The Talamasca is going to know that Daniel robbed them, so might as well just say hello, I'm robbing you. Makes things easier, right? Right. And it's funnier, breezing in, seeing the reaction, and mapping it in their heads. Daniel can see, hear, read, so much clearer, all the anti-vampire measures they think they have, now that they're panicking and thinking them all so loud and up front.
And none of that shit's going to work.
"Mr Molloy," starts one, and there's some stammering, even as a young woman moves to grab a high powered UV flashlight. Daniel takes it from her, feeling like he's barely moved, but she gasps. He knows already all it'll do is itch, because it's not the fucking light quality, it's life, but the principle of the thing remains.
Rude.
He advises, "Just chill out," and moves past them to the workstation computer.
Distracted by the immediacy with which his partner is disarmed, the young man beside her is startled by Louis' fingers closing around his elbow.
"Don't," he advises. Don't pull out another little light. Don't push any buttons. Just don't.
A glint of fang is his mouth is convincing. The man is steered backwards. His partner is watching, her hands opening and closing into fists. Deciding how foolish she wants to be.
Into Daniel's head, Louis asks, How much time do you need?
'Not too long.' Clicking through things. One would think that outdated systems, typical of professional organizations, would be easier to navigate given his origin before the digital age, but to someone who's been using professional Apple products for years, it's a little counter intuitive. 'Probably.'
Clickclickclick. The young man is terrified of Louis in particular — Louis du Lac, hunter of young men, predator, the stuff of nightmares, as beautiful as he is deadly, he keeps thinking of the autopsy photographs, hundreds of them, every one of Louis' victims they could find. One or two over the years they've dissuaded by staging a car accident or a pulling a fire alarm, but this creature, the vampire holding his elbow, is in possession of a violent appetite that haunts the dreams of more than one agent.
So they all say. So someone said to Daniel, in a restaurant in Dubai.
He moves away from the console, looking for the isolate drive he's after. Ignoring her frozen co-worker, the young woman moves for a panel beneath the desk—
Edited (i forgot what he was going to be torn over so he's no longer torn) 2025-05-18 04:52 (UTC)
Louis has a finger pressed down at the edge of their minds, monitoring the flow of thought. Tasting the quality of their fear. Louis turns it over in his mind, this patter of memory of all his worst acts.
What Louis will make of it is anyone's guess. In the moment, Daniel is at work and Louis has this young man by the arm, sweeps his eyes around the room and—
Bad luck, for this intrepid young woman.
Louis sees her.
He moves so, so quickly. One moment he is scraping a thumbnail down the inside of this young man's elbow, the next he is hauling the young woman up off her feet. It's a graceful movement, terrifyingly so. The promise of violence is contained in it.
"He said, let's chill," Louis reminds her, lightly scolding tone. Confides, casually, "He's still very human. He wants to keep you alive."
The implication: Louis doesn't.
How true it is doesn't matter. It only matters that Louis says it aloud, and scares her enough that she believes him.
Daniel's attention flicks back, his amber-yellow eyes glinting for a split second past the tinted glass of his lenses. Wonders— is that true? Is it all for show, or does Louis really not care anymore? Or maybe it isn't a lack of care, but a lack of direction. If he were in the other man's position, he'd be tying himself in knots over the difference between his own desires and shit potentially constructed by someone else. By someone else, who constructed something in Daniel.
Does Armand know they're together? Does he still look through Louis' head like a psychic surveillance camera? Or has he fucked off entirely without so much as a thought for what's behind him?
Doesn't matter, does it.
"If you're that scared of vampires," he says for the benefit of these humans (so distant from him, and they would be even if he were still mortal, because they're young people working at a secret agency, what the fuck is that), "this is probably the wrong job."
The drive is extracted. Daniel pries it loose with pointed fingernails, and has to settle with hoping this is what he's after. He's not a fucking hacker.
Things that stick: the litany of thoughts unspooling in this young man's mind.
