Recovering, plucking up the threads of poise until it's as if Louis was never unsteady at all.
The taste of Lestat's blood lingers at the back of his mouth. Inescapable. But manageable.
"No explosions," Louis deadpans in the wake of this description. "Have you accomplished all the errands you meant to do?"
All of them, in their own ways, pulling up stakes and preparing to leave town. It's not a hardship for Louis, not really. He's managed all aspects of his small empire remotely for years.
"Yeah." He holds up a square box, a raised tab on one corner from where it was hanging on a sales rack. Colorful descriptions of the product within, ominous in its tackiness. No pause to show it off before he's tossing it Blondiewards. "Lestat got you a present."
Daniel is going to say something else—
Catches sight of him properly, and a flicker of something else. Maybe Lestat will notice the way Daniel recognizes the fortified appearance, and feels relief and approval. Thank fuck he's not just using blood bags after that. Anyway. That gets folded up quick as anything, unwilling to betray any deeper associations. But: Good.
Lestat catches it, turning it in his hands to look at. Processing bright colours, plastic, blocky script. In his mind, he does well at betraying nothing on his face for what he thinks of it. In reality, there's a distinctly distrustful shape to his mouth, a visible pulling in of a breath before he looks back up, a smile in place.
"Yes," he got Louis a present. "Here it is."
Retracing those steps to offer out the instant camera, clearly taken off a wall somewhere inexpensive. "We can make believe we are all taking a vacation, and not making a tactical retreat."
Louis' face does something inscrutable and pained in the immediate, before whatever passing conflux of emotion is swept away into behind Louis' well-honed composure.
Some brittle quality remains, in spite of this.
"Thank you," is only polite. Is not effusive, is not colored by any enthusiasm or dismay as Louis handles the box. Not opening it, just observing type face and splashy fonts, stock photography and slightly gummy price sticker. Considers setting it down, as he lifts his eyes to look between Lestat and Daniel.
Reminds them, "You're very kind, but you both know your company has been enough of a gift for me."
The camera itself is bright orange, and Daniel has crammed a half dozen extra exposure packs into the box, including some that are 'fun', meaning they print out not with the standard white vinyl frame, but ones with obnoxious colorful patterns. The flash pops with every shot and cannot be turned off, and Louis will have to hold something over it if he would like a more muted, shitty 2x3 photo.
Truly the worst.
"Too much, huh? I'll talk him out of gold plating next time."
And yet. Something to play with, something Louis cannot micromanage, can just indulge in little artistic whimsy through without the pressure of anything coming out one way or another. Something thought of before disaster struck. Louis is cared about, thought of often, and he can suck that reality up.
"What's on the agenda for tonight? Do you think getting in some mileage now is worth it, or should we wait another day?"
Somewhere around your company has been enough, Lestat indulges in a little melodrama: head tipped back, a list to the side in a bodily twist of exasperation, a gust of a sigh, eyerolling. Louiiisss, please, all beneath Daniel's dry retort.
"If you love our company so much," he says, in between, letting a big paw come down on Louis' shoulder in playful jostling, "you will immortalise it without making me beg you."
And breaking away again with a light push, letting logistics be attended to as he plucks his sunglasses out of his collar.
Their little trio is nothing like the Paris coven, but Louis still has a disorienting moment where memory comes rising up to meet him as Lestat's words remind him of those early days. Louis with his camera on the outskirts of coven excursions, raising his camera to capture the vicious jubilation of vampires roaring through the city on their motorcycles, Claudia glowing amongst their number. Guilt, near to hand, for not heeding his own immediate assessment of the danger inherent in keeping their company.
Would they fall into similar habit, the three of them? Invitation to document whatever it is Daniel and Lestat get up to when they go out without him?
Louis lets all of it slip away. (More present: They document, nothing more. An assessment that feels in painful alignment with Lestat's request.) Sets the box onto the coffee table at last, letting the impulse to protest diminish too as logistical questions take the forefront.
"Lestat and I both have some errands to attend," Louis answers. "If you think we can evade rocket launchers for another day."
