. Though he thinks he sucks at it. Maybe he'll try to find a classier post card. More stylish shoes?
He has no idea.
Smash-cut to:
Somewhere?
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It's not showing off, the quiet flex of wealth inherent in so much of what Louis does. He cares deeply for Daniel. He would like to give him the best of everything.
This is how it has always been for Louis. Affection telegraphed in the way luxury is laid out for them, the best of what they might enjoy caught and presented to them.
Admittedly, Columbus, Ohio, presents different options. Still, the details appear promptly in Daniel's inbox from Louis' personal email. A penthouse suite, staff instructed to expect Daniel's arrival. A coffin already arranged, discretion bought and paid for.
A brief message: Looking forward to seeing you.
Understatement. (Difficult to encompass the depth of feeling involved.)
There is every chance Daniel arrives first. The sweet-faced boy behind the counter is effusive in his welcome, and a handful of attendants appear in a rush to take his bags, offer to fetch anything he might want, is there anything the mini bar should be stocked with...?
He is advised: Mr. du Lac will be arriving within the hour. But here's a parcel waiting for Daniel, Mr. du Lac hopes it will keep Daniel entertained.
A white box on the coffee table contains a scuffed laptop, machine and its contents given over to Daniel's inspection. (The only sign of Rachida's presence, the diligence of her attention to every detail of Louis' intentions.) Louis' elegant handwriting marks out Daniel's name on a slip of paper, making the recipient of the offering clear.
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Louis is a provider, and he's attentive, and generous. Daniel doesn't think there's a single thing he could get him, especially not in Ohio.
He picks up a postcard. It has an unimpressive photo of the downtown Columbus 'skyline', and in big, loopy lettering, says, At Least It's Not Cleveland!, and in turn, it is at least not the other postcard Daniel considered, which was just a vintage photo of a naked woman. Lestat and every member of the touring band has autographed the back of it. Daniel sets it on the coffee table while he investigates the box, the box, what's in the box, oooo.
Is the power source fucked? Does it turn on, or is Daniel going to have to send it to a guy he knows? He's still digging through things when Louis arrives, and—?
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Louis' suitcase arrives before he does, delivered into the room by way of a fidgety young man Daniel may or may not recognize. His greeting is very polite, and very brief; he slips out of any attempts to engage in conversation, vanishing before the sound of a keycard activating the lock.
Revealing the reason for this hasty departure: Louis.
Soft gray sweatpants, immaculate sneakers, sunglasses hooked into the low v of his t-shirt, delicate fabric made more so by the heavy leather of his jacket. Expression warming as the door closes, as his gaze settles on Daniel.
"Hey," in greeting, crossing the room. "What have you made of it?"
As if they are only picking up conversation recently lapsed.
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Daniel looks up from the wreckage, and smiles. Louis, as usual, looks incredible— if Daniel didn't appreciate it so much he might take umbrage at his own vibe being so effortlessly upstaged, but it's impossible. Louis could wear a trash bag and look better than most people on Earth, alive or dead.
"Hey."
Warm. Just a little shy. Are they— does he get up, go to greet him, offer him a kiss? Are they those kind of people? He's not sure. It would be nice, but he doesn't want to be overbearing. So. He stands anyway, tries not to feel sheepish and dorky in his band tee and unremarkable shoes.
"Nice hotel pick."
?? Smooth.
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A moment's hitch, pausing. Maybe picking up some of Daniel's anxiety, caching some minr flicker of the emotion as Louis continues on, meeting him. Grinning a little over Daniel's approval, at the computer laid open on the table.
"Hey," Louis echoes back. Fond. "You look good."
A grazing, skimming touch along the edge of Daniel's mind in tandem as he reaches for Daniel's hand, for the front of his shirt.
"You been waiting long?"
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Also he's still—
Should he treat Louis like a woman? Probably not. But. How the fuck, etc.
More than any flustered nerves, though, is happiness at getting to see him in the flesh again. He squeezes Louis' hand when it touches his, and he covers Louis' other one on his chest. Green-blue eyes today, too dense, like pieces of a broken bottle washed in the sea for years and years instead of the clear water of his mortal ones, but at least not yellow-orange like his maker.
"Uhm— I dunno," and he has to laugh at himself, caught up in snooping. He glances at his watch (still ever-present, hasn't picked up a nicer one yet). "Little over half an hour, looks like."
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There are many good reasons to give Daniel his space. For Louis to maintain his own. And yet.
"Sorry I kept you waiting on me," Louis says instead, and answers the question he is sure will follow: "Had an artist open up their studio for a showing."
Accommodating Louis' requirement to meet after sunrise. Gone are the days when it was him and Armand, and Armand could take a meeting at noon if it was offered.
Louis' thumb runs back and forth, knuckles flattening comfortably under Daniel's hand. Little touches, little contact. The feeling of a heartbeat under his palm.
"It's good to see you," offered instead of I missed you. Sentiments that rhyme, even if the former feels less urgent than the latter.
All well contained, but Louis is also uncertain of what now. What they make of this time. His disparate desires to simply take Daniel to bed and stay there maybe not welcome, nor productive. There is the computer, there are things Louis has dragged from the minds of dying vampire, but is it enough to hold Daniel's attention?
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Still delighted by this fact, and so: waiting is no problem, especially when the payoff is Louis. Maintaining his smile, feeling sparks of too-young butterflies at the little touches. Way out of his league, but happy to be here for as long as he can. Tagging along with these talented, beautiful monsters, be it professionally with Lestat, personally with Louis.
Speaking (thinking) of, he could show Louis that card. Silly and a bit stupid, not ranking with artists that Louis is doing after.
But. Daniel looks like he's going to say something. Doesn't. Then tries again, finding courage—
"Can I kiss you? Are we the, you know, type to do that, 'Hey I missed you', and—?"
Because he's missed him. And it's good to see him.
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How does romance with Daniel work?
Louis has no clear answers. He is trying to find his way, not to make Daniel uncomfortable in the process. Remembers Daniel saying, I'm straight, by the way, and recognizing it as something that deserved careful handling.
But Daniel asks him this, and the answer comes easy: "You can kiss me whenever you want."
No need for any particular occasion, no need to wait for an excuse.
He releases Daniel's hand to run fingers along his neck, thumb the line of his jaw, and tell him, "I missed you," and then invite, "Come kiss me."
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Daniel can't be Lestat. He's not the kind of guy who can sweep anyone off their feet. But maybe it can be fun. Maybe it can be worth it, for Louis, in this stage of his life. Daniel would like that. Being worth it, in whatever capacity he's capable of.
His pulse skips at that touch, that invitation. He squeezes Louis' hand against his chest. It really is good to be with him in person. Telepathy is great, but this is worlds better. He leans in, and kisses him.
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Louis leans up into him, fingers sliding to the nape of his neck, thumb pressing down over the pulse beating in Daniel's throat. Reaches for his mind as they kiss, a skimming tease of contact tempered only by the awareness that Daniel might want to talk, just a little, before they fall into each other.
Teasing, and then alongside it runs a quieter, fretful impulse that is all questions, the muted impulse to ask, How has it been? How are you? What have you been doing? Are you happy, still?
They have been apart. Louis knows it's good for them both. And yet—
A slow parting, kissing Daniel again and then again after, soft and lingering, before saying, "Hey," again, into the narrow slip of space between them. "Missed you."
Like a reminder, a reassurance against the way Daniel shrugs off his own importance. Whatever they are, whatever they will be, he is always important. It will always be true.
