Alas: No sleep comes, and he is awake to manually turn it off before it sounds, after which he quietly creeps from his coffin. Still just light out, maybe a half hour before sunset has truly been swallowed up by the moon, but it's plenty of time to get ready and make plans so that he can get a jump start on his TDL. Thoughtful, he leaves a sticky note on the lid of his casket.
Haven't been kidnapped/done anything rash. Errands. Be back.
Life is no longer short, but he hasn't been able to kick the habit of feeling like it is. As soon as the day's dim enough to safely do so, Daniel is out and away. He wonders where Armand is, but doesn't text him. He has part of a list to get through, first item of which is do something about how he still feels like he might have an actual anxiety attack. An easy fix, he can still identify haunts and pros effortlessly even without mind reading. He makes the dealer put half his own product up his nose before he drains the guy, pockets the rest. Having morning be evening is nice in its own way, and he tops off breakfast with vodka martinis. It's a nice bar. He doesn't stay.
Print shop, phone calls, drug store, more phone calls, bar again, tries a different drug store—
Before he gets back, but on his way, he reaches out. A telepathic version of the dreaded u up? text, carefully checking on Lestat's consciousness from afar. Ring ring?
Typically, Lestat is an early riser. Memories of shared coffins, of waking nearly a full hour before Louis, of using that time to admire him, or lay there in warm assurance. Tonight is no exception, but he is drowsy and content when he only just registers Daniel moving about, and Daniel leaving. A sleepy flickering through Daniel's mind, undetected, finds nothing more worrisome than a restless vampire wishing to get his evening started.
Which is worrisome. Considers worrying about it. Does, in fact, feel an urge like claws descending to insist Daniel stay put. Could probably force it, if not without some damage to the dynamic. Imagines Louis would approve.
Doesn't do these things, in part because he is too comfortable, id too content. Daniel escapes unscathed.
Later, a presence in his mind.
On Daniel's end of things, there is the sense that he hasn't woken Lestat fully so much as drawn some focus from a willing half-doze. An eye cracking open, a rumble of acknowledgment.
Even without trouble, there are things he must attend to, especially with them deciding to move on further along the tangle of the eastern state blocks sooner than anticipated. He is also buying a house. Maybe someday, decades or more down the road, Daniel will find himself stepping out of the quick-paced stream of the world. Not tonight.
Fiddling with a thing he bought. Making sure it works. He stands for a while on the street, out of the way enough not to cause an obstruction (not that any New York pedestrian worth their salt would be obstructed).
Not doubtful that Daniel might extend such a thing for whatever slight, Lestat's experience of Daniel being a man who is fairly quick to speak his mind, and say uncomfortable things, especially kind things. The doubtful silence of a person, instead, still unused to these displays in a broader sense. Their mundanity, their simplicity.
Within a coffin, a deep breath in, the rise and fall of ribcage.
There's nothing down the street that Daniel can see— well, there's plenty to fucking see, but he's looking for something in particular, and it's not there. A feeling is, though, and so he tests his purchase out that-a-way, capturing nothing but poorly exposed scenery, and a feeling.
Whirwhir. He holds the little rectangle.
'You made an overture to talk to me about murder. You're right, obviously. First time. I wasn't ready to talk about it, or think about it. I'm still not. But I swerved badly and didn't respect the consideration you showed me.'
Apologizing sucks, actually. It's emasculating (he knows it shouldn't be, he knows why, he's read one million papers, blah fucking blah), but he's gotten over making them. Understands how to use them. He hopes he isn't just using it, now, and that it sounds as sincere as it feels. Last night was rough.
He does not pierce the veil deeply enough to get a true handle of what Daniel is doing, but gets some quiet sense of fidgeting, of a public space, of the city. Feels instead the quiet thrum of truth in these words. It was a small slight, in the grand scheme of things. Of vampires, relating to one another. All the same.
'I don't know that I had advice for you anyway. Only experience.'
