Armand goes a little too still. Different from the way he holds himself when he's lying. Not gathering himself as if to weather a blow, like he did before trying to spin the trial, or insist Louis asked to have his memories erased. Not the confused hostility of being fed off of in the dining room, or the serene nothingness when blowing past inconsequential retellings of Claudia. Something else, it's like—
Is he afraid Daniel won't believe him?
It's just intuition, not a superpower. Vampirism hasn't helped him read Armand any deeper. For a too-long moment he stares back at him, silent, gaze intense and searching.
But ire remains.
"By showing him something that would hurt him?" And violate Daniel, though he doesn't say so. He decided days ago, that should there ever be a confrontation, he wasn't going to frame it around himself. Daniel shoved his proverbial hand into the trap on purpose. Owning his agency is the most grace is can give Armand in the situation, deserving or not. They're all making choices. "By forcing him to him relive a sense-memory of sunlight?"
If Daniel doesn't believe him then Armand is very much prepared to freak the fuck out and discover in real time what that looks like.
But Daniel appears to believe him.
And now there is this question, and Armand imagines the lies and excuses he can spin. He could tell Daniel that Louis did it to himself, that he invited the sunlight in subconscious response to Armand's invasion. He could say it was an unintended side effect of his own harmful intrusion. A terrible and perfect storm of Louis' trauma, Armand's influences.
"I showed him what I was feeling and experiencing when I turned you," is how he starts. "What I have felt and experienced in the wake of it. I wanted him to understand what he was trying to interfere with."
But. He tips his head, considering Daniel.
"And I harmed him," he says. He does not sound pleased with himself. "He got in my way of you by trying to lay his claim, and so I harmed him on purpose."
Freaking the fuck out is still in the cards, because Armand appears to be the only person involved in this disaster who's offering Daniel a full and honest answer to a question, which means he might be losing it any second.
Daniel looks at him, and breathes slowly, still watching him closely and reckoning with the things Armand is saying and his own emotions. Anger remains difficult to purge, so wrapped up in being offended on Louis' behalf, and the fact that memories of himself were used in the harm. Frustrated that it ended up putting him in a position to worry that Lestat might drop Louis from the stratosphere again. In his silence he ends up coming to the conclusion that going in circles about who has a right to speak to whom, to do what, to speak to who, about what, is fucking stupid, and that the best way to make progress - despite being angry - is going to be continuing as before. Which is: positive fucking reinforcement.
He asked Armand, and Armand answered him, apparently honestly. Daniel may scream.
"Alright," he says. Just a little strained. "Thank you for telling me."
Pissed off but sincere. His eyes shift, indecisive between green and amber, out of his control. Was Armand really thinking of ... just him?
"I don't like how you did it. Sure, dramatic and impactful, and I fucking hated that guy anyway," like FYI, no complaints about Roy Travis, "but I hated the experienced and it put me in a bad spot."
Armand, on the high of radical truth, maybe. He put Daniel in a bad spot on purpose too, but it's altogether possible that he doesn't understand exactly what it meant. It's altogether possible that he didn't really care, in the same reckless way that Daniel had flung a script with his notations on it down in front of Louis.
It might be very possible that Daniel's perspective, of being the battlefield between two older vampires (and a third guy who is also there), is a false one. While Louis had been flipping through pages with near panicked hands, they had looked at each other.
"Perhaps you would like to imagine the current arrangement from my perspective."
Deadpan. Daniel is just letting him fucking know. Armand doesn't like Louis asserting a claim (fucking whatever, fucking vampires, fucking bullshit), but it's fine if Daniel is scorched earth in the process of telling Louis to fuck off about him.
I didn't think of him at all. Maybe Daniel doesn't actually believe him. Maybe nothing Armand says means anything.
Snapped. Is he angry at Daniel? Not in the same way Daniel is angry at him. Armand is the transgressor in this equation, he understands that well enough, but regardless: a little flicker of something fiery.
"Why should I have to explain to you the obvious? You surround yourself daily and nightly with those who I can't coexist with. Perhaps you can explain it to me instead."
There we go. He's almost happy about it. What's Armand going to do, kill him? Torture him some more?
Maybe. High chance. Oh well.
"You chose to ditch me in Dubai and fuck off for months. And I did look for you. I tried to dig up whatever contacts I could scrounge off of your shared assets with Louis, but it was a brick wall then when you were still too entangled. I made a nuisance of myself asking about you, over and over, every time I spoke to Louis, any time I got anyone else on the fucking vampire radio. But there was nothing. You were just gone. I don't know what you mean by coexisting."
Comfortable with putting him into bad spots. Yeah. Again: not a surprise. He knows. Bit of a vent, in this. Despite everything, he'd have liked to get to know his maker, and he'd have liked help and guidance. Tough shit and too late, now. He figured it out. He survived. No one was thinking about him, no one wanted him for love or horror, he just was. And he made it work. Alone.
