They have gone into bars, train stations, hotel lobbies, but the glaring bright lights of a department store, tinny music playing and fragile things kept in glass makes an even more unnatural setting, and Lestat an unnatural presence within it. There's an effort, maybe, that a vampire, particularly one with a couple of centuries and change under his belt, must make to pass through mortal society without giving off the vibe that they are wholly unnatural.
Lestat could probably be making more of an effort. Late night shoppers steer clear of them both, following an instinct. The same kind of power that might draw people in, set to inverse. But: he has killed someone who had in their possession some sunglasses with glossy purple lenses, so that takes care of the freaky eye situation.
He stops to evaluate the shiny rectangles of metal and glass and plastic. Arm folded defensively. Confronted with some shit he doesn't understand, reading the labels, the specifications. The things he does for love!
"It didn't take well to my voice," he says, and then a glance back. "And then it didn't take well to the wall."
"Voice recognition, durability." Ticking things off on fingers. "I've actually done research about that, you're in luck."
No trendy iPhones, then. Their voice shit sucks. But Daniel had cause to look into getting used to accessibility options, and so he knows which Pixel series phones to steer them towards. Hand tremors aren't the optimal way to engage with touch screens. Subreddits, full of people chatting (aloud, to their phones) about their Parkinson's, their ALS, their MS...
Daniel is really sacrificing here. Speaking of phones. Hanging out with Lestat is mostly an echo chamber of He's so handsome from the humans around them, big shining eyes turned the blond's way. But there was a rare bird working in his hotel lobby, one he can spot now with these abilities, who was staring at him with all her tightly coiled daddy issues and thinking Fuck I hope Grandpa Nerd Leather asks me how to log into Facebook on the wifi.
There is a flicker of surprise out of Lestat that his answer appears to actually be helpful in identifying which rectangle he should be purchasing, or being bought. He gives a quiet and somehow still French sounding 'mnh' at Daniel's announcement of his good fortune. Very well, then.
The perusing continues, extends beyond the displays of cellphones. Or ~portables~. Screens everywhere, shiny metal, impossible light, a susurrus of electricity. His attention snags on something—or someones. Two young women, faces painted as if they were going on stage somewhere, one in cheap leopard print and the other with a wave of turquoise hair. Not an unfamiliar sight by now, but the kind that draws his focus.
A relatable question: does he want to be like them or just eat them?
It's a fleeting distraction, and Daniel is easily able to snatch it back. He gets a pivot for his troubles, reflective purple lenses, a smile. "Very okay," Lestat says. "The most okay. Thank you." His turn finishes, back on track.
The truth: he feels a messy tangle of things, knots that catch at anything. It had been very quiet, New Orleans. He had made it so.
One of the bigger screens, maybe. Daniel always habitually had smaller ones, hating the idea of lugging around a fucking brick, but the kids these days love it. Watching movies on them.
The most okay. Sure. An answer from an okay person, which is thoroughly convincing.
Danger flashes like a neon sign even before Lestat turns all the way around. Daniel leans one hip against the display table, and lets his expression becoming thoughtful. But still assessing. Looking at him through his own tinted glasses. (Blue? Violet? Orange? He doesn't know what he looks like.)
Obviously, 'No' is the optimal answer, but if Lestat would accept that, Daniel doesn't think he'd ask.
It'd be really funny to die right here, he thinks. Dry humor. And then, horribly, he realizes how badly that would hurt Louis. Not the loss of him personally, though some of that, but the fact that it would be Lestat doing it. Possibly this is a worse situation than he expected. Which to be fair is typical for Daniel Molloy.
"Not like you do," he says after a little while. Listening to the ambiance of the store, the mall, the people. Quiet in here, though not silent. "But yeah, in a way."
He doesn't expect saying it to hurt. Just a pang somewhere in his ribcage, an old ache. Fondness and regret. It was never going to be a love story, not even fifty years ago, not even without Armand and without Lestat. But there was something. Like the voice of God, or an angel. There will always be something.
Lestat circles the display, a hand on the glass, languid motion that comes to a stop.
