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lestat de lioncourt. ([personal profile] damnedest) wrote2024-07-27 03:00 pm
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[personal profile] followups 2024-10-13 09:37 am (UTC)(link)
Rashid doesn't even have enough shame to look sheepish. Daniel assumes he's been partially lobotomized by the spook librarians.

Are these crippled vampires dead? Daniel doesn't think so— heads kind of on, if mangled, not burned even though there's so much smoke and ash from Louis' pyrowhatever. Should he, just. Well. He does what he thinks he should, which is shove his hand into the cavity he's created in the passenger vampire's head and yank so that it detaches from his body. It thunks back into the wreckage, flopping against the barely-alive driver.

He feels far away.

"Yeah," he hears himself say, about the car with the cracked windshield. He watches himself walk back around and look at Louis.

"Are you okay?"

Daniel doesn't feel any urgency from his distant vantage point, dizzy and greyish, but Rashid must, because he ushers them towards it with all the precision he had used to delivery drinks and newspapers.
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-10-13 06:57 pm (UTC)(link)
The looming threat of law enforcement and TikTok is apparently motivation enough for Rashid to risk Louis' thin patience, hustling him into the backseat. A glimpse back as Rashid accelerates the car into a three-point turn and Louis can see a clutch of agents circling the remains of the wreckage. Louis doesn't let that hold his attention. That can certainly become the Talamasca's project.

A narrowed look from the backseat at Rashid, measuring the amount of years Rashid had moved within the penthouse. Considering what he wishes to do about the invasion of privacy involved in it.

But most immediately: Daniel.

Daniel, who has been robbed of the front seat by Louis' latched grip on his wrist. A split second of recognition, seeing something in Daniel's face that Louis knows very well, and wanting to keep him close more than he wants Daniel wielding an abandoned Talamasca agent's laptop.

Daniel's Are you okay? left by the wayside as Louis looks into his face. Touches his cheek, briefly. The titanium cuffs still gleaming on his wrists, ignored for the moment.

Boxes Rashid out of the conversation entirely by touching Daniel's mind, asking Are you with me?
Edited 2024-10-13 18:59 (UTC)
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[personal profile] followups 2024-10-13 10:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Daniel has been alright as separating himself as he is now from mortals, from food, even during excursions with Lestat— he has to, there's no point starving to death, and the world is overpopulated anyway, full of soulless fucks, Daniel knows better than anyone, he sees to much in people, understands too much, has no problem deleting people.

Doesn't he? He just killed two vampires in grotesquely violent ways, and he had only recently struggled to communicate to Armand the ethical facade he's put up in himself to be alright with murder. Accepting blood from his maker to repair his head the rest of the way had tripped it, because he's only ever taken blood from mortals, and following that, until tonight, had only ever been violent with mortals, and something about the veil is shredded now, forcing him into looking at how he's existing.

A startle, when Louis touches his mind.

"Yeah," out loud, in-mind. The bad yeah, the lying one. He looks at him, looks down at their hands, frowns.

'You shouldn't have done that.'

Still not-quite-present. Freaking out, but quietly. He slides fingers around Louis' wrist and beneath the cuff, hating it.

'Help me with this,' he implores. He can tell it's made to be a pain in the ass, that it'll cut into Louis if he just yanks it, but they can probably do it without any damage with three hands. C'mon.
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-10-13 11:07 pm (UTC)(link)
It would make Daniel very angry if Louis offered up the first thing that came to mind: You shouldn't have come after me.

Even if it feels true. If Louis is more concerned with how Daniel might have been hurt than about the cuffs on his wrist, about Eimear plucking at his nervous system until Louis screamed, about what might have waited for them at the end of the truck's route. Maybe nothing. Maybe just a quiet place for Eimear and her fledglings to strip the flesh from Louis' bones until here was nothing more of him.

Doesn't believe Daniel's Yeah, so refrains from asking if he can touch Lestat's mind. Has to content himself with fine as a placeholder for all his fears as Daniel fidgets with the cuff.

Rashid catches Louis' eye in the rearview mirror, and Louis' lip curls back off the silent threat of a sharp fang. Eyes front.