"Louis didn't come running to my rescue. But he picked up the goddamn phone. He's my friend. Sometimes we're going to spend time together."
Most of this is listened to with a still and guarded posture, a cautious kind of reception. An interest, in spite of himself, in spite of the anger leveled his way. Not quite the same as big looming eyes studying a bug in a jar—no, this is Armand's own behaviour being put on display, just as much as Daniel's. The last of it gets a small tic of tension at narrow jaw.
His focus dulls, wavering down. Considers, again, spinning it. Knows, with a hint of relief, that there is truly no point in doing so around Daniel Molloy. That said, excavating the truth feels like a different kind of fabrication, an interpretive act of attempting to recall the mess of feelings and motivations, a blur. It may still be falsehood, whatever comes out of his mouth, but at least he doesn't have to control it.
And so, "Yes," first. "Okay."
Refocuses. "I did all of that and I left you behind. I needed distance from what happened and what you'd done to me. I wanted to be alone. I," and he stops this litany of I-statements before he can sound more profoundly self-absorbed than he already does. "The idea of being near you," starting again, "made me feel uncontrolled in a way I couldn't stand."
Distance. Prey with broken legs left in rooms, tasting of shock and little messages transcribed into grey matter. Emailed updates, notifications, his fledgling a moving spot on a map.
"And you certainly cared nothing for what I would do, after your grand gesture," a pettier point of order. "Save that you probably hoped it wouldn't be snapping your neck."
"I can accept that." Armand leaving, needing to get out. There's no world where they had a calm, mutually supportive conversation after Daniel destroyed his life and Armand lashed out by doing something he hated in response. "Everything still happened the way it did, but I get it. We didn't exactly go into it as friends."
And even though Daniel's got some bitterness about being abandoned, it's not as bad as it could have been. He knew what was happening to him. He had somewhere to go, he had something of an education. Being alone with it, despite everything unpleasant, was actually a viable option.
"I'm just saying, you've never appeared and said, 'Hey Molloy, I'd like to actually try getting to know you and I'd like to be able to visit you without worrying about other people who hate me.' You've left me crippled victims, followed me around a bit. I don't know if you have a phone, or an email address. So— what am I explaining? From your perspective?"
It's not 1850, they're not going to stand on balconies and night and send out psychic lures. Armand can just fucking text him.
"From where I'm standing, what you did last week could mean a lot of things. Maybe it was about me. Maybe it was about Louis. Maybe it was even about Lestat, because he's somehow the emotional north star for too many fucking vampires. You apparently blew up some old apartment of yours, I don't know what that's about either. The only thing I know for sure is that you did this and it hurt Louis badly, and everything else is guesswork."
Unmoving rings of orange flame around inky pupils that never tell on themselves, never expanding or contracting in rudimentary displays of emotion except when he gives into a real hunt and he doesn't care at all about what his eyes might be doing. Considers this scenario. What would have needed to happen, for him to ask Daniel to forge a relationship with him. If not a relationship, then a connection with some amount of stability. Armand would have had to know that he wanted that.
An obstacle.
There's a breath out at the rest. "It was for all three of you," dismissive, like this is no grand mystery. If he wanted to target any of them individually, he would. "That's how it began. It changed. I improvised.
"And what do you wish for me to say now?" is sharp. "That I won't do it again."
It's very strange to observe Armand right now, because his body language says one thing but Daniel's instincts say another. He appears to be being honest, but Daniel's head says: bullshit, there's no fucking way. He can't just be doing things on a whim, especially not things this destructive. But even as he thinks that, logic crawls back up and says Let what's obvious be obvious, idiot.
Daniel nuked all his plans. Armand is alone for the first time in his centuries-long life, no owners (Jesus fuck, that thought), no cult, no coven, no companion. Lashing out, spinning his wheels, haunting the only connections he does have left, no matter what state they're in.
Is that it? Fuck. Fuck.
"Ideally I would like to go about my business without the worry you could be launching a missile through my window at any moment, yeah." Annoyed, but honest. Hostility remains present in his voice, perhaps comically at odds with his following words. "But I don't wish anything of you, or from you. I'm not going to set expectations or make demands. Maybe we could fucking talk about it and figure out where to go from here, though?"
Maybe an expectation, a demand, would be an interesting thing to negotiate. Something to lawyer or even respect, a single rail to rattle along as time hurtles them all forwards at a rapid pace. Louis' command had not gotten its hooks in him, but Daniel probably could. To probably mixed results.
It could feel like rejection, the precursor to fuck off forever, until that last thing, and Armand is momentarily off-balanced. Swings a look around the room. There's an accent wall that probably inspired a few thousand dollars in property value markup, but the wainscoting consistent from the foyer into the living room is quite nice.