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"Missed you, too." Warm. Daniel offers another small kiss, chasing in return. Helpless against wanting him, even through the tangle of insecurities he may always be working through.
"I'm glad you're safe. And here. I know we can talk anytime, but I like seeing you."
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Anything murmurs beneath the tangle of their minds, Louis sliding in among the neat order Daniel has been building within his own head. He learns so rapidly. It is different in some small way each time Louis touches his mind, sees how Daniel has grown since they last spoke.
"I'll stay stateside a while. Make it easier to show up when you got a couple off days."
And Louis has promised to attend concerts. Has been speaking to Lestat, text messages and phone calls. Similar reassurances. He is alive, he is safe, no one has harmed him.
Complicated.
Louis puts these things aside. Leans their foreheads together, slides his arm around his shoulders.
"You hungry? Or you wanna stay here and talk a while before we start thinking about those drinks you promised me?"
An invitation for Daniel to continue tinkering with the laptop, if he likes. Louis is willing to indulge, to enjoy the challenge of distracting him away from it in an hour or so.
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Louis being in the US is good. It makes him perk up, his eyes crinkling with the sincerity of his smile. Even if it's not completely for him, it's still good. Daniel likes the idea of him being closer, no matter the big picture reasons.
"I'm not hungry," he says, "but we could still go out."
Or else he really might vanish into work.
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Armand had wanted him, yes. Louis knows this, has never felt any reason to doubt it. Armand had wanted him, but by the time they parted, the unseen fractures between them had swallowed up any pleasure they could possibly take in each other's company. How rare it would have been, to see Armand look at him with the kind of sincerity Daniel shows now, smiling at the possibility of sharing a continent with Louis.
They do need to be disentangling, but Louis leans up and kisses him again as if Daniel's expression is something that could be tasted.
"Buy me a drink," Louis entices, punctuates with a last light kiss brushed to Daniel's mouth. "I'd like that."
Echoes of the past, Daniel fumbling a crumpled bill onto the bar to buy Louis something cheap but strong. Louis letting him, even though he had a wallet thick with cash.
"You can tell me what you been doing since I last saw you."
Whatever Daniel hasn't already offered up, set into Louis' mind whenever they reached out to each other telepahically.
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A conundrum, all that. He wants the information being collected, but he doesn't love the way Louis' been coping with things. At least for now, he's here with Daniel, and he can lean in for one last kiss and give his hand a squeeze, know that he's got him safe and sound for a few days.
"Hotel bar, or a walk?"
Daniel steps back, though slightly reluctantly; telegraphed in the way he keeps one hand linked with Louis'. He moves to snag the post card with his other, and holds it up—
"Chasing after these loons, mostly."
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The intention to walk is there in the casual tug towards the door, stymied as Daniel holds up the postcard.
And Louis smiles, even though behind the most immediate reaction is something more complicated.
"I bet they're giving you a run for your money," Louis says, reaching to take the card from Daniel's hand. Runs a thumb over the assortment of signatures on the opposite side, smile warming, shifting quieter in the wake of the initial grin.
"And I bet you got some stories. Maybe some you'll even tell me about."
Assuming the possibility of Daniel holding back. That some parts of him are private, and not meant for Louis, even if they involve Lestat.
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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Was that what those weeks of silence, absence of response, was that Daniel telling him to fuck off?
Louis closes the door quietly behind him. Follows because he is helpless to do anything else, kited along by Daniel with new eyes, sharper nails, scent altered.
Stands in the quiet, looking around the room. Daniel has been here? Long enough that his scent is comfortably suffused within the space. He has been well fed.
He has been a vampire for—
"I didn't know."
Isn't an excuse.
Isn't even followed with the things Louis had thought, his panicky worries, all fears between Daniel's declining health and the possibility of having been cut off forever. Not for Daniel to carry, the things Louis had been turning over in his head.
"Daniel," repeated, softer. An appeal. Look at him. Don't brush this off.
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He figured that was the case. Thought it had to have been, expected it, and yet still, somehow—
A rough exhale, like a laugh, and Daniel scrubs his hands over his face as he turns back around. Restless. He crosses his arms for something to do with his hands, and shrugs, though it's clearly an anxious gesture and not a dismissive one.
"I get it, because you were freaking out. You had to bail. I just— it's still a crazy thing to hear. Cognitive dissonance between completely understanding why you left the way you did, why you wouldn't have thought past the moment, needing to leave, and... what was going to go on when the door closed behind you. Because there was never a world where it was nothing."
So it's! Just! Crazy!
Daniel could laugh more. He could cross the room and hug Louis. Contradictions within him.
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The memory in question is so, so sharp. How angry he had been. How deep the betrayal cut. The full knowledge of the lie, of what Armand had took, what Louis had permitted to happen.
And still, he'd had that sliver of trust.
"He'd never," Louis begins, and stops.
A foregone conclusion. Armand did this. Does Daniel need to say it?
Almost eighty years, and maybe Louis didn't know everything but he had know this: Armand had never made another vampire. He had been repulsed by it. He had never chosen it.
And behind that, the awareness of what Armand knew. Of what Louis had wanted, intended.
"I'm sorry," is what Louis settles on.
Louis' fault. Louis had brought all of this to pass. Put Daniel in this position. And now they are here, and Louis cannot undo any of it.
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A collection of pronouns instead of a name. Armand would find that funny, he thinks. Haunting them so clearly.
"Me too, really. I was very confident he was just regular killing me. So you can imagine how weird waking up was. But fortunately I had these fucking nerds around and I got a safe ride out of town without torching myself by accident. Ready for all my opinions about how over-dramatic you've made certain aspects seem?"
Hey, look, he's got insensitive jokes still. Just going to steamroll right past all the potential trauma, yep.
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Lestat had been something like gentle with Louis. Lestat had given him a choice. But Lestat had not been Claudia. How could he have been? Maybe there was no other vampire who could ever have given the Gift the way Claudia had.
Louis had wanted to try. For Daniel.
It doesn't matter now.
"You can tell me," Louis invites, treading closer, further into the room. "Whatever parts of it you want to, or can."
What Armand had done.
How many ways Louis will have to make him suffer before he makes good on what he'd promised Armand before be left.
Doesn't say again I'm sorry, but it lives in his face still.
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"Gonna stay my business."
Whatever went on between he and Armand is forever behind the door Louis walked out of, as far as Daniel's concerned. Louis let it shut behind him, and went to New Orleans (so the nerds have said, maybe they're wrong), and it didn't occur to him that Armand had no reason in the world to obey, that Armand might be motivated to exact revenge on the person who'd set the bomb off, that Armand had spent two weeks with a psychic power drill held up to Daniels' temple right in front of him. And so that's where it's going to stay: behind the door, past which only Daniel and (unfortunately) Armand are privy to.
He exhales and internally shakes off the ill feeling. The idea of sharing anything about it, even with Louis, is just... strange. Daniel looks at him, small frown knit between his brows.
"How are you? Are you okay, with everything now?"
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A thing that will calcify, cement the sense of blame to underwrite the responsibility Louis had already assigned himself.
Whatever he might have said, whether or not Louis would have asked something more direct, swept aside by the question Daniel puts to him. Louis looks taken aback. Somehow, the last thing he'd expected.
"You're asking about me?"
Confused.
"I should be asked about you."
And he will. If they aren't going to talk about the act, they can hash out the aftermath.
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Louis doesn't know what it was like to be sick.
(Armand does.)
"I sent each of my kids a couple million, and I got to talk about censorship and extremism with Samuel Beckett via shoddy Zoom call. You had your whole life blown up, and you ran out before I could even ask if you were going to be okay."
