Lestat flicks a glance down at the mug of blood being held as Louis approaches, initially unmoving from his stance and posture before he unfolds his arms. Goes to take the mug from Louis' hands, bringing it up to peer into. Sips from.
Tastes like blood. But like how he would expect dead blood to taste, bitter, lifeless. Doesn't make a face, but doesn't take another, wiping teeth with tongue to get rid of it. Swallows.
Diminishing. It doesn't work, a coolly unimpressed expression flickering across his face. Of course she injured Lestat, she was attempting to stop him from killing her, and he begrudges not at all the deep tracks she raked into his body in her final miserable moments. It's all that came before that is the sin.
But Louis relents, says the thing, and he puts a hand over Louis'.
"I wouldn't be surprised to know if half of your enemies are simply jealous for your audacities," he says, semi-joking, semi-not. A conspiring quiet, as if said enemies were across the room, "Angered they didn't do it first."
There's something to it. Remembering Armand, that night together walking along the river. They're jealous of your freedom.
"Doesn't make them any less of an inconvenience," Louis says, light over the harsher dimensions of their evening. Of a thing Louis had expected to weather alone, and then had thought would never come to pass, and now must mitigate, so it never touches eiher of them again.
"Fuck the suit," also light, a little pat to Louis' hand. "I already have too many clothes to pack with me for when we go leave this place."
But he will get another, if Louis insists on feeling responsible for this latest diminishment to his wardrobe. Lestat, relatively used to abandoning or replacing this or that item thanks to too much blood. Just vampire things. He closes his fingers around Louis' hand.
Considers it. Admonishment for Louis going off on his own. But then, Louis kept fighting. Has not complained to them of their interference. Lestat studies his face, before drawing in a breath.
"She is beginning to itch. I am going to shower. I won't be long."
A soft ah of sound, as Louis withdraws. Releases Lestat to his ablutions, totes his mug back to his own room.
He doesn't mean to be long, but there is some time lost in examining the imprint of the near abduction on his body. Bruises blooming, wrists mottled dark. Blood and blood and blood, caked down his cheek and jaw, clinging to his throat. His hair, mussed where her fingers dug in.
Breathes out. Sets his jaw.
Boils a little under the hot spray, basks in the steam afterwards as he tends to his hair. Soothing, to oil and carefully twist the impression of her fingers out of his hair. Dresses in neutrals, dove-colored joggers, and a soft cream cardigan over another thin, slouchy t-shirt, deep vee-neck baring collarbones.
Louis emerges soon after, damp and washed clean of the night's events. Obligingly hauls his coffin out into the common area, where Rachida has left another steaming mug of blood, and the mangled remains of a VHS tape for Louis to smile over before sweeping it into the garbage and scraping together just enough strength to set it aflame without any fanfare.
He set Lestat up with time with Louis, who did not want to be alone after a traumatic incident, and nobody asked to shower together? You centuries-old kids have zero game. This is agonizing.
But.
By the time everyone else is done sluicing off far more sludge, Daniel is pajamad and robed and pacing back and forth in his room between the new laptop and his existing one, on the phone with somebody. Not quite an argument, but he is definitely negotiating about a shit ass car he knows nobody actually wants, and being followed, and something about the history of wanting him to pay for expensive restaurants, you dickhead.
In any event, he's left the door open, but he hasn't moved his coffin, because he is busy. Trying to wrap up a few things before anyone comes to try and whisk him away.
Lestat has not reappeared, but Louis can hear him. Is telling himself he's permitted to keep light tabs, at least until the next evening. Less worried about fledglings and more worried about what humans might desire be done in the aftermath.
Daniel is talking. Louis, and his massive mug of blood, silently slips in through the door.
He likes this, listening to Daniel. Doesn't attempt to interrupt, only makes himself comfortable on the single available seat in the room, and waits.