He really does hate these can lights, though. Cheap, ugly, and no private room needs to be bathed in wall to wall brightness like an open floor plan office. He had been rather pleased of the lighting design of the penthouse, which had been cool, sedate, with a little artistic gloom. He'd overseen it himself.
He should probably answer.
"Alright," he says, and looks back to Daniel. "You should finish your viewing."
Daniel isn't stupid. He noticed the way Armand (and Armand-as-Rashid) had responded to being ordered around. But he's not going to repeat Louis' mistake and attempt to leverage it, especially not when he knows barely anything about his maker. He wants to know more. More than Armand is comfortable (or perhaps even capable) with sharing. So Daniel needs Armand to bite back a little more. Like a competent but not-quite-genius homicide detective on the trail of a serial killer, he needs a few more bodies to drop so he can collect data. Except he's pretty sure he could crack an active serial killer case in a bored weekend, and Armand is worlds away in complex difficulty.
He's sure he hates him. He tells himself that like a mantra. Like he'll forget if he doesn't.
Finish—?
Daniel's expression does something. Real estate had been forgotten entirely. Fucking Christ.
"Sure."
>:(
"Can you have him sit down?" A thumb over his shoulder to the poor agent back there. "I know how much that sucks. You said the basement was, what, mediocre?"
Armand tips his head, and after a moment, the scuffing sound of the agent lowering himself down to sit, resting against the wall.
"That it needs work," Armand supplies, "to be made comfortable."
It's a good house, his personal pet peeves around lighting fixtures aside. Elegant and big and ridiculously well situated. He had come here because he assumed it would be Daniel's favoured option, but who knows. He folds his arms and will tail Daniel around, not quite taking over where the real estate agent left off, but he will provide a little commentary, asked for or otherwise.
Even for him, this does feel strange—but it would be stranger if it didn't. There is nothing that feels normal anymore. No routines, no demands of him, an amount of administrative and financial management he can either do in his sleep or delegate to various lawyers and accountants and property managers. The fire had been an occupying project, as had the kidnapping of Roy Travis, and he lacks a new one.
No rush. Right now, he looms in Daniel Molloy's periphery and considers if he could get away with absconding with him across the country, or further out. He has considered buying an island. He has considered lots of things.
A quick 'thanks' for the sentencing upgrade on his realtor, and then: extreme weirdness, commencing. Daniel isn't entirely sure they need to actually pause to do this, they could have just kicked out the third wheel and continued to talk, but it's so surreal he decides to see it through. And besides, he does need to tick this house off the list of things he's viewed.
Armand's commentary is ... something. Strange because it's Armand, because he's here. Daniel makes an effort to actually draw him into proper conversation about this or that, though it's obvious he's doing so— the ancient vampire just creeping about in the corners of his vision is unsettling. Armand is here, he might as well participate.
The basement has promise. The yard, not so much. A little cramped, but that's life in the big city.
"Needs a remodel," he says eventually, hands braced on a too-small door to the kitchen, which he leans into and observes for the second time. "I fucking hate the overhead lights."
A gesture, to the barrier between foyer and living room and stairwell. Drops his hand. Anyway.
"I'll wait outside."
And he's leaving, the brisk clip of neat shoes on shining wooden floors, passing by the real estate agent who doesn't appear to see him, but is standing up, hands pinching the bridge of his nose. Disoriented, some muscle strain from even a comfortable but unmoving position twinging down his back, headache raging, but does not appear to think much else is strange, or clock that he just stood up from a seated position on the floor.
And Daniel is a vampire. He can do what he wants with the guy, be it discuss the house or send him obliviously on his way with muddled memory or death. But here, Armand (on a delay, granted) invites that bit of distance, recalibration. He will head off the property, he will move to the street. He imagines this area will be quite loud during the day, but it won't matter when Daniel commits to sleep.
Considers that Daniel's house hunt is not his concern. Considers that this is simply a part of his brain he has a difficult time switching off. Considers the lack of stars in the sky, and waits.
The house seems unimportant. Just some insignificant blip. But of course he needs to progress his fucking (un)life, and so Daniel gets a grip once Armand is out the door, and reconnects with his agent. They chat a little, and the man is happy to believe they've already done a walk through. Getting late, and he seems to remember having been driving his client around, but Daniel reminds him that they met here.
It doesn't hurt. Gives him a mild twinge that's more discomfort than pain. On the mend.
Realtor turns lights off, locks door behind them. Into his car, and away, as Daniel takes his time down the front steps, so that he can stop and turn and look at it from the sidewalk. It's not a fortress in Dubai. But that's not his style.