Touches Daniel's cheek again, eyes searching. Daniel, largely unharmed. Daniel, who did a fair share of violence tonight, and should have been spared it all. Louis' thumb runs along his cheek. He breathes out. Nods.

Alright, let's try, Louis acquiesces, hooking two fingers beneath the cuff alongside Daniel. Try because he is exhausted. Try because Eimear turned his pain receptors on at full force and as adrenaline begins to ebb, the shuddery after effect of that is gaining purchase.
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[personal profile] followups 2024-10-14 12:00 am (UTC)(link)
Pisses him off that Louis was so ready to just volunteer himself, because he doesn't see it as a kind gesture to spare him, he sees it as Louis being careless about his own life. Even now, even with Daniel and Lestat here, he was just going to go and, what? Die? He continued to fight, sure, but he was happy to walk off the fucking edge, right into it.

Hurts to see Louis in chains, but he can tell in an instant what the problem is, so he stops, covers the cuff and Louis' hand with his own.

They're driving fast, but not action movie fast. Rashid is just getting them away, and probably won't start looping them back around to anyplace familiar until he's certain they're no longer being observed. Daniel stays like that for a long moment, just holding Louis' hand, somewhere being angry and dissociative.

Instead of communicating anything else to Louis, he tries Lestat.

'Told him you're fine, so you'd better be. Can you find us?'
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[personal profile] followups 2024-10-14 12:25 am (UTC)(link)
"Hey," out loud, to the stone-faced driver whose existence continues to be an anomaly for many reasons, "Pull over. Don't argue, just, as soon as you can."

Rashid's attention flickers a little before he exchanges a look with Daniel in the rear-view mirror, apparently torn between leaning on the secret rapport they had during the interview (sorry Louis) and detached fear about the journalist's nature now. But he nods, and turns to pull them over into a residential area out of any major traffic crossings.

'Here.' Shown as best he can, offering a mental beacon. 'He's shaken, I don't know how bad, but in one piece. Help me get these fucking things off of him.'

A brief, shared image of Louis' hands. It unsettles Daniel in a major way. He just wants all traces of his bullshit gone. Doesn't ask if the woman is dead. He has complete faith in Lestat in that respect.
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-10-14 12:55 am (UTC)(link)
Having been content, momentarily, to lean into Daniel and let Daniel's hand cover his own. Turn his palm up, eventually, and tangle their fingers together. Let Rashid drive. Let the passing minutes without any new opposition manifesting lower the thud of adrenaline speeding Louis' heartbeat.

"Is he coming?" Louis asks, a question with an answer so clear that Louis doesn't bother to wait for one. Moves past it, winding into Daniel's mind as the car comes to a stop. As Louis straightens, slowly, from the heavy slouch he'd fallen into as they'd sped through the streets in silence.

Were you hurt?

Louis' impression is that Eimear had stayed her hand. That Daniel was not touched by whatever violence that followed.

It's only that he needs to hear it, he thinks. Needs to hear it while they wait for Lestat to reappear, so Louis can put aside at least one set of fears.
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[personal profile] followups 2024-10-14 01:41 am (UTC)(link)
'She didn't hurt me. She wasn't going to.'

This doesn't sound like some badass, delusional assertion. There's tired, frustrated logic to it. But before any conversation can manifest, a big bloody mastiff is pawing into the car, and Daniel feels incredible relief that he hasn't lied to either of them, or himself. Everyone is fine.

Daniel knows why Louis did it but he keeps his mouth shut, because hollering at him is not going to help. Instead he looks forward, seeing the statue stillness of the mortal still in the driver's seat, expression a mask of blankness but knuckles very white on the wheel.

Yeah, makes sense.

"Out," Daniel tells him, and Rashid wastes no time. Daniel follows him, leaving Lestat and Louis in the car. Hopefully it looks enough like he's mind controlling a random jerk that it doesn't draw any attention— not that he thinks there's much of a chance of pulling Lestat away from what he's doing right this minute anyway.