The worst of Louis' habits, unfettered. Twenty years ago, give or take, but still his. Still observed and collected and scrutinized. This boy is terrified, but this boy is not the only one who has seen them. This boy is not the only one who knows Louis' name.
Rashid was in his home for such a long time. They had thought, a controlled sort of breach. But then Louis had stopped listening and Armand had been meant to control the flow.
Louis is looking into this girl's face. She is thinking of autopsy photos. She is thinking something accusatory. She's embarrassed. Louis could tell her there's no reason to be. It's very human, to wish to live a few hours longer. No one needs to die in this vault.
"Have your souvenirs?" Louis enquires, gaze coming around to watch Daniel put the drive into his pocket.
Considers their two young hosts. The man hasn't moved. The woman has backed away.
It's in her mind. She'll push that button the moment their backs are turned. Louis offers this to Daniel, a brief little touch between their minds to convey the impression, like passing a note he found in her pocket.
Photos of Louis, recordings of Louis, always Louis, because Armand has curated himself so carefully. A horrible spider hidden away in his burrow, letting everyone else struggle in the webs left out. Daniel, too, features in the thoughts of these scared mortals; strange and offputting now that he's old, mismatched in their heads as until recently, his file was a footnote, and attached to it was a photo of him bruised and bloody and greyscale.
Will Molloy kill them? Agent James seems to think he's both safe and very sharp, and they're not one hundred percent sure what that means (he thinks it means Molloy is just lucky, she thinks it means he's fucking somebody, which she also thinks is gross), and—
"Think they can both fit in the storage closet?"
They're gonna, even if they can't.
It's cramped and full of replacement power sources, and both mortals get shoved in there, squashed together, socks shoved in their mouths, heavy server shelf shoved over the door and its smashed handle. There. No button. Daniel looks at Louis when it's taken care of. Proverbial dusting of hands.
Louis, who is so volatile. Dangerous. Lacking control, thankfully tended to for years by Armand. This is perhaps what has been noted in his file, an explanation for the dwindling incidents, the tapering and then end of autopsy photos and recordings. Maybe there is some other notation, marking the dissolution of their companionship. Maybe someone is waiting again for the incidents to begin.
Touching the minds of these young agents, Louis is aware that they are wondering if they will mark the start of a new spree.
But no, not today.
They are trapped into a closet, where they will surely be found. Door closed. Unable to push the button, alert anyone to what Daniel and Louis have done.
Good enough, for now.
Louis adjusts his jacket, brushes some nonexistent lint from the fabric. Yes, they're pushing their luck if they linger.
Back the way we came? Louis questions. Some real enjoyment in the idea of walking out the front door, if they can. We might meet some opposition.
No alarms raised, but the Talamasca hasn't survived this long without some healthy suspicion.
Options— stairs with fire alarms on the doors, and the elevator, which is no doubt being monitored. Daniel moves towards the stairwell first, but pauses, sensing activity on the floor above them. Getting pretty good at figuring out where people are, at least nearby. Maybe a modest single family home's worth of a radius.
Daniel does not really want opposition. Louis might find it interesting, or thrilling, Daniel doesn't know. He's not afraid, not of getting into a scuffle nor of Louis, but he's never been a violence guy. He'll offer a blowjob before he throws a punch, but the former definitely isn't going to help, here, so uh.
'Elevator, I guess?'
Will it even show up. Daniel pings the button, but after a moment, he just shoves the doors to the shaft open. It's clearly been turned off.
"They're on to us," Louis deadpans, spoken aloud even as his amusement glows in Daniel's head.
We can climb, is the more practical suggestion. Elevator shafts are made to be traversed, to some extent. It would be challenging to a human. It is not impossible for a vampire.
Louis ducks beneath Daniel's arm to look up, send his focus upwards to feel the absence of power. Find an absence of cameras. One advantage. An elevator shaft not truly equipped to monitor a pair of vampires scaling the walls.