And maybe a different angle from his preferred confidant. Louis, who cannot kill humans. Louis, who finds himself alive again while tearing vampires apart. Lestat has been thinking about that also—of this confession, and of what he has read, the madness of killing the coven, the motivation to put one foot in front of the other. Difficult to make sense of in the immediate, only that he is glad it is not as self-destructive as it had seemed.
The reveal: an instant camera. Daniel's test photo slowly morphs into a high-contrast, but still somehow under-exposed, cityscape. No captured lurkers, moods, or anything. If he keeps it, he'll probably eventually forget what he was (wasn't) looking at.
Mm, yeah. He did do that.
'I'm mad at him. He immediately went with that bitch because she threatened me.'
Why mince words.
So. Well.
Okay.
'What if she cut his head off immediately? What if you couldn't get up in time? Over me? Over his own desire to do stupid shit like this, I know, but he put it on me. Almost a century lost to a lunatic scrambling his brain, and he walks off the edge no problem. I don't want to die. I don't have it in me to nobly sacrifice myself either, I'm an asshole. But anything happening to Louis over me is just. Stupid.'
Halfway through, Lestat gently opens the lid of the coffin. Watching Louis' face as he does it, so that he might give up and resettle if the other man were to stir. But he doesn't, so Lestat stealthily gets out. Closes it behind him. Moves off out of the room, as Daniel speaks to him.
Daniel will have no sense of him entering his bedroom, picking through his things for this evening's outfit. For the beginnings of his own nightly hunger, made more acute for having not fed after a fight. For the restless, fitful feelings the conversation induces. No, these things walled off without effort, standard practice.
Only his voice drifting across the tenuous link, and he offers, 'He said to me it makes him feel alive, this fighting,' and you only need to be a halfway decent judge of character to know that Lestat is as much testing this sentiment against Daniel as he is giving it in exchange.
Easy acceptance, in the face of that probing. They'd gored each other multiple times during the interview, and guilt and blame aside, there's a kind of unspoken stalemate concerning Daniel publishing the book vs Louis having left him there with Armand. This affection has edges. But it was always going to; Louis is hard to hold on to, Daniel is hard to care for.
'Does it worry you?'
Getting a kick out of suicidal ideation doesn't mean it's not suicidal ideation.
Daniel had said it. Expressed it. What Louis had gone through, where he is now, that he may not be okay.
Too easy, that acceptance. Like it has been accounted for already. Lestat, still considering the tangled thing he's been given just now. Louis launching himself into danger. Louis doing so to protect Daniel. The numerous things that might have come of it.
Wanders into his bathroom. Someone has cleaned it of the crime scene mess it had been. The smell of cleaning chemicals stings the inside of his nose, and he backs out again.
'But he cares for you a great deal. The idea of your survival, your continued presence. You know he wished to make you one of us himself.'
Daniel isn't surprised that Louis feels profoundly inspired by violence, now that he's fled the psychic sedatives Armand was doping him with for decades. He's heard about his life, his one-man gang origins, his strife with Lestat, his brutal execution of an entire coven. He's experienced an outburst, one that nearly killed him. (Affectionate jokes about scary vampires. The scars he carries aren't from Armand.)
It's just that Louis is also fucking suicidal sometimes, and so, it does Daniel's head in.
A delay.
Eventually,
'He's said that, yeah.'
Still not sure if he believes it. Strange, to know that Louis told Lestat. He doesn't know why.
Back out into his bedroom, which has been set to rights from the latest mess he left it in. Sifts through denim, things spangled in sequins, leather. Very little in the way of ordinary civilian garments.
'In my experience, his desire to die looks like running away.' They are speaking in each others heads. Lestat doesn't need Daniel to state all he is thinking into articulated transmission. 'Like stillness. Surrender.'
He would like to be right. He would like it if Louis was not seeking death, still.
'Which does not mean I approve of his being ridiculous.'
Not from the camera, wouldn't that be nice. (Door slams. Footsteps. Metal door. The splintered panic of Armand shouting Louis' name, his own blood on the floor. Metal door again.)