Ha, ha.
"Rachida will make arrangements for my things to be sent onwards. She can manage any of your packing, if you like."
Just some light bullying. Daniel can't be sure if it's the right thing to do, but Louis' penchant for gloom worries him more than accidentally stepping on toes. Have a hobby, you dweeb. Take a picture out of a car window and look at the little rectangle after.
So. Good enough, having delivered it. Maybe he'll play with it on this trip, maybe he won't, but it's there.
And then—
Relief that feels guilty, because Daniel realizes that gives him time to engage in an extremely stupid thing he's agreed to. Determinedly does not think of the details.
"Sounds like you handled the rocket launchers, so we should be fine." Ayup. "I'll talk to your girl about lodgings, since Jeanine has to come up, too, but she's driving from Providence. Or flying, if she twists my arm enough."
All of this is fine, nobody's arguing, life goes on. Normal.
So Lestat says, "My own woman servant doesn't do packing, so Rachida is welcome to assist," dry. Christine would probably attack him physically if he were to liken her to a valet or personal assistant or whatever they are, never mind her day to day tasks he givens her are probably much, much weirder.
On his way out, anyway. All of this is fine, nobody's arguing, life goes on, and if this is all true, perhaps Louis and Daniel will likewise part ways and be normal. And if there is a chance this is marginally incorrect, Lestat cedes territory to whatever might be settled.
He does, however, scoop up the little camera. Daniel is content in its delivery, but he is not. He will try again later.
Correcting the perception that Rachida is personally doing the packing seems like an uphill battle, when Lestat is already departing. Louis lets the matter drop. Permission has been secured for Rachida to direct the small army of staff to Lestat and Daniel's rooms. That's more than enough for the present moment.
(Better she starts sooner rather than later. Louis has glimpsed what lies in wait in Lestat's room.)
"She has options for me to review. I'll let you do that with her, Daniel," Louis says instead, attention half on Lestat, striding towards the door.
Louis has promised to text. He can refrain from hassling Lestat about what his own errands entail.
Reorienting, he asks, "Did you finish all you need to do?"
Hands of mild alarm when Lestat abducts the camera. Like. Hey! What happened to the plan. Plan is complete? No verbal comment, but wowee everyone sure is a critic around here.
"Catch you later I guess," instead. Why I never.
"Oh, uh—" back to Louis. "Sort of. I'll probably run down one last thing later since we're going tomorrow night, but mostly, yeah."
A non-suspicious Yeah. He's fine. And fortunately not on enough drugs that he thinks Louis will be able to notice. Alert, artificially free of sleep deprivation, but feeling significantly better. Probably better than if he'd actually gotten any sleep, in fact.
A beat of quiet, and then, genuinely relieved: "You look better."
A flicker of amusement as Daniel calls after him, as the door closes.
It settles, as Daniel looks at him. As Louis looks at him, studying.
"I'm alright," Louis says again, reassures. "I am."
Volunteers nothing else, though the taste of Lestat's blood hasn't faded away yet. Would assert that he's been alright. Might still, if this conversation turns into an argument, but it seems that the impulse towards a shouting match didn't rise with them this evening.
"Do you have time to sit with me? Tell me about your loose ends."
Smell of Lestat's blood in the air, Louis and Lestat together, Louis with a less grey tinge to his aura. Daniel isn't stupid, and moreover, Daniel has very recently had the matter of healing through an elder's blood illuminated for him. He's relieved, he hopes he didn't interrupt anything (wellllll, it'd be fine if he did, if only because it might be funny), he hopes it was less fucking bizarre than the experience he's still turning over and over in his head.
Which no longer hurts. Migraines cleared right up. Is Lestat old enough to make Louis feel euphoric for long? Is it just—
Stop thinking about it. Stop it.
And then Louis asks about further loose ends and Stop thinking about it becomes challenging, given the primary loose end dangling over him like a fucking noose.
"Sure."
Help.
But Daniel will sit with him, because it's Louis. He doesn't have it in him to say no.
