By comparison, Louis is a muted presence. Monochromatic seems to be the theme of the evening for Louis. Loose-pleated black trousers cinch tight at the waist, break just so over his polished shoes. The sheer black collared shirt he's selected has such a subtle pattern that it can only be appreciated from within arm's length. Heavy-soled loafers permit Lestat to tower beside him as they wait for Daniel to free himself of well-wishers. He has slipped his hands into the pocket of the artfully oversized trench coat, the assortment of black and white smudges flowering from thigh to shoulder in a frenetic splatter.
Lestat has color enough for them both. Louis can be afforded his armor, relegate his sole splash of color to the round, silver-rimmed sunglasses with their deep red lenses. He'd slipped them off when Daniel had turned from that last spat of admirers, slipped into a pocket.
"He's coddling me," Louis guesses, taking ownership of the complaint. "Preserving the experience for a new reader."
Top of his pile, Louis had promised. Surely he cannot be held responsible for the books waiting for him in Dubai.
"I thought it was a good topic to get into," he says gamely. "I mean, we all live here."
On Earth, he means. Politics aside, if Current Era fucking cooks the planet, this also sucks (ha ha) for vampires. Worth paying attention to, so that there's something there remaining in the light if they all live long enough to see the sun again.
"And you said you had read that one."
Just not the book about Louis, just not their book. He supposes that's fine. He's on the verge of something else when his attention is preoccupied with a familiar twinge of—?
Nothing, turns out, but the guy who was standing around awkwardly has moved closer, and now sidles up to all of them with a grim, sleep-deprived expression.
"I'm surprised nobody boycotts these things, Molloy," the man says, and Daniel stares at him, trying to remember what the fuck his name is. He knows him, right? "—But I'm not surprised to see you hanging around with whatever's happening here, DEI Elton impersonators cruising for college freshmen."
Lestat has resettled with a hand casually draping Louis' shoulder when some man walks over. The distracted glance his way has some amount of deeply engrained aristocracy to it, a silent question as to why this peasant has decided to stumble his way into their area, prepared to simply deliver the kind of psychic backhand that would leave them in peace—
But oh, an insult, fired broadly at the pair they make, he thinks, picking up on sentiment without need for the precision. Lestat's expression quickly blooms with delighted malice as he squares a look on this person he doesn't recognise. Delivers a pulse of force of personality that has a way of making people's blood pressures do funny things.
"Are you certain you wouldn't like him to stay?" is said to Daniel as he looks the meat up and down.
Beneath Lestat's arm, Louis has gone still. Straightened by some minor degree, expression cold.
Louis understands the insults, takes affront.
Lestat's threat comes couched in invitation. Louis' is in the sharp-eyed study of this man, the silent look he swings to Daniel. Gauging, perhaps, what punishment is appropriate to mete out.
That's who this is. Daniel points at him, an aggressive Oh yeah movement that draws the man's eyes. He looks high, or distraught, but when Daniel peeks into his head there's nothing but the off-putting litany of hostility he might expect. He hasn't seen him in the flesh in several years, and the man's usually clean-shaven, to his memory. Only a little younger than Daniel, but much better-looking, tall and broad with thick, straight hair that's gone shades of grey in an attractive manner. Often pulled back, but he has a disheveled quality to him, like he's been outside running.
"Don't you live in Florida?" —is somehow the only question he can think off, baffled, and for some reason this seems to completely floor Travis, who starts blinking wildly. "Nevermind," Daniel follows this up with. "Just fuck off, thanks."
Normally he wouldn't be so immediate, but he would like to avoid sudden bloodshed in this quaint little bookshop. His assistant, Jeannie, is making her way over with an alarmed expression, phone in hand and employee in tow, readying the intercontinental ballistic Karen missiles she was hired for—
The humans are gathering. Diminishes their options. Lestat's options, at least.
Jeannie, and the bookshop employee, and a couple of those still lingering now looking their way. There is someone taking out their phone to start discreetly filming them, and startles when they feel their own hands go numb, the device slipping to the carpeted ground as Lestat glances their way. He would like his first internet debut to be something other than getting hate crimed, s'il te plaît.
Roy Travis, meanwhile, sweating and antsy, like he would like to run but stays planted. "Hey, I can go wherever I want," he's saying. "And it's a fuckin' joke they let you through the doors. Do you do host all your little freakshows at night for a reason?"
His eyes switch to the other two, from Lestat to Louis, and it's difficult to read his expression, hollow and anxious.