A deep head tip as he listens to Molloy, leaning there. And listens, too, and either he doesn't give a fuck what Daniel thinks about it or there is some amount of deliberately showing his hand. Daniel can feel him in there. Daniel can also feel that he's not rifling around messily through his brain—as Lestat had, a little, when they first met.
Here, Lestat finds that old ache. Very delicately, as if between two fingers, he tugs at it like it's a thread, measuring it's distance. Sees it spanning back far, into shadowy depths. Releases it. A breath out of him carries a hummed vocalisation.
"I'm not going to kill you, Daniel," has a hint of a for fuck's sake about it.
A shimmer of thought, a spare amount of humour: you said I could use your phone plan. We have fun here. He is very glad Daniel did not try to lie to him.
"I can tell he is fond of you too. It was in his voice."
A strange feeling. Not like Armand's sifting, sand tasted through fingers, observed but not understood. Nor like Louis' no-frills precision. Unique like personalities. What an odd thing to be able to notice. It really is a whole other world, this unlife.
"I've got a history."
Flippant. About meeting vampires and then getting almost murdered. We do have fun here. The fun is either: I am so insufferable, it's not actually that dramatic to think someone would murder me. Or perhaps: I'd continue to find it hot.
Or both!
(A blink of memory. Sitting on a stone floor, looking at rocks.)
"Well, you know. My raw animal magnetism. How's the Pixel feeling?"
The long bland look Daniel gets lingers for a few seconds, and then relents in a tip down towards the Pixel, or whatever.
Not so unlike the testing of a memory, Lestat is delicate in his handling, decides that the cord attaching the phone to the display is probably there for a reason and so he doesn't snap it and get the mall cops called on them. Lips pursed, angling it around to hold.
"Is that why Armand made you?"
Lestat isn't looking at him at least, now touching at the screen. He has no eye for the iconography and its meanings, but, you know. Moving colours, slipping glossily around beneath his finger. Oh, that's Spotify. Opens it. Does not see the millennial's account loaded. Well, that makes sense. No idea what to do about that.
"The raw animal magnetism?" A flick of a glance back up. Dreamily innocent, "We could talk of Louis again if you prefer."
Well, that's an absolutely insane reason to pass along the Dark Gift if Lestat has ever heard one, something his expression while he studies the phone conveys rather clearly. Impressed, almost. And he should know, he's done it like five times now, and one of them was the mistress he convinced to fake her own death for him so he could spy on his family better. (Admittedly, a low point.)
"Ha," he says. Good to know.
And Louis forbade it. Lestat wonders if he will be forbidden too, if Louis thinks he needs to be, or if Daniel's existence as a vampire makes him less of a target.
Daniel always wondered if he got her a better finger replacement than a shitty glove.
(No he didn't always wonder, but he did wonder, for like half a second.)
"Yeah." You can even be sold blenders. Hey, does he hate talking about Armand, or what. Daniel mentally shakes it off. "Whatever you want, really—"
He inches closer to Lestat to hover with arms crossed, one hand occasionally raising to point out this or that. This phone? What about one of these other ones? Daniel wonders if he should pick up a new one, too, but he's still using his elitist iPhone despite the slide into cognitive and mobility issues he was experiencing pre-turn. A dedicated Apple user since the 80s, what a fucking nightmare.
The kid in corporate-mandated business casual is back, hovering at the end of the display table. He looks like a Mormon bicyclist.
(A bespoke prosthetic, rosewood and gold. Rewarded after an evening of arguing, a slammed door, and Lestat begging his way back in. He treated her like trash, of course, and would have thrown her limp corpse into the bayou if it would have won him the things he truly wanted, but she took him back too easy, time and time again, to give up without necessary motive.)
Lestat selects one of the larger phones that settle better in his palm. When the Mormon bicyclist is permitted entry into the conversation and begins talking about some of its features, warranty, insurance, Lestat cuts him off to ask about what colours it comes in and subsequently learns about phone cases. Fortunately, everyone can multitask, the kid seems more relaxed about communicating through Daniel as a proxy, and Lestat lands on his selection fairly quickly, which is just solid holographic glitter.
