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.
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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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