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lestat de lioncourt. ([personal profile] damnedest) wrote2024-07-27 03:00 pm
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-10-18 01:42 am (UTC)(link)
No, Louis can't eavesdrop on text messages.

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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[personal profile] followups 2024-10-18 03:54 am (UTC)(link)
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)
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-10-18 04:32 am (UTC)(link)
A measuring look on the heels of that question.

"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?"
Edited (edits worlds shortest tag) 2024-10-18 04:32 (UTC)
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[personal profile] followups 2024-10-18 11:15 pm (UTC)(link)
He is tired, Daniel thinks. It's just the kind that's too on edge to actually rest, so what's the point? But then Lestat continues past where he might volley back in easy banter, and it visibly trips him up.

Pause, before—

"Mostly the guy in the passenger seat, I think."

'Mostly', 'I think', passive voice not because he's hiding anything, but because the speed of it all and the discomfort of processing it makes it difficult for him to go over his own actions. His mind flinches away, even though he knows he has to come to terms with it all, and that it all includes the fact that he, too, killed someone. Multiple someones.

Compartmentalizing. He doesn't want to hear advice about being a vampire. He can deal with it, he's just a little sad, is all.
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-10-18 11:21 pm (UTC)(link)
"I was delayed," comes Louis' explanation, soft-voiced. "The chains were more durable than I'd have guessed."

Still broke, under enough applied pressure.

Louis' fingers gentle at the center of Daniel's back, a grounding pressure. Grounding for which of them? Who can say.

If they aren't going to get into their coffins, then Louis is returning the couch. He is not above taking Daniel with him.

And he wants to ask. To speak honestly about what it is to become the arbiter of such extreme violence. Louis had imparted some of it Daniel, but all things are different now.
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[personal profile] followups 2024-10-18 11:43 pm (UTC)(link)
"It's fine. I'm just glad I didn't get caught underfoot in the midst of it."

Which is true. A much worse outcome would have been Daniel slipping on a banana peel and making everything worse. He didn't like what Louis did, but he knew better than to try and impede him once he went for it. He did not like killing anyone, but he prioritized their safety over his own discomfort.

Daniel published the book even though Louis didn't want him to, even though Armand-as-Rashid had angrily made it clear exactly what would happen (that is now happening). He's not going to sit back and refuse to help, if something is happening in front of him.

"Did she inject you with something, by the way?"

Louis. He does not particularly want to go sit down on the couch and indicate that he's willing to have a big conversation about feelings (he is not willing to do this), but he doesn't want to put up a big fuss, and so, he reluctantly goes.
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-10-18 11:56 pm (UTC)(link)
It's fine prompts a flat look from Louis, who occupies the space on the couch alongside Daniel. Lifts the empty mug, testing the weight of it in hand, before setting it alongside them on the end table. Weighs the productivity of trying to corner Daniel into talking about this before offering an answer.

"Yes," Louis says. The collar of his chosen cardigan obscures the fading bruise, how savagely she had jammed her needle. A miracle it had not snapped under the force.

And then, clinically, "It didn't last as long as she had hoped."

Metabolized too quickly. Or Louis was stronger than whichever of her fledglings she had tested it on.
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-10-19 02:37 am (UTC)(link)
What did you say to me about avoidance? whispers into the back of Daniel's mind, Louis' gaze holding his for a long moment before his eyes swing back to Lestat in his coffin.

"A paralytic," Louis answers. "My guess, anyway."

Easy to wave away, now that Louis has emerged more or less unscathed. Tired. Bruised, scraped, but a day's sleep will erase all of these things. And now he knows he can survive it. Can do better, when the next volley presents itself.

Wisely says none of this to Lestat, who probably won't find it comforting.
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[personal profile] followups 2024-10-19 04:17 am (UTC)(link)
'You scared the shit out of me and I'm still processing everything,' is all Daniel can offer Louis. He hopes it sounds sincere, because it is.

He doesn't want to talk about it. Doesn't know what he'll say. History informs him that he will fuck up talking about it badly and cause an argument. Not a fun one that he and Louis can spar over, but the kind that explain why he's never had a real relationship or even long-term friendship work out.

(Bonding topics, twice divorced, yeah yeah, sure, but none of Daniel's exes are here, or down the street, yearning.)

"Did it hurt? How long do you think it lasted?"

Don't look at him like that, Blondie, YOU'RE the one that wanted the sleepover.

"Could be anesthesia, muscle blocker type surgical drug, or a compound made from something like snake venom. Either way I don't know what the fuck a single syringe was supposed to do. Good thing she wasn't smarter."
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-10-19 04:30 am (UTC)(link)
Talk to me, doesn't care about the possibility of an argument. I'm not a stranger.

Words borrowed from Daniel, murmured between them.

Aloud, looking between Lestat's expression and Daniel, Louis senses this isn't exactly what Lestat had been hoping for.

Louis does give it consideration, these questions. The promises he'd made to Lestat, to say the hard things. To try.