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"You can't tell me he made it easy for you."
Not the way Louis would have, wanted to.
Maybe Armand made it a punishment. Maybe Armand made it a nightmare. Louis doesn't know. Daniel isn't saying.
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He looks at Louis.
What's easy? What does that mean? Growing up with immigrant parents terrified of genocide, being a hustler, being a drug addict, being the worst parent, being terminally ill, being tortured for weeks at a time? What's easy ever gotten him? But he thing is, he can say anything. He just isn't going to.
Behind tinted glasses, orange glints. Eerie.
"I'm fine, Louis. Don't rush me into hating it, okay? I've got a while, with any luck. Plenty of time to get miserable eventually."
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Louis had wanted to give him that. Time. The Gift, to make of it what he would.
A thought to be boxed away. What would Daniel do with it? What does it matter?
His thumb runs across Daniel's palm.
"I'm not rushing you into anything," Lous reassures. "I'm only sorry for how it happened. It's not what I wanted for you."
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"Don't do that," he says, sounding tired. Not unkind, but still. Gentle but firm to match the retrieval of his hand. "I don't blame you, it's not like that. But you did leave me with him. Those two things co-exist. So I can't— just, none of that. The what you wanted stuff."
It isn't true, and if it is, Daniel would almost find it worse. Louis what, wanted to make him a wrinkly old man vampire? How fucking ridiculous. Daniel is happier like this already, but it's definitely not ideal. The alternatives are all just even less ideal. At least in this reality, he gets superpowers and he doesn't hurt anymore.
"Besides, you might decide you're angry with me, when I tell you why I'm still London."
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Daniel doesn't want it, and so Louis puts it away. What use is it, what Louis would have offered? What he had wanted? Daniel doesn't want to hear him say it, and so Louis doesn't.
Daniel says, I don't blame you.
And Louis does not believe him.
This too, Louis holds in his chest. Lets the quiet settle before gamely asking, "Why are you still in London, Daniel?"
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Reckoning with Louis, wondering about how to manage his reactions and his feelings about it, is alien. This has nothing to do with you, he could say. Considers saying. Because while Armand might have had motivations surrounding Louis, Daniel's existence is his own.
It's just—
He doesn't want to be an asshole. Happens pretty often, though. Ask his exes. Ask his kids.
"They're helping me publish the book." He spreads his hands, shrugs. "Ten million and lighting my laptop on fire might have been okay if I was going to die in a few years, but I can't let it go, now."
He does not say Sorry. He would not mean it.
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Daniel can't let it go. He is taking Louis' life and publishing it.
Louis is quiet, eyes moving over Daniel's face. Taking in his eyes, the absence of familiar blue. Thinking of messages flung into a void, unanswered. Daniel's hand in his, in those last moments.
A shuttering in Louis' face, controlling the initial rush of emotion. He feels distance, and withholds in turn. Uncertain of them, of what connection has survived. Louis had left and had trusted Armand, and now this. Now they are here, and Daniel is telling him this without apology, without any give to the words.
Breaks the winding tension by stepping back, away. Circling a few paces from Daniel, gaze moving from him to the room.
Louis is still looking away from him as he asks, "Were you going to tell me?"
Or would it have simply been the book, released into the world?
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Flippant. Louis had signed over the rights already before Daniel even got to the penthouse. What was that going to look like, if he hadn't blown everything up? Was Armand only pretending to let it happen, waiting for Louis to look away before he killed the journalist then shrugged about the book never happening? Or was Louis going to do it himself, one last step to closure? He'd certainly been willing to hurt Daniel over the course of it.
He doesn't really think so. But it's a plot hole, to so speak, and with his maker AWOL, he can't ask the person who probably has the actual answer.
But—
"Of course I was going to tell you. That's probably why Traitor Agent Rashid ratted me out. The nerds didn't want me to."
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Something for later. This is about them, not the Talamasca. Not yet.
"I was never going to kill you," Louis answers. Easy honesty. Daniel has barred him from saying the rest, explaining the rest, so Louis leaves it there. Louis had always wanted Daniel to live, even when he didn't fully understand the whole of why.
How much to say to the rest? What he had wanted then, how much it had changed when Daniel had started digging? How much does it matter given what's been done now?
A breath, before asking, "Does it matter that I don't want you to publish it?"
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A beat, then—
"Sort of." What an awful answer. Daniel is aware, but his awareness doesn't help much. "Not enough to throw it out. Look, man, I only have so much time left to do this as Daniel Molloy. And this is going to change the world, the world that I'm now a part of on both sides. I can't just not go out there with the truth of it, not after all that. And that's what you wanted, too. This half-life under a rock thing fucking sucks. You wanted to throw the grenade into the shadows."
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It becomes something to weigh in a hand as he looks at Daniel and listens to this answer. The appeal behind it.
"It was different then."
Daniel should know. Daniel had pulled down the foundation upon which Louis had been standing on. Uncovered truth.
He hadn't known about Lestat. Hadn't known where the blame truly laid for Claudia's death. Whatever Louis had thought the story would shake free, it hadn't been that particular revelation.
An observation after, "But now things have changed for you."
That Daniel won't be swayed. He wants this book. He wants to take Louis's story and shake the world with it. What can Louis truly do to dissuade him, if his own preference for the story isn't enough?
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Very aware of that fact. He was there, after all. He saw it before Louis did, days before, maybe weeks before as soon as he got there, something rotten and fucked up and fake. If Daniel had been sicker, if he couldn't have come, Louis would still be stuck in a tower with Armand, playing house, having no opinions of his own, slowly wasting away.
Daniel doesn't want to say that. Doesn't want to say You owe me, because he hates that kind of shit, but it might be useful. Like he said, he does care— it's a personal kind of caring, because it's Louis.
But the story. He can't let go.
"Literal darkness is fine, for me. But figurative darkness isn't going to work."
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It is only a little like being cornered, backed in and caught. Things have changed. Louis hadn't expected the end of his own story to become a reveal, to exonerate Lestat, to break him from Armand. There had been something misaligned. Louis had known that. He'd known Daniel would find it.
He had thought it was a fracture, something that would realign. The scope of it—
No.
Louis puts contemplation of it away.
Swerves anyway, direct, asks, "Why didn't you call me, not them?"
Did Daniel think he wouldn't have come? That Louis wouldn't have helped him?
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A pause that goes on long enough to touch the edges of awkward, as he regards Louis, before he finally musters up:
"I wanted to deal with it and move on."
No, he does not think Louis would have come, while he was in the midst of a total nervous breakdown and fleeing back to Louisiana. He does not think Louis would have helped him, at least not right away, and certainly not in a style that Daniel could have tolerated at the time. Might still not be able to tolerate now. He understands that Louis's lack of attention is not because he doesn't care (probably), but that doesn't erase the fact that he simply wasn't there. That he let the door shut behind him and kept walking even as Armand drained all the blood out of Daniel's body.
He doesn't remember if he called out. But it doesn't matter. Louis either didn't hear, or wouldn't have anyway, no matter how close he was.
"You still haven't told me how you are. Though I should have pressed for an answer there before handing you another bomb, huh."
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But it's too late now.
Daniel is looking at him and Louis feels some stubborn, hurt impulse sparking in his chest. Vents it by treading away, further into the suite. It's a nice set of rooms. Not exactly on the level Louis would accept, but Louis is working with a very different budget. He runs a finger across the tabletop, disturbing none of the items laid across it.
"I'm fine."
Which was like, mostly true a few hours ago. A shrug of an answer, pushing past the question. Not important.