We can pick any floor is more or less true. Amends, Maybe skip the lobby.
Vague impressions in Louis' mind. Dropping from high windows, landing in the street. Not discreet, but that's the Talamasca's problem to solve.
It sure is (their problem to solve). Daniel laughs a little, and watches Louis, how he darts around. Remembers the the last time he saw him, remembers flinching away, startled in the aftermath of violence against Armand. Who deserved it, true.
Louis is—
Beautiful. It strikes him, out of nowhere like a sucker punch. He's always known, he'd been smitten by him immediately fifty years ago. But with these eyes, transformed as they are, Daniel can see just how truly radiant he is. And he seems happy, or at least, he seems like himself. Dark and real, at least honest.
He shakes it off. Hopefully Louis didn't get much of an impression. Embarrassing.
A good moment for stray thoughts: Louis' attention occupied with mapping out the movements above, focus split away from Daniel, catching only the tail end of a thought, more impression than anything else. Enough to inspire some warm feeling in return, reassuring, a brush of fingers across knuckles. A minor acknowledgement, complicated feelings or no, of Daniel's care. Gratitude that Daniel cares at all for Louis' well being, given all that's happened. All Louis has permitted to happen.
"Stay close," is what Louis says aloud. Flashes a grin over his shoulder, and steps into the shaft. Begins to climb.
It's a pleasant enough exertion. Easy going, up and up and up, Louis' mind open to the buzz of Talamasca agent minds. Most shielded, but some cracks here and there. Enough to guide Louis' decision when he swings out from the handholds to begin levering open a door.
Third floor. Not abandoned, but not packed with opposition. A handful of agents rushing, chattering, occupied with their daily tasks.
No one immediately notices the elevator door pulling open, no ding of arrival heralding the occasion.
Daniel will always care about Louis. He did even when he only remembered half of him. He hopes Louis knows that, and believes that, despite everything. Despite the book he's going to force into existence, despite the way he shies away from that little psychic affection (embarrassed, private), despite being a walking, talking, reminder of Armand, heart beating only because of the fuckhead's blood, and sharing his unnerving, glowing eyes.
Fast, easy, and he's grateful for it— sometimes every so often he finds himself fumbling, and feels panic rise in him, thinking it's his hands trembling again when it's just baby deer legs. There's a half-open door with a clear view towards them, but Daniel quietly shuts it, like dropping a cover over a parrot's cage. Shh, nothing going on out here.
Sturdy windows, treated to see through from the inside while remaining opaque from the outside, security bars, a tiny tab that suggests an alarm system. Daniel runs a hand along it, trying to find the wire, and then jams his thumb through the wall below the frame. Clumsy, but, hm.
He pokes at the wire.
"Think an alarm will go off if we tamper with it?"
Louis doesn't sound very concerned but he suspects Daniel might want to avoid tripping an alarm.
It's a curious thing, these inner workings of the Talamasca. All these human precautions, and they are nothing for two vampires. A minor inconvenience. They'd be less of one if Daniel and Louis were different vampires.
"Are you worried about the alarm system?"
Direct.
They're in each others heads. Louis asks him this aloud anyway.
Does he understand the way Daniel cares for him? Yes. No.
It's complicated. Louis is many things. Depressive and guilty and angry. He failed Daniel. He is aware of it. It shifts his perception of who could feel what, of what Daniel could forgive and Daniel could feel for him, the person responsible for so much of what's befallen him.
Wry. Maybe he doesn't care, morally or ethically, no, but he might like to avoid a scene. A complicated relationship with these people. They owe he and Louis, but they also got him the real deal, the actual script, annotated by Armand. He thinks Louis would have wanted to believe him, without hard evidence, without the smoking gun that made all the smugness slide off Armand's face. But would he have been able to push all the way through?
So small, when he notices. Not a fully conscious noticing. An awareness like feeling pressure shift in a room. The door he closed, soft and quick to open again, and—
BANG.