Stands there for too long, maybe. He tells himself he's giving Armand space, and he's doing that, too. Mostly he's trying to figure out what the fuck is going on with him, why he's entertaining this at all, why he isn't saying I've changed my mind, fuck off forever. He holds up I was comfortable with doing so next to I didn't think of him at all, and tries understand.
Eventually, he is standing beside his maker.
Well. Here they fucking are.
"Do you have a bug in my email, or something, by the way?"
Daniel finds Armand standing ramrod straight neat a streetlamp, hands slid into coat pockets. The chill is bracing, but not unwelcome. It never got cold like this in Dubai, and even less for the amount of time he wound up spending in their perfectly temperature controlled penthouse.
He doesn't turn to greet Daniel, and he ignores his question.
"You did well in shutting me out."
It doesn't sound like a dig. He elaborates, "You, diving to Louis' defense after I opened the door to his mind. It was unexpected." And it does sound like a compliment, mildly delivered though it is.
Less a matter of brute force so much as finding a weakness, a blindspot, and pulling the trigger. Just like him to do so, Armand thought.
No response, though this time Daniel refrains from meanly nitpicking about that. Instead, he just notes it, and thinks: probably just means he's stalking him. Which is at least charming in a fucked-up way. Old fashioned. The manual transmission of haunting someone.
What Armand says instead catches him off-guard. Huh?
Daniel feels like he fumbled that, and badly. Still mentally tender from it, something that felt so small that hurt so fucking bad. He'd do it even if he knew it was going to hurt, he'd do it even if he knew it was going to be worse, but it was still embarrassing to be so wounded from so little. The compliment (?) bolsters him a bit, though it, like much of their interactions, feels perversely-won.
"I didn't know what I was doing."
Obviously.
"I guess you're ... familiar-shaped, already, even if I can't see in."
"Most vampires, in my experience, are capable only of reception and transmission. Reading thoughts, sending words. Even older ones never develop the muscle beyond that."
A glance sidelong.
"You have an ability. A way of seeing a mind like a complex machine rather than an object that produces and receives noise alone. You didn't know what you were doing because you haven't done it before, but you did it regardless."
Maybe it was Armand-shaped, maybe that helped, but nevertheless. If he'd been capable of anticipating anything further than a second forwards into the future, he'd have been certain of his own safety—Lestat, formidable, and entirely unable to access Louis' mind. Daniel, a fledgling, still figuring it all out. Louis, helpless under the light of the sun, under Armand's intimate knowledge of aforementioned complex machine.
Just as well, maybe, that Daniel had proven otherwise. "Self-effacement is not among your more flattering attributes," he adds, wry.
This is surprising, to Daniel. Louis hadn't ever gone into much detail about the specifics of mind control (no prize for guessing about why), but Daniel had assumed a certain mental acumen among vampires overall. Lestat's powers, Armand's, and even Claudia with the way she seemed to learn languages overnight. Louis struck Daniel as someone uninterested in practicing rather than simply incapable.
But maybe not?
Something to think about. Reevaluate. He thinks of telling one of the men he drained with Lestat to relax.
Put on a shelf to investigate later, because he gives Armand a sidelong look, then points at him, an ah-hah gesture. Something discovered.
"I was right," he muses. "You do like it when I'm arrogant."
"Perish the thought of there being some grey area in between the two things."
But also, every vampire loves a slider set to max, and the glance Armand gives Daniel is a little wry, followed by a shift of his posture. Looking at him, a glance up and down, renewed evaluation of the vampiric version of Daniel Molloy. Something that feels like his own creation. An inherited ability to toy with the mind, perhaps.
He probably has things worth sharing, as a maker. Tutorship does not come easily, no matter the way he'd used it as a lure for both Lestat and Louis. One, taking his gifts and running away. The other, a bad faith offer on his end, he knows, save for the gift of fire.
Does Daniel fly? Can he set things aflame with his mind? Violent telekinesis? Has he tried? This curiousity isn't new. It's all too familiar.
"You aren't just spending time."
Back on task. With Louis, he means. With Lestat, by extension. They're hardly meeting up for an occasional coffee date.
Interesting to note. Armand protests, but it doesn't sound like much of one, not really, particularly not with that looking coming at its heels. Daniel considers the difference between ego and arrogance, and the ability to follow through. Decides he doesn't like where those thoughts go, and reminds himself that he's mad at him. You hate this guy his brain points out, and Daniel tells it yeah, I know. I know.
He's mad at him, they hate each other, and he doesn't actually want Armand to teach him anything. Daniel can figure it out.
The rest—
"Sort of." He crosses his arms, just for something to do with his hands, and not wanting to mirror Armand's pose. "You heard Louis' stupid 'come find out' shout. And I'm sure you've heard the speculation about me, on the airwaves. It feels safer this way. And it may not be, because I'm not ignorant of the potential of making a more consolidated target. But isolation is damaging for regular reasons."
