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.
It is true, and it weighs so heavily on Louis. It had cost Daniel dearly, Louis' freedom. He'd forgotten himself, chosen to indulge the overwhelming need that had cracked open in him over Daniel.
Laces their fingers together more securely.
"I can take you home," Louis offers gently. "I'd like to."
Do the thing he should have done in the first place. Too little too late.
Take him home. Wouldn't that be nice. For a second—
Just for a second, Louis' driving him somewhere, they're near a less-impressive bridge than the one on all the postcards, veering towards Stockton, and a shitty apartment. Maybe it's 1973, and everyone's the same age that they look. 1992, maybe. He's divorced. He's going to get the fuck over himself, admit it all, finally, because the date he's on is maybe the best date he's ever had, and all that's happened is they laughed over a few drinks.
Wouldn't it be nice. Wouldn't it be nice, too, if it were six months from now, and Daniel was settled, and the idea of going on a flight with someone else, bringing them into his apartment, being scrutinized and watched over, didn't make his skin crawl. He feels bad about what he's about to do, but he also feel like he's going to claw his way out of the car if he doesn't do it. He's grateful for the help, guilty for the harm, and he just needs some space.
"The airport is fine."
Close enough to home.
"Or— couple blocks," he points, "should be a tube connection I can hop on. I've been to London fuck knows how many times. I just," man, this feels weird, "I'll make sure they don't take it out on you. I can make some calls. And I just need to figure it out, Louis. I need to know I can do it."
"I'm not worried about them," Louis says, the easier topic. "I don't want you spending your favors on me."
The Talamasca can do what they like. Perceive him as they like. Louis doesn't care at all. But he cares about Daniel, and whatever link he's cultivated. Better to shift blame to Louis, who wants nothing from them, needs nothing from them.
A tightening of linked fingers. Indulging the impulse to hold on.
A thought held behind his teeth: I just found you.
It's painful. This request is painful, more so because what can Louis do but acquiesce?
Carefully, attempts a minor appeal: "Say you ain't going to vanish on me. If you won't give me until the airport, give me that much?"
Not spending favors. Looking after Louis, having his back like an actual friend, not like someone trying to keep him in a dollhouse. Daniel squeezes his hand, reassuring silently.
"Hey."
Boyishly exasperated. Everything's a bit weird right now, but there's no need for doom and gloom. For one thing—
"I'm not the vanishing type."
Unlike his exes who've run out of steam and given up, and/or the vampires who dumped him in a crack house and vanished for fifty years. Ha ha. Daniel will follow through even if it risks killing him, as Louis damn well knows.
"If you don't take care of yourself I'm gonna be pissed, though."
Some minor objection. Daniel did vanish, for some months. Louis had reached out and reached out and reached out into nothingness and Daniel had not reached back.
He could argue the point. He doesn't.
"I don't wanna go such a long time without speaking to you again."
Trying to say a thing without saying it. Gripping Daniel's hand. Wanting to ask him to stay. To let Louis help, in whatever way would suite Daniel best.
Daniel didn't vanish, he was ignoring Louis. Huge difference. Let's not get lost in the weeds, here. Perhaps an unkind thing, but a necessary thing, and a boundary thing. A thing that Daniel is being pretty gracious about Louis crossing, but honestly, he's missed him. It makes his heart ache to leave, but the feeling doesn't drown out the need to assert independence.
Vampire loneliness, horrendous crimes over coupling, eternal lives ruined, children executed. He doesn't want any part of a coven, he doesn't want a companion, he doesn't want an almost-companion. Maybe in time, he'll figure out how to regulate how he feels about it. But he's not going to figure anything out while someone's watching.
What's he going to do, take care of Louis? No. Daniel is a bad partner and a bad parent. The idea of being responsible for someone else makes him want to find the nearest escape hatch. Always has. Being ransomed also has little effect on him— he knows he's not actually vanishing, knows he's not a suicide risk, and so, Louis has nothing to worry about.