Nearly eighty years of drinking from Armand. Of growing powerful in his own right.
Louis' eyes are fixed on this man. Predatory.
As aware as Lestat of the humans gathering, though clear having come to some decision as he gives Lestat's hip a squeeze before making to slip out from beneath his arm.
"Perhaps he requires an escort out."
Some misalignment here, between the words and the posture. The absence of glee that should accompany malice. Louis isn't sure what to make of it.
But even so, Louis' gums still itch with waiting fangs all the same.
Jeannie is very cheerful and very blunt, and not stupid, even though Lestat and Louis gave her fake names when they were introduced, but she doesn't blink at all when she bowls her way in and says, "He does! Whichever one if you is the best bouncer, come on, we're not bothering the nice people who work here, chop chop—"
Some shuffling. A manager has appeared to watch this nervously, but Travis allows himself to be herded to the door. Once out of it, he stands for a moment, staring oddly in at them. This lingers for a heartbeat into unsettling territory, but then he abruptly turns and begins walking away. He drags hands over his face, his hair, and is gone, marching away with mental intent to find his phone or his car, whichever he can remember the location of first.
"He's one of these shitty alternative media host guys," Daniel is saying, bewildered. "He used to do literary reviews and editing, but got swallowed up in the whole right wing grift thing. Makes better money, to be fair."
Lestat does not play bouncer, feathery arms folded as he watches Louis step in instead. Watches with wolfish interest as the man lingers, then turns and goes, mouth twisting as Daniel explains in terms that he more or less grasps.
"A showman with no camera," he says. "An unwell one. Well, he would have left a displeasing aftertaste."
And anyone is allowed to interpret that however.
Sickness, perhaps, is not exactly correct. He hadn't smelled on him a fever, hadn't sensed an obvious malady, not exactly, just a sense of neglect, heightened stress.
"He didn't come with cameras," is Louis' contribution, returning from the satisfying task of roughly shoving the odious man in question out the door. Familiar, in some way, with the routine of grifters in general if removed from the ecosystem at large.
Playing bouncer had not exactly eased the rage in Louis, quick to catch and slow to extinguish. It's ebbed into a kind of quiet discomfort, a little flutter of anxiety that finds no particular place to root itself.
"Do you and he dislike each other?"
Louis has followed Daniel's interviews, his press appearances. He's aware of which hosts seem to dislike Daniel personally, which of them appear to take his latest work as a betrayal. Maybe this is a personal enemy. It's not impossible. It is only bothering Louis that he waited until almost everyone had gone to begin his performance.
Jeannie beams a thanks at Louis, reminds Daniel she's out of town for the next to weeks (Providence with her fiance, he tells her not to get murdered by gangsters). A far cry from the expert lawyer attack dog Lestat is teeing up, but she's good at keeping tabs on social media and emailing Daniel flight information.
"He's a dedicated hater," Daniel says with a shrug, "but I have a lot of those. We haven't spoken in years."
Just weird that he showed up. Aware he's downplaying it a little — Roy Travis is a uniquely toxic fountain of bigoted bile — but he'd rather not give the encounter more attention. A worthless waste of oxygen, and if he thinks about it for much longer, he's going to want to follow him down the street and kill him.
So—
"Whatever, forget about him. You want to pick anything up while we're here? I know you're both voracious readers."
As Louis returns to their circle, Lestat drifts a hand to his back, fingers finding a line of muscle. As if he could touch just there, rub these idle circles with the edge of his thumb, relax all the rest of it.
Potentially, this Roy Travis will die in the future. Whenever it becomes less dangerous for Daniel in specific to see to, and of course, it depends on if Lestat has the attention span for it. Insults to him and his do tend to linger. That, or he will forget him as Daniel advises, and so Lestat is content to shrug the encounter off.
"Not enough attractive leatherbound shelf decorators for my liking," he says. He'll play in this space, just for you. "But thank you so kindly. Louis?"
That little touch is good, regardless of whether or not it fully eases the anxious tension out of Louis' body. It softens the signs of it by some small degree, keeps Louis' attention in the moment rather than spiraling out into his own fears.
He's been privately on edge since the night Lestat and Daniel returned after partaking of A Little Speed. But not everything connects to that conversation, to Armand. To the spectacular fire that had consumed a place they'd once lived quietly, happily (happily? comes an echo that sounds something like Daniel) for some time together.
But still. Louis does not quite forget about him, only permits the redirection of his attention under the combination of their questions.