After Louis sits down, Daniel walks over to him, smiles a little and reaches out to touch his face, holding there and stroking his thumb over his cheek. Checking in silently— and even without vampire hearing, the tinny voice through the phone is close enough to be overheard, a man complaining about how he's going to get demoted and shipped off to a remove office in rural Lithuania cleaning bogus witchcraft artefacts with a toothbrush if another public disaster happens around an asset he's supposed to be working with.
"I'm still not an asset," he tells the guy on the phone (who might sound familiar, like maybe he bought some Bacon paintings?). "We're doing business sometimes, that's it. You bought some of my time with this, and again, thanks—"
Banter, mostly. It's clear the man on the phone is looking for an angle but he's not finding one. Not anywhere near as good of a conversational assassin as Molloy, no matter how comfortable they sound with each other. Behind him, the cuffs Louis had on are sitting on a table with a lamp positioned directly over them, like he was taking photos of them. They had to come from somewhere.
'Be done with this one soon,' he tells Louis mind to mind.
A slow breath out, tension easing out of his body as Louis' head tips into that touch. An answering flex of a smile working across Louis' face. Tired. Fond. All violence and danger aside, it comes so easily to be pleased by his presence, their closeness. How good it is, that Daniel is still here.
Don't give them an easy out on my account, Louis murmurs back. I like hearing you run circles around them.
Familiar voice. Not yet placed, though Louis is admittedly not overinvested in trying. Yet.
There is certainly a moment mid-shower, while Lestat is listening to Louis' motions across the apartment floor beneath the sound of hissing water, that it occurs to him he could probably have gotten a co-bathing hurt-comfort situation out of this, and considers if killing himself is a proportionate reaction. Contents instead with a brisk scrubbing down that leaves him clean and his bathroom a fucking horror show nightmare, to be made someone else's problem tomorrow.
The blasting of his blow dryer follows the shuffling around of his coffin, and soon, the thump of it being set down near Louis' in the common area. Does the math (three minus two leaves one), and drifts in that direction he hears voices.
Appears at the doorway, also pyjama'd in sweatpants and a stolen band shirt with a slutty sliver of skin visible between the two. Messily dried hair has been tied back. Peeks in at the threshold, clawed hands gripping the frame, curious and not immediately about to fly off the handle about any private displays of affection he may or may not have missed. As far as anyone can tell.
'He's a little tiring,' Daniel admits about the guy on the phone, a wry edge to the telepathic words. Better to cut him off when Daniel has reached an acceptable point than let him spin.
A look up, when Lestat enters.
Schrödinger's PDA: if Louis kept his lean, or heaven forbid, reached a hand up to cover his, Daniel will have held the position. If not, a withdrawal after a moment to connect.
In any event: he wraps the call off with a pointed GoodBYE, Raglan, and he checks his phone to make sure the recording was working properly, and then goes to plug it into his laptop to transfer it. HmHm. He is the loungewear fashion cross between them, regular sweatpants and a long-sleeved sleep shirt with a faded band logo, ordinary blue plaid robe. Nothing luxury, but also, no scandalously exposed skin. Just the ankles. Anticipating company, he's even got slippers on. No free feet pics.
Schrödinger says: Louis stayed, leaning in to Daniel's hand and the press of his finger. The mug balanced on one thigh. Listening. Enjoying these little jabs at the unknown caller's expense. Let this little point of contact anchor Louis into his body while Daniel engages in low stakes verbal combat.
Straightens without complaint when Daniel draws away. A soft breath of laughter for the invocation of the sword. Look, they can joke about it. Everything's fine, isn't it?
"A trade for the car?"
Because surely Daniel is keeping the laptop.
Louis reaches out a hand to Lestat, raising the mug back to his mouth. Drink enough, and it'll offset whatever lingering headache waits in the morning, surely.
It would almost be a relief to his own missed opportunity to recall to himself that Louis' interests lay elsewhere, his sources of comfort and steadiness, except Lestat is insane, and there is no relief to be found. Fingernails score little dots into the wood of the frame, but the moment passes, and he hadn't vanished immediately from the doorway before it has.