"My assistant went to Providence on vacation, she's still out there, but she'll be along. The rest is just stuff I'm hoping to turn over about ... all this."
The question has not been asked, and so Louis is saved from the cratering disaster that would be comparison between Armand's blood and Lestat's.
Blood aside, there is much Armand taught Louis. (Always just enough, measured out just so.) He has stayed dutifully out of Daniel's head, but maybe Daniel should learn as Louis once did that the process of trying to curb an intrusive thought is as conspicuous as thinking solely of it.
It is only fortunate that Louis' first guess isn't: Daniel is trying not to think of Armand.
"All of this," he echoes, just to see if it changes the tenor and flex of thought beating along the surface of Daniel's mind. Louis has hitched an ankle up over his knee.
Springboards off assumption to ask, "Is it about the woman and the fledglings we dealt with last night? Or someone else?"
Helpfully, Daniel has become quickly adept at the mental aspects of having superpowers, and while he's not perfect, he's got pretty good privacy filters already. His flaws there are ordinary ones— he can be deceptive, but he's a bad active liar. Avoiding the subject of Armand is one thing, but asked directly and he'll look like a fumbling child.
And, as noted, he no longer feels that unpleasant psychic bruising. Thought patterns remain steady, about all of this. Quick, but Daniel always thinks fast.
"Some of them, yeah," he confirms. "But it's part of what we were already looking into. Why we're all here. The 'Conversion', the attention on you, and sometimes me, about the exposure from the book. It's an ongoing process figuring out who might be the biggest threat, and as fucked as last night was, it's opened a lot of avenues to pursue."
"Or Vermont won't have any wifi," Vermont is fine, it's a real place, there are cities, we're all just being mean, "but yeah, best to just get outta Dodge for a while. Whether she's connected or not, it was... noticeable."
Forgiven, always, but there's a chill in Daniel still when he thinks of it. So fucking angry, it was so fucking stupid, and Louis had wanted to die so often. It chokes something to silence in Daniel for a moment, and he looks up at the question. No immediate answer, but soon enough—
Yes, it was very noticeable. Even diminished down to action movie cover story, Louis isn't foolish enough to try and tell himself the rest of the world beyond humanity won't recognize what it had truly been.
Or that the pause between his question and Daniel's answer can be brushed off. Or that the potential affirmative is enough.
Louis reaches to catch Daniel's hand in his own. Lace their fingers together, draw Daniel's hand to him. Anchoring himself. Maybe anchoring Daniel here, though between them Louis is the one given to walking away. Daniel doesn't flee.
"I'm not sorry," he says quietly. "I couldn't risk it."
He'd gamble with his own life, but not Daniel's. Not ever again.
Or: Daniel can let Louis take his hand, he can squeeze a return of the touch when Louis pulls it over, he can take a bracing breath. He thinks sometimes about Alice, and all the thing she did to try and draw emotional availability out of him, and how rarely he let it work. She'd deck him if she ever saw any of this, and he'd deserve it. Maybe he should have met her at sixty-five, not twenty-one.
"Look."
Look, what? What the fuck is Daniel going to say, dumbass tough guy. No, he means it, he fucking care too much.
"I don't want to die, I don't have a death wish. But if it's me or you, it's gonna fucking kill me anyway to lose you, so. You just scared me really, really bad."
They're still more or less inside twenty-four hours of that moment on the rooftop. Louis making a choice, looking between Lestat and Daniel and deciding he'd rather walk into a trap than see either of them hurt any more than they had been.
Maybe they should have argued last night. Screamed at each other. It might have felt less delicate than it does now, Daniel saying this thing.
And Louis can say what he likes now about certainty, about being so sure they would have come, retrieved him. But there had been a moment where that had not been clear. And Louis had accepted it.
He knows that won't ease any of Daniel's fears.
Tightens his grip on Daniel's hand, tells him softly, "I don't want to die."
Today. Right now. But Daniel is intimately aware of the ways Louis has wanted that, before. Maybe it makes all of this worse for him and Lestat both, knowing the exact shape of this thing in Louis that runs towards the last dregs of his own mortality. That wants to die.