A gunshot rings out a split-second after Daniel has grabbed Louis and pulled him close
CRACK.
It smashes into the glass, gets stuck in it, fucking Pope-proof windows, sending a spiderweb of a shatter. Daniel looks horrified, frozen in the heartbeat of a moment, suspended in time, slowly coming to terms with this abrupt change as the ticktick of one and a half seconds sluggishly drags on.
A bullet isn't going to kill Louis, but a headshot would lay him up for long months to heal. Louis knows this. His fingers tighten in Daniel's jacket, a brief squeeze of gratitude, before Louis' attention shifts and his lips peel back off his teeth to bare fangs at the agent in the doorway.
To her credit, she holds her ground even as he face goes pale.
There's more coming, Louis cautions, words blooming in Daniel's head fully detached from the savagery of the expression on Louis' face. We should break the glass.
Fuck the alarm, more or less.
Louis blurs from Daniel. The agent gets another shot off, bullet hitting a wall, and then screams as Louis breaks her arm. The gun clatters to the floor.
He's stunned for a moment. The second shot rings in his ears, on top of how the first was still ringing, and he feels disoriented. Logically aware that this is shock, that despite all the dicey, dangerous, tight spots he's found himself in over the years, he still doesn't like violence, still abhors gun violence in particular, still does not like finding himself in the same room (or hallway) with it.
He hears Louis, and he hears the scattered, static-y radio waves of panicked mortal thoughts, this agent and ones in other rooms, swiftly but carefully mobilizing. She hates these creatures who prey upon humans, she has seen so many awful, brutal things, and now one of those awful, brutal things is happening to her, because she did her duty and tried to rescue their asset from being abducted.
Guilt stabs at him. He makes himself break the window open anyway.
It can be attributed to Louis, all of this. All of the violence, all of the brutality. Daniel can be spared responsibility. Louis, volatile and dangerous. Louis, who should be feared.
And they do fear him. He can feel it. He can hear it in the cacophony of their thoughts.
Louis grips this mortal by the throat, and flings her bodily across the room, through the door where agents are gathering. Their shouts and her scream carry, are barely stifled by the door Louis closes.
"Let's go," he says, crossing the room. Touches Daniel's cheek, gentle, something meant to be grounding. "I have a car on the corner. Run to your right."
Louis takes him by the hand, turning to shattered windw. They can jump, and land without any injury. The sidewalk cracks under impact. It doesn't matter.
Numb, shocked, Daniel allows himself to be led. Louis takes his hand and, though on a delay, Daniel shakes himself back to the present and grips it tightly. There's something desperate in it, a thread of panic, sudden terror and worry over Louis. He spent so long in such shitty situations, and he nearly got his head blown off over Daniel.
Daniel should have just called, a week ago. Daniel should have slipped out the back door when Raglan told him to.
He didn't, he was never going to. It was always going to be this, because he's stubborn, and he's determined, and he prioritizes work over everything and everyone, no matter what it ruins. That doesn't stop the churning in his stomach that has nothing to do with the jump down, or the sprint to the right.
"Yeah," Louis reassures, warm even as he hustles Daniel. Rushing because the Talamasca's unwillingness to shoot out the broken window might not hold and Louis doesn't want Daniel to experience being shot or for him to watch Louis experience being shot.
The door slams. They break several traffic laws instantly.
Louis still has hold of Daniel's hand. Touches his mind, a gentle pressure drawing Daniel closer.
"We were moving too fast for them," Louis tells him. "And they didn't want to hurt you."
Shaken, Daniel squeezes Louis' hand like a lifeline, definitely too hard if he were human. Fortunately neither of them are. He braces against the dashboard with his other, thoughts racing, messenger bag stuffed with stolen items awkwardly cradled in his lap.
They didn't want to hurt him, but they would have hurt Louis.
"You've been through way too much shit to risk getting shot at over me," he says, sounding as upset as he feels. Adrenaline for a little sneaky crime, sure, but this isn't that, this is real fear.