"Rachida has my list," Louis answers, though whether or not all that Louis would like to read can be found in this store is anyone's guess. "We can leave when you're ready."
Does Daniel have any last admirers? Louis is determined for Daniel to entertain the glow of attention, enjoy himself in the wake of the book's release. It's what's due to him. Louis wants him to have all of it, before the time comes for Daniel to give it all up and vanish from public sight.
Are they on edge, or are they just superhuman predators faced with an offending presence? Bit of both, Daniel thinks. Threats are still out there, sometimes murmuring in the night, sometimes found via digital unearthing. Any suspicious loiterer could be another vampire come to punish them for their violations, and forgetting that could cost them dearly. And beyond that, it just feels unnatural to let the challenge from a mortal go. Which is an interesting instinct to inspect. Daniel adds it to his mental list of shit to navel gaze about in this new unlife.
"We've done enough damage to this popsicle stand."
Fame is—
Weird? Daniel isn't sure he likes it happening all the time. Funny here and there, but that was Enough.
And so: they can leave. Out into the night, perhaps an Uber, perhaps Archie is back. No reason not to drop into some artsy bar for a few hours, make the most out of the night. They don't have to be hunting to hang out. New York, in contradictions: the cover charge is negligible and the access door is in an awful alley that smells like hot, dead rats, while the inside is an experimental modern cabaret wit $40 cocktails. A person of inconsequential gender is doing a Marlene Dietrich thing, gorilla costume and all.
Great news: Lestat is pretty sure he's the most eye catching person in this venue as well, something that he has no plans to do anything about but bask in admiring ambiance while they share their little table some ways back from the stage. The performance is charming, and Lestat says something like, We saw this film, didn't we, Louis? It has Cary Grant, who he likes very much.
Which would be fine, until they both realise they didn't see that movie together, they saw none of the films of 1930s together, and Lestat remembers he had taken Antoinette, actually, and he had gifted her a new stole to make up for some argument earlier that same evening, which is not something he informs the table but maybe flickers across his expression before embarking on an abrupt change of subject.
At some point, he leaves with some willowy individual he'd chatted up at the bar to share a cigarette outside, and returns with the scent of nicotine in his feathery jacket and the trace scent of blood, pale skin flushed anew.
"They're fine," he says as he sits down. "Before you ask."
The brittle quality has ebbed by the time Lestat returns, forcibly eroded by Daniel's company and determined reminders that the past is the past.
Louis can certainly deduce who might have accompanied Lestat to the cinema in the 1930s, but is reminding himself that the slight is more than settled.
"I'd hope so," comes the steady acknowledgment of both Lestat's return and assurance. "It would be a shame to leave."
Louis' drink is mostly untouched. He's been sent another, a hopeful gift, but similarly neglected.
"Daniel is helping me decide which museums are worth visiting."
Fond. A little bit of humor, inevitably, for this overlap in Louis' main source of (legal) income and Daniel's lived expertise.
"Personally, I think near-fatal levels of embarrassment are great for bonding," Daniel says as that horrible exchange shakes loose, inviting looks back at his own moments of soul-scathing cringe that Louis has endured, trying to make him laugh. What's going on with you, Louis du Lac, why does your heart beat this way for trainwreck white guys, why aren't you hanging out with anybody normal.
Art chat is fun, Louis' actual expertise vs Daniel's layman's enjoyment; there are oversized canvases propped at the back of the small staging area, all a mess, some kind of live painting performance earlier in the evening before their arrival. A survey of minds suggests it was not a successful act. Still, something to speculate over. Speed painting to club music in sparkly underwear: helping or hurting art?
Daniel downs Louis' other cocktail. It tastes like nothing, but he likes alcohol. A salute with the glass, for Lestat's return.
"I think you should try the one that's currently being sued for minting NFTs of their displays without artist permission," he says. "Even if only to study the brain of the insufferable trust fund kid running the place."
Hours slip by too quickly towards last call, a reminder that dawn will follow it. Daniel has missed calls and texts on his phone, but he's forgotten to look; out of practice, carrying burners or none at all except when conducting real business, like the book reading.
Who's embarrassed? Not Lestat. That's against his brand.
Especially after a cigarette and a half-pint of rum-laced warm blood, anyway, settling back at the the table, bright eyed and easy smiling. The latter twisting a little, because ah, good, more acronyms he doesn't understand, and also, did he give permission for Daniel and Louis to enjoy themselves while he was away, but he gamely shrugs, placing his elbows on the table, and asks, "What is an NFT?"