(A few paces out,

"You're free, Double-oh-sixty-nine, fucking get out of here." A beat, and Rashid finally looks shaken. Daniel tells him, sincerely, Thank you, and agrees to talk to Raglan, and soon. Rashid has enough self-preservation not to glance back at the laptop as he makes his escape, handing the beat up car's keys to Daniel as he does.

Sigh.)
Edited 2024-10-14 01:54 (UTC)
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-10-14 02:02 am (UTC)(link)
All Louis' best intentions, all his exhaustion, is tested by Daniel's assertion. The impossibility of the gamble. The cost of guessing wrong. All of Louis recoiling against the thought of Daniel going up in flames.

Unbearable.

But Louis is saved from the impulse to argue the point by the appearance of Lestat, soaked in gore but unhurt, alive, tearful. Louis straightens up from Daniel's shoulder to facilitate the embrace, weather the dig of knee to thigh as he draws Lestat in close. Cradles a hand to the back of his head, cold titanium held carefully away from Lestat's nape.

Daniel is out of the car. Louis has an ear attuned to them, attentive to Daniel's movement on the other side of the door as he breathes out, relieved. Lestat is alright. Daniel is alright.

"I'm okay," he murmurs. "I'm fine."

Does not say: She was threatening you both.

"She's finished. You finished it."

Daniel hadn't said, but Louis doesn't need it spelled out for him. He'd lit her on fire. Lestat had ripped out of the truck and into the air. There are no mysteries as to what followed.
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-10-14 02:33 am (UTC)(link)
Louis gives over to this inspection, hands loose in Lestat's grip. Breath coming easier, even as Louis makes an effort to mask his own exhaustion. Aware of how he'd flexed his power, considering that he might expand on his own limitations. Grow stronger, faster.

But not tonight.

"I'm not sorry you finished and came back to us quickly," Louis counters, pragmatic. Easier to be so when the worst is behind them. He can consider how indignant he feels, how vengeful, tomorrow.

Attention halved, the focus of his concern like a hand pressed to the center of Daniel's back. Some part of Louis fretful at having Daniel out of the car at all. Louis voices dips quieter, hands turning to interrupt Lestat's inspection.

"Are you hurt?" bypasses all the logistical questions that would be better discussed with Daniel in the car.
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-10-14 03:59 am (UTC)(link)
Newly freed, Louis' hand lifts to the blood on Lestat's face. Fingertips skimming Lestat's cheek, contenting himself with the certainty of healed skin beneath the blood.

"Thank you," a moment later, for the shattering of the cuff. The skin beneath is swollen, but already ebbing away. Not worth remarking upon. Lestat is permitted custody of the remaining shackle, Louis' fingers lingering, moving to map the most obvious topography of their scuffle.

A swirl of other things Louis could say. An apology. For the ruined suit. For dragging Lestat into all of this.

"I didn't think to collect the sword," is what Louis settles on. A little humor as Lestat attends the cuff.
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[personal profile] followups 2024-10-14 04:35 am (UTC)(link)
A few minutes is probably already pushing it, and so Daniel is coming back to the car soon enough. He pokes his head in the back to make sure no one's exploded since he looked away, then closes the doors and moves around to the driver's seat.

In, door closed, seat belt on - the car will just make annoying ding sounds on a loop if he doesn't - engine started. They start rolling and he reaches out to close the abandoned laptop and set it on the floor. Talamasca is probably trying to remotely lock and wipe it already, but he's sure his guy will be able to crack it. Hah. His now.

Being a chauffeur is annoying, but. Here they are.

"Nobody wants anything from the drive-thru while we're out, right?"

Deadpan. Let's fucking get out of here.
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-10-14 05:05 am (UTC)(link)
A split second where Louis thinks one of them should occupy the passenger. Recalls Daniel, at the airport. Settles for a little nudge of humor between their minds, a link of connection as Louis observes, "She was very prepared."

But surprised by Daniel. Underestimated Louis.

Fortunate that she's dead. Dead, and unable to carry news of Daniel throughout the vampiric grapevine.