Fine, yes, we have jokes.
"If you would," he tells Daniel primly. "It might spare my nails from our next altercation." He had to scrape a lot of dead Irish flesh out from under his.
Gaze tracking to Louis' held out hand. A stubborn little split second of time before he caves, makes his way inside. He is also wearing slippers, being the oldest man here. Meets that hand with a brush of fingertips.
Looks him over. Lestat's wounds are visible and half-healed from a well timed gulp of semi-ancient blood as well as his own natural abilities, red markings up and down his arms, peeking from his collar, but he can guess that Louis' injuries run deeper, invisible.
Daniel will be bartering with information, access to other vampires, that sort of thing. Raglan is a con artist and thinks Molloy isn't aware— stupid, but hey, nobody's perfect. They'll figure something out. Talamasca is aware it has to give something to get something, and despite the fact that they're still salty about having given Daniel that script without actually getting anything in return, and having published the book despite the fact that Daniel continues to not act as an asset, they remain very willing to play ball.
He will get the sword for nothing, is what we're saying. They're handily retrieving and cleaning it off and keeping it socked away for safekeeping.
"They're cleaning it up, making it look like an indie movie stunt. A hotshot zoomer moving from YouTube analog horror to wanting 'real' reactions. Which," Daniel shrugs, makes an 'eh' gesture, "does not help my personal assertion that vampires are real, but does help us squeak out of law enforcement attention."
So, you know. Evens out.
"Are you still set on—?"
He points to the main room. Manages not to say blanket forts or something like that.
Amusement coloring Louis' expression as Daniel relays all of this. The soon-to-be abandoned car. The sword that will be another logistical difficulty for Rachida or for the young woman Lestat has chosen to manage his affairs in the present moment. The prospect of their escapades mythologized into a movie stunt.
Louis hooks into that little brush of fingers. Links Lestat's and keeps hold of his hand while Lestat inspects and Louis observes him in return. Marks out all the patches of healing skin, what's visible, what is no longer displayed.
Decides to hold a grudge. Has yet to feel inclined to volunteer anything further, just yet.
Is Lestat still set on them occupying the main room? Louis can guess the answer. Lifts the mug to his lips instead to drain the contents in long, unbroken swallows while Lestat responds.
Lestat's eyebrows hike up at this query. Set on what? His suggestion, which they have all agreed upon, that they keep each other safe through proximity? What could possibly have changed his mind? ?? ?
His other hand joins the one tangled with Louis', a little squeeze before letting him go, and he roams on over to Daniel's coffin. Bends, hooking his fingers into the handle at the end of it, hefting it up.
"Yes," airily, and sets about moving it out into the common space.
He kind of wants to argue and advocate for his own privacy — it's not like getting Louis here from the other side of planet Earth, there's a difference between safety in numbers and not wanting to feel babysat - but realizes that's petulant of him. Louis is fucked up even if he's not saying so, and Lestat is clearly feeling a way or thirty (twenty-five ways about Louis, easy, he thinks).
"I still have a few phone calls to make," he points out. "But I'll shut up at dawn."
... Maybe.
Handy that the next person he has to call lives in another timezone. From the tone of the conversation, this one is somehow weirder than the secret agent librarians. Following up with the ex-roommate of the secret child of a disgraced priest, who swears he knows, via other priests, about an ex-exorcist (what a title) who lives in Singapore and who executed a vampire by chaining him to a boulder in the water and waiting for nature to take its course in the sun. Are you shitting me, Daniel asks aloud, as this guy explains that it was meant to be ecologically friendly, because it was near a coral reef and something something, nutrients, and clearly this is a fake story, but Daniel wants to run down all these leads anyway. Because a Molotov cocktail and a shitty van are a world away from the sophistication of those cuffs, and somebody out there is manufacturing items to restrain vampires.
Can all this wait? He doesn't know. They were just dicking around at a museum. The book tour is nearly over. Maybe it can't.