So that should take up some time.
They leave late, but before they can be the last ones left being shooed out by the staff, Lestat opting for a jovial enough mood to link both men's arms in his as they walk off the confinement of the bar for a block or so. The air is refreshingly brisk, and recent rain paints everything in reflective shine.
There are a couple hours until dawn by the time they make it back into the hotel, into the lobby, where the human staff are silent and polite and the atmosphere of the place is filled with the noise of foot falls, the sharp clack of heels that echoes in what Lestat judges to be a pleasing manner. The night has not been so wild that he has become disheveled, and he has, this time, remembered he has paint on his eyelids and not smeared it everywhere. He confirms this by being drawn to his own reflection in the gilt panels and glass as they go.
And so he is a little distracted, and as they step into the elevator, it's only when the doors are closing that he seems to notice something, a moment of eye contact with one of Louis' security that unsettles him in some unnamed way. But the doors close, and they are drawn upwards. His expression is still, as is his posture, everything, a subtle shift that nevertheless has a way of changing the mood in the little space of the elevator without saying anything. The sense that Daniel and Louis are not sharing the same space with an amiable Lestat bedecked in gold and feathers, but a wolf, hackles up, eyes blown black.
Maybe they ask him what's wrong. He pays no attention. And when the doors slide open, to the familiar hallway that branches off towards their rooms, Lestat is the first one out with a business-like stride that terminates as soon as they all see it: a shivering Roy Travis, standing facing them.
The shift in Lestat does no escape Louis, even if he does not place the cause. In the space of that short elevator ride, Louis' hand drifts first to Lestat's elbow, and then to his hand in the space between them. A little catch of a touch, Louis' thumb drawing a question down the back of Lestat's hand.
But no, the answer doesn't come in the space between ground floor and penthouse.
It comes as the doors slide open, as Lestat begins to laugh.
Louis understands immediately what's prompted the reaction, easier to field when it is directed so broadly.
"Wait," for Lestat, hand still held. Warding against Lestat's immediate impulse towards action, or against the possibility that someone other than Louis will have the opportunity to deal with this. A little edging movement, stepping forward, a hand placed to keep the doors from closing.
Is it like this when he sends someone? pings in the back of Daniel's head, flat and urgent.
Fully oblivious about any aura of unease— Daniel is, first and foremost, plotting his escape. A common occurrence, he's used to living alone and his social timer is low, and leaving is a luxury of being old and having a handle on addictions. (It didn't matter what he was or wasn't excited about, in his 20s, he was going to put up with anything to score. He had to.)
Checking his phone in the elevator. Confusion, unease, and before he can formulate a thought, things happen in quick succession.
"What?" is for all of it. Lestat's shift, his laugh, Louis' question, his own missed messages, Roy Travis in the fucking hotel?
"Molloy?!" Different than at the bookshop. The human looks frantic, but present. He stands rooted in place, arms shaking. "Where am I? I keep fucking blacking out, I tried to talk to you earlier, I was fucking screaming and you just stood there with your f—"
Abruptly, he shuts up. Forceful enough to hear the snap of his teeth as his jaw slams closed.
Louis has his hand, and that's fine. Lestat keeps it in a negligent hold as he moves out into the hallway, a certain amount of circling around with his gaze fixed on this man.
A broad smile that shows fangs already, subtle but present. Malice, glittering.
"An admirer has sent us a gift basket," he says. There is no particular emphasis on admirer—they have, technically speaking, countless enemies, and they'll have have their tricks. This one has impressive flare, true, an attention to detail that might itch familiar, but all the same, his conclusions begin and end with thinking it unwise to immediately drain this present. He's gotten got that way before, goodness knows.
Roy Travis, meanwhile, sweating, a vein throbbing in his forehead, but some of that initial struggle relaxes. Is forced to relax, his attention still fixed on Daniel.
"You just stood there," he repeats, much calmer than a moment ago, "and you're normally so skilled at seeing what's in front of you."
Drawn along with Lestat, wound tight as a coiled spring, to inspect.
And with that singular piece of information Daniel has given to him and not to Lestat, Louis is making his own guesses as to the identity of the admirer.
This gift permitted to keep some mobility, but maybe not autonomy. Maybe a similar gift as the last Daniel had mentioned.
