Hello, and it's actually Louis somehow, he knows from just one word, not a member of staff. Daniel is so shocked-relieved-desperate (fucking help) that for a horrifying second he's too paralyzed to say anything. A comedic rare gem.
He clears the hurdle—
"Hey, Louis. Hi. It's Daniel Molloy." Out in a rush. He should have practiced what to say, he doesn't know how long he has. Every heartbeat (faster and faster) he expects to see a hand slide into frame and press the end call button. He did practice, he recited it all in his head, but it's gone now in a shaky flood of adrenaline. Scramble. "I'm in the Orion Hotel in Bishkek, staying on the top floor. I think." Pretty sure. "If you could find a way to get me out of here and away from him that'd be great. I understand if that's not a possibility," does he sound hysterical here? he hopes not, keep it together, clock's ticking, "and in that case, if you could just split whatever money you were going to send me and kick it to my daughters, I'd appreciate it. You don't owe me anything. I just—"
Just what? He freezes.
Didn't have anyone else. Who the fuck is going to help. At least Louis can give the girls money.
The tone of Daniel's voice in the wake of that pause pulls Louis onto his feet. Alarm sparking a mean rush of adrenaline through his body, building as Daniel rushes through his request. Has the audacity to say I understand if that's not a possibility.
There is only one him. Daniel doesn't have to say a name.
"Daniel."
Insistent. Urgent.
Immediate dread dropping like a stone into his stomach. Armand took him. Armand took Daniel and it's why Daniel wasn't answering his phone. Armand has him.
Louis' fear is near-paralyzing, but he boxes it up. Puts it away. Striding through the penthouse in search of Rashid as he asks:
"Does he mean to stay there with you? For at least a few more days?"
It will take some doing to get a plane into the country. Not impossible, only difficult.
"I don't know how much longer. It was a private jet to Qatar and a commercial flight to Islamabad, then here."
Facts, quickly. He doesn't have time to unpack the strange spiral Armand has been on, seemingly torn between dragging him east towards his earliest memories and west towards the worst ones. Strange, awful stories at all hours, in between phone calls and meetings in dozens of languages, paying bribes, moving assets, some of which seem to have not been touched since before World War II.
"He's running into a problem getting out of the country, now, between politics and the pandemic, so maybe Russia. Until he realizes my passport is flagged with them and I end up in the fucking Gulag anyway."
Though that might be better? Uncertain. Armand has kept to the letter of Louis' threat, and he hasn't harmed Daniel, but it hasn't exactly been relaxing and the abducted human is staring to lose it a little.
"A lot of phone calls in Italian, but there's no way he's getting a flight directly to western Europe."
Maybe it would be better if Daniel were in Russian custody. Humans would be easier.
Louis does not offer this.
Rashid has produced a tablet. Louis lays a hand on the smooth, cool surface. Makes his fear feed the adrenaline, sharpen everything in this moment.
"I'm coming," Louis tells him. "I can move a little more freely than him."
Years of cultivating friendships among the underbelly of society. Louis and his art, some of which has been procured in less than legal fashion. There are options, people who would smuggle a vampire.
"Are you hurt?" betrays a little tremor of that fear. Worry. Daniel is very obviously not alright, but Louis now has a clear idea of the full spectrum of discomfort that Armand could visit upon him.
"Be careful," is immediate, and kneejerk. Armand doesn't need to fear the sun, Armand has done fuck-knows-what to Louis' head, to Daniel's head, by now. "It's— I mean just talking to another person for a second—"
What is he doing?? Get a fucking grip, Molloy. Don't say goodbye, even though that's what he feels like doing, suddenly. He's exhausted. He's already dying of Parkinson's, it's at least slightly more interesting to expire while kidnapped by a fucking ancient demon instead of in palliative care. Christ.
"I'm fine."
Another thing that there's no time to detail is what Armand is starting to force him to do in lieu of appropriate medical care. Daniel feels insane.
Daniel has to go. Louis receives this news with a shock of real fear. Takes a moment to steady himself, keep the tremor of it from bleeding into his voice when he speaks.
A promise. Louis will put himself into that room if he has to. Simple as that. He's older than he was. Has drunk down Armand's power for eighty years.
And he could never leave Daniel to his fate.
If Louis had been more careful, it simply would not have come to pass and Daniel would be home. Could do as he pleased with the money Louis had wired to him.
"I'll see you soon," Louis promises, as if they are only arranging a visit. As if Daniel doesn't sound terrified. As if Armand couldn't simply kill him at any moment.
Armand won't. If he had intended to, he'd have left Daniel's body for Louis to find upon his return. He is doing something else.
Hope against hope, but Daniel has a bad feeling. So bad that he says nothing else, and simply hangs up. The feeling persists so starkly that he doesn't even startle when he turns around to find Armand waiting patiently for him.
It doesn't matter how much he's heard, he can just pull it out of Daniel's head easy as breathing.
Stay there, as if Daniel has any control over where they go, and now Armand knows that trying to pass through Moscow to move west is an unwieldy risk. Though, as Armand takes Daniel's hand in both of his and guides him back to the lobby elevators to return to their quarters, he thinks he might have told him anyway; he really doesn't want to go to a fucking Siberian work camp.
