Not quite a concession to now followups (we have fun), but this is the one he can't just try to ask Lestat about. It occurs to him he could ask Armand, but then he'd have to find Armand, and actually talk to him, and he's not sure he'd equipped for that right now. Even if - with a horrible, private realization - it'd probably be easier for him to find his maker than the other vampire. He hasn't dared inspect the bond in his head, but now it sits there like a burning thing, daring him to engage with.
No. No fucking way.
He looks at Louis, intent. They have to clear at least one of these hurdles and try to lessen the pressure of an impending geyser.
A familiar patter to fall into. The guardrails of the interview, Daniel drawing out what Louis does not wish to say.
Louis looks away from him, down the path, before rising to his feet. Spares Daniel from coaxing him to his feet, even as Louis wonders if Daniel should be off his. If one unfortunate human is enough to erase the lingering toll of Daniel's exertions.
"He was not pleased to hear from me."
As if that were so hard to deduce, given what followed after.
Louis trusted Daniel enough for the interview. If they have to lean on that kind of trust again, that's fine. Daniel can curb this in genuine friendship, too— the tightness in his chest hasn't quite gone away, not even after killing someone. Iron is still strong in the back of his throat.
They walk, and Daniel arranges any passive speculation he had about whether or not Louis had communicated in between the end of their relationship and now. Even though Louis had said no, Daniel thought surely something, something that had nothing to do with him. Lawyers exchanging emails over finances, passive aggressive notes passed through furniture movers, anything. Maybe not. And Louis was the one to reach out, 'hear from', alright.
Daniel's not mad. He's not even disappointed— it seems obvious that Louis would try to talk to Armand sooner or later. It's not that. He feels ... something he doesn't have words for. Something less than real, caught between them. It's an unpleasant something.
Quiet for a while. Picking what to say.
"I understand why," he settles on. "He and I have shit we need to sort out, though. And that's just how it is."
It will probably be going significantly worse from now on, though. Daniel hadn't felt explicitly threatened by Armand before. He expect this to change. Unfortunate, but possibly inevitable. Something was eventually going to go wrong. Louis shouldn't have thrown gasoline on a brewing fire, but Armand shouldn't react to anything like this. Everything is fucked.
Not new pain. Armand had reminded him as much. The thing is done. It cannot be changed. Armand has done what he's done. Louis had been in the building, departing.
It doesn't matter what he should have done. Nothing can be undone.
It had been a hard truth then. Harder now, in the wake of Armand's demonstration. The running repetition of fault his actions have cultivated in Louis.
What can he say?
Nothing.
His hands slip into his pockets. A minor nod, acknowledging he's heard this, that he has no rejoinder to offer. They walk. Louis is quiet.
"That doesn't mean I'm fine about it." Daniel can't stay quiet. He feels like there's no time for it. Dawn is always a countdown away, like a fucking bomb. A frustrated gesture with, "I just— if I don't keep moving forward, what the fuck else is there."
He crosses his arms again, walking side by side with Louis.
"At least you're angry. I started to like you being angry, because you seemed like a real person, then. I knew if I could piss you off you'd be there." Some insight into why Daniel was always going after Louis as bad as he was during the interview. He's always kind of an asshole, but why keep poking? Well. "Sometimes we'd wrap up and you'd go to bed, and you were angry, and the next evening you'd be fine again like nothing happened, and I started to realize it was because every time you were alone with Armand he was resetting your fucking brain."
A tremor of feeling in his voice. Anger, like Fuck your boyfriend. Daniel is more afraid for Louis than he is himself. He was even in Dubai. He is terrified now, knowing that Armand put him through this shit again.
"I didn't want you to see any of that. I knew you'd just torture yourself. And— you told me, when." A rough exhale, before he tries again: "You said you were going to offer it to me, and I didn't believe you. I still don't know if I do. But if you weren't bullshitting, if there was a world where things wrapped up uneventfully and we had dinner and you asked, what does that look like? I try to say no, and then Armand makes me say yes, because you turning me means we're closed off from each other's minds forever, and he gets to feng shui my head, too, and I never figure anything else out, and I forget, and he never has to worry about anything ever again."
Nightmare.