And now, behold, neither he nor Louis (nor the other guy) are isolated. A magic trick with no superpowers involved. Even fucking Armand is getting in a little socialization, nightmare-adjacent though it may be.
"As for Lestat, he intervened when I nearly got jumped by a couple of hostile vampires, so he's bought himself some leeway. I'm giving him a chance. If you think he doesn't deserve one, whatever, because keep in mind I haven't told you to leave me alone, either."
A flick of a look that communicates How convenient at the news of Lestat's entry into the story and, consequently, Daniel's good graces.
This last part sparing them both from it being verbalised. Where was Armand, after all, when Daniel was getting jumped by hostile vampires? Keeping his necessary distance. Trying for a bigger picture after being so up close to it all for so long, elbows deep, arranging everything just so. There is a part of him that could feel a little anxious for it, but it feels as though it's in hibernation.
"Strength in numbers," he concedes. It's been coven logic for a millennia. "And I don't know that I'd call Louis' challenge stupid. Predators respond to shows of strength, as long as you don't slip once tested."
A turn. Invitation to walk rather than spend too long in one place. Give the Talamasca some new scenery to work with.
"Yeah, it's the slipping thing I think about most."
Because Armand's right, it's inevitable. So much that Daniel doesn't worry, because fighting the future is pointless, he just tries to be aware. He walks alongside him, fully aware that they will eventually find themselves trailed - maybe Daniel will start to use them as test subjects for various skills, who knows - and wonders what photos of this will look like. Strange, probably.
"But it was part of my pitch, too. That you hovering around is probably sparing me an attempted beatdown or two. But sooner or later, probably sooner, hotheads less respectful of hierarchies or just less observant are going to shoot their shot. Probably while I'm heading up to Toronto and there's a necessary split. I've got a couple tabs on digital chatter and it hasn't entirely gone quiet. Some voices out there still really have it out for Louis, too, though nobody I've got ears on has noticed he left Dubai just yet."
Blah blah. Investigative journalist does investigative work.
"And you're in town for fun and because you missed the smell of ocean sewage and pizza, right?"
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Is he afraid Daniel won't believe him?
It's just intuition, not a superpower. Vampirism hasn't helped him read Armand any deeper. For a too-long moment he stares back at him, silent, gaze intense and searching.
But ire remains.
"By showing him something that would hurt him?" And violate Daniel, though he doesn't say so. He decided days ago, that should there ever be a confrontation, he wasn't going to frame it around himself. Daniel shoved his proverbial hand into the trap on purpose. Owning his agency is the most grace is can give Armand in the situation, deserving or not. They're all making choices. "By forcing him to him relive a sense-memory of sunlight?"
no subject
But Daniel appears to believe him.
And now there is this question, and Armand imagines the lies and excuses he can spin. He could tell Daniel that Louis did it to himself, that he invited the sunlight in subconscious response to Armand's invasion. He could say it was an unintended side effect of his own harmful intrusion. A terrible and perfect storm of Louis' trauma, Armand's influences.
"I showed him what I was feeling and experiencing when I turned you," is how he starts. "What I have felt and experienced in the wake of it. I wanted him to understand what he was trying to interfere with."
But. He tips his head, considering Daniel.
"And I harmed him," he says. He does not sound pleased with himself. "He got in my way of you by trying to lay his claim, and so I harmed him on purpose."
There. Now what.
no subject
Daniel looks at him, and breathes slowly, still watching him closely and reckoning with the things Armand is saying and his own emotions. Anger remains difficult to purge, so wrapped up in being offended on Louis' behalf, and the fact that memories of himself were used in the harm. Frustrated that it ended up putting him in a position to worry that Lestat might drop Louis from the stratosphere again. In his silence he ends up coming to the conclusion that going in circles about who has a right to speak to whom, to do what, to speak to who, about what, is fucking stupid, and that the best way to make progress - despite being angry - is going to be continuing as before. Which is: positive fucking reinforcement.
He asked Armand, and Armand answered him, apparently honestly. Daniel may scream.
"Alright," he says. Just a little strained. "Thank you for telling me."
Pissed off but sincere. His eyes shift, indecisive between green and amber, out of his control. Was Armand really thinking of ... just him?
"I don't like how you did it. Sure, dramatic and impactful, and I fucking hated that guy anyway," like FYI, no complaints about Roy Travis, "but I hated the experienced and it put me in a bad spot."
no subject
It's fine. Daniel can still be mad at him.
Armand, on the high of radical truth, maybe. He put Daniel in a bad spot on purpose too, but it's altogether possible that he doesn't understand exactly what it meant. It's altogether possible that he didn't really care, in the same reckless way that Daniel had flung a script with his notations on it down in front of Louis.