Things for Louis to find: CCTV, glimpses of an anxious hostage scenario versus the unnervingly docile way Daniel walks beside Armand the last time they leave the hotel, telltale obviousness of being mentally controlled. Rooms upstairs hastily vacated, some papers with notes scribbled on them left scuttled under one bed, a list of names and places Armand has mentioned. The lingering scent of Armand's own blood, and empty glasses with deep red stains.
It's not difficult to track their abrupt movement through the city, though it becomes fuzzier when they make an overland crossing into Kazakhstan. The drive to Almaty is only about four hours, and they stop at a quaint photo op area on the long road. Armand tells him more horror stories. In the airport, there's only one nonstop flight to anywhere in Europe, and it's in ten hours. Not acceptable. They end up hopping one to Istanbul, and Armand keeps a hand on Daniel's elbow the entire time, like a dutiful caretaker of his aging father-in-law.
In the end, it's Claudia's tricks that get Louis across borders. Only marginally easier now than it was then, if only because Louis has more contacts, more money, better grip on his power. Willing to be brutal now, as Claudia was then. Disadvantaged, susceptible still to sunlight where Armand can walk in the daylight at Daniel's side while Louis can move only at night.
But setting into motion a hive of smugglers and thieves doesn't get him to that hotel before Armand takes Daniel from it. Days too late, but the room itself preserved for his arrival. Sealed so Louis can walk through it, a handful of his staff gathering all evidence of Armand and Daniel's stay. A list in Daniel's handwriting, shaky, perhaps from haste or from fear.
CCTV footage collected, a little trail of images between this hotel and the airport.
How far behind them is he? They can trail after to the airport, to the same ticket counters, to dig answers from the people behind the counters. Istanbul. Armand took Daniel to Istanbul, perhaps to another room, another place Louis may well find empty but for whatever clues Daniel could manage to drop as he goes, more blood-stained cups.
But Louis goes to Istanbul, sealed in the cargo hold of a private jet.
Remembers being here with Armand, once. The hotel they'd chosen, the art they'd purchased, long hours walking the streets together. Wandering.
It's the place Louis tries first, after he finds its still standing in the exact place he left it. A gamble. Maybe Armand would choose it only to punish, to dig a knife into Louis before he moved on. He goes, mind tightly closed, to pick at the mind of the woman behind the counter.
The woman behind the counter works the swing shift, and her mind is as open as any mortal's. During daylight hours she had assisted an older American man, certainly drawn to her thanks to the subtle button on her lapel signaling her fluency in English. There's nothing unusual about the way the interaction begins. He asks about the restaurant in the hotel, and she's happy to provide information.
He then asks her to look up a guest's room number. Louis de Pointe du Lac, he tells her, and they have a brief exchange about how pretty that name is. But he's not a registered guest at the hotel. The American smiles and says that's alright, he just hasn't checked in yet, but can she hold this for him for when he shows up? Of course. He hands her an envelope with that name written on it, and she sets it aside behind the counter.
When he leaves, the man in line behind him - Indian or Bengali perhaps, she's not sure - leaves with him; she had assumed he was just another customer waiting. Apparently not. But there's yet another customer after, and so she moves on with her work day.
Until now, staring at Louis, waiting with a small smile to assist him. Only another hour or so left of her shift. She would like to go home.
All of this there at the surface of her mind, skimmed so easily that it requires next to no exertion to extract. Louis pulls all of this from her, and so need offer her nothing but:
"My name is Louis de Pointe du Lac. I believe you may have an envelope for me?"
All very polite. Ease he doesn't feel. Offers up his identification, if she requires...?
They were here, they were here, they were here. Armand's face reflects back at him from her mind.
Can they be a step ahead of him infinitely? Louis chasing Armand across the globe until what? Until Daniel is gone?
ID, yes, but really who else has that name. She's happy to hand it over. If he needs anything else...?
The envelope is a normal white envelope, and within it is a normal sheet of paper folded into thirds. A message is there on it, written out with a blue ballpoint pen. No sinister signatures in blood, no ominous tokens. Just Daniel's shitty, uneven handwriting, which he struggles to keep on even lines.
Louis,
He's not literally forcing me to write this but I still don't have a choice. Fucking illegible I know.
Parkinson's has not miraculously let up in between the last time they saw each other and now. He's felt like he's been getting extremely good medication while being made to drink Armand's fucking blood, but there are psychological downsides. Mostly it's very annoying. The note continues.
He says he's not going to kill me, but he's not going to let you take me, either. No word on if he intends to let me go. He says it's stressing me out to move so fast but he has to if you're going to push the issue, which sounds like a victim blamey bullshit excuse to me, but what do I fucking know. He'll edit this if he finds anything objectionable probably, so fuck you, Armand. Cross this out if you want.
DM
Armand, apparently, opted not to force him to rewrite without the hostility. How nice. Not silencing a writer's voice etc etc. What a guy. In any event, they are not staying in this hotel, though Armand did permit Daniel to stop in and have lunch. They left before sundown, and are now...? Somewhere. Istanbul connects to the rest of the whole fucking world. But they left the airport. So it stands to reason they might still be in the city, with Armand hopeful that Louis won't have even made it this far.