His thumb runs circles over Lestat's knuckles, a small unconscious motion meant to soothe, though unclear if it's for Louis' beneath or Lestat's.

And then, suddenly: "We're going to have to smuggle Lestat back into the hotel."

Though Louis is hardly inconspicuous himself.
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[personal profile] followups 2024-10-14 07:28 am (UTC)(link)
Easier to be funny out loud than it is inside of his own head, right now, but he still manages to return the feeling to Louis, and then more, checking in, like squeezing his hand from afar. He had noticed his attention, when he was out of the car, and he gets it.

Clink. Weird shit. Sleuthing indeed.

"Employee parking elevator, noted."

Daniel sticks to side roads and loops around to avoid busy streets as best he can, not wanting to get pulled over for a fix-it ticket thanks to the windshield. None of them look pristine, though Daniel's bloody hands are minimal to Lestat's gore-bath look.

A few things he could say—

That wasn't so bad after all.

Why the fuck did you do that.

One of them came up in my research.

Daniel says none of it. Remains quiet, like a fucking taxi driver, still feeling distant from himself in his head, and lacking the motivation to pick a fight with Louis about a suicidal move. He's fine, Lestat's fine, everyone is fine, the hotel's not that far away, even if he suddenly has a pang of desire to go back to his apartment instead. It just means he's exhausted, is all.

"Well," when the hotel is around the corner, "I did like the Met, anyway."
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-10-14 10:57 pm (UTC)(link)
A mirroring effect: Lestat holds fast to Louis' hand, while Louis winds the slip of contact between him and Daniel tight, secure.

Answering the squeeze of Lestat's fingers with a tightening of his own.

"Perhaps we could consider the Brooklyn Museum then," Louis says. "Before we leave the city."

Ha, ha. (unless?)

As they come rolling to a stop by the curb, Louis is torn between simply languishing in the backseat, and getting into their shared room as quickly as possible. A moment of searching quiet, measuring up his own ability, what's left of his strength. Blood has dried tacky all across his cheek, chin and throat.

"We thinking they'll come reclaim the car?" is only a delaying tactic. Louis doesn't need to unravel his contact with either of them until they start moving.
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[personal profile] followups 2024-10-15 04:12 am (UTC)(link)
"So you can steal a Ringgold?"

They're friends.

No one is stopping at a curb, Daniel is moving them into the basement parking garage, which most locals don't make use of because most locals aren't stupid enough to have cars, but Daniel does and so he knows where it is. He pulls them up in a not-a-parking-space area by the service elevator, and sits there for a while, reaching out to check where various employees are milling about. No use leaping out drenched in blood only to have some part-timer from room service start screaming.

"I'll have somebody come get it," he says, about the car. "Pains in the ass, but it was very helpful to have dedicated stalkers, tonight."

You know. Just in case Louis was thinking of taking out Real Rashid's treachery on whoever shows up.

"Do you want to get your staff down here or should we just—?"
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-10-15 05:54 am (UTC)(link)
No comment on the Ringgold. (Louis would be thrilled to purchase one, for the record. Some things must be legally acquired.)

Relinquishing his grip on Lestat, Louis slides out after him. Beats a scattering of soot out of his jacket.

"Vermont," is not a question or contradiction, only assessing. The next stop on the tour. What kind of landscape would this present, should someone else take a run at Louis?

Presently, no one needs to entertain Louis' suspicions that he should return to Dubai. They're all tired.

"I'll have Rachida manage the security tapes," Louis murmurs, looking to Daniel. "Do you have everything you'd like out of the car?"

Assuming it will not be here should they return in six to eight hours.
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[personal profile] followups 2024-10-15 06:10 am (UTC)(link)
Well, a hose wouldn't hurt Lestat.

Daniel has already scooped up the laptop and abhorrent cuffs; he leaves the keys tucked into the visor. Sticky fingers turned crumbly with blood. The empty car is environmental storytelling on its own, gruesome horror. He looks at it for a moment before turning away to bump the elevator button with his elbow, and thinks it will be a miracle if he doesn't start screaming the second he's alone.

Anyway.

"Vermont," he agrees.

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