Is Louis not supposed to be eavesdropping on this phone call?
Rachida has refilled his mug. (No more will be necessary after this, following this latest top off. Whether that is because Louis is sated or holding to some limiting internal factor has yet to be seen.) He has crossed one leg loosely over his knee where he's settled on the sofa, the strain of the evening wearing away the usual precision of his posture towards a louche slouch Lestat might find familiar.
His expression has veered towards obvious affection, towards clear amusement. Transparently enjoying watching Daniel work, journalistic talents directed towards what sounds like a preposterous lead.
Can all this wait? Maybe. Louis has yet to make the suggestion. He's enjoying the show.
"Good thing I took everything embarrassing out of my coffin, by the way," he remarks, in between calls. Yes, Louis is allowed to eavesdrop. Was there actually ever anything embarrassing in there? Probably not, but we've got jokes, here. Imagine if Lestat is in the other room rummaging through it. Alas, it's just extra socks and some notepads if he gets an idea at 2pm.
Louis can't eavesdrop on text messages, anyway, and that would be the problematic thing. Adept at switching apps on his phone — computers are a little beyond him most of the time, even though it's impressive for a boomer to be operating at a casual elder millennial level — because he became obsessed with the ruinous impact of constant access to a 24 hour news cycle from one million sources (half of which are from various nonsense factories now). Firing off texts while talking. Staring at his phone for a long minute in between calls. Worrying about something, but that has to be unremarkable. Look at them.
Lestat is covered in scratches, Louis is drinking blood to stabilize himself, and Daniel is doing a painful metaphorical tongue-bite about not asking if sharing blood between them (Lestat-and-Louis them) wouldn't help. Every time he leaves this stupid hotel there's some new monumental thing to unpack, and he's really not ready to go through more than one tonight, maybe not ever. What the fuck does Daniel know about any of that. Nothing.
But he is aware of worry. Aware of Daniel, always, and unable to let Daniel drift back down the hall into his room alone.
Leaves Lestat for the moment to lounge in his coffin, a shared look between them, before Louis leaves his empty mug to cross over to the alcove in which Daniel is conducting his Journalism.
"Come to coffin," Louis implores, this direct appeal made softly. Amended to a more palatable: "Come sit with me."
Yes, yes, Daniel can keep the phone. Can fetch his laptop if he likes, if it eases the transition.
Coffins arranged, Lestat takes to his own, his piano-scored claw marked lid flung open wide and extra cushions bolstering the content slouch he has adopted inside. Headphones on and phone in hand, there are about a week's worth of emails from his lawyer he's neglected, polite and professional and getting shorter and shorter as time progresses. Either dwindling patience or the hope, maybe, that he will read them if they're smaller.
He spends a little time answering them. Not by emailing back, but a psychic intrusion that rattles Christine Clare from the comfort of sleep. Instructions that he will not be in New York from tomorrow, to postpone this or that meeting, while she blearily cracks open her laptop in bed, reading glasses on.
And, being a talented multitasker, Lestat applies a too-light finger to Daniel's thoughts, skimming the surface of a mind that is far faster talking than his mouth. Frazzled but whole. Lestat might say to him, completely unassuring: it really is always something. Little fragmented thoughts (probably more whole if he were to listen with more intent and wasn't also arguing with his lawyer) about bloodletting. A distracted thread of communication that is neither Louis nor his phone call.
He glances up as Louis roams away to lure Daniel. To coffin, no less. Lestat tugs his headphones down around his neck as he bids Ms Clare farewell and bonne nuit.
The worry is frustrating. He doesn't want to cause a scene, he doesn't want to be worried. He doesn't understand the tangle of strangeness in him, that is, all at once: wary of Armand's attention because Armand might decide to do something unpredictable, wary of Armand's attention because Louis or Lestat might react badly to it, the inexplicable instinct to check in with his maker as if that will be the thing to un-fuck his nerves, the desire to dissect that instinct until he makes sense of it, mild guilt at inviting the attention he's worried about. (Easy to discard this lat one. Armand is a viable source of information about relevant topics and he has access to him, he CANNOT not ask.)