Armand's mind is surely closed off, but Daniel is just a human.
How quickly it had passed, that liminal space between the interview's end and Daniel's call. A moment of possibility. Lestat in his arms, a promise to speak more and regularly. The thought of Daniel's friendship, because it felt like that is what they parted with. Color stealing into the townhouse, piece by piece of art and furniture. Possibility, blooming and clipped in record time.
Does he need anything else?
A room. The penthouse suite will do. No need to worry after his luggage, he has staff, but if his American friend returns, please, he would like to be notified immediately.
Door closed, staff dispersed to the airports to gather what information possible about departures, Louis removes his shoes and coat. Drains a blood bag. Answers Lestat's three text messages. He will need to sleep, cannot put it off forever.
But not yet.
Smooths Daniel's letter across one knee, and reads it again. Lets his fear give way to anger, lets the anger become fuel.
Reaches out, falling into the flow of thought swirling in the air, vampire and human alike, touching all the overlapping, intertwining threads, until the familiarity of Daniel snags him like a hook on a line.
Daniel, as a whisper. So, so tentative. Aware of the risk inherent in this.
Still here in Istanbul, in an old church, one of the Byzantine ruins; Daniel is sitting in a windowless room with stone walls, waiting for something. He is exhausted, contemplating the edges of chronic pain, contemplating his exact location (not sure, and furthermore not sure if that's because of the exhaustion and chronic pain, or if his mind was fogged), contemplating Armand, and the contested validity of Stockholm syndrome, because he's actually starting to feel slightly bad for the guy, who is clearly profoundly mentally ill in a way he's kept camouflaged around being an ancient monster.
He hears his name, and it sounds like Louis.
Is he losing it?? Maybe. Daniel looks over his shoulder—?
No psychic powers, no ability to say anything back, but he's listening.
Peel back, Louis had called it in New Orleans, when he was a days-old fledgling and learning the extent of his power.
Does it now, to the extent he is able, venturing further into Daniel's mind. Louis touches that exhaustion, that pain. Finds the marvel of Daniel's empathy, and feels his heart turn over in his chest.
I have your letter, Louis tells him. More importantly: I'm not going to leave you with him.
Louis understands the threat. Knows he simply can't live with it.
Can you envision anything that would help me make my way to you?
The sensation of Louis winding closer. A presence in Daniel's mind, warmth, sunlight, rich color at the edges of Daniel's thoughts. Gentle contact, a clasped hand. Here. He's here.
Louis. It really is Louis. Daniel experiences a surge of relief and wonder, clutching onto that sensation like grasping his hand. Louis actually came for him? —And then that sinks in, Louis actually came for him, and a dark thread of worry slips through. Louis is finally free from this stupid shit, and he's risking an altercation for him?
Not worth it. A dying old man. He wanted a book, he wanted to get out alive. Neither of those look like they're going to happen. He'll take getting Louis out and staying out.
Scattered memories. Armand talking to him about faith, his struggle with it, resentment and revulsion and terror, the way he wishes he could saw it out of himself; Daniel struggles to look anywhere but the floor of the car they're in as they end up wherever they are right now. Regular asphalt parking lot, to a sidewalk, to ancient cobblestones. He doesn't glimpse the exterior. His attention is fixed on his hand in Armand's. Armand has been holding his hand quite a lot on this journey. If he tries to remove his hand, nothing will happen. The grip is gentle, the grip is fucking iron.
He doesn't know what Armand is looking for in here, if anything. Daniel thinks there must be tombs beneath it. A church that seems like it used to be a mosque, and used to be something else before that.
Questions pile up. None that helpfully serve the goal of extricating Daniel from Armand's clutches, and are rightfully deferred.
Louis makes himself a blanketing presence inside Daniel's mind. The impression of his atrium, the scent of earth. Warmth. Faint notes, piano, perhaps. Pebbles and stone rolling underfoot.
I'm coming, words like a melody. Words like a decree from on high.
It is enough. What he has from Daniel will be enough. Louis will put it into the head of someone who knows. Who can direct him.
Sleep can wait. Louis can't afford the delay. All things sacrificed in this pursuit, money, humans drained dry, and perhaps Louis' newly gained freedom, it is all deemed necessary. Essential.
Daniel doesn't have much of a choice about holding on or not. If Armand walks back in and decides they're leaving, they're leaving. But Louis is in the same city, they're miles from an airport, it's the middle of the night.
He sits there as though Louis is holding him, and Daniel is tucking his hands into the arms around him, and it's all very strange and surreal. He doesn't know if he feels safe (no such thing), but he feels better, even though there's still a churn of unease in him about Louis taking this risk. And an even stranger feeling about Armand, who Daniel had been so angry at (is still angry at), but despite that, couldn't scrape together any satisfaction for when Louis chucked him across the penthouse in Dubai.
Violence just sucks. Is it going to be bad, when Louis shows up? If he makes it?