Decides not to argue with Lestat, because it would be too fucking dismal. He doesn't want to. It's easier to be pissed off at Louis for this immediate thing, and just be pissed off for a day and then get on with things. What's he going to do, hold it against him? He doesn't think there's anything they could do to each other to get to that point.
'It's all technically fine. I'm just handling it gracelessly, but if I handled shit well all the time, I probably wouldn't be here.'
Does anybody become a vampire after making GOOD life choices??
'I got you something. And him something. Well. Mostly him. But I think you were looking for it.'
They can change subjects. Daniel grated out the apology. Dwelling on the whole thing sucks.
Lestat could point out that Daniel is doing it again. If less hurtfully.
Rolls his eyes instead, lets it be. Lets it all be technically fine, lets graceless handling take the blame. Daniel and Louis both could stand, he thinks, to try out admitting that things aren't fine and having a meltdown about it. Cry, even. Does wonders.
But he can tolerate a change in subject, particularly at the magic words: I got you something. Or Louis something.
'Oh?' And now his awareness presses in closer, and Daniel can probably feel it, like an overly friendly leaning of weight. Catches impressions of what it could be, but nevertheless, bids, 'Tell me.'
The last time they cried at each other it was when they realized they'd been tortured by Armand for a week, alright, they have stages to go through. And does Lestat really want to witness that kind of emotional intimacy from the other corners of the love triangle he's hallucinating??
So.
Magic words.
'It's a camera.'
Which Daniel is putting back into its box now that he's satisfied that it functions as well as can be expected. Batteries in, film pack loaded. No excuses.
'Not a good one. A good one would be the wrong move.'
A pause, in between spritzes of texturising spray.
Lestat is not so stupid that he can't quickly connect these dots, and only considers playing it for a moment. An amused, "Hm," to himself, finishing with his hair and turning from the mirror.
'You remembered,' the psychic equivalent of a sigh. All doubt, in this next part, 'And you wish me to give Louis a deliberately bad gift?'
'No, it's a great gift. He might hate it, but still.'
Work with him.
It's this or cocaine, and he thinks Louis has for real quit, unlike Daniel, who 'quit'.
'This has no settings. It's not even the full size ones, it's the significantly worse rectangle exposures. He can't overthink it, just point, shoot, stare at it, and it's stylishly Polaroid-y or it's got an in-camera development error.'
Wanders to where he has the photograph Louis gifted him, sitting framed on his dresser. Picks it up, considering, a blurry moment in time, Claudia showing her fangs. No overthinking, says Daniel, and Lestat heaves a sigh in the quiet of his room.
Yes, he can see this vision. And yes, Louis still might hate it. But he can live with Louis rejecting gifts. It's practically a love language.
All the same—
'You can explain it to him when you gift it. You two have unfinished business, and we have a long drive ahead of us.'
And if Daniel can sense something in Lestat's tone like claws very much ready to snatch this gift as his own despite these words— well, he's not imagining it.
'No way, it was your idea. You can just blame me for all the parts that suck. I'm a notoriously bad gifter anyway.'
See. Easy.
A long drive, though—
Lestat might be able to sense a brief hint towards reluctance. Should he go with them? Give them space? (Deal with Armand, on his own? He can't imagine the lurking ancient wants to be left behind.) He might have to end up being on the phone the whole fucking drive anyway, forcing Lestat and Louis to sit in bored silence as he gets work done, and potentially pulls over halfway through in some bed and breakfast town to have dinner with fucking Raglan. Hm.
But not distracted from that twinge. A little incredulous, a little amused (and so an apology did in fact get Daniel somewhere), Lestat queries, 'You're thinking of ditching us?'
The camera settled, at least. The other half of the thing he wants to give them still sits in a folder tucked into the shopping bag that he's putting the camera box back into—
Maybe not yet. He and Louis might argue still. He doesn't want to appear to be trying quite that hard to get out of a conversation, he doesn't want to add another emotional weight to a bad week. The timing is strange. Once they get to their next location, he decides. Satisfied enough to have had it printed out now, in civilization with appropriate facilities. Vermont? What the fuck is in Vermont? Hopefully electricity, at least.