"But I need you alive, and safe. I'll choose you, always. Do you think I could go on living if she burned you in front of me?"
She'd have taken Louis anyway, after. He'd have let her. It would not have gone so well, in this series of events, Louis thinks.
Daniel leans in, puts his other hand on Louis' shoulder, bracing. Horrible to pitch something like 'Hey man you've lost so much already and I'm just some guy, buck up', so he doesn't, but the facts are that Daniel is the weakest link here, the one most prone to walking into bear traps because it looked like an interesting angle, the one doing public interviews on TV stations and controversial podcasts, and he will be in danger, just like Louis will be in danger because he keeps threatening to kick every vampire's ass for some reason.
"You have the truth, you have Lestat back, you have everything ahead of you. You're a light, okay? You have to keep a reasonable grip on things because we can't control each other, and we can't just throw ourselves out the window with the bathwater or whatever. We have to think about things at least a little, and not just immediately cave to terrorist demands and make your friends throw up out of panic. I promise to try if you will."
Fortunate (unfortunate?) that Louis decides not to quibble about you have Lestat back, not to rules lawyer about the nature of what they are to each other, how Lestat calls him mon ami and leaves him to wake up alone. They are different, maybe Lestat will choose another companion, and Louis will go on as he has been.
This isn't a moment for sorting through the complicated snarl of Louis's romantic endeavors. Daniel has suffered enough of it already.
He takes Daniel's face in his hands.
"I'll never be careless with you again."
Stubborn. Always stubborn, even without the running loop of Armand's voice paying guilty dividends out in the back of his mind, constantly reminding Louis that he'd left Daniel behind. That it didn't matter what he had thought Armand would do, that he'd trusted Armand's disgust for the concept of making a fledgling. He'd miscalculated.
"I need you alive too. That's what I need."
An incomplete list. Louis refusing to budge on this line item.
Louis and Lestat are morons. Daniel likes them, though.
Careless. Daniel is always a little surprised when he's reached for, not used to such open affection still, but he lets Louis touch him. There's no grudges held, Daniel has told him again and again. He doesn't know if Louis will ever believe him, or if it's that his belief doesn't make a difference— if he'll just always shoulder it, even if Daniel doesn't feel weighed down.
"I'm not trying to get out of being alive."
And he still doesn't think that bitch was going to do it. He thinks Louis walked off the ledge too fucking fast. He can get why, but it still hurts, it felt like a mortal wound, it was infuriating and terrifying.
It occurs to him—
He could say: Don't leave me behind again.
Fuck. It feels low even thinking it, and so he sets it aside. Slightly guilty.
"I want to see what another two hundred years looks like on you. I want to actually write a book with you, someday. If it takes a millennia. If we publish it on alien ooze brainwaves or some other fucking thing. I need you to live, too."
Daniel could say that. It is probably (definitely) for the best he says this other thing instead. This other, less soul-destroying thing.
Louis thumbs across Daniel's cheeks, feels the words as much as hears them. A little thaw for the prospect of another book, of two hundreds years, of a millennia, whatever that time makes of them.
"I ain't going anywhere," Louis says, despite having gambled on doing just that. Despite picking a fight with the greater vampire population.
And stays there, quietly looking at Daniel, seemingly leaving off there before:
"I picked this fight. I wanna see it through. But someone threatens you, threatens Lestat, I'll do what I have to do to make sure you aren't hurt," is just the truth, inescapable. Softened by, "I can walk off the ledge because I know you and he will catch me after. I know that. It's what you did."
"It was a miracle I didn't accidentally trip somebody and get us all killed," is a bit more heated. Daniel is clearly still flustered about this.
(About killing a vampire, possibly multiple. Feels weird still. Feels shitty in a way that it shouldn't. He should feel bad about humans. He should feel bad about all killing. Hamburgers and sushi and bloodtype B drug addicts. Is Daniel a violent person, after all? Is his discomfort hypocritical, because words are violent, too, and he's used them to destroy? He killed humans for food, and vampires weren't, and then Armand fed him, and then he killed vampires. All of this, locked in a box.)