What the fuck is Armand even doing here. Daniel doesn't want to die in a fucking church, he doesn't believe in any of this bullshit. He stands up. Maybe he can just... leave. Just walk out. Armand's been gone for a while, and Daniel can't hear anything from outside.
Daniel, prickling with anxiety. Not dissimilar to Louis' voice whispering Lunch is almost over. Try. Fearful. A sense of the intention forming within Daniel's mind.
Don't tempt him to chase you.
Armand's favored way of feeding, giving chase. Measuring himself against his meal.
Would he reverse his assertions, the ones he made Daniel put to the paper pinned beneath his palm? If given the chance, would Armand pursue and devour Daniel and leave Louis nothing but a husk as punishment and warning both?
Daniel pauses before the door, a hand laid on the push bar. It's a metal thing, probably installed in the 90s; before regulatory bodies started to think that old places like these should be restored and maintained as-is, not retrofitted. There's a sticker on the bar warning of steps outside of it.
He thinks of the other times he's tried to walk away before now— getting lost in a crowd in the first major airport, bailing out of the hotel in Islamabad. Armand every time showing up and collecting him, disapproval on his face. Was Daniel punished? If he was, he doesn't remember.
But he trusts Louis, and so he drops his hand away from the door. Thinks of the Talamasca next, and wondering if they've been tracking this at all, but Armand had turned Rashid away with an ease that made mind control obvious, and that fucking organization thinks Armand isn't a threat. A docile housewife looking after younger, more volatile creatures. They might not have even been bothered by the sight of Armand escorting Daniel out of Dubai.
Images forming in Daniel's mind. A door, stairs. An empty room.
Louis collects them, as he rises slowly to his feet. Not as effortless as it would be for Armand, this multitasking, but essential. Slipping the note into his pocket.
I'm coming to you, he promises again, the echo of spoken words reverberating behind this murmur. (I need a car, and the smuggler, Fayiz, I don't care how busy he claims to be—) The connection holds, Louis' presence clinging close, a hand on Daniel's cheek.
Daniel does not know where Armand went. He deposited Daniel in this room, squeezed his shoulder, and then left. The door shut behind him, and he hasn't seen or heard anything since.
Thinking about it like that, it does feel an awful lot like he was left here on purpose, and that begins to fill him with uneasy worry again. Maybe he should just bail, even if Armand might give chase. They'd know where he is, and maybe it'd force Armand's hand. Something, anything.
But these thoughts pass through him and he begins to settle. Armand wouldn't actually do that. He's been extremely courteous to Daniel so far— he was in Dubai, too, despite the way they sniped at each other. He'd overreacted in San Fransisco, and Daniel of course holds a grudge about that, but why wouldn't he. It's reasonable. It's also reasonable to recognize that Louis was the biggest threat to him in that penthouse. Louis who triggered his tremor into violence, Louis who mocked him viciously about Alice. Louis threw things, Louis lost his temper with Armand. What's Louis going to do if Daniel doesn't comply, right now?
Daniel is a sharp and clever human, but he's still a human. He doesn't realize what's happening to his own head, sitting in this room where Armand left him, like a fucking cupcake out on a counter at child-height.
At a distance, Louis is reduced to circling, an anxious guard dog too far removed from his charge. Reduced to hurried preparation, conversations echoing down to Daniel as Louis shudders through the reflective sense memory of Armand's hand.
Louis had thrown Armand so hard. A delineating moment, reframing all that came before, all that would come after.
A slamming door. A hasty conversation, descriptions shared back and forth. Hemming and hawing, the exchange of currency. Louis' voice sharpening towards violence at the perception of further delay.
But he is told where he must go. It is night. Louis has a vehicle.
Daniel, like a tug of a sleeve. Daniel, I know where.
A reassurance dropped into Daniel's mind amidst these recollections and reasonings.
I'm coming.
No further plea. No other information, no divulging the people waiting at the airport to observe and follow if Armand is too quick to move. No mention of preparations, of what lives were drunk down to even the catastrophic imbalance between Louis and Armand.
No need to let Daniel try to convince him of anything other than this: Louis will come to him. He will take Daniel away from this place. It will not happen again.
I'm coming, and Daniel tries to reach for that in this ocean of confusion. Difficult to focus on what's real when his head is being flooded with a perspective he's never actually held, but that he could have held, if he were someone else. Raglan tells him he should be afraid of Louis, and Daniel nods, a concerned agreement. He folds his napkin in half, into quarters, in half again, a nervous tick, as they speak about the hundreds of people Louis killed.
This conversation never happened. But it feels like it did, inside of Daniel's head.
He thinks: Please fucking stop, I'll stay if you fucking stop, and there's apparently magic in that concession.
Armand has, of course, being doing nothing but standing on the other side of the door and observing Daniel's mind for the past hour. That door finally opens and he crosses the small room to take Daniel's face in his hands, and look into his eyes, and look directly at Louis.
Then it ends. A blanket draped over the mind of the mortal he's absconded with, completely obscured.
The instant it happens, Louis knows. Their eyes meet through Daniel's mind and then it ends, and it won't matter how fast Louis pushes the motorcycle he's been loaned. The room is empty. They are gone.