The kid disappears to find the correct model in the backroom, and Lestat observes, "He is trying to figure out if we're related or fucking," and casts a toothy smile Daniel's way.
"Seeing as we are neither at this very moment, will you tell me why you are being kind to me?"
Before they end up at the counter so he can make a genial comment about putting his son-in-law (this will be his excuse for everyone, forever, probably) onto a new line, Daniel is going to make him get an extra charger and over-ear headphones, as well. Not because he is an old man who thinks earbuds are bullshit (though those things are also true), but he thinks the tiny free ones that every phone comes with will get lost too easily, and sound quality is infinitely superior with the old fashioned clunkers. Here, Sharky, you're a music guy, try these on.
An incredible question. Vampires are funny. Daniel smiles a little, but it's small. Private.
"Because you were kind to me, Lestat."
He literally saved him, and then spoke to him for a while and answered his questions, had dinner, helped dispose of the body. Daniel would have been curious anyway, perhaps enough to be placating, maybe helped him out of a sense of self-preservation (does he have one of those?), or just endless reckless decision-making to be in the orbit of someone he knows very well committed heinous and prolonged abuse. But here we go, the boring, ordinary, regular person truth of it, is that sometimes the mundane western interpretation of karma is real. Normalcy. Lestat was nice to him. So now, Daniel is nice in return.
A simple answer, absent of deeper and greater meaning.
Lestat had already fixed an expectant look on him, an expensive set of headphones held between his claws, but the change is subtle. His glasses have been pocketed to get out of the way, so the too-blue quality of his eyes are unmediated, like the way you'd describe glass in an aquarium. Glass in an aquarium isn't prone to breaking, however, and his regard of Daniel is, for a second, fragile. Fragile in the way you hope the concrete casing of a nuclear reactor would not be.
He was kind so Daniel is kind. Okay.
The very articulate look up and down is a little more performative, prissy, and Lestat pivots back to the wall of headphones, putting his current acquisition on. Playing with the panel that allows music to flow through. This takes more time than a trusting selection of a rectangle or the obnoxious-on-purpose choosing of glitter aesthetics, letting himself space out and listen to the barely meaningful differences between the quality of products, but he never has to go back and listen twice.
He selects not the most expensive one, but it's up there. At the counter, he tells the rep, "This one is the better one of all of those," with a certain amount of expectation that this is actionable advice.
Is it absent of deeper and greater meaning, or is Lestat just recoiling away from the sunlight of something emotionally ordinary happening To Him, Of All People, in his most dramatic and important unlife.
Daniel does not say or think (well, very hard) drama queen, but if he did, it would be in an exasperated almost-fond tone. Just almost. Tinged with some lurking worry. Do they just all do this, with age. Do they fucking forget. Will he. Daniel is miles away from a saint, but will there be a day when he cannot comprehend common, boring courtesy?
Or is Lestat simply weird.
Mormon bicyclist (his name is Stuart) launches into an enthusiastic ramble about how those headphones working great with his record player at home, even with an after-market extended cable purchase. Phone insurance is cheaper than the headphones, which is a little funny. Daniel adds him to his plan ("A second extra line?" Stuart confirms, and Daniel, for a moment, realizes he's forgotten that his youngest daughter is still on there, which is absurdly shit of him, but he just forges ahead and agrees), and they are given special coupons for the Orange Julius at the other end of the mall, which makes Daniel feel slightly insane, as he thought those all closed in the 90s, and were only on the west coast.
Maybe none of this is happening. More mindfuckery— oh, no, the credit card receipt, this is real. Motherfucking inflation.
Stuart talks so fluidly about this particular special interest that Lestat, for a minute, stops viewing him as a cardboard cut out, which—is not better, really. Leaning on the countertop, a smile, a question as what music he prefers, an evaluating look that measures the thickness of arteries in the throat.
But, no, he had been given advice. Don't stalk people out of brightly lit places with cameras when you've marked them so obviously. Stick to the edges of things, the shadows. Unfair that the world should become so brightly lit that the old ways are tugging at his hem. Annoying. He should be able to eat whoever he wants.