Turning, looking back to Daniel. Tugs out a chair, settles himself at the far end of the table. Familiar positioning. The interview is over but here they are, in a room, treading around difficult things.
"I'm sorry I wasn't there."
Is Daniel even going to allow this much of an apology?
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And things have been sinking in a very unique way, lately.
Watching Louis sit down, like they're getting ready for another interview, forces a lopsided smile onto his face. Things are tense and awkward, but he does care for Louis. A deep personal care completely sectioned away from his bullheaded inability to not publish, sure, but genuine. Louis, still all the things he is, and he gets to be them honestly now. Free from Armand. Even if Louis hates him for the book, Daniel's glad he blew everything up.
"I know."
Allows it, though whether or not that's accepting, Louis will have to decide for himself. Daniel's tone is soft, at least.
"And, hey." He shrugs. Considers a chair for himself, but does not yet pick one. "Armand can't get into my head anymore, which is a huge plus. Probably part of why he flipped and bolted."
Speaking the name into existence, making it real. Armand turned him, Armand is his maker, with his ancient blood from some pederast wannabe painter who walked the earth alongside Christ. Some real top shelf nonsense, given to the most annoying old man to ever live. Daniel's expression twists slightly, reluctant, shuttered. He can't stop himself from asking, and resents it.
"Have you heard from him?"
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All his romanticisms and embellishments, all the ways Louis has described maker and fledgling, and there is the single truth: whatever form it takes, there is a link. Something to tie maker and fledgling together.
Something Armand will tug on.
Something Louis had wanted to tie, soul to soul.
Does Louis want to argue? Maybe. A little. Daniel is offering him options, things for Louis to kick against, if he decides it to be worth the argument.
In the meantime, the immediate question:
"No," Louis answers. "He was gone. He left no sign as to where."
Some things withheld: how entirely Armand has shielded himself from Louis. How long it has been since Louis walked the earth without feeling Armand at the edge of his mind, like the link of fingers.
How Louis has wondered whether that light touch was more than he realized then.
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"Makes sense."
That's kinda funny, right?
Maybe not. Finally, Daniel sits down. Lets out a breath, and tries to find ease again.
"But I'm glad, for your sake. Glad he fucked off."
Listened to Louis halfway, at least.
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Did he seek Armand? Does he seek Armand now? Would he seek Armand if Daniel asked?
Varying levels of complicated, the answers to these questions. But there are answers. Louis holds onto them as Daniel moves them past the space in which they might be asked.
The sentiment is—
Daniel means it kindly. Sincerely.
Louis feels it like fingers pressing down on a bruise. Armand is gone. Daniel has paid a very high price to see this done. Louis is struggling with that now, the cost. Daniel is looking at him with someone else's eyes.
Abruptly: "I missed you. I been missing you."
The way Louis reached out, it had been for no other reason than wanting Daniel in his life. To maintain connection.
True now, still, even as Daniel seeks to publish Louis' story, deflects away his apologies.
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A paltry summary. The situation. Jesus fuck.
Louis, now. Finds a way to wound him, bittersweet. In between hours writing and researching and coping with new sensations and needs, he has thought sometimes of Louis, and imagined some other world. A world he does not inhabit. Has anyone ever missed him? Genuinely? People have said it. But they don't mean him, they mean some role he fills, husband, father, employee, caretaker. He thinks Louis might actually be the first person to say it to him, and mean him.
"I thought about picking up," he admits. "And I'd think about you, after I didn't." His gaze ticks away, uncharacteristic. Daniel, who stares dead ahead, confrontational even casually, is not infallible that way; being alone with it had in fact been horrible, as Louis absolutely knows, he just doesn't want to talk about it. Another beat, orienting himself, and he looks back.
"I've been worried. They said you went to New Orleans."
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He wasn't, when it counted.
Louis says it anyway. He had missed Daniel. All things are complicated and painful, but in the midst of it all, there is such relief to be each others company. Daniel looks away from him and Louis feels affection twisting in his chest.
Doesn't say, I wish you'd picked up.
Because he does, yes, but it wouldn't help Daniel to hear it. Louis would have come, would have helped. Maybe offered something more than the Talamasca had, than Armand did.
Doesn't matter.
"I did. Just for a few days," Louis confirms. Explains, "Called you on the way back."
That first call. The confusion at the absence of answer. Reaching out and finding empty space.
A similar experience trying to call Lestat, who must have almost immediately abandoned the phone Louis purchased for him. Abandoned, broke. Louis isn't certain. Has to make his peace with it.
"You shouldn't be worrying about me," Louis reminds. "I ain't the one with so much on my plate."
Just a moderate amount, suddenly.
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He'd made peace with being alone. Hell, he'd made peace with dying alone. Very handy, now, staring over the edge of the abyss of immortality. It had already been an easy enough concept to understand, the need for companionship driving an immortal insane, making them willing to do any and every awful thing to keep hold of it. Vampire loneliness, and tears rolling down cheeks, and very dramatic, and very sad, and all that.
So it was good, even if it was terrible. Start as you mean to go on.
Though, Daniel has to chuckle, soft and wry. "This has taken a lot off for me."
Another stark reminder that Louis doesn't know what it's like to be terminally ill, and he's never gotten old.
"Was it... I mean. Did I call it?"
Perhaps incredible to think, but at this point, Daniel doesn't know with absolute certainty that he was right, about Lestat. He's pretty fucking sure, but there's always the possibility of some other, unexpected angle.
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No, he had never entertained the possibility that Daniel could have been wrong. It was never a sense that Daniel was infallible, only that Daniel was incisive, perceptive in a way Louis couldn't be when it came to his own life and what was amiss within it.
Daniel had pulled apart Louis' recollection of the trial, and put a finger upon the heart of the great lie: Armand didn't save you. Lestat did.
Incredible, that he is asking now if he was right.
A breathless shift from surprise to affection, bypassing any other emotion that might have lived in-between. (His life, in pieces. His life, rendered into a book.)
"Yes," Louis tells him. "You were right."
Lestat, glossy-eyed in low light, shrugging off Louis' questions. Confirmation of the act, no answer for the rest.
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"I was one thousand percent sure about Armand," he says. Something funny about his tone there, personal heel-grinding, before he continues. "And I really, really believed it, about Lestat, but you know—" he gestures. "Vampires and shit, what if there was a million year old alien who was puppeting everyone, he was full of sentient worms that slowly replaced his body over the previous twenty years, or something, and I couldn't guess. But I'm glad it was him. I really am, Louis."
One good reveal, in a series of utterly bullshit reveals. At least Lestat cared, in the end. Or 'the end', because there's still an endless road of immortality ahead of each of them, on which they can do anything, everything they want. Mend broken fences or never see each other again, at least now Louis can decide with all the correct information.
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"I'm glad you were right."
About Armand.
About Lestat.
True, regardless of how messy Louis' existence is now. Standing in so much rubble, sifting through piece by piece, he is certain of this: he is grateful for Daniel.
Daniel, who saved him.
(And Louis failed him in turn.)
And then, carefully: "Do you want me to go?"
There's a possibility he is intruding. Unwelcome. Daniel deserves the opportunity to tell him as much.
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"But I'm about the blow this joint, anyhow, so you can think about your answer for a little bit, at least. You showing up is a pretty handy opportunity for me to leave. If you're in the mood to annoy some nerds."
Hey Louis, want to do an escape heist??
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In the present moment, Daniel proposes an escape and Louis smiles at him across the able. Shark-sharp, a hint of fang. Some appeal in stealing Daniel out of this place. Some appeal in thwarting the glassed man in the elevator, in helping Daniel to pry himself free of their grip.