A very short time ago, Daniel was tasked with coming to terms with a facade he'd set up, a stark separation between vampires and mortals that has helped him kill and feed without (much) remorse (easier every time). Now he has also killed two vampires, and he's not sure how he feels about it. Unsteady. Disoriented. He doesn't feel guilt over them personally, but something about it, the violence, is twisting inside of him unpleasantly.
He doesn't want to talk about it. Not with anybody here, or—
Down the street, apparently. The realization appears in him with slippery suddenness, as though it was always there and he just hadn't noticed until now, and as it was as though he might turn his head and see a literal, visible thread connecting him to a different hotel at the end of the block. It makes him look a bit like he's seen a ghost as he steps over the threshold into the main room, allowing Louis to shepherd him, even though he does complain a little bit.
"It's late enough," he concedes, and hopes he doesn't sound very strange. Phone goes into a pocket so he can grab his laptop. The coffin isn't that big, but he can make it work. "How are you feeling?"
Edited (genuinely wtf were some of those sentences, am i okay ) 2024-10-18 04:00 (UTC)
"Tired," Louis replies, a half answer. Truthful. A little piece of whatever it is Louis has been working to drown in three novelty mugs' worth of blood. Followed by, "How are you feeling?"
"Not tired," Lestat says, on Daniel's behalf, watching from his slouch as they enter the room. "A good thing I brought his coffin out, so we can make sure it doesn't vibrate out a window."
A busy thinker, is Daniel Molloy.
He shifts to fold an arm over the edge of his coffin, resting chin in hand. His study of the youngest vampire could be unsettling, in the way a set of glacier-blue vampire eyeballs will induce, as well as a little sharp, scouring. But it's sympathetic, maybe, the flex of a smile beneath.
"I meant to ask where the blood on your hands came from. How generous that Louis left some for you."
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Tastes like blood. But like how he would expect dead blood to taste, bitter, lifeless. Doesn't make a face, but doesn't take another, wiping teeth with tongue to get rid of it. Swallows.
"Did she hurt you?" he asks, instead.
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He receives back his cup. Drinks again, palm flattening over Lestat's chest. The fabric is saturated with blood, drying slowly.
"Not the way she hurt you."
Diminishing. He's alright. He's tired.
And yet, Louis promised.
So he tries: "But she did hurt me. She wanted that very much, I think."
Louis, who said too much. Spilled all of their secrets out for humanity's inspection. Who broke the Great Laws, again.
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But Louis relents, says the thing, and he puts a hand over Louis'.
"I wouldn't be surprised to know if half of your enemies are simply jealous for your audacities," he says, semi-joking, semi-not. A conspiring quiet, as if said enemies were across the room, "Angered they didn't do it first."
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There's something to it. Remembering Armand, that night together walking along the river. They're jealous of your freedom.
"Doesn't make them any less of an inconvenience," Louis says, light over the harsher dimensions of their evening. Of a thing Louis had expected to weather alone, and then had thought would never come to pass, and now must mitigate, so it never touches eiher of them again.
"I'm sorry this ruined your suit."
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"Fuck the suit," also light, a little pat to Louis' hand. "I already have too many clothes to pack with me for when we go leave this place."
But he will get another, if Louis insists on feeling responsible for this latest diminishment to his wardrobe. Lestat, relatively used to abandoning or replacing this or that item thanks to too much blood. Just vampire things. He closes his fingers around Louis' hand.
Considers it. Admonishment for Louis going off on his own. But then, Louis kept fighting. Has not complained to them of their interference. Lestat studies his face, before drawing in a breath.
"She is beginning to itch. I am going to shower. I won't be long."
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He doesn't mean to be long, but there is some time lost in examining the imprint of the near abduction on his body. Bruises blooming, wrists mottled dark. Blood and blood and blood, caked down his cheek and jaw, clinging to his throat. His hair, mussed where her fingers dug in.