'Not in earnest,' is wry. 'But I have shit to juggle, still.'
Work. Secret agents. Eldritch horrors with big amber eyes.
'Just trying to work out a schedule in my head that doesn't make anyone insane.'
'Louis hasn't been trapped in a car for hours listening to me argue with people who aren't him.'
But there's a note of humor to his (mental) tone. Daniel resolves not to try and find a way to weasel out of it, self-aware at least partially that he's just avoiding emotional significance like an asshole. And of course the very real element of anxiety concerning what, exactly, the fuck, he's going to do about the prospect of Armand tagging along from the shadows.
A mark against all Louis' assertions of fine and nothing to worry about that he sleeps so late. Rises with bruises not yet faded. (The perils of forgoing the restorative properties of human blood taken hot from the vein and relying on donations, collected, sealed, and reheated in a cup.)
He wakes alone. Lays in coffin and weathers the complex feelings that turn provokes, before emerging.
Sitting up in his coffin, he can hear Lestat moving in his room. Can see the sticky note on Daniel's coffin, an immediate herald of his absence. Feels something complicated about all this as well, and chooses to set these things aside.
The lid of his coffin thunks audibly closed, followed by footsteps, the softer click of a bedroom door swinging shut. In the privacy of his own rooms, Louis can observe the faded shadows of bruising at his throat. Let himself be annoyed by it. Fall into familiar rituals, early evening ablutions that are unchanged in spite of the last night's skirmish.
Louis takes his time. (Louis is uncertain what waits for him when he emerges.) But eventually, returns to the main room to summon Rachida. Today's fashion: a mid-weight, high-necked sweater of mossy green, slightly oversized. He'd bent to roll back the hem of deep gold corduroy trousers to accommodate heavier boots, dropped a leather jacket of rich, creamy brown onto the back of the couch as he passes.
Intends to go out, maybe. Attend to last minute errands of his own. Stubbornly refuses to be cowed by the potential for any repetition of last night's trainwreck. He intends on continuing to be difficult to kill.
He bends to collect the post-it from the lid of Daniel's coffin.
Louis is not given an opportunity to linger alone once he emerges from his room. On cue, the sound of a door opening, footsteps.
Hair: texturised. Outfit: a lot. Faux fur, firstly, a jacket with fuzzy leopard spots over miscellaneous silken black textures beneath, which are permitted to fall over a pair of tight-fitted jeans. Boots with wide heels elevate him a predictable amount, and violet Wal-Mart glasses hang from his collar.
Lestat, likewise, has an air of perhaps intending on going out, errands and murder, but who can say when he will also get fully dressed, makeup and accessories included, and then go nowhere for the night if he doesn't feel like it.
"Bonsoir," he says, a wiggly meander on his way over. It doesn't sound disparaging when he says, "Dressing for an innocuous night out?" Mostly due to the way it invites an impulse to touch the various textures within reach. Keeps his hands to himself, bundled behind him.
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Alas: No sleep comes, and he is awake to manually turn it off before it sounds, after which he quietly creeps from his coffin. Still just light out, maybe a half hour before sunset has truly been swallowed up by the moon, but it's plenty of time to get ready and make plans so that he can get a jump start on his TDL. Thoughtful, he leaves a sticky note on the lid of his casket.
Haven't been kidnapped/done anything rash. Errands. Be back.
Life is no longer short, but he hasn't been able to kick the habit of feeling like it is. As soon as the day's dim enough to safely do so, Daniel is out and away. He wonders where Armand is, but doesn't text him. He has part of a list to get through, first item of which is do something about how he still feels like he might have an actual anxiety attack. An easy fix, he can still identify haunts and pros effortlessly even without mind reading. He makes the dealer put half his own product up his nose before he drains the guy, pockets the rest. Having morning be evening is nice in its own way, and he tops off breakfast with vodka martinis. It's a nice bar. He doesn't stay.