Woah woah woah. Still clutching his phone, reality catches up to him. Half a dozen texts and missed calls from Jeannie, who had encountered Travis as he stood in the parking lot by her car for too long, but who had vanished into the night the moment she started recording him. (No cops, she doesn't call cops on principle, another reason he hired her.)
"No, it's not like this." An answer to Louis' question, out loud, because there's no use hiding it anymore. He texts his assistant back that he's fine, that he'll figure out and handle the Roy Travis thing, enjoy your vacation. "They're always injured already and shoved in a bathroom or a closet."
And he'd checked the guy's head, at the bookshop. Could he have made a mistake that bad? Could all three of them have missed something? It threatens credulity, but the facts are lining up, and there's nothing else to do for it besides push into the man's head again, and—?
It feels gentle. Hands on either side of Daniel's face, cradling him, gently pulling Daniel from his own body as if his soul were made of feathers.
(Not so dramatic as that, and if Daniel were think to try, he is perfectly capable of wiggling toes and fingers, but in the moment, something that feels like a painless dislocation—)
There's a fire. A magnolia tree, whom Armand said had been planted because the interior designer felt that the austere atrium needed something of the natural world in it, has combusted from inside itself. Daniel, on the floor, dying, held by an angel made of steel, blood trickling. Weakness. In his head, Armand says, "I would have stopped, if you'd told me to," his voice near Daniel's ear.
In the hallway, Roy Travis says, "I would leave you alone, if you told me to," in synchronisation, and Daniel has the kind of vampiric attention span to hear both things at once. Maybe more of a remove, when the mortal looks to Louis as he adds, "But he hasn't."
(At Louis' side, Lestat is still. Unreadable, momentarily.)
A fire. A magnolia tree. A tender clipping toted along with a single suitcase into an apartment where blood pooled across the floor.
Louis is holding so tightly to Lestat's hand that it must be painful. He is so far outside his body; when he lets go of Lestat, it is not to avoid the break of bones, but to take that single step closer, spine straight, eyes dark.
You were still in the building, Armand had said. And now Louis knows what it looks like, has this fragmented piece of what it had been like twisting into his gut.
"Armand," is soft as the ashes the mingle now with rocks rescued from a coffin in the burned out basement of the Théâtre des Vampires. Not asking but acknowledging. Yes, here you are. Yes, you are seen.
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Lestat has color enough for them both. Louis can be afforded his armor, relegate his sole splash of color to the round, silver-rimmed sunglasses with their deep red lenses. He'd slipped them off when Daniel had turned from that last spat of admirers, slipped into a pocket.
"He's coddling me," Louis guesses, taking ownership of the complaint. "Preserving the experience for a new reader."
Top of his pile, Louis had promised. Surely he cannot be held responsible for the books waiting for him in Dubai.
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"I thought it was a good topic to get into," he says gamely. "I mean, we all live here."
On Earth, he means. Politics aside, if Current Era fucking cooks the planet, this also sucks (ha ha) for vampires. Worth paying attention to, so that there's something there remaining in the light if they all live long enough to see the sun again.
"And you said you had read that one."
Just not the book about Louis, just not their book. He supposes that's fine. He's on the verge of something else when his attention is preoccupied with a familiar twinge of—?
Nothing, turns out, but the guy who was standing around awkwardly has moved closer, and now sidles up to all of them with a grim, sleep-deprived expression.
"I'm surprised nobody boycotts these things, Molloy," the man says, and Daniel stares at him, trying to remember what the fuck his name is. He knows him, right? "—But I'm not surprised to see you hanging around with whatever's happening here, DEI Elton impersonators cruising for college freshmen."
"Oh. Okay. Well, you're just gonna leave now—"
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But oh, an insult, fired broadly at the pair they make, he thinks, picking up on sentiment without need for the precision. Lestat's expression quickly blooms with delighted malice as he squares a look on this person he doesn't recognise. Delivers a pulse of force of personality that has a way of making people's blood pressures do funny things.
"Are you certain you wouldn't like him to stay?" is said to Daniel as he looks the meat up and down.
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Louis understands the insults, takes affront.
Lestat's threat comes couched in invitation. Louis' is in the sharp-eyed study of this man, the silent look he swings to Daniel. Gauging, perhaps, what punishment is appropriate to mete out.
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That's who this is. Daniel points at him, an aggressive Oh yeah movement that draws the man's eyes. He looks high, or distraught, but when Daniel peeks into his head there's nothing but the off-putting litany of hostility he might expect. He hasn't seen him in the flesh in several years, and the man's usually clean-shaven, to his memory. Only a little younger than Daniel, but much better-looking, tall and broad with thick, straight hair that's gone shades of grey in an attractive manner. Often pulled back, but he has a disheveled quality to him, like he's been outside running.