Breathes out. Sets his jaw.
Boils a little under the hot spray, basks in the steam afterwards as he tends to his hair. Soothing, to oil and carefully twist the impression of her fingers out of his hair. Dresses in neutrals, dove-colored joggers, and a soft cream cardigan over another thin, slouchy t-shirt, deep vee-neck baring collarbones.
Louis emerges soon after, damp and washed clean of the night's events. Obligingly hauls his coffin out into the common area, where Rachida has left another steaming mug of blood, and the mangled remains of a VHS tape for Louis to smile over before sweeping it into the garbage and scraping together just enough strength to set it aflame without any fanfare.
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But.
By the time everyone else is done sluicing off far more sludge, Daniel is pajamad and robed and pacing back and forth in his room between the new laptop and his existing one, on the phone with somebody. Not quite an argument, but he is definitely negotiating about a shit ass car he knows nobody actually wants, and being followed, and something about the history of wanting him to pay for expensive restaurants, you dickhead.
In any event, he's left the door open, but he hasn't moved his coffin, because he is busy. Trying to wrap up a few things before anyone comes to try and whisk him away.
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Lestat has not reappeared, but Louis can hear him. Is telling himself he's permitted to keep light tabs, at least until the next evening. Less worried about fledglings and more worried about what humans might desire be done in the aftermath.
Daniel is talking. Louis, and his massive mug of blood, silently slips in through the door.
He likes this, listening to Daniel. Doesn't attempt to interrupt, only makes himself comfortable on the single available seat in the room, and waits.
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"I'm still not an asset," he tells the guy on the phone (who might sound familiar, like maybe he bought some Bacon paintings?). "We're doing business sometimes, that's it. You bought some of my time with this, and again, thanks—"
Banter, mostly. It's clear the man on the phone is looking for an angle but he's not finding one. Not anywhere near as good of a conversational assassin as Molloy, no matter how comfortable they sound with each other. Behind him, the cuffs Louis had on are sitting on a table with a lamp positioned directly over them, like he was taking photos of them. They had to come from somewhere.
'Be done with this one soon,' he tells Louis mind to mind.
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Don't give them an easy out on my account, Louis murmurs back. I like hearing you run circles around them.
Familiar voice. Not yet placed, though Louis is admittedly not overinvested in trying. Yet.
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The blasting of his blow dryer follows the shuffling around of his coffin, and soon, the thump of it being set down near Louis' in the common area. Does the math (three minus two leaves one), and drifts in that direction he hears voices.
Appears at the doorway, also pyjama'd in sweatpants and a stolen band shirt with a slutty sliver of skin visible between the two. Messily dried hair has been tied back. Peeks in at the threshold, clawed hands gripping the frame, curious and not immediately about to fly off the handle about any private displays of affection he may or may not have missed. As far as anyone can tell.
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A look up, when Lestat enters.
Schrödinger's PDA: if Louis kept his lean, or heaven forbid, reached a hand up to cover his, Daniel will have held the position. If not, a withdrawal after a moment to connect.
In any event: he wraps the call off with a pointed GoodBYE, Raglan, and he checks his phone to make sure the recording was working properly, and then goes to plug it into his laptop to transfer it. HmHm. He is the loungewear fashion cross between them, regular sweatpants and a long-sleeved sleep shirt with a faded band logo, ordinary blue plaid robe. Nothing luxury, but also, no scandalously exposed skin. Just the ankles. Anticipating company, he's even got slippers on. No free feet pics.
"I bet I can get the sword back."
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Straightens without complaint when Daniel draws away. A soft breath of laughter for the invocation of the sword. Look, they can joke about it. Everything's fine, isn't it?
"A trade for the car?"
Because surely Daniel is keeping the laptop.
Louis reaches out a hand to Lestat, raising the mug back to his mouth. Drink enough, and it'll offset whatever lingering headache waits in the morning, surely.