Hm. Maybe not the kind of statement Daniel finds comforting.
"Daniel," he appeals. A little squeeze in return, the pressure of his thumb over Daniel's knuckles. "Daniel, I'm not doing anything I don't want to do these days."
Flexing autonomy. Chasing idle desires. Some of this manifests in decor. Some of it manifests in a heist. Louis is pleasing himself these days. He isn't averse to the messiness and danger of what they'd just done.
"I wanted to get you out. I wanted you to have your information. I don't care about the rest."
Maybe in a few days Louis can tell him it was fun, in a way.
Daniel could have gotten himself out. Maybe not tonight, but soon; he was restless enough to just use Louis. Use Louis, and the thought sits strangely in him, uncomfortable. Did he? He thinks about the concept of vampire lessons, and companionship, and something like panic threatens to rise up in his stomach.
He gets a grip, because he's not a child. But he notes it. Louis came after him, helped him out, now he might have made enemies when he should be finding himself and his life post-Armand, and some woman has a future of years in surgical recovery to save her arm.
Of course Daniel went along. He, too, wanted the information. He wanted it easy and immediately and it wasn't so bad seeing Louis do impressive things, it's all just—
He's not sure.
"Thank you for helping me."
So, there's that. Not a total asshole, even if he's already thinking about which red light he's going to get out of the car at.
"Louis." Daniel looks at him. A distraction while driving, whatever. "You needed yourself more than I needed you. I'm happy for that." He squeezes his hand. "I'm happy. I wanted more than anything for you to be free from it. For once, you had to take care of yourself, with your own head. I'm alright."
It'll always be true that Louis walked away and Daniel died. But it can be true, at the same time, that he's happier now, and that he doesn't blame Louis for what happened. Or how it happened. Life isn't neat, and very little is mutually exclusive. He will never hold it against Louis, but there will always be a footnote there, a reminder to be ready to protect himself. He can't ask to be anyone's priority.
And that's fine. That's always been him. An ocean of burned bridges, ruined relationships, "friends" behind him. Louis is so important. He can't... he just can't.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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And none of that shit's going to work.
"Mr Molloy," starts one, and there's some stammering, even as a young woman moves to grab a high powered UV flashlight. Daniel takes it from her, feeling like he's barely moved, but she gasps. He knows already all it'll do is itch, because it's not the fucking light quality, it's life, but the principle of the thing remains.
Rude.
He advises, "Just chill out," and moves past them to the workstation computer.
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"Don't," he advises. Don't pull out another little light. Don't push any buttons. Just don't.
A glint of fang is his mouth is convincing. The man is steered backwards. His partner is watching, her hands opening and closing into fists. Deciding how foolish she wants to be.
Into Daniel's head, Louis asks, How much time do you need?
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Clickclickclick. The young man is terrified of Louis in particular — Louis du Lac, hunter of young men, predator, the stuff of nightmares, as beautiful as he is deadly, he keeps thinking of the autopsy photographs, hundreds of them, every one of Louis' victims they could find. One or two over the years they've dissuaded by staging a car accident or a pulling a fire alarm, but this creature, the vampire holding his elbow, is in possession of a violent appetite that haunts the dreams of more than one agent.
So they all say. So someone said to Daniel, in a restaurant in Dubai.
He moves away from the console, looking for the isolate drive he's after. Ignoring her frozen co-worker, the young woman moves for a panel beneath the desk—
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Louis has a finger pressed down at the edge of their minds, monitoring the flow of thought. Tasting the quality of their fear. Louis turns it over in his mind, this patter of memory of all his worst acts.
What Louis will make of it is anyone's guess. In the moment, Daniel is at work and Louis has this young man by the arm, sweeps his eyes around the room and—
Bad luck, for this intrepid young woman.
Louis sees her.
He moves so, so quickly. One moment he is scraping a thumbnail down the inside of this young man's elbow, the next he is hauling the young woman up off her feet. It's a graceful movement, terrifyingly so. The promise of violence is contained in it.