Daniel is gone.
A matter of thirty minutes. Twenty. Such a short sliver of time. Louis had let himself hope, find comfort in the contact with Daniel's mind and what felt like an increasingly real possibility of success.
Louis breaks the metal door. The chair. Daniel's scent hangs in the room, mingled with Armand's, a reminder of how near he'd been.
Reaches out, trying again, finds nothing.
Feels the urge to fall to the ground.
Boxes it away. He promised Daniel. He knows what Daniel would have to say. He can almost hear him, succinct summation of Self-defeating bullshit.
So he returns to the hotel. Is buoyed in he smallest way by what waits for him; all the eyes scattered through the city have something for Louis. Three of his people, observing Armand, Daniel caught at his side. A flight number, a destination.
So Louis goes. Spends the travel time alternating between reaching out for Armand and reaching out for Daniel, seeking any form of contac.
A rescue was a nice thought while it lasted; Daniel holds the fact that Louis actually came and tried close, like a lifeline. Like the words he burned into his head and that they both forgot about, but still felt. He and Armand move around, and Daniel is eventually allowed to leave Louis another letter. A similar delivery method as the first, with a similarly shaky hand.
In it, he apologizes. He doesn't want Armand to fuck with his memories, and remembering Louis as it all really happened is more important than getting away. Please look after yourself, he closes it with, and wonders when he stopped thinking about his own fucking children. Maybe a long time ago, actually. Christ.
He and Armand do a lot of talking. Most of it veers between points of miserable and hostile, but some of it's alright. They have a kind of rapport about some things, and static about others. Daniel drinks an awful lot of his blood, and by the time they do make it to Italy, he's sure he's going to die. Probably not even by Armand's hand, because Armand mentioned (seemingly by accident) having mailed all of Daniel's things back to his apartment in New York. It's the fucking sickness, and stress. He's in pain a lot. Sleep is elusive, he has trouble wanting to eat anything. Moving around like this is difficult. Armand holds his hands on flights and train rides, and he hates that it's comforting, but hates that he's with him more.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
He clears the hurdle—
"Hey, Louis. Hi. It's Daniel Molloy." Out in a rush. He should have practiced what to say, he doesn't know how long he has. Every heartbeat (faster and faster) he expects to see a hand slide into frame and press the end call button. He did practice, he recited it all in his head, but it's gone now in a shaky flood of adrenaline. Scramble. "I'm in the Orion Hotel in Bishkek, staying on the top floor. I think." Pretty sure. "If you could find a way to get me out of here and away from him that'd be great. I understand if that's not a possibility," does he sound hysterical here? he hopes not, keep it together, clock's ticking, "and in that case, if you could just split whatever money you were going to send me and kick it to my daughters, I'd appreciate it. You don't owe me anything. I just—"
Just what? He freezes.
Didn't have anyone else. Who the fuck is going to help. At least Louis can give the girls money.
no subject
There is only one him. Daniel doesn't have to say a name.
"Daniel."
Insistent. Urgent.
Immediate dread dropping like a stone into his stomach. Armand took him. Armand took Daniel and it's why Daniel wasn't answering his phone. Armand has him.
Louis' fear is near-paralyzing, but he boxes it up. Puts it away. Striding through the penthouse in search of Rashid as he asks:
"Does he mean to stay there with you? For at least a few more days?"
It will take some doing to get a plane into the country. Not impossible, only difficult.
no subject
Facts, quickly. He doesn't have time to unpack the strange spiral Armand has been on, seemingly torn between dragging him east towards his earliest memories and west towards the worst ones. Strange, awful stories at all hours, in between phone calls and meetings in dozens of languages, paying bribes, moving assets, some of which seem to have not been touched since before World War II.
"He's running into a problem getting out of the country, now, between politics and the pandemic, so maybe Russia. Until he realizes my passport is flagged with them and I end up in the fucking Gulag anyway."
Though that might be better? Uncertain. Armand has kept to the letter of Louis' threat, and he hasn't harmed Daniel, but it hasn't exactly been relaxing and the abducted human is staring to lose it a little.
"A lot of phone calls in Italian, but there's no way he's getting a flight directly to western Europe."
no subject
Maybe it would be better if Daniel were in Russian custody. Humans would be easier.
Louis does not offer this.
Rashid has produced a tablet. Louis lays a hand on the smooth, cool surface. Makes his fear feed the adrenaline, sharpen everything in this moment.
"I'm coming," Louis tells him. "I can move a little more freely than him."
Years of cultivating friendships among the underbelly of society. Louis and his art, some of which has been procured in less than legal fashion. There are options, people who would smuggle a vampire.
"Are you hurt?" betrays a little tremor of that fear. Worry. Daniel is very obviously not alright, but Louis now has a clear idea of the full spectrum of discomfort that Armand could visit upon him.
no subject
What is he doing?? Get a fucking grip, Molloy. Don't say goodbye, even though that's what he feels like doing, suddenly. He's exhausted. He's already dying of Parkinson's, it's at least slightly more interesting to expire while kidnapped by a fucking ancient demon instead of in palliative care. Christ.
"I'm fine."