It might be very possible that Daniel's perspective, of being the battlefield between two older vampires (and a third guy who is also there), is a false one. While Louis had been flipping through pages with near panicked hands, they had looked at each other.
"Perhaps you would like to imagine the current arrangement from my perspective."
no subject
Deadpan. Daniel is just letting him fucking know. Armand doesn't like Louis asserting a claim (fucking whatever, fucking vampires, fucking bullshit), but it's fine if Daniel is scorched earth in the process of telling Louis to fuck off about him.
I didn't think of him at all. Maybe Daniel doesn't actually believe him. Maybe nothing Armand says means anything.
"I'm listening."
It'S mY jOb.
no subject
Snapped. Is he angry at Daniel? Not in the same way Daniel is angry at him. Armand is the transgressor in this equation, he understands that well enough, but regardless: a little flicker of something fiery.
"Why should I have to explain to you the obvious? You surround yourself daily and nightly with those who I can't coexist with. Perhaps you can explain it to me instead."
no subject
Maybe. High chance. Oh well.
"You chose to ditch me in Dubai and fuck off for months. And I did look for you. I tried to dig up whatever contacts I could scrounge off of your shared assets with Louis, but it was a brick wall then when you were still too entangled. I made a nuisance of myself asking about you, over and over, every time I spoke to Louis, any time I got anyone else on the fucking vampire radio. But there was nothing. You were just gone. I don't know what you mean by coexisting."
Comfortable with putting him into bad spots. Yeah. Again: not a surprise. He knows. Bit of a vent, in this. Despite everything, he'd have liked to get to know his maker, and he'd have liked help and guidance. Tough shit and too late, now. He figured it out. He survived. No one was thinking about him, no one wanted him for love or horror, he just was. And he made it work. Alone.
"Louis didn't come running to my rescue. But he picked up the goddamn phone. He's my friend. Sometimes we're going to spend time together."
no subject
His focus dulls, wavering down. Considers, again, spinning it. Knows, with a hint of relief, that there is truly no point in doing so around Daniel Molloy. That said, excavating the truth feels like a different kind of fabrication, an interpretive act of attempting to recall the mess of feelings and motivations, a blur. It may still be falsehood, whatever comes out of his mouth, but at least he doesn't have to control it.
And so, "Yes," first. "Okay."
Refocuses. "I did all of that and I left you behind. I needed distance from what happened and what you'd done to me. I wanted to be alone. I," and he stops this litany of I-statements before he can sound more profoundly self-absorbed than he already does. "The idea of being near you," starting again, "made me feel uncontrolled in a way I couldn't stand."
Distance. Prey with broken legs left in rooms, tasting of shock and little messages transcribed into grey matter. Emailed updates, notifications, his fledgling a moving spot on a map.
"And you certainly cared nothing for what I would do, after your grand gesture," a pettier point of order. "Save that you probably hoped it wouldn't be snapping your neck."
no subject
And even though Daniel's got some bitterness about being abandoned, it's not as bad as it could have been. He knew what was happening to him. He had somewhere to go, he had something of an education. Being alone with it, despite everything unpleasant, was actually a viable option.
"I'm just saying, you've never appeared and said, 'Hey Molloy, I'd like to actually try getting to know you and I'd like to be able to visit you without worrying about other people who hate me.' You've left me crippled victims, followed me around a bit. I don't know if you have a phone, or an email address. So— what am I explaining? From your perspective?"
It's not 1850, they're not going to stand on balconies and night and send out psychic lures. Armand can just fucking text him.
"From where I'm standing, what you did last week could mean a lot of things. Maybe it was about me. Maybe it was about Louis. Maybe it was even about Lestat, because he's somehow the emotional north star for too many fucking vampires. You apparently blew up some old apartment of yours, I don't know what that's about either. The only thing I know for sure is that you did this and it hurt Louis badly, and everything else is guesswork."
no subject
An obstacle.
There's a breath out at the rest. "It was for all three of you," dismissive, like this is no grand mystery. If he wanted to target any of them individually, he would. "That's how it began. It changed. I improvised.
"And what do you wish for me to say now?" is sharp. "That I won't do it again."
no subject
Daniel nuked all his plans. Armand is alone for the first time in his centuries-long life, no owners (Jesus fuck, that thought), no cult, no coven, no companion. Lashing out, spinning his wheels, haunting the only connections he does have left, no matter what state they're in.
Is that it? Fuck. Fuck.
"Ideally I would like to go about my business without the worry you could be launching a missile through my window at any moment, yeah." Annoyed, but honest. Hostility remains present in his voice, perhaps comically at odds with his following words. "But I don't wish anything of you, or from you. I'm not going to set expectations or make demands. Maybe we could fucking talk about it and figure out where to go from here, though?"