"He said, let's chill," Louis reminds her, lightly scolding tone. Confides, casually, "He's still very human. He wants to keep you alive."
The implication: Louis doesn't.
How true it is doesn't matter. It only matters that Louis says it aloud, and scares her enough that she believes him.
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Does Armand know they're together? Does he still look through Louis' head like a psychic surveillance camera? Or has he fucked off entirely without so much as a thought for what's behind him?
Doesn't matter, does it.
"If you're that scared of vampires," he says for the benefit of these humans (so distant from him, and they would be even if he were still mortal, because they're young people working at a secret agency, what the fuck is that), "this is probably the wrong job."
The drive is extracted. Daniel pries it loose with pointed fingernails, and has to settle with hoping this is what he's after. He's not a fucking hacker.
no subject
The worst of Louis' habits, unfettered. Twenty years ago, give or take, but still his. Still observed and collected and scrutinized. This boy is terrified, but this boy is not the only one who has seen them. This boy is not the only one who knows Louis' name.
Rashid was in his home for such a long time. They had thought, a controlled sort of breach. But then Louis had stopped listening and Armand had been meant to control the flow.
Louis is looking into this girl's face. She is thinking of autopsy photos. She is thinking something accusatory. She's embarrassed. Louis could tell her there's no reason to be. It's very human, to wish to live a few hours longer. No one needs to die in this vault.
"Have your souvenirs?" Louis enquires, gaze coming around to watch Daniel put the drive into his pocket.
Considers their two young hosts. The man hasn't moved. The woman has backed away.
It's in her mind. She'll push that button the moment their backs are turned. Louis offers this to Daniel, a brief little touch between their minds to convey the impression, like passing a note he found in her pocket.
no subject
Will Molloy kill them? Agent James seems to think he's both safe and very sharp, and they're not one hundred percent sure what that means (he thinks it means Molloy is just lucky, she thinks it means he's fucking somebody, which she also thinks is gross), and—
"Think they can both fit in the storage closet?"
They're gonna, even if they can't.
It's cramped and full of replacement power sources, and both mortals get shoved in there, squashed together, socks shoved in their mouths, heavy server shelf shoved over the door and its smashed handle. There. No button. Daniel looks at Louis when it's taken care of. Proverbial dusting of hands.
'I think we're nearing our time limit.'
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Touching the minds of these young agents, Louis is aware that they are wondering if they will mark the start of a new spree.
But no, not today.
They are trapped into a closet, where they will surely be found. Door closed. Unable to push the button, alert anyone to what Daniel and Louis have done.
Good enough, for now.
Louis adjusts his jacket, brushes some nonexistent lint from the fabric. Yes, they're pushing their luck if they linger.
Back the way we came? Louis questions. Some real enjoyment in the idea of walking out the front door, if they can. We might meet some opposition.
No alarms raised, but the Talamasca hasn't survived this long without some healthy suspicion.
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Options— stairs with fire alarms on the doors, and the elevator, which is no doubt being monitored. Daniel moves towards the stairwell first, but pauses, sensing activity on the floor above them. Getting pretty good at figuring out where people are, at least nearby. Maybe a modest single family home's worth of a radius.
Daniel does not really want opposition. Louis might find it interesting, or thrilling, Daniel doesn't know. He's not afraid, not of getting into a scuffle nor of Louis, but he's never been a violence guy. He'll offer a blowjob before he throws a punch, but the former definitely isn't going to help, here, so uh.
'Elevator, I guess?'
Will it even show up. Daniel pings the button, but after a moment, he just shoves the doors to the shaft open. It's clearly been turned off.
no subject
We can climb, is the more practical suggestion. Elevator shafts are made to be traversed, to some extent. It would be challenging to a human. It is not impossible for a vampire.