A hunt later, anyway, maybe the two young women from before. Hunger aside, he will want to get away from Daniel after this is over, at least until it's time to head for DC. Daniel has done nothing wrong. Lestat might.
Dismissing Stuart as a prospective meal, Lestat peels off the packaging for his things as they finish out the paperwork, stiff plastic giving way like wet cardboard under his fingers. Clicking the case into place, hooking the headphones around his neck and pocketing the charger, fiddling with the device as the last of the transaction is complete. Some hours later, his lawyer will be startled out of bed thanks to a telepathic directive that he requires an email address and Daniel will be spared from helping him set up his own Spotify account.
The mall itself is close to empty, preparing to close. A very strange palace, Lestat observing the glass ceiling high above as they go. Even the most common of places are like grand opera houses, in this age.
"His number," is said once he rolls his focus back forwards, offering his new sparkly phone out. "S'il te plaît."
Stragglers only. A few stores have their security panels rolled down already, giving up the ghost for the day. Daniel hates these; old malls had character. Dark carpets and multicolored lights and arcades with drug dealers. LED lights and arched ceilings, ugh.
Anywhoo. He takes Lestat's brand new phone, and does not enter Louis' number— he sends a text to himself, and since they're on the same plan, it automatically logs itself in the phone with his contact. There. Tethered. Suffer. (When his lawyer finds out he's on a journalist's phone plan, she's going to tell him to chuck it in the nearest river for real.) Some juggling. Next, his own phone, from which he copies Louis' number and texts Lestat back, then copies the text, etc, you get it. On his screen, smaller than Lestat's, an iPhone with a password, he has to clear several frantic-looking bubbles that he makes no mention of. Quickquick, we're doing something else right now.
(From 'RJ'. A long, foreign number. What are you doing? - Call me back right now. - DANIEL MOLLOY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING.)
This all seems complicated and Lestat does not try to follow what is happening. He stands and watches it with an increasingly sullen set to his expression, the swift ease with which Daniel does a little array of things beyond his comprehension. Waiting, braced. As if, after this talk of kindness, Daniel was going to
he doesn't know. Set a condition, or something. Flaunt his ability to refuse him after Lestat had just declared his intention not to murder him. Daniel is a more accommodating quality than Claudia, who had been quite clear about the beneficence of what was barely her tolerance for Lestat's reentry into Louis' life, and there is no reason at all to compare them save that Louis has had so few close friends.
Looking after his interests. But, the phone is handed back, and Lestat takes it, and his defenses lower by a margin. Suspicious, but he doesn't detect deceit. At least, not of that kind.
"Merci." The phone is disappeared into a pocket, traded out for his cigarettes. "When do we go to DC?"
"In two days. I'm taking the train, it's a midnight to 5 am trip, but you get let off inside the station, so. Car to the hotel garage. Fun."
Lestat has made his own way so far, and how, Daniel hasn't asked. Flying under his own power? Like Superman, who isn't real? Red eye flights? His business. He's made his own accommodations because he has to get this stuff down and because, honestly, he's used to it. Daniel has assistants and editors and research staffers, proteges, but he's always figured most things out on his own. A nosy detective looking for stories.
"You're welcome to join me."
Which would be... a little buddy-buddy, and it would probably make Daniel feel slightly insane, like contending with Orange Julius in the northeast 2020s (it's a pop-up thing, a flier taped to a kiosk says). But still, welcome. Especially since Talamasca's freaking out, because that's just funny. EHhem. He'll look into those missed texts soon. Maybe.
The end of the cigarette glows and embers as soon as the other is between his teeth, a little wisp of acrid smoke into the perfumed mall air on their way towards the door. (A moment where the nearest security guard seems about to say something, and stalls when Lestat glances his way with a cold and digging look. It induces a spike of terror, a jelly-legged step backwards, and his jaw pinching closed.) The automatic doors slide on the rails.
Internal and external CCTV probably fed to the Talamasca, ever-watching. Just a man and his son-in-law, the latter of whom offers out his pack of smokes to take from, and tucks his hands into the pockets of his coat.