"I'm not saying I think that was the plan. I haven't crunched the numbers, I just think about shit sometimes, is all. What I'm saying is that there's a cost. There was always going to be a cost of getting out of there, for both of us. It's not fair, and I'm not okay with it, but if I start screaming about it I'm never going to stop, and maybe you feel that, too."
A litany of words, Daniel's feelings accompanying them as they walk, matching Louis' slow steps.
Somewhere in the course of it, Louis' hand leaves the depths of his pocket. Fingers find the bend of Daniel's elbow, curve into a steadying grip as he listens. Daniel's voice, suffused with so much feeling.
Daniel, who worries. Who wants so much for Louis to be alright.
Louis could make him the promise he'd made Claudia: As long as you walk the Earth, I'll never taste the fire, you understand me?
"I put you in the room, Daniel."
A minor tightening of fingers at Daniel's elbow, leather creaking under the pressure. San Francisco. Dubai. It had been Louis drawing Daniel into the room with him. It had been Louis, bartering and cajoling, coming to agreements with Armand.
It had been Louis who had left him unprotected.
Daniel's best assurances have not diminished the ache of this fact. Louis struggles onwards, pacing step for step as the path slopes downwards and Louis tells him, "I meant what I said. What I intended to offer."
None of this negates the trap Daniel guesses at. Maybe they would have both become something kept, tucked away and carefully cultivated for a century, two, three. It is hard to believe that Daniel could be contained in such a way.
"He knew that."
Because of course Armand knew. Of course there had been discussion. Negotiation.
Louis' touch moves Daniel. The voice of God, or an angel. After a few moments, he covers the other vampire's hand with his, arms still crossed, tucked hand over hand. No more tremors, and plus some pointy nails.
Armand knew, and Armand still decided to turn Daniel himself. Spite, or—
No, just spite. Daniel is too pissed off at him to search any deeper, right now.
They walk for a while. Every so often someone on their way home from a late shift or on their way to work for an early shift passes them, and Daniel hears nothing, still keeping to himself in his mind; for the best, not in the mood for observations about a polite caretaker and his elderly, sleepless charge.
"If it was just you," he says, eventually, "I'd have said yes."
Forever, hanging out with Louis. Even with the inevitable up and downs. Moods and malaise and drama and it all. He would have. He'd have said yes, accepted watching his daughters grow old and pass, embraced it. Instead it's like this, and Louis invited him to each of those rooms, and Daniel said yes and went time after time.
We could blame it all on Lestat is not a joke he can actually make. Another thing to be annoyed at Armand about.
Louis had held such hopes. Good intentions. Claudia, her memory, so present in his life for the first time in decades. A vampire begat through love. How gentle he would have been, setting his fangs to the old scar at Daniel's throat. How much care he would have taken. He remembers the only time he had done it before. How gentle Claudia had been, her murmurs instructing him through the process. What she had given Madeleine, Louis as her instrument.
What Lestat had given Louis, what they'd been and tried to be and were. (Louis' simmering resentment at Armand's insinuation otherwise, in Paris.)
Louis and all his plans, scuttled. Doomed from the start, because parting Louis from Armand had destroyed everything.
His eyes gleam wet as the pass under the street lamp. Louis had chosen Daniel, over and over, except when it mattered. And now, it's like this. A thing Louis had wanted, twisted away from him. Held on a ribbon of thread that spools back to Armand, and what if—
What if.
Quiet for long moments, fingers tight at Daniel's arm, while Louis waits until the great overwhelming rush of feeling settles, and he might say, "It's late. I should take you home."
A hotel room. Dubai thousands of miles away. Home is where they are, mutable in this stretch of time where they are all growing past decades of stasis.
In some other world, where they all make fewer mistakes.
This one isn't so bad by comparison, even if Daniel's sad and angry still. Even if Louis feels like shit, even if Daniel is terrified for him. He gives fleeting consideration to pressing for more questions, trying to make Louis bleed out more venom, but he finds he's too exhausted. At the transition where they turn around to head back to the hotel, he stops long enough to bring his free hand up to touch Louis' face.
Doesn't say anything, just looks at him. Nobody needs to try to make any promises. Shit happens, shit's going to happen again, they're going to screw up. But they can always come back to this, their friendship forged in the most insane of fires. If they've recovered from the horror already behind them, anything else can be overcome.