Another thing that there's no time to detail is what Armand is starting to force him to do in lieu of appropriate medical care. Daniel feels insane.
"My kids, will you do that? I have to go."
no subject
"Daniel," softer, fervent. "I'm coming. Stay there, and I'll find you."
A promise. Louis will put himself into that room if he has to. Simple as that. He's older than he was. Has drunk down Armand's power for eighty years.
And he could never leave Daniel to his fate.
If Louis had been more careful, it simply would not have come to pass and Daniel would be home. Could do as he pleased with the money Louis had wired to him.
"I'll see you soon," Louis promises, as if they are only arranging a visit. As if Daniel doesn't sound terrified. As if Armand couldn't simply kill him at any moment.
Armand won't. If he had intended to, he'd have left Daniel's body for Louis to find upon his return. He is doing something else.
no subject
It doesn't matter how much he's heard, he can just pull it out of Daniel's head easy as breathing.
Stay there, as if Daniel has any control over where they go, and now Armand knows that trying to pass through Moscow to move west is an unwieldy risk. Though, as Armand takes Daniel's hand in both of his and guides him back to the lobby elevators to return to their quarters, he thinks he might have told him anyway; he really doesn't want to go to a fucking Siberian work camp.
Things for Louis to find: CCTV, glimpses of an anxious hostage scenario versus the unnervingly docile way Daniel walks beside Armand the last time they leave the hotel, telltale obviousness of being mentally controlled. Rooms upstairs hastily vacated, some papers with notes scribbled on them left scuttled under one bed, a list of names and places Armand has mentioned. The lingering scent of Armand's own blood, and empty glasses with deep red stains.
It's not difficult to track their abrupt movement through the city, though it becomes fuzzier when they make an overland crossing into Kazakhstan. The drive to Almaty is only about four hours, and they stop at a quaint photo op area on the long road. Armand tells him more horror stories. In the airport, there's only one nonstop flight to anywhere in Europe, and it's in ten hours. Not acceptable. They end up hopping one to Istanbul, and Armand keeps a hand on Daniel's elbow the entire time, like a dutiful caretaker of his aging father-in-law.
no subject
But setting into motion a hive of smugglers and thieves doesn't get him to that hotel before Armand takes Daniel from it. Days too late, but the room itself preserved for his arrival. Sealed so Louis can walk through it, a handful of his staff gathering all evidence of Armand and Daniel's stay. A list in Daniel's handwriting, shaky, perhaps from haste or from fear.
CCTV footage collected, a little trail of images between this hotel and the airport.
How far behind them is he? They can trail after to the airport, to the same ticket counters, to dig answers from the people behind the counters. Istanbul. Armand took Daniel to Istanbul, perhaps to another room, another place Louis may well find empty but for whatever clues Daniel could manage to drop as he goes, more blood-stained cups.
But Louis goes to Istanbul, sealed in the cargo hold of a private jet.
Remembers being here with Armand, once. The hotel they'd chosen, the art they'd purchased, long hours walking the streets together. Wandering.
It's the place Louis tries first, after he finds its still standing in the exact place he left it. A gamble. Maybe Armand would choose it only to punish, to dig a knife into Louis before he moved on. He goes, mind tightly closed, to pick at the mind of the woman behind the counter.
no subject
The woman behind the counter works the swing shift, and her mind is as open as any mortal's. During daylight hours she had assisted an older American man, certainly drawn to her thanks to the subtle button on her lapel signaling her fluency in English. There's nothing unusual about the way the interaction begins. He asks about the restaurant in the hotel, and she's happy to provide information.
He then asks her to look up a guest's room number. Louis de Pointe du Lac, he tells her, and they have a brief exchange about how pretty that name is. But he's not a registered guest at the hotel. The American smiles and says that's alright, he just hasn't checked in yet, but can she hold this for him for when he shows up? Of course. He hands her an envelope with that name written on it, and she sets it aside behind the counter.
When he leaves, the man in line behind him - Indian or Bengali perhaps, she's not sure - leaves with him; she had assumed he was just another customer waiting. Apparently not. But there's yet another customer after, and so she moves on with her work day.
Until now, staring at Louis, waiting with a small smile to assist him. Only another hour or so left of her shift. She would like to go home.
no subject
"My name is Louis de Pointe du Lac. I believe you may have an envelope for me?"
All very polite. Ease he doesn't feel. Offers up his identification, if she requires...?
They were here, they were here, they were here. Armand's face reflects back at him from her mind.
Can they be a step ahead of him infinitely? Louis chasing Armand across the globe until what? Until Daniel is gone?
no subject
ID, yes, but really who else has that name. She's happy to hand it over. If he needs anything else...?
The envelope is a normal white envelope, and within it is a normal sheet of paper folded into thirds. A message is there on it, written out with a blue ballpoint pen. No sinister signatures in blood, no ominous tokens. Just Daniel's shitty, uneven handwriting, which he struggles to keep on even lines.
Parkinson's has not miraculously let up in between the last time they saw each other and now. He's felt like he's been getting extremely good medication while being made to drink Armand's fucking blood, but there are psychological downsides. Mostly it's very annoying. The note continues.