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Fine, yes, we have jokes.
"If you would," he tells Daniel primly. "It might spare my nails from our next altercation." He had to scrape a lot of dead Irish flesh out from under his.
Gaze tracking to Louis' held out hand. A stubborn little split second of time before he caves, makes his way inside. He is also wearing slippers, being the oldest man here. Meets that hand with a brush of fingertips.
Looks him over. Lestat's wounds are visible and half-healed from a well timed gulp of semi-ancient blood as well as his own natural abilities, red markings up and down his arms, peeking from his collar, but he can guess that Louis' injuries run deeper, invisible.
"Have the spy librarians said anything of use?"
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Daniel will be bartering with information, access to other vampires, that sort of thing. Raglan is a con artist and thinks Molloy isn't aware— stupid, but hey, nobody's perfect. They'll figure something out. Talamasca is aware it has to give something to get something, and despite the fact that they're still salty about having given Daniel that script without actually getting anything in return, and having published the book despite the fact that Daniel continues to not act as an asset, they remain very willing to play ball.
He will get the sword for nothing, is what we're saying. They're handily retrieving and cleaning it off and keeping it socked away for safekeeping.
"They're cleaning it up, making it look like an indie movie stunt. A hotshot zoomer moving from YouTube analog horror to wanting 'real' reactions. Which," Daniel shrugs, makes an 'eh' gesture, "does not help my personal assertion that vampires are real, but does help us squeak out of law enforcement attention."
So, you know. Evens out.
"Are you still set on—?"
He points to the main room. Manages not to say blanket forts or something like that.
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Louis hooks into that little brush of fingers. Links Lestat's and keeps hold of his hand while Lestat inspects and Louis observes him in return. Marks out all the patches of healing skin, what's visible, what is no longer displayed.
Decides to hold a grudge. Has yet to feel inclined to volunteer anything further, just yet.
Is Lestat still set on them occupying the main room? Louis can guess the answer. Lifts the mug to his lips instead to drain the contents in long, unbroken swallows while Lestat responds.
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His other hand joins the one tangled with Louis', a little squeeze before letting him go, and he roams on over to Daniel's coffin. Bends, hooking his fingers into the handle at the end of it, hefting it up.
"Yes," airily, and sets about moving it out into the common space.
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He kind of wants to argue and advocate for his own privacy — it's not like getting Louis here from the other side of planet Earth, there's a difference between safety in numbers and not wanting to feel babysat - but realizes that's petulant of him. Louis is fucked up even if he's not saying so, and Lestat is clearly feeling a way or thirty (twenty-five ways about Louis, easy, he thinks).
"I still have a few phone calls to make," he points out. "But I'll shut up at dawn."
... Maybe.
Handy that the next person he has to call lives in another timezone. From the tone of the conversation, this one is somehow weirder than the secret agent librarians. Following up with the ex-roommate of the secret child of a disgraced priest, who swears he knows, via other priests, about an ex-exorcist (what a title) who lives in Singapore and who executed a vampire by chaining him to a boulder in the water and waiting for nature to take its course in the sun. Are you shitting me, Daniel asks aloud, as this guy explains that it was meant to be ecologically friendly, because it was near a coral reef and something something, nutrients, and clearly this is a fake story, but Daniel wants to run down all these leads anyway. Because a Molotov cocktail and a shitty van are a world away from the sophistication of those cuffs, and somebody out there is manufacturing items to restrain vampires.
Can all this wait? He doesn't know. They were just dicking around at a museum. The book tour is nearly over. Maybe it can't.
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Rachida has refilled his mug. (No more will be necessary after this, following this latest top off. Whether that is because Louis is sated or holding to some limiting internal factor has yet to be seen.) He has crossed one leg loosely over his knee where he's settled on the sofa, the strain of the evening wearing away the usual precision of his posture towards a louche slouch Lestat might find familiar.