"Okay," Louis agrees, leaning elbows on the table, chin on one palm. "Yeah, let's fuck up their week."
Louis owes them something in kind. Not just for Rashid, and whatever he toted back from Louis' home.
"You got a plan?"
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Daniel laughs, a bright thing. If they really had run around together in the 70s, they'd have rewritten that whole town, he bets. (You're young again, he reminds himself, viciously pleased, but that's his business. Louis doesn't need to see just how far down he's going to be willing to go as a decrepit old man.)
"I figure if I'm not alone I can just walk out the front door," he says, shrug in his tone. "Just have to find where they put my laptop. Not the one you melted, I picked up a shitty overpriced one in an airport."
And then. Daniel makes a face, nose wrinkling, staring at Louis oddly.
'Can you hear me like this?'
He coughs, then, like something itches, and he rubs his nose. Trying very hard not to talk out loud while attempting telepathy, which is a bit too loud. Unpracticed, a radio dial swinging around clumsily.
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"We can find the laptop," Louis is saying, and then—
Daniel touches his mind.
An electric shock. All these years, all these decades. Who else has touched his mind but Armand? (Armand wearing grooves, familiar pathways, deep fingerprints pressed into Louis' head.) Seventy-seven years since Claudia was killed, and there had been no one, no one, no one but Armand.
And now Daniel.
Louis' mind opens up, welcoming. The sense of fingers sliding over Daniel's, steadying the dial.
I can hear you, comes back to him, Louis' gaze holding Daniel's. It'll stop feeling so difficult after we've had some practice.
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His head is like a cluttered, lively office space. Always quick thinking, always direct and cutting, but it's supercharged now, and it takes him a moment to really focus on Louis. The other vampire will be able to catch impressions of the way he's been practicing, mentally eavesdropping on mortals, all the while pretending he can't quite figure it out. No guidance, no mentor, oh poor unfortunate Daniel Molloy, who just doesn't know what he's doing.
Morons.
Anyway. He grins behind his hand. Louis! In his head, and he can feel him, like leaning against a phone in the kitchen, like holding hands. Not all like the ominous feeling of being too-closely observed when he was being dissected as a mortal.
'I swapped out the drives on my laptop already. They've got backups of a digital library in the basement, though, and I want those.'
"I think it's, uh. I think it's like... they've got it in the other room, with this agent."
Oh god, Daniel's actually pretty bad at being a secret agent.
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A little tug. Come to me telegraphed in the welcoming pull of the link between them. Drawing Daniel in, close, to the vibrant warmth of his mind. More impression of a space, mingled with color and heightened sensation. Emotion. Intimate. Not an empty room, not the clean minimalism of Dubai, but a space colored more by the feeling of Louis and the burst of his thoughts than anything else.
This too, a space in flux. Like all things about Louis in this moment, it is shifting and changing. Evaluated and repurposed as Louis finds his way in the wake of all this change.
You want to rob them, carries such clear interest. The sensation of linked fingers tightening as Louis' smile widens back at him. Pleased at the idea. Alright.
"Anyone we know?" Louis is saying aloud, straightening in his seat, tapping fingers on the table.
We can go ourselves. Or we can make someone go for us.
Bribery, or otherwise.
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Not entirely an open book, he's already become adept at locking away certain things (iron vault doors, no access, memories of transforming, opinions about his maker) but welcoming. Happy to telepathically hold hands, even if he's not sure what that is besides a stabilizing gesture. Daniel rubs his nose again. Trying very hard not to match words aloud with words thought.
'They owe us both. It's just collecting the tab.'
Oh-so-innocent.
"No, your butler keeps his distance."
And if there's anyone else (the man with the silver hair, glasses?), it's not of note. Handlers in formalwear, old-fashioned, things Daniel has noticed like: they aren't tech-illiterate by any means, but the organization has been around for so long that they're constantly in a state of upgrading to every new modern era, and like any organization, it takes time. He's made the most of his middling sleight of hand, and so far, no one's noticed.
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Some satisfaction in this too. Daniel will be a good vampire. He will make much of the Gift.
And he will be alive.
Abruptly, impulsively, Louis reaches across the table to Daniel, taking up his hand. A mirroring sensation, mind to mind, hands linked.
"I could ask regardless," Louis says, followed by He came to find me. I'm not sure if is at their direction or if he was acting on his own.
If it was a play to get Louis here, what was the purpose? Louis isn't certain of the immediate benefit. He isn't certain of what would motivate Rashid to take the risk. Unknown variables.
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He looks at Louis with his uncanny bright eyes, amber-orange burning through lenses that attempt to keep them looking normal. The physical hand holding is unexpected, but he likens it to Louis seeing him as a sort of child, in this unlife. Anchoring. He supposes it makes sense.
"You could. They might try to recruit you, though."
Rashid is a puzzle. Louis can glimpse film-reel snippets as Daniel thinks of it, memories of the sushi restaurant in the lobby of the tower in Dubai, Rashid and the man Louis glimpsed earlier.
'Lucky for me, I guess, you were never too micro manage-y about your employees' thoughts.'
Like, they really got away with quite a bit, during the interview. Neither Louis nor Armand (? maybe?) seemed aware of the spy bullshit playing out. Daniel hasn't harassed Rashid much, but then, he hasn't seen Rashid much; he split as quick as possible after chucking the paper on the table. Not one of his handlers. Maybe not a real agent, and just an asset.
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Was Armand? Maybe, maybe not. Louis hadn't asked, but wonders now if Armand had been keeping track. If the possibility of a human in their employ creating such a problem had struck him as impossible.
"They can make me an offer," sounds genuinely amused. Smiles, all shark teeth. Unforgiving. Louis holds a grudge. "I'd like to hear it."
They couldn't stop us from taking it.
Practical.
However, it begs the question: Do you want to be subtle? Keep them from knowing what you have?
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Are any of these guys going to survive, if they piss Louis off without his shitty ancient insect ex to sedate him? Is this a good idea? ... Does Daniel care? Maybe a little. Rashid is probably safe, if he stuck around downstairs, and Raglan is gone.
So.
It'll be fine. Daniel squeezes Louis' hand, then lets go.
'I guess that would be ideal,' he communicates as he gets up and goes to grab a messenger bag, already half-packed with leftover vital pieces. Might as well move now. Do it live and all that. 'But I'm not standing on ceremony if we have to cause a problem.'
Shall they?
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Stays close, lingering around the edges of Daniel's mind. Intimate contact, even as Louis keeps polite distance from the patter of Daniel's thoughts.
They took you, and they invited me. Borrowed trouble all on their own.
Maybe an oversimplification. Louis is comfortable being uncharitable.
When he opens the door, it startles away an unprepared eavesdropper. He takes a few steps backward, away, and Louis' expression shifts towards amusement.
"We're going," Louis tells him. "You can go on and hail us a cab."
Casual flex of monied expectations.
Louis looks back to Daniel. Queries, Elevator? in the same moment as he asks, "Do you have everything?"
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A moment laugh, though, at the idea of the Talamasca taking him. Doesn't elaborate.
(Where was he supposed to go? Louis had abandoned him, symbolically destroyed what they'd worked on, labored over, suffered over! for those weeks, and Daniel was alone. It was call in his current stuffy 'hosts' or burn. He wanted a book and to live, and finally, he wasn't just making manipulative sad eyes about it.)
"Let's go."
An answer to both.