Considers Daniel, this next act of kindness. Even in ways he doesn't mean, maybe, although who can say with writers? Not a do you want to?, just a welcome, an open door.
Smiles around the cigarette, sharp and sudden, and sweeps it between his fingers. "D'accord," Lestat says. "I will join you at the station, if you survive until then."
Sardonic. It's a vampire eat vampire world. But Lestat has perfect faith in this outcome, which is maybe conveyed in the way he says goodbye: a step forward, an unexpected closeness through the smooth motion that carries him into the kiss that grazes Daniel's cheek, and then a pivot to send him on his way with an authoritative clop of boot heels against pavement.
Daniel accepts a cigarette, nimble fingers despite everything. (Still were, still, in between tremors. Just on the edge of downhill, staring at it, clinging to the edge.) The end sparks up on its own as they pass over the threshold of the sliding doors with their cheery chime.
"We'll see."
Survival.
He's thinking about—
Drama queen, more deliberate this time, loud and startled in his head. A funny look at Lestat. Something unsaid, right there, but on the heels of such antics, now isn't the time. The elder vampire's business his is own, for the rest of the night. He pulls the cigarette from his mouth, exhaling, and tips his head back in a farewell.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Lestat could probably be making more of an effort. Late night shoppers steer clear of them both, following an instinct. The same kind of power that might draw people in, set to inverse. But: he has killed someone who had in their possession some sunglasses with glossy purple lenses, so that takes care of the freaky eye situation.
He stops to evaluate the shiny rectangles of metal and glass and plastic. Arm folded defensively. Confronted with some shit he doesn't understand, reading the labels, the specifications. The things he does for love!
"It didn't take well to my voice," he says, and then a glance back. "And then it didn't take well to the wall."
If we're all being honest with ourselves.
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No trendy iPhones, then. Their voice shit sucks. But Daniel had cause to look into getting used to accessibility options, and so he knows which Pixel series phones to steer them towards. Hand tremors aren't the optimal way to engage with touch screens. Subreddits, full of people chatting (aloud, to their phones) about their Parkinson's, their ALS, their MS...
Daniel is really sacrificing here. Speaking of phones. Hanging out with Lestat is mostly an echo chamber of He's so handsome from the humans around them, big shining eyes turned the blond's way. But there was a rare bird working in his hotel lobby, one he can spot now with these abilities, who was staring at him with all her tightly coiled daddy issues and thinking Fuck I hope Grandpa Nerd Leather asks me how to log into Facebook on the wifi.
"You doing okay? By the way."
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The perusing continues, extends beyond the displays of cellphones. Or ~portables~. Screens everywhere, shiny metal, impossible light, a susurrus of electricity. His attention snags on something—or someones. Two young women, faces painted as if they were going on stage somewhere, one in cheap leopard print and the other with a wave of turquoise hair. Not an unfamiliar sight by now, but the kind that draws his focus.
A relatable question: does he want to be like them or just eat them?
It's a fleeting distraction, and Daniel is easily able to snatch it back. He gets a pivot for his troubles, reflective purple lenses, a smile. "Very okay," Lestat says. "The most okay. Thank you." His turn finishes, back on track.
The truth: he feels a messy tangle of things, knots that catch at anything. It had been very quiet, New Orleans. He had made it so.
"Do you love him?"
Just wondering.
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The most okay. Sure. An answer from an okay person, which is thoroughly convincing.
Danger flashes like a neon sign even before Lestat turns all the way around. Daniel leans one hip against the display table, and lets his expression becoming thoughtful. But still assessing. Looking at him through his own tinted glasses. (Blue? Violet? Orange? He doesn't know what he looks like.)
Obviously, 'No' is the optimal answer, but if Lestat would accept that, Daniel doesn't think he'd ask.
It'd be really funny to die right here, he thinks. Dry humor. And then, horribly, he realizes how badly that would hurt Louis. Not the loss of him personally, though some of that, but the fact that it would be Lestat doing it. Possibly this is a worse situation than he expected. Which to be fair is typical for Daniel Molloy.