So. Back they go. Where Daniel will rest for a while, alarm set for shortly before sunrise, and then he will sit in the common room with the curtains drawn tight, and settle in to fucking waiting, because he'll go insane otherwise.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Not quite a concession to now followups (we have fun), but this is the one he can't just try to ask Lestat about. It occurs to him he could ask Armand, but then he'd have to find Armand, and actually talk to him, and he's not sure he'd equipped for that right now. Even if - with a horrible, private realization - it'd probably be easier for him to find his maker than the other vampire. He hasn't dared inspect the bond in his head, but now it sits there like a burning thing, daring him to engage with.
No. No fucking way.
He looks at Louis, intent. They have to clear at least one of these hurdles and try to lessen the pressure of an impending geyser.
no subject
Louis looks away from him, down the path, before rising to his feet. Spares Daniel from coaxing him to his feet, even as Louis wonders if Daniel should be off his. If one unfortunate human is enough to erase the lingering toll of Daniel's exertions.
"He was not pleased to hear from me."
As if that were so hard to deduce, given what followed after.
no subject
They walk, and Daniel arranges any passive speculation he had about whether or not Louis had communicated in between the end of their relationship and now. Even though Louis had said no, Daniel thought surely something, something that had nothing to do with him. Lawyers exchanging emails over finances, passive aggressive notes passed through furniture movers, anything. Maybe not. And Louis was the one to reach out, 'hear from', alright.
"But you expected as much."
Louis' not stupid.
no subject
But had put his hand into the fire all the same.
Stupid. How stupid.
Lestat's voice, accusing: And see how well that turned out.
Louis has nothing to say for a few paces more. Wrestling the sulfur burn of guilt and loathing into silence before offering:
"I asked him to stop. To leave you alone."
Louis had made a promise. He had been very clear.
He has been thinking on it in the days since. What little reason he has to refrain from keeping it.
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Daniel's not mad. He's not even disappointed— it seems obvious that Louis would try to talk to Armand sooner or later. It's not that. He feels ... something he doesn't have words for. Something less than real, caught between them. It's an unpleasant something.
Quiet for a while. Picking what to say.
"I understand why," he settles on. "He and I have shit we need to sort out, though. And that's just how it is."
It will probably be going significantly worse from now on, though. Daniel hadn't felt explicitly threatened by Armand before. He expect this to change. Unfortunate, but possibly inevitable. Something was eventually going to go wrong. Louis shouldn't have thrown gasoline on a brewing fire, but Armand shouldn't react to anything like this. Everything is fucked.
no subject
Painful.
Not new pain. Armand had reminded him as much. The thing is done. It cannot be changed. Armand has done what he's done. Louis had been in the building, departing.
It doesn't matter what he should have done. Nothing can be undone.
It had been a hard truth then. Harder now, in the wake of Armand's demonstration. The running repetition of fault his actions have cultivated in Louis.
What can he say?
Nothing.
His hands slip into his pockets. A minor nod, acknowledging he's heard this, that he has no rejoinder to offer. They walk. Louis is quiet.
no subject
He crosses his arms again, walking side by side with Louis.
"At least you're angry. I started to like you being angry, because you seemed like a real person, then. I knew if I could piss you off you'd be there." Some insight into why Daniel was always going after Louis as bad as he was during the interview. He's always kind of an asshole, but why keep poking? Well. "Sometimes we'd wrap up and you'd go to bed, and you were angry, and the next evening you'd be fine again like nothing happened, and I started to realize it was because every time you were alone with Armand he was resetting your fucking brain."
A tremor of feeling in his voice. Anger, like Fuck your boyfriend. Daniel is more afraid for Louis than he is himself. He was even in Dubai. He is terrified now, knowing that Armand put him through this shit again.
"I didn't want you to see any of that. I knew you'd just torture yourself. And— you told me, when." A rough exhale, before he tries again: "You said you were going to offer it to me, and I didn't believe you. I still don't know if I do. But if you weren't bullshitting, if there was a world where things wrapped up uneventfully and we had dinner and you asked, what does that look like? I try to say no, and then Armand makes me say yes, because you turning me means we're closed off from each other's minds forever, and he gets to feng shui my head, too, and I never figure anything else out, and I forget, and he never has to worry about anything ever again."
Nightmare.