"It hurt because she made it hurt. Her gift."

Which matters not at all now, because she is dead and gone.

"I don't think she was gambling. I think she expected it to hold," Louis says, hands folding in his lap. Hooking a leg up, ankle balancing on his knee. "Maybe our mutual friend will have found some trace of the syringe or it's case in the wreck."

Since apparently Rashid is just around now.
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[personal profile] followups 2024-10-19 05:38 am (UTC)(link)
"Yeah, that's what happened."

>:(

"For the record, if somebody ever threatens me again— that's a whatever, because first of all, she wasn't even on the podium for the scariest vampires who've ever tried to kill me,"

this is an affectionate joke, believe it or not

"Nothing happened to me. Watching you two go through any of that is what sucked. And— look, I'm not saying I don't want to talk about it ever," and now he is looking directly at Louis, not bothering to use telepathy. "I just need a minute. Is this what you guys wanted to talk about, in there?"

Like what is going on, fellas.
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-10-19 05:58 am (UTC)(link)
An affectionate joke that does an excellent job of reminding Louis of his breathtaking failures at protecting Daniel in the past.

Has to take a moment, wait out the nettled, defensive feeling that rises in the wake of their twined focus, Daniel's realignment. To silently double-down on a chosen course of action, a promise to himself that anyone threatening Daniel will need to die. No more trading on uncertainties.

"We don't have to talk," is only slightly clipped. But it's true, no one has to talk. Lestat hadn't assembled them out here for that. Louis is very aware of the drive behind this assembly, the fearful thing in Lestat that is soothed only by having everyone near to hand.
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[personal profile] followups 2024-10-19 06:22 am (UTC)(link)
"Sure."

Brittle, yet trying.

What did Lestat think was going to happen! Besides arguing! This is what happens when you put people into a room! Daniel takes a breath and thinks like, sure, he can let this go, probably, that's what he wanted to do, right, he's just going to go to "sleep" and lay there and go insane until night rolls around again, and—

'You clearly WANT to talk. Or want me to.'

Echo of an echo, I'm not a stranger. Sneaky but fair, he has to concede.
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-10-19 06:42 am (UTC)(link)
"I am grateful," a point of correction. Clipping the tailend of Daniel's sure, but otherwise smoothly delivered. "It doesn't keep me from being sorry for what happened."

In which "what happened" is Lestat being clawed and bitten in the process of intervening.

Slow-growing awareness of his own temper, warming as Daniel says this thing to him. Of feeling something beyond nettled, veering towards affronted. His gaze slants to Daniel, leaving Lestat's prone form in coffin. Expression imperceptible as he looks back at his friend, and weighs this.

Has a cruel thing caught in his mouth. The beat of quiet is for the sole purpose of biing down on it, crushing the urge to say it into check.

I'm not a stranger, Louis repeats. I thought that meant something.

Is it only Louis' task to crack open his chest, let all the mess of his emotions spill out to be inspected and reformed?

Aloud: "We can leave it for tonight."

Unhooks ankle from knee, makes to stand.
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[personal profile] followups 2024-10-19 07:04 am (UTC)(link)
wE CaN LeAvE iT fOr toNIgHt.

For a long (?) stretch of silence, it seems like maybe they can. Daniel even just sits there, and gets his phone out, and looks at the message, returns one. Stares at it, puts his phone away again—

'Yeah, the 'something' it means is that I am completely fucked up over you doing that because someone threatened me. My fucking fault that you got drugged and tortured. You walked away with some deranged psychopath after you just got your life back.'

And Daniel did vampire murder, and didn't hesitate because it was Louis, and isn't going to complain about the psychological reeling because it was for Louis. Louis, who didn't want to publish the book, who wants to get into a fight, who went and got tortured because some idiot made a threat that they had no reason to believe was even viable.
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[personal profile] divorcing 2024-10-19 07:34 am (UTC)(link)
Two feet on the floor, stalled from further motion by Daniel's unexpected rejoinder.

A pause, Louis turning to look Daniel full in the face. He can hear just the barest hint of Lestat's chosen playlist. Insurmountable, for the immediate moment. Whatever complicated thing Louis' face does as he considers Lestat walling himself off with his Spotify account—

Well, something for the future.

In the present moment, Louis reaches to touch Daniel's face, cup his cheek. Feels the breadth of this thing he cannot say, because it is too much. Overwhelming. Words locked in his body because they mean everything. But some of it is there, as Louis' expression softens. As he touches Daniel's mind and this thing ebbs in alongside his reply.

You gave me my life back.

By completely demolishing his old one, but—

It's not your fault, what happened.

"We can talk tomorrow," Louis offers. Disinclined to let any part of this go, but more willing to give Daniel a day to process now that Daniel's cracked the door open. Comfortable with something near to a decided upon point for a future conversation. Louis had gotten a full night after Armand had sent a bomb into their room to make a point. It's fair.

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