Weeks ago, Daniel kneeling in front of him, saying "You didn't." Lestat, murmuring, "You would not wish to forget the boy you saved. You would not want to forget me, even this little bit of me." All that they'd said, things that had made sense in the moment. Louis had let their certainty act as a tether, a reassurance.

But neither of them had been in the room with him then. Lestat, miles away in New Orleans. Daniel, abandoned on a dirty cot with Louis' words as a buoy to pull him out of the dark place they'd left him.

And then it had been the two of them. Louis has nothing for it, no structure apart from the one Armand gave him.

I don't remember any of that.

But the trap is in the aspects of it that ring true. The parts that Louis turns over in his hands, knowing them to be reasonable. To be likely.

I don't remember, Armand.

Frustrated. Louis winding closer, as if proximity will provide clarity. As if he could see into Armand the way Armand sees into him. (Never, he has never been permitted and Louis knows that now, knows it was always a question of what Armand permitted him.) The suggestion of contact, attention narrowed down to what Armand lays out for Louis to examine. Weigh. Test against Daniel's certainty, Lestat's reassurance.