"Don't change your number, then." Assuring. Look. They'll figure it out. "And think about the book, huh? You wanted to change the world. We're gonna."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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.'
no subject
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.
no subject
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."
no subject
"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?"
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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?"
no subject
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."
no subject
It is true, and it weighs so heavily on Louis. It had cost Daniel dearly, Louis' freedom. He'd forgotten himself, chosen to indulge the overwhelming need that had cracked open in him over Daniel.
Laces their fingers together more securely.
"I can take you home," Louis offers gently. "I'd like to."
Do the thing he should have done in the first place. Too little too late.
no subject
Just for a second, Louis' driving him somewhere, they're near a less-impressive bridge than the one on all the postcards, veering towards Stockton, and a shitty apartment. Maybe it's 1973, and everyone's the same age that they look. 1992, maybe. He's divorced. He's going to get the fuck over himself, admit it all, finally, because the date he's on is maybe the best date he's ever had, and all that's happened is they laughed over a few drinks.
Wouldn't it be nice. Wouldn't it be nice, too, if it were six months from now, and Daniel was settled, and the idea of going on a flight with someone else, bringing them into his apartment, being scrutinized and watched over, didn't make his skin crawl. He feels bad about what he's about to do, but he also feel like he's going to claw his way out of the car if he doesn't do it. He's grateful for the help, guilty for the harm, and he just needs some space.
"The airport is fine."
Close enough to home.
"Or— couple blocks," he points, "should be a tube connection I can hop on. I've been to London fuck knows how many times. I just," man, this feels weird, "I'll make sure they don't take it out on you. I can make some calls. And I just need to figure it out, Louis. I need to know I can do it."
Alone.
circling bow territory
And Louis doesn't want to leave him.
"I'm not worried about them," Louis says, the easier topic. "I don't want you spending your favors on me."
The Talamasca can do what they like. Perceive him as they like. Louis doesn't care at all. But he cares about Daniel, and whatever link he's cultivated. Better to shift blame to Louis, who wants nothing from them, needs nothing from them.
A tightening of linked fingers. Indulging the impulse to hold on.
A thought held behind his teeth: I just found you.
It's painful. This request is painful, more so because what can Louis do but acquiesce?
Carefully, attempts a minor appeal: "Say you ain't going to vanish on me. If you won't give me until the airport, give me that much?"
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"Hey."
Boyishly exasperated. Everything's a bit weird right now, but there's no need for doom and gloom. For one thing—
"I'm not the vanishing type."
Unlike his exes who've run out of steam and given up, and/or the vampires who dumped him in a crack house and vanished for fifty years. Ha ha. Daniel will follow through even if it risks killing him, as Louis damn well knows.
"If you don't take care of yourself I'm gonna be pissed, though."
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Some minor objection. Daniel did vanish, for some months. Louis had reached out and reached out and reached out into nothingness and Daniel had not reached back.
He could argue the point. He doesn't.
"I don't wanna go such a long time without speaking to you again."
Trying to say a thing without saying it. Gripping Daniel's hand. Wanting to ask him to stay. To let Louis help, in whatever way would suite Daniel best.
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Vampire loneliness, horrendous crimes over coupling, eternal lives ruined, children executed. He doesn't want any part of a coven, he doesn't want a companion, he doesn't want an almost-companion. Maybe in time, he'll figure out how to regulate how he feels about it. But he's not going to figure anything out while someone's watching.
What's he going to do, take care of Louis? No. Daniel is a bad partner and a bad parent. The idea of being responsible for someone else makes him want to find the nearest escape hatch. Always has. Being ransomed also has little effect on him— he knows he's not actually vanishing, knows he's not a suicide risk, and so, Louis has nothing to worry about.
"Don't change your number, then." Assuring. Look. They'll figure it out. "And think about the book, huh? You wanted to change the world. We're gonna."
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