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."

It isn't. Louis knows that it isn't.