"Not like you do," he says after a little while. Listening to the ambiance of the store, the mall, the people. Quiet in here, though not silent. "But yeah, in a way."
He doesn't expect saying it to hurt. Just a pang somewhere in his ribcage, an old ache. Fondness and regret. It was never going to be a love story, not even fifty years ago, not even without Armand and without Lestat. But there was something. Like the voice of God, or an angel. There will always be something.
no subject
A deep head tip as he listens to Molloy, leaning there. And listens, too, and either he doesn't give a fuck what Daniel thinks about it or there is some amount of deliberately showing his hand. Daniel can feel him in there. Daniel can also feel that he's not rifling around messily through his brain—as Lestat had, a little, when they first met.
Here, Lestat finds that old ache. Very delicately, as if between two fingers, he tugs at it like it's a thread, measuring it's distance. Sees it spanning back far, into shadowy depths. Releases it. A breath out of him carries a hummed vocalisation.
"I'm not going to kill you, Daniel," has a hint of a for fuck's sake about it.
A shimmer of thought, a spare amount of humour: you said I could use your phone plan. We have fun here. He is very glad Daniel did not try to lie to him.
"I can tell he is fond of you too. It was in his voice."
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"I've got a history."
Flippant. About meeting vampires and then getting almost murdered. We do have fun here. The fun is either: I am so insufferable, it's not actually that dramatic to think someone would murder me. Or perhaps: I'd continue to find it hot.
Or both!
(A blink of memory. Sitting on a stone floor, looking at rocks.)
"Well, you know. My raw animal magnetism. How's the Pixel feeling?"
no subject
Not so unlike the testing of a memory, Lestat is delicate in his handling, decides that the cord attaching the phone to the display is probably there for a reason and so he doesn't snap it and get the mall cops called on them. Lips pursed, angling it around to hold.
"Is that why Armand made you?"
Lestat isn't looking at him at least, now touching at the screen. He has no eye for the iconography and its meanings, but, you know. Moving colours, slipping glossily around beneath his finger. Oh, that's Spotify. Opens it. Does not see the millennial's account loaded. Well, that makes sense. No idea what to do about that.
"The raw animal magnetism?" A flick of a glance back up. Dreamily innocent, "We could talk of Louis again if you prefer."
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Even patient, it still sounds like a very bad swear word,
"was extremely mad at me. But Louis forbade him from harming me, so he did the thing he finds most reprehensible. 'Repulsive' was the word he used."
And now Daniel can feel him forever, so that's cool.
"You ever really want to annoy the shit out of Armand? Like just drive him absolutely batshit with psychological warfare. Touch his phone."
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"Ha," he says. Good to know.
And Louis forbade it. Lestat wonders if he will be forbidden too, if Louis thinks he needs to be, or if Daniel's existence as a vampire makes him less of a target.
"Can you play music on this?"
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(No he didn't always wonder, but he did wonder, for like half a second.)
"Yeah." You can even be sold blenders. Hey, does he hate talking about Armand, or what. Daniel mentally shakes it off. "Whatever you want, really—"
He inches closer to Lestat to hover with arms crossed, one hand occasionally raising to point out this or that. This phone? What about one of these other ones? Daniel wonders if he should pick up a new one, too, but he's still using his elitist iPhone despite the slide into cognitive and mobility issues he was experiencing pre-turn. A dedicated Apple user since the 80s, what a fucking nightmare.
The kid in corporate-mandated business casual is back, hovering at the end of the display table. He looks like a Mormon bicyclist.
no subject
(A bespoke prosthetic, rosewood and gold. Rewarded after an evening of arguing, a slammed door, and Lestat begging his way back in. He treated her like trash, of course, and would have thrown her limp corpse into the bayou if it would have won him the things he truly wanted, but she took him back too easy, time and time again, to give up without necessary motive.)