"I don't know if we're going to find a clear-cut resolution." An admittance. But one Louis surely knows as well. "It's sort of stupid, us arguing over who gives more of a fuck. I get that we're being irrational. Still. I want you to be safe. I want us all to be safe. I don't know if that's even possible but it's there."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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The taste of Lestat's blood lingers at the back of his mouth. Inescapable. But manageable.
"No explosions," Louis deadpans in the wake of this description. "Have you accomplished all the errands you meant to do?"
All of them, in their own ways, pulling up stakes and preparing to leave town. It's not a hardship for Louis, not really. He's managed all aspects of his small empire remotely for years.
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With the rocket.
"Yeah." He holds up a square box, a raised tab on one corner from where it was hanging on a sales rack. Colorful descriptions of the product within, ominous in its tackiness. No pause to show it off before he's tossing it Blondiewards. "Lestat got you a present."
Daniel is going to say something else—
Catches sight of him properly, and a flicker of something else. Maybe Lestat will notice the way Daniel recognizes the fortified appearance, and feels relief and approval. Thank fuck he's not just using blood bags after that. Anyway. That gets folded up quick as anything, unwilling to betray any deeper associations. But: Good.
No further commentary.
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"Yes," he got Louis a present. "Here it is."
Retracing those steps to offer out the instant camera, clearly taken off a wall somewhere inexpensive. "We can make believe we are all taking a vacation, and not making a tactical retreat."
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Some brittle quality remains, in spite of this.
"Thank you," is only polite. Is not effusive, is not colored by any enthusiasm or dismay as Louis handles the box. Not opening it, just observing type face and splashy fonts, stock photography and slightly gummy price sticker. Considers setting it down, as he lifts his eyes to look between Lestat and Daniel.
Reminds them, "You're very kind, but you both know your company has been enough of a gift for me."
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Truly the worst.
"Too much, huh? I'll talk him out of gold plating next time."
And yet. Something to play with, something Louis cannot micromanage, can just indulge in little artistic whimsy through without the pressure of anything coming out one way or another. Something thought of before disaster struck. Louis is cared about, thought of often, and he can suck that reality up.
"What's on the agenda for tonight? Do you think getting in some mileage now is worth it, or should we wait another day?"
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"If you love our company so much," he says, in between, letting a big paw come down on Louis' shoulder in playful jostling, "you will immortalise it without making me beg you."
And breaking away again with a light push, letting logistics be attended to as he plucks his sunglasses out of his collar.
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Would they fall into similar habit, the three of them? Invitation to document whatever it is Daniel and Lestat get up to when they go out without him?
Louis lets all of it slip away. (More present: They document, nothing more. An assessment that feels in painful alignment with Lestat's request.) Sets the box onto the coffee table at last, letting the impulse to protest diminish too as logistical questions take the forefront.
"Lestat and I both have some errands to attend," Louis answers. "If you think we can evade rocket launchers for another day."
Ha, ha.
"Rachida will make arrangements for my things to be sent onwards. She can manage any of your packing, if you like."
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So. Good enough, having delivered it. Maybe he'll play with it on this trip, maybe he won't, but it's there.
And then—
Relief that feels guilty, because Daniel realizes that gives him time to engage in an extremely stupid thing he's agreed to. Determinedly does not think of the details.
"Sounds like you handled the rocket launchers, so we should be fine." Ayup. "I'll talk to your girl about lodgings, since Jeanine has to come up, too, but she's driving from Providence. Or flying, if she twists my arm enough."
All of this is fine, nobody's arguing, life goes on. Normal.
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So Lestat says, "My own woman servant doesn't do packing, so Rachida is welcome to assist," dry. Christine would probably attack him physically if he were to liken her to a valet or personal assistant or whatever they are, never mind her day to day tasks he givens her are probably much, much weirder.