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It could feel like rejection, the precursor to fuck off forever, until that last thing, and Armand is momentarily off-balanced. Swings a look around the room. There's an accent wall that probably inspired a few thousand dollars in property value markup, but the wainscoting consistent from the foyer into the living room is quite nice.
He really does hate these can lights, though. Cheap, ugly, and no private room needs to be bathed in wall to wall brightness like an open floor plan office. He had been rather pleased of the lighting design of the penthouse, which had been cool, sedate, with a little artistic gloom. He'd overseen it himself.
He should probably answer.
"Alright," he says, and looks back to Daniel. "You should finish your viewing."
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He's sure he hates him. He tells himself that like a mantra. Like he'll forget if he doesn't.
Finish—?
Daniel's expression does something. Real estate had been forgotten entirely. Fucking Christ.
"Sure."
>:(
"Can you have him sit down?" A thumb over his shoulder to the poor agent back there. "I know how much that sucks. You said the basement was, what, mediocre?"
Fine. Fine!!
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"That it needs work," Armand supplies, "to be made comfortable."
It's a good house, his personal pet peeves around lighting fixtures aside. Elegant and big and ridiculously well situated. He had come here because he assumed it would be Daniel's favoured option, but who knows. He folds his arms and will tail Daniel around, not quite taking over where the real estate agent left off, but he will provide a little commentary, asked for or otherwise.
Even for him, this does feel strange—but it would be stranger if it didn't. There is nothing that feels normal anymore. No routines, no demands of him, an amount of administrative and financial management he can either do in his sleep or delegate to various lawyers and accountants and property managers. The fire had been an occupying project, as had the kidnapping of Roy Travis, and he lacks a new one.
No rush. Right now, he looms in Daniel Molloy's periphery and considers if he could get away with absconding with him across the country, or further out. He has considered buying an island. He has considered lots of things.
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Armand's commentary is ... something. Strange because it's Armand, because he's here. Daniel makes an effort to actually draw him into proper conversation about this or that, though it's obvious he's doing so— the ancient vampire just creeping about in the corners of his vision is unsettling. Armand is here, he might as well participate.
The basement has promise. The yard, not so much. A little cramped, but that's life in the big city.
"Needs a remodel," he says eventually, hands braced on a too-small door to the kitchen, which he leans into and observes for the second time. "I fucking hate the overhead lights."
All about the location, though.
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A gesture, to the barrier between foyer and living room and stairwell. Drops his hand. Anyway.
"I'll wait outside."
And he's leaving, the brisk clip of neat shoes on shining wooden floors, passing by the real estate agent who doesn't appear to see him, but is standing up, hands pinching the bridge of his nose. Disoriented, some muscle strain from even a comfortable but unmoving position twinging down his back, headache raging, but does not appear to think much else is strange, or clock that he just stood up from a seated position on the floor.
And Daniel is a vampire. He can do what he wants with the guy, be it discuss the house or send him obliviously on his way with muddled memory or death. But here, Armand (on a delay, granted) invites that bit of distance, recalibration. He will head off the property, he will move to the street. He imagines this area will be quite loud during the day, but it won't matter when Daniel commits to sleep.
Considers that Daniel's house hunt is not his concern. Considers that this is simply a part of his brain he has a difficult time switching off. Considers the lack of stars in the sky, and waits.
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It doesn't hurt. Gives him a mild twinge that's more discomfort than pain. On the mend.
Realtor turns lights off, locks door behind them. Into his car, and away, as Daniel takes his time down the front steps, so that he can stop and turn and look at it from the sidewalk. It's not a fortress in Dubai. But that's not his style.
Stands there for too long, maybe. He tells himself he's giving Armand space, and he's doing that, too. Mostly he's trying to figure out what the fuck is going on with him, why he's entertaining this at all, why he isn't saying I've changed my mind, fuck off forever. He holds up I was comfortable with doing so next to I didn't think of him at all, and tries understand.
Eventually, he is standing beside his maker.
Well. Here they fucking are.
"Do you have a bug in my email, or something, by the way?"
Like how did you know to be here, pal.
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He doesn't turn to greet Daniel, and he ignores his question.
"You did well in shutting me out."
It doesn't sound like a dig. He elaborates, "You, diving to Louis' defense after I opened the door to his mind. It was unexpected." And it does sound like a compliment, mildly delivered though it is.
Less a matter of brute force so much as finding a weakness, a blindspot, and pulling the trigger. Just like him to do so, Armand thought.
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What Armand says instead catches him off-guard. Huh?
Daniel feels like he fumbled that, and badly. Still mentally tender from it, something that felt so small that hurt so fucking bad. He'd do it even if he knew it was going to hurt, he'd do it even if he knew it was going to be worse, but it was still embarrassing to be so wounded from so little. The compliment (?) bolsters him a bit, though it, like much of their interactions, feels perversely-won.