He thinks he's figured out that surveillance can't quite see him in the alcove just behind the door, and so after opening it, he pauses there for a while. Considering. Assuming, hoping, people are moving to intercept one way, while they're planning on heading elsewhere. To the elevator, then, and Daniel presses the button, waits, enters, presses another button, and then considers how to get out of the box while it's moving.
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But no.
The laughter drifts between them, Louis' flicker of curiosity following in its wake. Set aside.
In the moment, following Daniel's lead. Trails him into the elevator, abandoning the pretense of speaking aloud to focus on their mental conversation.
Shall we disable the camera?
Just a thought.
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Noises. Humming from the elevator, humming from the lights, and all else. Daniel's not great at it, and is certainly happy to let Louis take over. He'll watch him, of course, and continue to listen and parse through what's what— he could probably do the sledgehammer method and just yank out the whole overhead bundle of wires, but he doesn't actually want to get the carriage car stuck.
His phone beeps. Daniel checks it, a neutral inquiry from the agent in charge of this facility, asking him how his meeting is going. Very funny. He pretends not to know he's definitely being observed, and replies saying it's fine.
'They're definitely curious.'
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Maybe curious enough to let Daniel rob them, just to see how he'd do it.
Louis has spent decades erasing himself from public consciousness. The scrutiny rankles. Hard to tell if that's fully Louis' reaction or if Armand taught it to him.
Something to think about later. Louis reaches up with his mind, following the buzz and hum of machinery, of electricity, traces the subtle third frequency to its source and twists.
Somewhere, in some little room, a screen goes static.
You can blame it all on me if you like. I'm aware of what their files say about me.
Volatile. Dangerous.
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Cool.
An impression of a laugh—
'Yeah, they've tried to talk me into being afraid of you. They've got an impressive collection of long distance paparazzi pictures of all of us from over the years, and don't seem to realize that's the thing that would freak me out, if any of it would.'
Just not scared of Louis. Maybe he should be, but he doesn't have it in him, not really. And especially not anymore. Even if Louis does decide to be violent with him — not out of the question, it's happened before, more than once — he'll be fine. Nothing hurts, anymore. Daniel can do stand in front of an oncoming train if he wants to, just to watch his bones come back together.
Sleight of hand time: letting the car stop at the ground floor as they weasel out the maintenance hatch, then go down the ladder to the actual basement level they're looking for. Maybe it's weird watching Daniel be able to do it, moving like a young person, looking like he does.
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Joyous, seeing Daniel move easily, without pain. And then deep sorrow, deep guilt, because Louis cannot look at him without seeing how Daniel was gifted this relief.
A deep ache too, something that feels like loss. Louis had wanted to give him these things. Wanted to offer. It had been one error, and now they are here.
Complicated.
But Louis follows him out. Follows him down.
Another door, another spate of mortals. Cheerily arguing. The disconnected camera has raised no alarms this far down, apparently.
What would you like to do with them?
Just curiosity. Louis has his own ideas, but makes space for Daniel's. What are Daniel's intentions here? There are two. Perhaps they drink. Perhaps they don't.
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Robbing them is fine, but he's not interested in going on a killing spree. They're going to publish the book, after all. A car crash on the bridge will do just fine where burning it down would be a bit much.
And it's not like he's starving. No farm, no cute fuzzy animals, but he's made do. A new vampire still, Daniel's hunger is ever-present, but he's topped off enough not to be held hostage by it. The dweebs on the other side of the door don't make him feel any particular sort of way, and besides, even if he would drain them and feel nothing about it should the only way out end up being through, he remembers Louis' hangups. Ones he doesn't share.
Should he?
Life's weird.
"Hey, fellas," Daniel says, upbeat, as he opens the door. His greeting is underscored by the crunch of the handle and lock shattering, and sudden frantic shuffling.
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A sign, perhaps, of how little threat Louis feels the Talamasca to be. Humans, knowledgeable and nosy, but all the same, human. What is the worst that can truly happen? Their attempt at subterfuge is blown, and they leave anyway with what Daniel wishes to take?
Besides, he likes watching Daniel approach the door this way. Likes the bluntness of his entrance, likes the panic he inspires.
The door swings open and Louis smiles into the room, all shark-sharp charm and gleaming teeth.
"Do you know who we are?"
They must. And maybe no one is afraid of Daniel just yet, but Louis has a decades-long dossier and it is uniformly unflattering. Why not trade on this, just a little?
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And none of that shit's going to work.
"Mr Molloy," starts one, and there's some stammering, even as a young woman moves to grab a high powered UV flashlight. Daniel takes it from her, feeling like he's barely moved, but she gasps. He knows already all it'll do is itch, because it's not the fucking light quality, it's life, but the principle of the thing remains.
Rude.
He advises, "Just chill out," and moves past them to the workstation computer.
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"Don't," he advises. Don't pull out another little light. Don't push any buttons. Just don't.
A glint of fang is his mouth is convincing. The man is steered backwards. His partner is watching, her hands opening and closing into fists. Deciding how foolish she wants to be.
Into Daniel's head, Louis asks, How much time do you need?
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Clickclickclick. The young man is terrified of Louis in particular — Louis du Lac, hunter of young men, predator, the stuff of nightmares, as beautiful as he is deadly, he keeps thinking of the autopsy photographs, hundreds of them, every one of Louis' victims they could find. One or two over the years they've dissuaded by staging a car accident or a pulling a fire alarm, but this creature, the vampire holding his elbow, is in possession of a violent appetite that haunts the dreams of more than one agent.
So they all say. So someone said to Daniel, in a restaurant in Dubai.
He moves away from the console, looking for the isolate drive he's after. Ignoring her frozen co-worker, the young woman moves for a panel beneath the desk—
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Louis has a finger pressed down at the edge of their minds, monitoring the flow of thought. Tasting the quality of their fear. Louis turns it over in his mind, this patter of memory of all his worst acts.
What Louis will make of it is anyone's guess. In the moment, Daniel is at work and Louis has this young man by the arm, sweeps his eyes around the room and—
Bad luck, for this intrepid young woman.
Louis sees her.
He moves so, so quickly. One moment he is scraping a thumbnail down the inside of this young man's elbow, the next he is hauling the young woman up off her feet. It's a graceful movement, terrifyingly so. The promise of violence is contained in it.
"He said, let's chill," Louis reminds her, lightly scolding tone. Confides, casually, "He's still very human. He wants to keep you alive."
The implication: Louis doesn't.
How true it is doesn't matter. It only matters that Louis says it aloud, and scares her enough that she believes him.
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Does Armand know they're together? Does he still look through Louis' head like a psychic surveillance camera? Or has he fucked off entirely without so much as a thought for what's behind him?
Doesn't matter, does it.
"If you're that scared of vampires," he says for the benefit of these humans (so distant from him, and they would be even if he were still mortal, because they're young people working at a secret agency, what the fuck is that), "this is probably the wrong job."
The drive is extracted. Daniel pries it loose with pointed fingernails, and has to settle with hoping this is what he's after. He's not a fucking hacker.
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The worst of Louis' habits, unfettered. Twenty years ago, give or take, but still his. Still observed and collected and scrutinized. This boy is terrified, but this boy is not the only one who has seen them. This boy is not the only one who knows Louis' name.
Rashid was in his home for such a long time. They had thought, a controlled sort of breach. But then Louis had stopped listening and Armand had been meant to control the flow.
Louis is looking into this girl's face. She is thinking of autopsy photos. She is thinking something accusatory. She's embarrassed. Louis could tell her there's no reason to be. It's very human, to wish to live a few hours longer. No one needs to die in this vault.
