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?
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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.
no subject
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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