"I'm not saying I think that was the plan. I haven't crunched the numbers, I just think about shit sometimes, is all. What I'm saying is that there's a cost. There was always going to be a cost of getting out of there, for both of us. It's not fair, and I'm not okay with it, but if I start screaming about it I'm never going to stop, and maybe you feel that, too."
no subject
Somewhere in the course of it, Louis' hand leaves the depths of his pocket. Fingers find the bend of Daniel's elbow, curve into a steadying grip as he listens. Daniel's voice, suffused with so much feeling.
Daniel, who worries. Who wants so much for Louis to be alright.
Louis could make him the promise he'd made Claudia: As long as you walk the Earth, I'll never taste the fire, you understand me?
"I put you in the room, Daniel."
A minor tightening of fingers at Daniel's elbow, leather creaking under the pressure. San Francisco. Dubai. It had been Louis drawing Daniel into the room with him. It had been Louis, bartering and cajoling, coming to agreements with Armand.
It had been Louis who had left him unprotected.
Daniel's best assurances have not diminished the ache of this fact. Louis struggles onwards, pacing step for step as the path slopes downwards and Louis tells him, "I meant what I said. What I intended to offer."
None of this negates the trap Daniel guesses at. Maybe they would have both become something kept, tucked away and carefully cultivated for a century, two, three. It is hard to believe that Daniel could be contained in such a way.
"He knew that."
Because of course Armand knew. Of course there had been discussion. Negotiation.
no subject
Armand knew, and Armand still decided to turn Daniel himself. Spite, or—
No, just spite. Daniel is too pissed off at him to search any deeper, right now.
They walk for a while. Every so often someone on their way home from a late shift or on their way to work for an early shift passes them, and Daniel hears nothing, still keeping to himself in his mind; for the best, not in the mood for observations about a polite caretaker and his elderly, sleepless charge.
"If it was just you," he says, eventually, "I'd have said yes."
Forever, hanging out with Louis. Even with the inevitable up and downs. Moods and malaise and drama and it all. He would have. He'd have said yes, accepted watching his daughters grow old and pass, embraced it. Instead it's like this, and Louis invited him to each of those rooms, and Daniel said yes and went time after time.
We could blame it all on Lestat is not a joke he can actually make. Another thing to be annoyed at Armand about.
no subject
Daniel would have said yes.
Louis had held such hopes. Good intentions. Claudia, her memory, so present in his life for the first time in decades. A vampire begat through love. How gentle he would have been, setting his fangs to the old scar at Daniel's throat. How much care he would have taken. He remembers the only time he had done it before. How gentle Claudia had been, her murmurs instructing him through the process. What she had given Madeleine, Louis as her instrument.
What Lestat had given Louis, what they'd been and tried to be and were. (Louis' simmering resentment at Armand's insinuation otherwise, in Paris.)
Louis and all his plans, scuttled. Doomed from the start, because parting Louis from Armand had destroyed everything.
His eyes gleam wet as the pass under the street lamp. Louis had chosen Daniel, over and over, except when it mattered. And now, it's like this. A thing Louis had wanted, twisted away from him. Held on a ribbon of thread that spools back to Armand, and what if—
What if.
Quiet for long moments, fingers tight at Daniel's arm, while Louis waits until the great overwhelming rush of feeling settles, and he might say, "It's late. I should take you home."
A hotel room. Dubai thousands of miles away. Home is where they are, mutable in this stretch of time where they are all growing past decades of stasis.
no subject
This one isn't so bad by comparison, even if Daniel's sad and angry still. Even if Louis feels like shit, even if Daniel is terrified for him. He gives fleeting consideration to pressing for more questions, trying to make Louis bleed out more venom, but he finds he's too exhausted. At the transition where they turn around to head back to the hotel, he stops long enough to bring his free hand up to touch Louis' face.
Doesn't say anything, just looks at him. Nobody needs to try to make any promises. Shit happens, shit's going to happen again, they're going to screw up. But they can always come back to this, their friendship forged in the most insane of fires. If they've recovered from the horror already behind them, anything else can be overcome.
So. Back they go. Where Daniel will rest for a while, alarm set for shortly before sunrise, and then he will sit in the common room with the curtains drawn tight, and settle in to fucking waiting, because he'll go insane otherwise.