Lestat selects one of the larger phones that settle better in his palm. When the Mormon bicyclist is permitted entry into the conversation and begins talking about some of its features, warranty, insurance, Lestat cuts him off to ask about what colours it comes in and subsequently learns about phone cases. Fortunately, everyone can multitask, the kid seems more relaxed about communicating through Daniel as a proxy, and Lestat lands on his selection fairly quickly, which is just solid holographic glitter.
The kid disappears to find the correct model in the backroom, and Lestat observes, "He is trying to figure out if we're related or fucking," and casts a toothy smile Daniel's way.
"Seeing as we are neither at this very moment, will you tell me why you are being kind to me?"
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Before they end up at the counter so he can make a genial comment about putting his son-in-law (this will be his excuse for everyone, forever, probably) onto a new line, Daniel is going to make him get an extra charger and over-ear headphones, as well. Not because he is an old man who thinks earbuds are bullshit (though those things are also true), but he thinks the tiny free ones that every phone comes with will get lost too easily, and sound quality is infinitely superior with the old fashioned clunkers. Here, Sharky, you're a music guy, try these on.
An incredible question. Vampires are funny. Daniel smiles a little, but it's small. Private.
"Because you were kind to me, Lestat."
He literally saved him, and then spoke to him for a while and answered his questions, had dinner, helped dispose of the body. Daniel would have been curious anyway, perhaps enough to be placating, maybe helped him out of a sense of self-preservation (does he have one of those?), or just endless reckless decision-making to be in the orbit of someone he knows very well committed heinous and prolonged abuse. But here we go, the boring, ordinary, regular person truth of it, is that sometimes the mundane western interpretation of karma is real. Normalcy. Lestat was nice to him. So now, Daniel is nice in return.
no subject
Lestat had already fixed an expectant look on him, an expensive set of headphones held between his claws, but the change is subtle. His glasses have been pocketed to get out of the way, so the too-blue quality of his eyes are unmediated, like the way you'd describe glass in an aquarium. Glass in an aquarium isn't prone to breaking, however, and his regard of Daniel is, for a second, fragile. Fragile in the way you hope the concrete casing of a nuclear reactor would not be.
He was kind so Daniel is kind. Okay.
The very articulate look up and down is a little more performative, prissy, and Lestat pivots back to the wall of headphones, putting his current acquisition on. Playing with the panel that allows music to flow through. This takes more time than a trusting selection of a rectangle or the obnoxious-on-purpose choosing of glitter aesthetics, letting himself space out and listen to the barely meaningful differences between the quality of products, but he never has to go back and listen twice.
He selects not the most expensive one, but it's up there. At the counter, he tells the rep, "This one is the better one of all of those," with a certain amount of expectation that this is actionable advice.
no subject
Daniel does not say or think (well, very hard) drama queen, but if he did, it would be in an exasperated almost-fond tone. Just almost. Tinged with some lurking worry. Do they just all do this, with age. Do they fucking forget. Will he. Daniel is miles away from a saint, but will there be a day when he cannot comprehend common, boring courtesy?
Or is Lestat simply weird.
Mormon bicyclist (his name is Stuart) launches into an enthusiastic ramble about how those headphones working great with his record player at home, even with an after-market extended cable purchase. Phone insurance is cheaper than the headphones, which is a little funny. Daniel adds him to his plan ("A second extra line?" Stuart confirms, and Daniel, for a moment, realizes he's forgotten that his youngest daughter is still on there, which is absurdly shit of him, but he just forges ahead and agrees), and they are given special coupons for the Orange Julius at the other end of the mall, which makes Daniel feel slightly insane, as he thought those all closed in the 90s, and were only on the west coast.
Maybe none of this is happening. More mindfuckery— oh, no, the credit card receipt, this is real. Motherfucking inflation.
no subject
But, no, he had been given advice. Don't stalk people out of brightly lit places with cameras when you've marked them so obviously. Stick to the edges of things, the shadows. Unfair that the world should become so brightly lit that the old ways are tugging at his hem. Annoying. He should be able to eat whoever he wants.
A hunt later, anyway, maybe the two young women from before. Hunger aside, he will want to get away from Daniel after this is over, at least until it's time to head for DC. Daniel has done nothing wrong. Lestat might.