Print shop, phone calls, drug store, more phone calls, bar again, tries a different drug store—
Before he gets back, but on his way, he reaches out. A telepathic version of the dreaded u up? text, carefully checking on Lestat's consciousness from afar. Ring ring?
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Which is worrisome. Considers worrying about it. Does, in fact, feel an urge like claws descending to insist Daniel stay put. Could probably force it, if not without some damage to the dynamic. Imagines Louis would approve.
Doesn't do these things, in part because he is too comfortable, id too content. Daniel escapes unscathed.
Later, a presence in his mind.
On Daniel's end of things, there is the sense that he hasn't woken Lestat fully so much as drawn some focus from a willing half-doze. An eye cracking open, a rumble of acknowledgment.
'Getting into trouble already?' is equally hazy.
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Even without trouble, there are things he must attend to, especially with them deciding to move on further along the tangle of the eastern state blocks sooner than anticipated. He is also buying a house. Maybe someday, decades or more down the road, Daniel will find himself stepping out of the quick-paced stream of the world. Not tonight.
Fiddling with a thing he bought. Making sure it works. He stands for a while on the street, out of the way enough not to cause an obstruction (not that any New York pedestrian worth their salt would be obstructed).
'I want to apologize.'
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Not doubtful that Daniel might extend such a thing for whatever slight, Lestat's experience of Daniel being a man who is fairly quick to speak his mind, and say uncomfortable things, especially kind things. The doubtful silence of a person, instead, still unused to these displays in a broader sense. Their mundanity, their simplicity.
Within a coffin, a deep breath in, the rise and fall of ribcage.
'Continue.'
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Whirwhir. He holds the little rectangle.
'You made an overture to talk to me about murder. You're right, obviously. First time. I wasn't ready to talk about it, or think about it. I'm still not. But I swerved badly and didn't respect the consideration you showed me.'
Apologizing sucks, actually. It's emasculating (he knows it shouldn't be, he knows why, he's read one million papers, blah fucking blah), but he's gotten over making them. Understands how to use them. He hopes he isn't just using it, now, and that it sounds as sincere as it feels. Last night was rough.
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'I don't know that I had advice for you anyway. Only experience.'
And maybe a different angle from his preferred confidant. Louis, who cannot kill humans. Louis, who finds himself alive again while tearing vampires apart. Lestat has been thinking about that also—of this confession, and of what he has read, the madness of killing the coven, the motivation to put one foot in front of the other. Difficult to make sense of in the immediate, only that he is glad it is not as self-destructive as it had seemed.
Thus: different angle. But speaking of which,
'You swerved into Louis.'
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Mm, yeah. He did do that.
'I'm mad at him. He immediately went with that bitch because she threatened me.'
Why mince words.
So. Well.
Okay.
'What if she cut his head off immediately? What if you couldn't get up in time? Over me? Over his own desire to do stupid shit like this, I know, but he put it on me. Almost a century lost to a lunatic scrambling his brain, and he walks off the edge no problem. I don't want to die. I don't have it in me to nobly sacrifice myself either, I'm an asshole. But anything happening to Louis over me is just. Stupid.'
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Daniel will have no sense of him entering his bedroom, picking through his things for this evening's outfit. For the beginnings of his own nightly hunger, made more acute for having not fed after a fight. For the restless, fitful feelings the conversation induces. No, these things walled off without effort, standard practice.
Only his voice drifting across the tenuous link, and he offers, 'He said to me it makes him feel alive, this fighting,' and you only need to be a halfway decent judge of character to know that Lestat is as much testing this sentiment against Daniel as he is giving it in exchange.
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Easy acceptance, in the face of that probing. They'd gored each other multiple times during the interview, and guilt and blame aside, there's a kind of unspoken stalemate concerning Daniel publishing the book vs Louis having left him there with Armand. This affection has edges. But it was always going to; Louis is hard to hold on to, Daniel is hard to care for.