"I didn't know what I was doing."
Obviously.
"I guess you're ... familiar-shaped, already, even if I can't see in."
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A glance sidelong.
"You have an ability. A way of seeing a mind like a complex machine rather than an object that produces and receives noise alone. You didn't know what you were doing because you haven't done it before, but you did it regardless."
Maybe it was Armand-shaped, maybe that helped, but nevertheless. If he'd been capable of anticipating anything further than a second forwards into the future, he'd have been certain of his own safety—Lestat, formidable, and entirely unable to access Louis' mind. Daniel, a fledgling, still figuring it all out. Louis, helpless under the light of the sun, under Armand's intimate knowledge of aforementioned complex machine.
Just as well, maybe, that Daniel had proven otherwise. "Self-effacement is not among your more flattering attributes," he adds, wry.
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But maybe not?
Something to think about. Reevaluate. He thinks of telling one of the men he drained with Lestat to relax.
Put on a shelf to investigate later, because he gives Armand a sidelong look, then points at him, an ah-hah gesture. Something discovered.
"I was right," he muses. "You do like it when I'm arrogant."
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But also, every vampire loves a slider set to max, and the glance Armand gives Daniel is a little wry, followed by a shift of his posture. Looking at him, a glance up and down, renewed evaluation of the vampiric version of Daniel Molloy. Something that feels like his own creation. An inherited ability to toy with the mind, perhaps.
He probably has things worth sharing, as a maker. Tutorship does not come easily, no matter the way he'd used it as a lure for both Lestat and Louis. One, taking his gifts and running away. The other, a bad faith offer on his end, he knows, save for the gift of fire.
Does Daniel fly? Can he set things aflame with his mind? Violent telekinesis? Has he tried? This curiousity isn't new. It's all too familiar.
"You aren't just spending time."
Back on task. With Louis, he means. With Lestat, by extension. They're hardly meeting up for an occasional coffee date.
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Interesting to note. Armand protests, but it doesn't sound like much of one, not really, particularly not with that looking coming at its heels. Daniel considers the difference between ego and arrogance, and the ability to follow through. Decides he doesn't like where those thoughts go, and reminds himself that he's mad at him. You hate this guy his brain points out, and Daniel tells it yeah, I know. I know.
He's mad at him, they hate each other, and he doesn't actually want Armand to teach him anything. Daniel can figure it out.
The rest—
"Sort of." He crosses his arms, just for something to do with his hands, and not wanting to mirror Armand's pose. "You heard Louis' stupid 'come find out' shout. And I'm sure you've heard the speculation about me, on the airwaves. It feels safer this way. And it may not be, because I'm not ignorant of the potential of making a more consolidated target. But isolation is damaging for regular reasons."
And now, behold, neither he nor Louis (nor the other guy) are isolated. A magic trick with no superpowers involved. Even fucking Armand is getting in a little socialization, nightmare-adjacent though it may be.
"As for Lestat, he intervened when I nearly got jumped by a couple of hostile vampires, so he's bought himself some leeway. I'm giving him a chance. If you think he doesn't deserve one, whatever, because keep in mind I haven't told you to leave me alone, either."
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This last part sparing them both from it being verbalised. Where was Armand, after all, when Daniel was getting jumped by hostile vampires? Keeping his necessary distance. Trying for a bigger picture after being so up close to it all for so long, elbows deep, arranging everything just so. There is a part of him that could feel a little anxious for it, but it feels as though it's in hibernation.
"Strength in numbers," he concedes. It's been coven logic for a millennia. "And I don't know that I'd call Louis' challenge stupid. Predators respond to shows of strength, as long as you don't slip once tested."
A turn. Invitation to walk rather than spend too long in one place. Give the Talamasca some new scenery to work with.
"And you will slip," bears saying.
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Because Armand's right, it's inevitable. So much that Daniel doesn't worry, because fighting the future is pointless, he just tries to be aware. He walks alongside him, fully aware that they will eventually find themselves trailed - maybe Daniel will start to use them as test subjects for various skills, who knows - and wonders what photos of this will look like. Strange, probably.
"But it was part of my pitch, too. That you hovering around is probably sparing me an attempted beatdown or two. But sooner or later, probably sooner, hotheads less respectful of hierarchies or just less observant are going to shoot their shot. Probably while I'm heading up to Toronto and there's a necessary split. I've got a couple tabs on digital chatter and it hasn't entirely gone quiet. Some voices out there still really have it out for Louis, too, though nobody I've got ears on has noticed he left Dubai just yet."
Blah blah. Investigative journalist does investigative work.
"And you're in town for fun and because you missed the smell of ocean sewage and pizza, right?"
Or did he just want to get his book signed.
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