Armand, apparently, opted not to force him to rewrite without the hostility. How nice. Not silencing a writer's voice etc etc. What a guy. In any event, they are not staying in this hotel, though Armand did permit Daniel to stop in and have lunch. They left before sundown, and are now...? Somewhere. Istanbul connects to the rest of the whole fucking world. But they left the airport. So it stands to reason they might still be in the city, with Armand hopeful that Louis won't have even made it this far.
Armand's mind is surely closed off, but Daniel is just a human.
no subject
Does he need anything else?
A room. The penthouse suite will do. No need to worry after his luggage, he has staff, but if his American friend returns, please, he would like to be notified immediately.
Door closed, staff dispersed to the airports to gather what information possible about departures, Louis removes his shoes and coat. Drains a blood bag. Answers Lestat's three text messages. He will need to sleep, cannot put it off forever.
But not yet.
Smooths Daniel's letter across one knee, and reads it again. Lets his fear give way to anger, lets the anger become fuel.
Reaches out, falling into the flow of thought swirling in the air, vampire and human alike, touching all the overlapping, intertwining threads, until the familiarity of Daniel snags him like a hook on a line.
Daniel, as a whisper. So, so tentative. Aware of the risk inherent in this.
no subject
He hears his name, and it sounds like Louis.
Is he losing it?? Maybe. Daniel looks over his shoulder—?
No psychic powers, no ability to say anything back, but he's listening.
no subject
Does it now, to the extent he is able, venturing further into Daniel's mind. Louis touches that exhaustion, that pain. Finds the marvel of Daniel's empathy, and feels his heart turn over in his chest.
I have your letter, Louis tells him. More importantly: I'm not going to leave you with him.
Louis understands the threat. Knows he simply can't live with it.
Can you envision anything that would help me make my way to you?
The sensation of Louis winding closer. A presence in Daniel's mind, warmth, sunlight, rich color at the edges of Daniel's thoughts. Gentle contact, a clasped hand. Here. He's here.
Show me.
no subject
Not worth it. A dying old man. He wanted a book, he wanted to get out alive. Neither of those look like they're going to happen. He'll take getting Louis out and staying out.
Scattered memories. Armand talking to him about faith, his struggle with it, resentment and revulsion and terror, the way he wishes he could saw it out of himself; Daniel struggles to look anywhere but the floor of the car they're in as they end up wherever they are right now. Regular asphalt parking lot, to a sidewalk, to ancient cobblestones. He doesn't glimpse the exterior. His attention is fixed on his hand in Armand's. Armand has been holding his hand quite a lot on this journey. If he tries to remove his hand, nothing will happen. The grip is gentle, the grip is fucking iron.
He doesn't know what Armand is looking for in here, if anything. Daniel thinks there must be tombs beneath it. A church that seems like it used to be a mosque, and used to be something else before that.
no subject
Louis makes himself a blanketing presence inside Daniel's mind. The impression of his atrium, the scent of earth. Warmth. Faint notes, piano, perhaps. Pebbles and stone rolling underfoot.
I'm coming, words like a melody. Words like a decree from on high.
It is enough. What he has from Daniel will be enough. Louis will put it into the head of someone who knows. Who can direct him.
Sleep can wait. Louis can't afford the delay. All things sacrificed in this pursuit, money, humans drained dry, and perhaps Louis' newly gained freedom, it is all deemed necessary. Essential.
Hold on a little longer for me. I'm coming.
no subject
He sits there as though Louis is holding him, and Daniel is tucking his hands into the arms around him, and it's all very strange and surreal. He doesn't know if he feels safe (no such thing), but he feels better, even though there's still a churn of unease in him about Louis taking this risk. And an even stranger feeling about Armand, who Daniel had been so angry at (is still angry at), but despite that, couldn't scrape together any satisfaction for when Louis chucked him across the penthouse in Dubai.
Violence just sucks. Is it going to be bad, when Louis shows up? If he makes it?
What the fuck is Armand even doing here. Daniel doesn't want to die in a fucking church, he doesn't believe in any of this bullshit. He stands up. Maybe he can just... leave. Just walk out. Armand's been gone for a while, and Daniel can't hear anything from outside.
no subject
Don't tempt him to chase you.
Armand's favored way of feeding, giving chase. Measuring himself against his meal.
Would he reverse his assertions, the ones he made Daniel put to the paper pinned beneath his palm? If given the chance, would Armand pursue and devour Daniel and leave Louis nothing but a husk as punishment and warning both?
no subject
Well that, uh. That sounds bad.
Daniel pauses before the door, a hand laid on the push bar. It's a metal thing, probably installed in the 90s; before regulatory bodies started to think that old places like these should be restored and maintained as-is, not retrofitted. There's a sticker on the bar warning of steps outside of it.
He thinks of the other times he's tried to walk away before now— getting lost in a crowd in the first major airport, bailing out of the hotel in Islamabad. Armand every time showing up and collecting him, disapproval on his face. Was Daniel punished? If he was, he doesn't remember.