"Don't you live in Florida?" —is somehow the only question he can think off, baffled, and for some reason this seems to completely floor Travis, who starts blinking wildly. "Nevermind," Daniel follows this up with. "Just fuck off, thanks."
Normally he wouldn't be so immediate, but he would like to avoid sudden bloodshed in this quaint little bookshop. His assistant, Jeannie, is making her way over with an alarmed expression, phone in hand and employee in tow, readying the intercontinental ballistic Karen missiles she was hired for—
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Jeannie, and the bookshop employee, and a couple of those still lingering now looking their way. There is someone taking out their phone to start discreetly filming them, and startles when they feel their own hands go numb, the device slipping to the carpeted ground as Lestat glances their way. He would like his first internet debut to be something other than getting hate crimed, s'il te plaît.
Roy Travis, meanwhile, sweating and antsy, like he would like to run but stays planted. "Hey, I can go wherever I want," he's saying. "And it's a fuckin' joke they let you through the doors. Do you do host all your little freakshows at night for a reason?"
His eyes switch to the other two, from Lestat to Louis, and it's difficult to read his expression, hollow and anxious.
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Louis' eyes are fixed on this man. Predatory.
As aware as Lestat of the humans gathering, though clear having come to some decision as he gives Lestat's hip a squeeze before making to slip out from beneath his arm.
"Perhaps he requires an escort out."
Some misalignment here, between the words and the posture. The absence of glee that should accompany malice. Louis isn't sure what to make of it.
But even so, Louis' gums still itch with waiting fangs all the same.
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Some shuffling. A manager has appeared to watch this nervously, but Travis allows himself to be herded to the door. Once out of it, he stands for a moment, staring oddly in at them. This lingers for a heartbeat into unsettling territory, but then he abruptly turns and begins walking away. He drags hands over his face, his hair, and is gone, marching away with mental intent to find his phone or his car, whichever he can remember the location of first.
"He's one of these shitty alternative media host guys," Daniel is saying, bewildered. "He used to do literary reviews and editing, but got swallowed up in the whole right wing grift thing. Makes better money, to be fair."
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"A showman with no camera," he says. "An unwell one. Well, he would have left a displeasing aftertaste."
And anyone is allowed to interpret that however.
Sickness, perhaps, is not exactly correct. He hadn't smelled on him a fever, hadn't sensed an obvious malady, not exactly, just a sense of neglect, heightened stress.
"Do you get many such critics?"
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Playing bouncer had not exactly eased the rage in Louis, quick to catch and slow to extinguish. It's ebbed into a kind of quiet discomfort, a little flutter of anxiety that finds no particular place to root itself.
"Do you and he dislike each other?"
Louis has followed Daniel's interviews, his press appearances. He's aware of which hosts seem to dislike Daniel personally, which of them appear to take his latest work as a betrayal. Maybe this is a personal enemy. It's not impossible. It is only bothering Louis that he waited until almost everyone had gone to begin his performance.
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"He's a dedicated hater," Daniel says with a shrug, "but I have a lot of those. We haven't spoken in years."
Just weird that he showed up. Aware he's downplaying it a little — Roy Travis is a uniquely toxic fountain of bigoted bile — but he'd rather not give the encounter more attention. A worthless waste of oxygen, and if he thinks about it for much longer, he's going to want to follow him down the street and kill him.
So—
"Whatever, forget about him. You want to pick anything up while we're here? I know you're both voracious readers."
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Potentially, this Roy Travis will die in the future. Whenever it becomes less dangerous for Daniel in specific to see to, and of course, it depends on if Lestat has the attention span for it. Insults to him and his do tend to linger. That, or he will forget him as Daniel advises, and so Lestat is content to shrug the encounter off.
"Not enough attractive leatherbound shelf decorators for my liking," he says. He'll play in this space, just for you. "But thank you so kindly. Louis?"
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He's been privately on edge since the night Lestat and Daniel returned after partaking of A Little Speed. But not everything connects to that conversation, to Armand. To the spectacular fire that had consumed a place they'd once lived quietly, happily (happily? comes an echo that sounds something like Daniel) for some time together.
But still. Louis does not quite forget about him, only permits the redirection of his attention under the combination of their questions.