"Have your souvenirs?" Louis enquires, gaze coming around to watch Daniel put the drive into his pocket.
Considers their two young hosts. The man hasn't moved. The woman has backed away.
It's in her mind. She'll push that button the moment their backs are turned. Louis offers this to Daniel, a brief little touch between their minds to convey the impression, like passing a note he found in her pocket.
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Will Molloy kill them? Agent James seems to think he's both safe and very sharp, and they're not one hundred percent sure what that means (he thinks it means Molloy is just lucky, she thinks it means he's fucking somebody, which she also thinks is gross), and—
"Think they can both fit in the storage closet?"
They're gonna, even if they can't.
It's cramped and full of replacement power sources, and both mortals get shoved in there, squashed together, socks shoved in their mouths, heavy server shelf shoved over the door and its smashed handle. There. No button. Daniel looks at Louis when it's taken care of. Proverbial dusting of hands.
'I think we're nearing our time limit.'
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Touching the minds of these young agents, Louis is aware that they are wondering if they will mark the start of a new spree.
But no, not today.
They are trapped into a closet, where they will surely be found. Door closed. Unable to push the button, alert anyone to what Daniel and Louis have done.
Good enough, for now.
Louis adjusts his jacket, brushes some nonexistent lint from the fabric. Yes, they're pushing their luck if they linger.
Back the way we came? Louis questions. Some real enjoyment in the idea of walking out the front door, if they can. We might meet some opposition.
No alarms raised, but the Talamasca hasn't survived this long without some healthy suspicion.
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Options— stairs with fire alarms on the doors, and the elevator, which is no doubt being monitored. Daniel moves towards the stairwell first, but pauses, sensing activity on the floor above them. Getting pretty good at figuring out where people are, at least nearby. Maybe a modest single family home's worth of a radius.
Daniel does not really want opposition. Louis might find it interesting, or thrilling, Daniel doesn't know. He's not afraid, not of getting into a scuffle nor of Louis, but he's never been a violence guy. He'll offer a blowjob before he throws a punch, but the former definitely isn't going to help, here, so uh.
'Elevator, I guess?'
Will it even show up. Daniel pings the button, but after a moment, he just shoves the doors to the shaft open. It's clearly been turned off.
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We can climb, is the more practical suggestion. Elevator shafts are made to be traversed, to some extent. It would be challenging to a human. It is not impossible for a vampire.
Louis ducks beneath Daniel's arm to look up, send his focus upwards to feel the absence of power. Find an absence of cameras. One advantage. An elevator shaft not truly equipped to monitor a pair of vampires scaling the walls.
We can pick any floor is more or less true. Amends, Maybe skip the lobby.
Vague impressions in Louis' mind. Dropping from high windows, landing in the street. Not discreet, but that's the Talamasca's problem to solve.
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Louis is—
Beautiful. It strikes him, out of nowhere like a sucker punch. He's always known, he'd been smitten by him immediately fifty years ago. But with these eyes, transformed as they are, Daniel can see just how truly radiant he is. And he seems happy, or at least, he seems like himself. Dark and real, at least honest.
He shakes it off. Hopefully Louis didn't get much of an impression. Embarrassing.
"Alright, up, and pick your favorite window."
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"Stay close," is what Louis says aloud. Flashes a grin over his shoulder, and steps into the shaft. Begins to climb.
It's a pleasant enough exertion. Easy going, up and up and up, Louis' mind open to the buzz of Talamasca agent minds. Most shielded, but some cracks here and there. Enough to guide Louis' decision when he swings out from the handholds to begin levering open a door.
Third floor. Not abandoned, but not packed with opposition. A handful of agents rushing, chattering, occupied with their daily tasks.
No one immediately notices the elevator door pulling open, no ding of arrival heralding the occasion.
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Fast, easy, and he's grateful for it— sometimes every so often he finds himself fumbling, and feels panic rise in him, thinking it's his hands trembling again when it's just baby deer legs. There's a half-open door with a clear view towards them, but Daniel quietly shuts it, like dropping a cover over a parrot's cage. Shh, nothing going on out here.
Sturdy windows, treated to see through from the inside while remaining opaque from the outside, security bars, a tiny tab that suggests an alarm system. Daniel runs a hand along it, trying to find the wire, and then jams his thumb through the wall below the frame. Clumsy, but, hm.
He pokes at the wire.
"Think an alarm will go off if we tamper with it?"
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Louis doesn't sound very concerned but he suspects Daniel might want to avoid tripping an alarm.
It's a curious thing, these inner workings of the Talamasca. All these human precautions, and they are nothing for two vampires. A minor inconvenience. They'd be less of one if Daniel and Louis were different vampires.
"Are you worried about the alarm system?"
Direct.
They're in each others heads. Louis asks him this aloud anyway.
Does he understand the way Daniel cares for him? Yes. No.
It's complicated. Louis is many things. Depressive and guilty and angry. He failed Daniel. He is aware of it. It shifts his perception of who could feel what, of what Daniel could forgive and Daniel could feel for him, the person responsible for so much of what's befallen him.
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Wry. Maybe he doesn't care, morally or ethically, no, but he might like to avoid a scene. A complicated relationship with these people. They owe he and Louis, but they also got him the real deal, the actual script, annotated by Armand. He thinks Louis would have wanted to believe him, without hard evidence, without the smoking gun that made all the smugness slide off Armand's face. But would he have been able to push all the way through?
So small, when he notices. Not a fully conscious noticing. An awareness like feeling pressure shift in a room. The door he closed, soft and quick to open again, and—
BANG.
A gunshot rings out a split-second after Daniel has grabbed Louis and pulled him close
CRACK.
It smashes into the glass, gets stuck in it, fucking Pope-proof windows, sending a spiderweb of a shatter. Daniel looks horrified, frozen in the heartbeat of a moment, suspended in time, slowly coming to terms with this abrupt change as the ticktick of one and a half seconds sluggishly drags on.
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To her credit, she holds her ground even as he face goes pale.
There's more coming, Louis cautions, words blooming in Daniel's head fully detached from the savagery of the expression on Louis' face. We should break the glass.
Fuck the alarm, more or less.
Louis blurs from Daniel. The agent gets another shot off, bullet hitting a wall, and then screams as Louis breaks her arm. The gun clatters to the floor.
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And Daniel calls himself a writer.
He's stunned for a moment. The second shot rings in his ears, on top of how the first was still ringing, and he feels disoriented. Logically aware that this is shock, that despite all the dicey, dangerous, tight spots he's found himself in over the years, he still doesn't like violence, still abhors gun violence in particular, still does not like finding himself in the same room (or hallway) with it.
He hears Louis, and he hears the scattered, static-y radio waves of panicked mortal thoughts, this agent and ones in other rooms, swiftly but carefully mobilizing. She hates these creatures who prey upon humans, she has seen so many awful, brutal things, and now one of those awful, brutal things is happening to her, because she did her duty and tried to rescue their asset from being abducted.
Guilt stabs at him. He makes himself break the window open anyway.
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And they do fear him. He can feel it. He can hear it in the cacophony of their thoughts.
Louis grips this mortal by the throat, and flings her bodily across the room, through the door where agents are gathering. Their shouts and her scream carry, are barely stifled by the door Louis closes.
"Let's go," he says, crossing the room. Touches Daniel's cheek, gentle, something meant to be grounding. "I have a car on the corner. Run to your right."
Louis takes him by the hand, turning to shattered windw. They can jump, and land without any injury. The sidewalk cracks under impact. It doesn't matter.