Louis ducks beneath Daniel's arm to look up, send his focus upwards to feel the absence of power. Find an absence of cameras. One advantage. An elevator shaft not truly equipped to monitor a pair of vampires scaling the walls.
We can pick any floor is more or less true. Amends, Maybe skip the lobby.
Vague impressions in Louis' mind. Dropping from high windows, landing in the street. Not discreet, but that's the Talamasca's problem to solve.
no subject
Louis is—
Beautiful. It strikes him, out of nowhere like a sucker punch. He's always known, he'd been smitten by him immediately fifty years ago. But with these eyes, transformed as they are, Daniel can see just how truly radiant he is. And he seems happy, or at least, he seems like himself. Dark and real, at least honest.
He shakes it off. Hopefully Louis didn't get much of an impression. Embarrassing.
"Alright, up, and pick your favorite window."
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"Stay close," is what Louis says aloud. Flashes a grin over his shoulder, and steps into the shaft. Begins to climb.
It's a pleasant enough exertion. Easy going, up and up and up, Louis' mind open to the buzz of Talamasca agent minds. Most shielded, but some cracks here and there. Enough to guide Louis' decision when he swings out from the handholds to begin levering open a door.
Third floor. Not abandoned, but not packed with opposition. A handful of agents rushing, chattering, occupied with their daily tasks.
No one immediately notices the elevator door pulling open, no ding of arrival heralding the occasion.
no subject
Fast, easy, and he's grateful for it— sometimes every so often he finds himself fumbling, and feels panic rise in him, thinking it's his hands trembling again when it's just baby deer legs. There's a half-open door with a clear view towards them, but Daniel quietly shuts it, like dropping a cover over a parrot's cage. Shh, nothing going on out here.
Sturdy windows, treated to see through from the inside while remaining opaque from the outside, security bars, a tiny tab that suggests an alarm system. Daniel runs a hand along it, trying to find the wire, and then jams his thumb through the wall below the frame. Clumsy, but, hm.
He pokes at the wire.
"Think an alarm will go off if we tamper with it?"
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Louis doesn't sound very concerned but he suspects Daniel might want to avoid tripping an alarm.
It's a curious thing, these inner workings of the Talamasca. All these human precautions, and they are nothing for two vampires. A minor inconvenience. They'd be less of one if Daniel and Louis were different vampires.
"Are you worried about the alarm system?"
Direct.
They're in each others heads. Louis asks him this aloud anyway.
Does he understand the way Daniel cares for him? Yes. No.
It's complicated. Louis is many things. Depressive and guilty and angry. He failed Daniel. He is aware of it. It shifts his perception of who could feel what, of what Daniel could forgive and Daniel could feel for him, the person responsible for so much of what's befallen him.
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Wry. Maybe he doesn't care, morally or ethically, no, but he might like to avoid a scene. A complicated relationship with these people. They owe he and Louis, but they also got him the real deal, the actual script, annotated by Armand. He thinks Louis would have wanted to believe him, without hard evidence, without the smoking gun that made all the smugness slide off Armand's face. But would he have been able to push all the way through?
So small, when he notices. Not a fully conscious noticing. An awareness like feeling pressure shift in a room. The door he closed, soft and quick to open again, and—
BANG.
A gunshot rings out a split-second after Daniel has grabbed Louis and pulled him close
CRACK.
It smashes into the glass, gets stuck in it, fucking Pope-proof windows, sending a spiderweb of a shatter. Daniel looks horrified, frozen in the heartbeat of a moment, suspended in time, slowly coming to terms with this abrupt change as the ticktick of one and a half seconds sluggishly drags on.
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To her credit, she holds her ground even as he face goes pale.
There's more coming, Louis cautions, words blooming in Daniel's head fully detached from the savagery of the expression on Louis' face. We should break the glass.
Fuck the alarm, more or less.
Louis blurs from Daniel. The agent gets another shot off, bullet hitting a wall, and then screams as Louis breaks her arm. The gun clatters to the floor.
no subject
And Daniel calls himself a writer.