"Rachida has my list," Louis answers, though whether or not all that Louis would like to read can be found in this store is anyone's guess. "We can leave when you're ready."
Does Daniel have any last admirers? Louis is determined for Daniel to entertain the glow of attention, enjoy himself in the wake of the book's release. It's what's due to him. Louis wants him to have all of it, before the time comes for Daniel to give it all up and vanish from public sight.
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"We've done enough damage to this popsicle stand."
Fame is—
Weird? Daniel isn't sure he likes it happening all the time. Funny here and there, but that was Enough.
And so: they can leave. Out into the night, perhaps an Uber, perhaps Archie is back. No reason not to drop into some artsy bar for a few hours, make the most out of the night. They don't have to be hunting to hang out. New York, in contradictions: the cover charge is negligible and the access door is in an awful alley that smells like hot, dead rats, while the inside is an experimental modern cabaret wit $40 cocktails. A person of inconsequential gender is doing a Marlene Dietrich thing, gorilla costume and all.
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Which would be fine, until they both realise they didn't see that movie together, they saw none of the films of 1930s together, and Lestat remembers he had taken Antoinette, actually, and he had gifted her a new stole to make up for some argument earlier that same evening, which is not something he informs the table but maybe flickers across his expression before embarking on an abrupt change of subject.
At some point, he leaves with some willowy individual he'd chatted up at the bar to share a cigarette outside, and returns with the scent of nicotine in his feathery jacket and the trace scent of blood, pale skin flushed anew.
"They're fine," he says as he sits down. "Before you ask."
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Louis can certainly deduce who might have accompanied Lestat to the cinema in the 1930s, but is reminding himself that the slight is more than settled.
"I'd hope so," comes the steady acknowledgment of both Lestat's return and assurance. "It would be a shame to leave."
Louis' drink is mostly untouched. He's been sent another, a hopeful gift, but similarly neglected.
"Daniel is helping me decide which museums are worth visiting."
Fond. A little bit of humor, inevitably, for this overlap in Louis' main source of (legal) income and Daniel's lived expertise.
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Art chat is fun, Louis' actual expertise vs Daniel's layman's enjoyment; there are oversized canvases propped at the back of the small staging area, all a mess, some kind of live painting performance earlier in the evening before their arrival. A survey of minds suggests it was not a successful act. Still, something to speculate over. Speed painting to club music in sparkly underwear: helping or hurting art?
Daniel downs Louis' other cocktail. It tastes like nothing, but he likes alcohol. A salute with the glass, for Lestat's return.
"I think you should try the one that's currently being sued for minting NFTs of their displays without artist permission," he says. "Even if only to study the brain of the insufferable trust fund kid running the place."
Hours slip by too quickly towards last call, a reminder that dawn will follow it. Daniel has missed calls and texts on his phone, but he's forgotten to look; out of practice, carrying burners or none at all except when conducting real business, like the book reading.
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Especially after a cigarette and a half-pint of rum-laced warm blood, anyway, settling back at the the table, bright eyed and easy smiling. The latter twisting a little, because ah, good, more acronyms he doesn't understand, and also, did he give permission for Daniel and Louis to enjoy themselves while he was away, but he gamely shrugs, placing his elbows on the table, and asks, "What is an NFT?"
So that should take up some time.
They leave late, but before they can be the last ones left being shooed out by the staff, Lestat opting for a jovial enough mood to link both men's arms in his as they walk off the confinement of the bar for a block or so. The air is refreshingly brisk, and recent rain paints everything in reflective shine.
There are a couple hours until dawn by the time they make it back into the hotel, into the lobby, where the human staff are silent and polite and the atmosphere of the place is filled with the noise of foot falls, the sharp clack of heels that echoes in what Lestat judges to be a pleasing manner. The night has not been so wild that he has become disheveled, and he has, this time, remembered he has paint on his eyelids and not smeared it everywhere. He confirms this by being drawn to his own reflection in the gilt panels and glass as they go.
And so he is a little distracted, and as they step into the elevator, it's only when the doors are closing that he seems to notice something, a moment of eye contact with one of Louis' security that unsettles him in some unnamed way. But the doors close, and they are drawn upwards. His expression is still, as is his posture, everything, a subtle shift that nevertheless has a way of changing the mood in the little space of the elevator without saying anything. The sense that Daniel and Louis are not sharing the same space with an amiable Lestat bedecked in gold and feathers, but a wolf, hackles up, eyes blown black.