But he trusts Louis, and so he drops his hand away from the door. Thinks of the Talamasca next, and wondering if they've been tracking this at all, but Armand had turned Rashid away with an ease that made mind control obvious, and that fucking organization thinks Armand isn't a threat. A docile housewife looking after younger, more volatile creatures. They might not have even been bothered by the sight of Armand escorting Daniel out of Dubai.
no subject
Louis collects them, as he rises slowly to his feet. Not as effortless as it would be for Armand, this multitasking, but essential. Slipping the note into his pocket.
I'm coming to you, he promises again, the echo of spoken words reverberating behind this murmur. (I need a car, and the smuggler, Fayiz, I don't care how busy he claims to be—) The connection holds, Louis' presence clinging close, a hand on Daniel's cheek.
A pause, then:
Do you know where he went?
no subject
Thinking about it like that, it does feel an awful lot like he was left here on purpose, and that begins to fill him with uneasy worry again. Maybe he should just bail, even if Armand might give chase. They'd know where he is, and maybe it'd force Armand's hand. Something, anything.
But these thoughts pass through him and he begins to settle. Armand wouldn't actually do that. He's been extremely courteous to Daniel so far— he was in Dubai, too, despite the way they sniped at each other. He'd overreacted in San Fransisco, and Daniel of course holds a grudge about that, but why wouldn't he. It's reasonable. It's also reasonable to recognize that Louis was the biggest threat to him in that penthouse. Louis who triggered his tremor into violence, Louis who mocked him viciously about Alice. Louis threw things, Louis lost his temper with Armand. What's Louis going to do if Daniel doesn't comply, right now?
Daniel is a sharp and clever human, but he's still a human. He doesn't realize what's happening to his own head, sitting in this room where Armand left him, like a fucking cupcake out on a counter at child-height.
no subject
Louis had thrown Armand so hard. A delineating moment, reframing all that came before, all that would come after.
A slamming door. A hasty conversation, descriptions shared back and forth. Hemming and hawing, the exchange of currency. Louis' voice sharpening towards violence at the perception of further delay.
But he is told where he must go. It is night. Louis has a vehicle.
Daniel, like a tug of a sleeve. Daniel, I know where.
A reassurance dropped into Daniel's mind amidst these recollections and reasonings.
I'm coming.
No further plea. No other information, no divulging the people waiting at the airport to observe and follow if Armand is too quick to move. No mention of preparations, of what lives were drunk down to even the catastrophic imbalance between Louis and Armand.
No need to let Daniel try to convince him of anything other than this: Louis will come to him. He will take Daniel away from this place. It will not happen again.
no subject
This conversation never happened. But it feels like it did, inside of Daniel's head.
He thinks: Please fucking stop, I'll stay if you fucking stop, and there's apparently magic in that concession.
Armand has, of course, being doing nothing but standing on the other side of the door and observing Daniel's mind for the past hour. That door finally opens and he crosses the small room to take Daniel's face in his hands, and look into his eyes, and look directly at Louis.
Then it ends. A blanket draped over the mind of the mortal he's absconded with, completely obscured.
no subject
Daniel is gone.
A matter of thirty minutes. Twenty. Such a short sliver of time. Louis had let himself hope, find comfort in the contact with Daniel's mind and what felt like an increasingly real possibility of success.
Louis breaks the metal door. The chair. Daniel's scent hangs in the room, mingled with Armand's, a reminder of how near he'd been.
Reaches out, trying again, finds nothing.
Feels the urge to fall to the ground.
Boxes it away. He promised Daniel. He knows what Daniel would have to say. He can almost hear him, succinct summation of Self-defeating bullshit.
So he returns to the hotel. Is buoyed in he smallest way by what waits for him; all the eyes scattered through the city have something for Louis. Three of his people, observing Armand, Daniel caught at his side. A flight number, a destination.
So Louis goes. Spends the travel time alternating between reaching out for Armand and reaching out for Daniel, seeking any form of contac.
no subject
A rescue was a nice thought while it lasted; Daniel holds the fact that Louis actually came and tried close, like a lifeline. Like the words he burned into his head and that they both forgot about, but still felt. He and Armand move around, and Daniel is eventually allowed to leave Louis another letter. A similar delivery method as the first, with a similarly shaky hand.
In it, he apologizes. He doesn't want Armand to fuck with his memories, and remembering Louis as it all really happened is more important than getting away. Please look after yourself, he closes it with, and wonders when he stopped thinking about his own fucking children. Maybe a long time ago, actually. Christ.
He and Armand do a lot of talking. Most of it veers between points of miserable and hostile, but some of it's alright. They have a kind of rapport about some things, and static about others. Daniel drinks an awful lot of his blood, and by the time they do make it to Italy, he's sure he's going to die. Probably not even by Armand's hand, because Armand mentioned (seemingly by accident) having mailed all of Daniel's things back to his apartment in New York. It's the fucking sickness, and stress. He's in pain a lot. Sleep is elusive, he has trouble wanting to eat anything. Moving around like this is difficult. Armand holds his hands on flights and train rides, and he hates that it's comforting, but hates that he's with him more.
Venice is beautiful. He doesn't notice.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
🎀 territory?? unless you had further desires