His expression has veered towards obvious affection, towards clear amusement. Transparently enjoying watching Daniel work, journalistic talents directed towards what sounds like a preposterous lead.
Can all this wait? Maybe. Louis has yet to make the suggestion. He's enjoying the show.
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Louis can't eavesdrop on text messages, anyway, and that would be the problematic thing. Adept at switching apps on his phone — computers are a little beyond him most of the time, even though it's impressive for a boomer to be operating at a casual elder millennial level — because he became obsessed with the ruinous impact of constant access to a 24 hour news cycle from one million sources (half of which are from various nonsense factories now). Firing off texts while talking. Staring at his phone for a long minute in between calls. Worrying about something, but that has to be unremarkable. Look at them.
Lestat is covered in scratches, Louis is drinking blood to stabilize himself, and Daniel is doing a painful metaphorical tongue-bite about not asking if sharing blood between them (Lestat-and-Louis them) wouldn't help. Every time he leaves this stupid hotel there's some new monumental thing to unpack, and he's really not ready to go through more than one tonight, maybe not ever. What the fuck does Daniel know about any of that. Nothing.
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But he is aware of worry. Aware of Daniel, always, and unable to let Daniel drift back down the hall into his room alone.
Leaves Lestat for the moment to lounge in his coffin, a shared look between them, before Louis leaves his empty mug to cross over to the alcove in which Daniel is conducting his Journalism.
"Come to coffin," Louis implores, this direct appeal made softly. Amended to a more palatable: "Come sit with me."
Yes, yes, Daniel can keep the phone. Can fetch his laptop if he likes, if it eases the transition.
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He spends a little time answering them. Not by emailing back, but a psychic intrusion that rattles Christine Clare from the comfort of sleep. Instructions that he will not be in New York from tomorrow, to postpone this or that meeting, while she blearily cracks open her laptop in bed, reading glasses on.
And, being a talented multitasker, Lestat applies a too-light finger to Daniel's thoughts, skimming the surface of a mind that is far faster talking than his mouth. Frazzled but whole. Lestat might say to him, completely unassuring: it really is always something. Little fragmented thoughts (probably more whole if he were to listen with more intent and wasn't also arguing with his lawyer) about bloodletting. A distracted thread of communication that is neither Louis nor his phone call.
He glances up as Louis roams away to lure Daniel. To coffin, no less. Lestat tugs his headphones down around his neck as he bids Ms Clare farewell and bonne nuit.
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A very short time ago, Daniel was tasked with coming to terms with a facade he'd set up, a stark separation between vampires and mortals that has helped him kill and feed without (much) remorse (easier every time). Now he has also killed two vampires, and he's not sure how he feels about it. Unsteady. Disoriented. He doesn't feel guilt over them personally, but something about it, the violence, is twisting inside of him unpleasantly.
He doesn't want to talk about it. Not with anybody here, or—
Down the street, apparently. The realization appears in him with slippery suddenness, as though it was always there and he just hadn't noticed until now, and as it was as though he might turn his head and see a literal, visible thread connecting him to a different hotel at the end of the block. It makes him look a bit like he's seen a ghost as he steps over the threshold into the main room, allowing Louis to shepherd him, even though he does complain a little bit.
"It's late enough," he concedes, and hopes he doesn't sound very strange. Phone goes into a pocket so he can grab his laptop. The coffin isn't that big, but he can make it work. "How are you feeling?"
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"Tired," Louis replies, a half answer. Truthful. A little piece of whatever it is Louis has been working to drown in three novelty mugs' worth of blood. Followed by, "How are you feeling?"
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A busy thinker, is Daniel Molloy.
He shifts to fold an arm over the edge of his coffin, resting chin in hand. His study of the youngest vampire could be unsettling, in the way a set of glacier-blue vampire eyeballs will induce, as well as a little sharp, scouring. But it's sympathetic, maybe, the flex of a smile beneath.
"I meant to ask where the blood on your hands came from. How generous that Louis left some for you."
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bow??
🎀