'Does it worry you?'
Getting a kick out of suicidal ideation doesn't mean it's not suicidal ideation.
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Daniel had said it. Expressed it. What Louis had gone through, where he is now, that he may not be okay.
Too easy, that acceptance. Like it has been accounted for already. Lestat, still considering the tangled thing he's been given just now. Louis launching himself into danger. Louis doing so to protect Daniel. The numerous things that might have come of it.
Wanders into his bathroom. Someone has cleaned it of the crime scene mess it had been. The smell of cleaning chemicals stings the inside of his nose, and he backs out again.
'But he cares for you a great deal. The idea of your survival, your continued presence. You know he wished to make you one of us himself.'
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It's just that Louis is also fucking suicidal sometimes, and so, it does Daniel's head in.
A delay.
Eventually,
'He's said that, yeah.'
Still not sure if he believes it. Strange, to know that Louis told Lestat. He doesn't know why.
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'In my experience, his desire to die looks like running away.' They are speaking in each others heads. Lestat doesn't need Daniel to state all he is thinking into articulated transmission. 'Like stillness. Surrender.'
He would like to be right. He would like it if Louis was not seeking death, still.
'Which does not mean I approve of his being ridiculous.'
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Not from the camera, wouldn't that be nice. (Door slams. Footsteps. Metal door. The splintered panic of Armand shouting Louis' name, his own blood on the floor. Metal door again.)
Decides not to argue with Lestat, because it would be too fucking dismal. He doesn't want to. It's easier to be pissed off at Louis for this immediate thing, and just be pissed off for a day and then get on with things. What's he going to do, hold it against him? He doesn't think there's anything they could do to each other to get to that point.
'It's all technically fine. I'm just handling it gracelessly, but if I handled shit well all the time, I probably wouldn't be here.'
Does anybody become a vampire after making GOOD life choices??
'I got you something. And him something. Well. Mostly him. But I think you were looking for it.'
They can change subjects. Daniel grated out the apology. Dwelling on the whole thing sucks.
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Rolls his eyes instead, lets it be. Lets it all be technically fine, lets graceless handling take the blame. Daniel and Louis both could stand, he thinks, to try out admitting that things aren't fine and having a meltdown about it. Cry, even. Does wonders.
But he can tolerate a change in subject, particularly at the magic words: I got you something. Or Louis something.
'Oh?' And now his awareness presses in closer, and Daniel can probably feel it, like an overly friendly leaning of weight. Catches impressions of what it could be, but nevertheless, bids, 'Tell me.'
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So.
Magic words.
'It's a camera.'
Which Daniel is putting back into its box now that he's satisfied that it functions as well as can be expected. Batteries in, film pack loaded. No excuses.
'Not a good one. A good one would be the wrong move.'
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Lestat is not so stupid that he can't quickly connect these dots, and only considers playing it for a moment. An amused, "Hm," to himself, finishing with his hair and turning from the mirror.
'You remembered,' the psychic equivalent of a sigh. All doubt, in this next part, 'And you wish me to give Louis a deliberately bad gift?'
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Work with him.
It's this or cocaine, and he thinks Louis has for real quit, unlike Daniel, who 'quit'.
'This has no settings. It's not even the full size ones, it's the significantly worse rectangle exposures. He can't overthink it, just point, shoot, stare at it, and it's stylishly Polaroid-y or it's got an in-camera development error.'
Are you seeing his vision, Lestat.
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Wanders to where he has the photograph Louis gifted him, sitting framed on his dresser. Picks it up, considering, a blurry moment in time, Claudia showing her fangs. No overthinking, says Daniel, and Lestat heaves a sigh in the quiet of his room.
Yes, he can see this vision. And yes, Louis still might hate it. But he can live with Louis rejecting gifts. It's practically a love language.
All the same—
'You can explain it to him when you gift it. You two have unfinished business, and we have a long drive ahead of us.'