Maybe they ask him what's wrong. He pays no attention. And when the doors slide open, to the familiar hallway that branches off towards their rooms, Lestat is the first one out with a business-like stride that terminates as soon as they all see it: a shivering Roy Travis, standing facing them.
Lestat laughs, a loud cackle, echoing off marble.
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But no, the answer doesn't come in the space between ground floor and penthouse.
It comes as the doors slide open, as Lestat begins to laugh.
Louis understands immediately what's prompted the reaction, easier to field when it is directed so broadly.
"Wait," for Lestat, hand still held. Warding against Lestat's immediate impulse towards action, or against the possibility that someone other than Louis will have the opportunity to deal with this. A little edging movement, stepping forward, a hand placed to keep the doors from closing.
Is it like this when he sends someone? pings in the back of Daniel's head, flat and urgent.
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Checking his phone in the elevator. Confusion, unease, and before he can formulate a thought, things happen in quick succession.
"What?" is for all of it. Lestat's shift, his laugh, Louis' question, his own missed messages, Roy Travis in the fucking hotel?
"Molloy?!" Different than at the bookshop. The human looks frantic, but present. He stands rooted in place, arms shaking. "Where am I? I keep fucking blacking out, I tried to talk to you earlier, I was fucking screaming and you just stood there with your f—"
Abruptly, he shuts up. Forceful enough to hear the snap of his teeth as his jaw slams closed.
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A broad smile that shows fangs already, subtle but present. Malice, glittering.
"An admirer has sent us a gift basket," he says. There is no particular emphasis on admirer—they have, technically speaking, countless enemies, and they'll have have their tricks. This one has impressive flare, true, an attention to detail that might itch familiar, but all the same, his conclusions begin and end with thinking it unwise to immediately drain this present. He's gotten got that way before, goodness knows.
Roy Travis, meanwhile, sweating, a vein throbbing in his forehead, but some of that initial struggle relaxes. Is forced to relax, his attention still fixed on Daniel.
"You just stood there," he repeats, much calmer than a moment ago, "and you're normally so skilled at seeing what's in front of you."
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Drawn along with Lestat, wound tight as a coiled spring, to inspect.
And with that singular piece of information Daniel has given to him and not to Lestat, Louis is making his own guesses as to the identity of the admirer.
This gift permitted to keep some mobility, but maybe not autonomy. Maybe a similar gift as the last Daniel had mentioned.
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Woah woah woah. Still clutching his phone, reality catches up to him. Half a dozen texts and missed calls from Jeannie, who had encountered Travis as he stood in the parking lot by her car for too long, but who had vanished into the night the moment she started recording him. (No cops, she doesn't call cops on principle, another reason he hired her.)
"No, it's not like this." An answer to Louis' question, out loud, because there's no use hiding it anymore. He texts his assistant back that he's fine, that he'll figure out and handle the Roy Travis thing, enjoy your vacation. "They're always injured already and shoved in a bathroom or a closet."
And he'd checked the guy's head, at the bookshop. Could he have made a mistake that bad? Could all three of them have missed something? It threatens credulity, but the facts are lining up, and there's nothing else to do for it besides push into the man's head again, and—?
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(Not so dramatic as that, and if Daniel were think to try, he is perfectly capable of wiggling toes and fingers, but in the moment, something that feels like a painless dislocation—)
There's a fire. A magnolia tree, whom Armand said had been planted because the interior designer felt that the austere atrium needed something of the natural world in it, has combusted from inside itself. Daniel, on the floor, dying, held by an angel made of steel, blood trickling. Weakness. In his head, Armand says, "I would have stopped, if you'd told me to," his voice near Daniel's ear.
In the hallway, Roy Travis says, "I would leave you alone, if you told me to," in synchronisation, and Daniel has the kind of vampiric attention span to hear both things at once. Maybe more of a remove, when the mortal looks to Louis as he adds, "But he hasn't."
(At Louis' side, Lestat is still. Unreadable, momentarily.)
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Louis is holding so tightly to Lestat's hand that it must be painful. He is so far outside his body; when he lets go of Lestat, it is not to avoid the break of bones, but to take that single step closer, spine straight, eyes dark.
You were still in the building, Armand had said. And now Louis knows what it looks like, has this fragmented piece of what it had been like twisting into his gut.
"Armand," is soft as the ashes the mingle now with rocks rescued from a coffin in the burned out basement of the Théâtre des Vampires. Not asking but acknowledging. Yes, here you are. Yes, you are seen.
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