He's stunned for a moment. The second shot rings in his ears, on top of how the first was still ringing, and he feels disoriented. Logically aware that this is shock, that despite all the dicey, dangerous, tight spots he's found himself in over the years, he still doesn't like violence, still abhors gun violence in particular, still does not like finding himself in the same room (or hallway) with it.
He hears Louis, and he hears the scattered, static-y radio waves of panicked mortal thoughts, this agent and ones in other rooms, swiftly but carefully mobilizing. She hates these creatures who prey upon humans, she has seen so many awful, brutal things, and now one of those awful, brutal things is happening to her, because she did her duty and tried to rescue their asset from being abducted.
Guilt stabs at him. He makes himself break the window open anyway.
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And they do fear him. He can feel it. He can hear it in the cacophony of their thoughts.
Louis grips this mortal by the throat, and flings her bodily across the room, through the door where agents are gathering. Their shouts and her scream carry, are barely stifled by the door Louis closes.
"Let's go," he says, crossing the room. Touches Daniel's cheek, gentle, something meant to be grounding. "I have a car on the corner. Run to your right."
Louis takes him by the hand, turning to shattered windw. They can jump, and land without any injury. The sidewalk cracks under impact. It doesn't matter.
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Daniel should have just called, a week ago. Daniel should have slipped out the back door when Raglan told him to.
He didn't, he was never going to. It was always going to be this, because he's stubborn, and he's determined, and he prioritizes work over everything and everyone, no matter what it ruins. That doesn't stop the churning in his stomach that has nothing to do with the jump down, or the sprint to the right.
"Are you okay?"
—A shaky question, fumbling at the car door.
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The door slams. They break several traffic laws instantly.
Louis still has hold of Daniel's hand. Touches his mind, a gentle pressure drawing Daniel closer.
"We were moving too fast for them," Louis tells him. "And they didn't want to hurt you."
The asset. It's fortunate enough.
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They didn't want to hurt him, but they would have hurt Louis.
"You've been through way too much shit to risk getting shot at over me," he says, sounding as upset as he feels. Adrenaline for a little sneaky crime, sure, but this isn't that, this is real fear.
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Hm. Maybe not the kind of statement Daniel finds comforting.
"Daniel," he appeals. A little squeeze in return, the pressure of his thumb over Daniel's knuckles. "Daniel, I'm not doing anything I don't want to do these days."
Flexing autonomy. Chasing idle desires. Some of this manifests in decor. Some of it manifests in a heist. Louis is pleasing himself these days. He isn't averse to the messiness and danger of what they'd just done.
"I wanted to get you out. I wanted you to have your information. I don't care about the rest."
Maybe in a few days Louis can tell him it was fun, in a way.
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He gets a grip, because he's not a child. But he notes it. Louis came after him, helped him out, now he might have made enemies when he should be finding himself and his life post-Armand, and some woman has a future of years in surgical recovery to save her arm.
Of course Daniel went along. He, too, wanted the information. He wanted it easy and immediately and it wasn't so bad seeing Louis do impressive things, it's all just—
He's not sure.
"Thank you for helping me."
So, there's that. Not a total asshole, even if he's already thinking about which red light he's going to get out of the car at.
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Can't ask, Why didn't you call me? though it weighs on him. It weighs on him as his own choice to give Daniel space weighs on him.
Hesitates.
Curls his grip a little tighter.
"Where do you want to go?"
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It'll always be true that Louis walked away and Daniel died. But it can be true, at the same time, that he's happier now, and that he doesn't blame Louis for what happened. Or how it happened. Life isn't neat, and very little is mutually exclusive. He will never hold it against Louis, but there will always be a footnote there, a reminder to be ready to protect himself. He can't ask to be anyone's priority.
And that's fine. That's always been him. An ocean of burned bridges, ruined relationships, "friends" behind him. Louis is so important. He can't... he just can't.
"I have to go home."