And if Daniel can sense something in Lestat's tone like claws very much ready to snatch this gift as his own despite these words— well, he's not imagining it.
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See. Easy.
A long drive, though—
Lestat might be able to sense a brief hint towards reluctance. Should he go with them? Give them space? (Deal with Armand, on his own? He can't imagine the lurking ancient wants to be left behind.) He might have to end up being on the phone the whole fucking drive anyway, forcing Lestat and Louis to sit in bored silence as he gets work done, and potentially pulls over halfway through in some bed and breakfast town to have dinner with fucking Raglan. Hm.
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And then,
'Thank you for finding it.'
The gift he'd been looking for.
But not distracted from that twinge. A little incredulous, a little amused (and so an apology did in fact get Daniel somewhere), Lestat queries, 'You're thinking of ditching us?'
That will go down so well.
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Maybe not yet. He and Louis might argue still. He doesn't want to appear to be trying quite that hard to get out of a conversation, he doesn't want to add another emotional weight to a bad week. The timing is strange. Once they get to their next location, he decides. Satisfied enough to have had it printed out now, in civilization with appropriate facilities. Vermont? What the fuck is in Vermont? Hopefully electricity, at least.
'Not in earnest,' is wry. 'But I have shit to juggle, still.'
Work. Secret agents. Eldritch horrors with big amber eyes.
'Just trying to work out a schedule in my head that doesn't make anyone insane.'
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A shrugging tone carries this message.
'And Louis loves to behold your juggling acts. I would not worry.'
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But there's a note of humor to his (mental) tone. Daniel resolves not to try and find a way to weasel out of it, self-aware at least partially that he's just avoiding emotional significance like an asshole. And of course the very real element of anxiety concerning what, exactly, the fuck, he's going to do about the prospect of Armand tagging along from the shadows.
'I'll let you go. Be back soon.'
Camera in tow.
contribution delayed by Fashion.
He wakes alone. Lays in coffin and weathers the complex feelings that turn provokes, before emerging.
Sitting up in his coffin, he can hear Lestat moving in his room. Can see the sticky note on Daniel's coffin, an immediate herald of his absence. Feels something complicated about all this as well, and chooses to set these things aside.
The lid of his coffin thunks audibly closed, followed by footsteps, the softer click of a bedroom door swinging shut. In the privacy of his own rooms, Louis can observe the faded shadows of bruising at his throat. Let himself be annoyed by it. Fall into familiar rituals, early evening ablutions that are unchanged in spite of the last night's skirmish.
Louis takes his time. (Louis is uncertain what waits for him when he emerges.) But eventually, returns to the main room to summon Rachida. Today's fashion: a mid-weight, high-necked sweater of mossy green, slightly oversized. He'd bent to roll back the hem of deep gold corduroy trousers to accommodate heavier boots, dropped a leather jacket of rich, creamy brown onto the back of the couch as he passes.
Intends to go out, maybe. Attend to last minute errands of his own. Stubbornly refuses to be cowed by the potential for any repetition of last night's trainwreck. He intends on continuing to be difficult to kill.
He bends to collect the post-it from the lid of Daniel's coffin.
It's fine. All things, fine.
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Hair: texturised. Outfit: a lot. Faux fur, firstly, a jacket with fuzzy leopard spots over miscellaneous silken black textures beneath, which are permitted to fall over a pair of tight-fitted jeans. Boots with wide heels elevate him a predictable amount, and violet Wal-Mart glasses hang from his collar.
Lestat, likewise, has an air of perhaps intending on going out, errands and murder, but who can say when he will also get fully dressed, makeup and accessories included, and then go nowhere for the night if he doesn't feel like it.
"Bonsoir," he says, a wiggly meander on his way over. It doesn't sound disparaging when he says, "Dressing for an innocuous night out?" Mostly due to the way it invites an impulse to touch the various textures within reach. Keeps his hands to himself, bundled behind him.
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(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
bow territory i think