Dismissing Stuart as a prospective meal, Lestat peels off the packaging for his things as they finish out the paperwork, stiff plastic giving way like wet cardboard under his fingers. Clicking the case into place, hooking the headphones around his neck and pocketing the charger, fiddling with the device as the last of the transaction is complete. Some hours later, his lawyer will be startled out of bed thanks to a telepathic directive that he requires an email address and Daniel will be spared from helping him set up his own Spotify account.
The mall itself is close to empty, preparing to close. A very strange palace, Lestat observing the glass ceiling high above as they go. Even the most common of places are like grand opera houses, in this age.
"His number," is said once he rolls his focus back forwards, offering his new sparkly phone out. "S'il te plaît."
no subject
Anywhoo. He takes Lestat's brand new phone, and does not enter Louis' number— he sends a text to himself, and since they're on the same plan, it automatically logs itself in the phone with his contact. There. Tethered. Suffer. (When his lawyer finds out he's on a journalist's phone plan, she's going to tell him to chuck it in the nearest river for real.) Some juggling. Next, his own phone, from which he copies Louis' number and texts Lestat back, then copies the text, etc, you get it. On his screen, smaller than Lestat's, an iPhone with a password, he has to clear several frantic-looking bubbles that he makes no mention of. Quickquick, we're doing something else right now.
(From 'RJ'. A long, foreign number. What are you doing? - Call me back right now. - DANIEL MOLLOY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING.)
He hands the glittery portable (!) back.
"All set."
no subject
he doesn't know. Set a condition, or something. Flaunt his ability to refuse him after Lestat had just declared his intention not to murder him. Daniel is a more accommodating quality than Claudia, who had been quite clear about the beneficence of what was barely her tolerance for Lestat's reentry into Louis' life, and there is no reason at all to compare them save that Louis has had so few close friends.
Looking after his interests. But, the phone is handed back, and Lestat takes it, and his defenses lower by a margin. Suspicious, but he doesn't detect deceit. At least, not of that kind.
"Merci." The phone is disappeared into a pocket, traded out for his cigarettes. "When do we go to DC?"
no subject
Lestat has made his own way so far, and how, Daniel hasn't asked. Flying under his own power? Like Superman, who isn't real? Red eye flights? His business. He's made his own accommodations because he has to get this stuff down and because, honestly, he's used to it. Daniel has assistants and editors and research staffers, proteges, but he's always figured most things out on his own. A nosy detective looking for stories.
"You're welcome to join me."
Which would be... a little buddy-buddy, and it would probably make Daniel feel slightly insane, like contending with Orange Julius in the northeast 2020s (it's a pop-up thing, a flier taped to a kiosk says). But still, welcome. Especially since Talamasca's freaking out, because that's just funny. EHhem. He'll look into those missed texts soon. Maybe.
no subject
Internal and external CCTV probably fed to the Talamasca, ever-watching. Just a man and his son-in-law, the latter of whom offers out his pack of smokes to take from, and tucks his hands into the pockets of his coat.
Considers Daniel, this next act of kindness. Even in ways he doesn't mean, maybe, although who can say with writers? Not a do you want to?, just a welcome, an open door.
Smiles around the cigarette, sharp and sudden, and sweeps it between his fingers. "D'accord," Lestat says. "I will join you at the station, if you survive until then."
Sardonic. It's a vampire eat vampire world. But Lestat has perfect faith in this outcome, which is maybe conveyed in the way he says goodbye: a step forward, an unexpected closeness through the smooth motion that carries him into the kiss that grazes Daniel's cheek, and then a pivot to send him on his way with an authoritative clop of boot heels against pavement.
"Thank you for the gifts," over a shoulder.
no subject
"We'll see."
Survival.
He's thinking about—
Drama queen, more deliberate this time, loud and startled in his head. A funny look at Lestat. Something unsaid, right there, but on the heels of such antics, now isn't the time. The elder vampire's business his is own, for the rest of the night. He pulls the cigarette from his mouth, exhaling, and tips his head back in a farewell.
"Later, man."