followups | so, when you come back

"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."

"I wondered if you already knew."

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.

"Oh."

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?"

"I miss him."

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."

Yeah no shit

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.

"Or for your friends to make an appearance."

A sly, needling look. Invoking the Talamasca.

"Unobjective paper trails are better."

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?"

Or is it disqualifying, the vampirism?

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."

"The drama," Louis echoes. Amused. Fond.

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.

Just dreams.

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."

For a heartbeat—

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.

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.

"You've got more."

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.

Pause.

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.

"You'll remember."

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.

"Mmm."

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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