followups | so, when you come back

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.

How blank Daniel's eyes had been.

And after—

"This is fucking ridiculous."

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."

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."

Even as a human.

"It's your gift."

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.

"What do you remember now?"

As if they're taking accounting still.

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."

A fragment: Have Rashid arrange it.

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.

"I picked that up."

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.

"You kept it."

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.

"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.

"You can, now, if you want to."

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.

"What do you want? Right now?"

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.

"For fuck's sake, Louis."

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.

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.

"I'm straight, you know that?"

DANIEL.

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