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Daniel should have just called, a week ago. Daniel should have slipped out the back door when Raglan told him to.
He didn't, he was never going to. It was always going to be this, because he's stubborn, and he's determined, and he prioritizes work over everything and everyone, no matter what it ruins. That doesn't stop the churning in his stomach that has nothing to do with the jump down, or the sprint to the right.
"Are you okay?"
—A shaky question, fumbling at the car door.
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The door slams. They break several traffic laws instantly.
Louis still has hold of Daniel's hand. Touches his mind, a gentle pressure drawing Daniel closer.
"We were moving too fast for them," Louis tells him. "And they didn't want to hurt you."
The asset. It's fortunate enough.
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They didn't want to hurt him, but they would have hurt Louis.
"You've been through way too much shit to risk getting shot at over me," he says, sounding as upset as he feels. Adrenaline for a little sneaky crime, sure, but this isn't that, this is real fear.
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Hm. Maybe not the kind of statement Daniel finds comforting.
"Daniel," he appeals. A little squeeze in return, the pressure of his thumb over Daniel's knuckles. "Daniel, I'm not doing anything I don't want to do these days."
Flexing autonomy. Chasing idle desires. Some of this manifests in decor. Some of it manifests in a heist. Louis is pleasing himself these days. He isn't averse to the messiness and danger of what they'd just done.
"I wanted to get you out. I wanted you to have your information. I don't care about the rest."
Maybe in a few days Louis can tell him it was fun, in a way.
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He gets a grip, because he's not a child. But he notes it. Louis came after him, helped him out, now he might have made enemies when he should be finding himself and his life post-Armand, and some woman has a future of years in surgical recovery to save her arm.
Of course Daniel went along. He, too, wanted the information. He wanted it easy and immediately and it wasn't so bad seeing Louis do impressive things, it's all just—
He's not sure.
"Thank you for helping me."
So, there's that. Not a total asshole, even if he's already thinking about which red light he's going to get out of the car at.
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Can't ask, Why didn't you call me? though it weighs on him. It weighs on him as his own choice to give Daniel space weighs on him.
Hesitates.
Curls his grip a little tighter.
"Where do you want to go?"
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It'll always be true that Louis walked away and Daniel died. But it can be true, at the same time, that he's happier now, and that he doesn't blame Louis for what happened. Or how it happened. Life isn't neat, and very little is mutually exclusive. He will never hold it against Louis, but there will always be a footnote there, a reminder to be ready to protect himself. He can't ask to be anyone's priority.
And that's fine. That's always been him. An ocean of burned bridges, ruined relationships, "friends" behind him. Louis is so important. He can't... he just can't.
"I have to go home."
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It is true, and it weighs so heavily on Louis. It had cost Daniel dearly, Louis' freedom. He'd forgotten himself, chosen to indulge the overwhelming need that had cracked open in him over Daniel.
Laces their fingers together more securely.
"I can take you home," Louis offers gently. "I'd like to."
Do the thing he should have done in the first place. Too little too late.
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Just for a second, Louis' driving him somewhere, they're near a less-impressive bridge than the one on all the postcards, veering towards Stockton, and a shitty apartment. Maybe it's 1973, and everyone's the same age that they look. 1992, maybe. He's divorced. He's going to get the fuck over himself, admit it all, finally, because the date he's on is maybe the best date he's ever had, and all that's happened is they laughed over a few drinks.
Wouldn't it be nice. Wouldn't it be nice, too, if it were six months from now, and Daniel was settled, and the idea of going on a flight with someone else, bringing them into his apartment, being scrutinized and watched over, didn't make his skin crawl. He feels bad about what he's about to do, but he also feel like he's going to claw his way out of the car if he doesn't do it. He's grateful for the help, guilty for the harm, and he just needs some space.
"The airport is fine."
Close enough to home.
"Or— couple blocks," he points, "should be a tube connection I can hop on. I've been to London fuck knows how many times. I just," man, this feels weird, "I'll make sure they don't take it out on you. I can make some calls. And I just need to figure it out, Louis. I need to know I can do it."
Alone.
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And Louis doesn't want to leave him.
"I'm not worried about them," Louis says, the easier topic. "I don't want you spending your favors on me."
The Talamasca can do what they like. Perceive him as they like. Louis doesn't care at all. But he cares about Daniel, and whatever link he's cultivated. Better to shift blame to Louis, who wants nothing from them, needs nothing from them.
A tightening of linked fingers. Indulging the impulse to hold on.
A thought held behind his teeth: I just found you.
It's painful. This request is painful, more so because what can Louis do but acquiesce?
Carefully, attempts a minor appeal: "Say you ain't going to vanish on me. If you won't give me until the airport, give me that much?"
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"Hey."
Boyishly exasperated. Everything's a bit weird right now, but there's no need for doom and gloom. For one thing—
"I'm not the vanishing type."
Unlike his exes who've run out of steam and given up, and/or the vampires who dumped him in a crack house and vanished for fifty years. Ha ha. Daniel will follow through even if it risks killing him, as Louis damn well knows.
"If you don't take care of yourself I'm gonna be pissed, though."
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Some minor objection. Daniel did vanish, for some months. Louis had reached out and reached out and reached out into nothingness and Daniel had not reached back.
He could argue the point. He doesn't.
"I don't wanna go such a long time without speaking to you again."
Trying to say a thing without saying it. Gripping Daniel's hand. Wanting to ask him to stay. To let Louis help, in whatever way would suite Daniel best.
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Vampire loneliness, horrendous crimes over coupling, eternal lives ruined, children executed. He doesn't want any part of a coven, he doesn't want a companion, he doesn't want an almost-companion. Maybe in time, he'll figure out how to regulate how he feels about it. But he's not going to figure anything out while someone's watching.
What's he going to do, take care of Louis? No. Daniel is a bad partner and a bad parent. The idea of being responsible for someone else makes him want to find the nearest escape hatch. Always has. Being ransomed also has little effect on him— he knows he's not actually vanishing, knows he's not a suicide risk, and so, Louis has nothing to worry about.
"Don't change your number, then." Assuring. Look. They'll figure it out. "And think about the book, huh? You wanted to change the world. We're gonna."
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A sentiment so entirely divorced from these past months of silence.
He had missed Daniel. He had been missing Daniel, years of missing him, without even fully understanding or recognizing the feeling. The way Daniel says this thing, it reminds Louis of the night they met. It reminds him of the way Daniel talked about his interviews, fussing with the strap of the bag holding his tape recorder.
World-changing. Daniel has done his fair share already.
Daniel could open the door and step out of a moving car if he wanted, but Louis doesn't make him. He pulls to the curb, as directed. Daniel is going to leave. Louis is going to let him. Daniel will publish the book. Louis is going to let him. Inevitable, all of it.
Louis wants it to be inevitable too, that they come back to each other. But he doesn't know how to draw that out of Daniel, so bites back the urge to appeal more strongly to him.
"Call me," he says instead. "I want you to call me, anytime you like. Or need."
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Louis' eyes are so green. He's so beautiful, even looking unhappy with him, in the dim light of the car, with the highlights from outside. Flashing neon colors from the traffic signals, and the false warmth of yellow street lamps.
Daniel reaches over to touch his shoulder. Leans in, presses a kiss to his cheekbone. It feels friendly and chase, it feels too intimate, it's half electric and half gutting. He loves him. He wants to stay. But all of that puts fight or flight into him like a cornered animal.
Not ready. Might not ever be.
"You're gonna get so annoyed when I figure out how to really call you."
A grin, and wink, and he hops out of the car. Into the night.