On his way out, anyway. All of this is fine, nobody's arguing, life goes on, and if this is all true, perhaps Louis and Daniel will likewise part ways and be normal. And if there is a chance this is marginally incorrect, Lestat cedes territory to whatever might be settled.
He does, however, scoop up the little camera. Daniel is content in its delivery, but he is not. He will try again later.
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(Better she starts sooner rather than later. Louis has glimpsed what lies in wait in Lestat's room.)
"She has options for me to review. I'll let you do that with her, Daniel," Louis says instead, attention half on Lestat, striding towards the door.
Louis has promised to text. He can refrain from hassling Lestat about what his own errands entail.
Reorienting, he asks, "Did you finish all you need to do?"
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"Catch you later I guess," instead. Why I never.
"Oh, uh—" back to Louis. "Sort of. I'll probably run down one last thing later since we're going tomorrow night, but mostly, yeah."
A non-suspicious Yeah. He's fine. And fortunately not on enough drugs that he thinks Louis will be able to notice. Alert, artificially free of sleep deprivation, but feeling significantly better. Probably better than if he'd actually gotten any sleep, in fact.
A beat of quiet, and then, genuinely relieved: "You look better."
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It settles, as Daniel looks at him. As Louis looks at him, studying.
"I'm alright," Louis says again, reassures. "I am."
Volunteers nothing else, though the taste of Lestat's blood hasn't faded away yet. Would assert that he's been alright. Might still, if this conversation turns into an argument, but it seems that the impulse towards a shouting match didn't rise with them this evening.
"Do you have time to sit with me? Tell me about your loose ends."
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Which no longer hurts. Migraines cleared right up. Is Lestat old enough to make Louis feel euphoric for long? Is it just—
Stop thinking about it. Stop it.
And then Louis asks about further loose ends and Stop thinking about it becomes challenging, given the primary loose end dangling over him like a fucking noose.
"Sure."
Help.
But Daniel will sit with him, because it's Louis. He doesn't have it in him to say no.
"My assistant went to Providence on vacation, she's still out there, but she'll be along. The rest is just stuff I'm hoping to turn over about ... all this."
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Blood aside, there is much Armand taught Louis. (Always just enough, measured out just so.) He has stayed dutifully out of Daniel's head, but maybe Daniel should learn as Louis once did that the process of trying to curb an intrusive thought is as conspicuous as thinking solely of it.
It is only fortunate that Louis' first guess isn't: Daniel is trying not to think of Armand.
"All of this," he echoes, just to see if it changes the tenor and flex of thought beating along the surface of Daniel's mind. Louis has hitched an ankle up over his knee.
Springboards off assumption to ask, "Is it about the woman and the fledglings we dealt with last night? Or someone else?"
A winding route to: Are you still angry?
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Helpfully, Daniel has become quickly adept at the mental aspects of having superpowers, and while he's not perfect, he's got pretty good privacy filters already. His flaws there are ordinary ones— he can be deceptive, but he's a bad active liar. Avoiding the subject of Armand is one thing, but asked directly and he'll look like a fumbling child.
And, as noted, he no longer feels that unpleasant psychic bruising. Thought patterns remain steady, about all of this. Quick, but Daniel always thinks fast.
"Some of them, yeah," he confirms. "But it's part of what we were already looking into. Why we're all here. The 'Conversion', the attention on you, and sometimes me, about the exposure from the book. It's an ongoing process figuring out who might be the biggest threat, and as fucked as last night was, it's opened a lot of avenues to pursue."
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"Her failure will be noticed."
Because vampires gossip. Because they killed most but not all of her fledglings.
"Vermont will give us a better point from which to observe what effect that has."
For Louis to listen, quietly. Maybe to stir the pot. Maybe not. He hasn't decided. No one has asked him directly if he intends to do so.
"Are you alright?" is what Louis asks instead.
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Forgiven, always, but there's a chill in Daniel still when he thinks of it. So fucking angry, it was so fucking stupid, and Louis had wanted to die so often. It chokes something to silence in Daniel for a moment, and he looks up at the question. No immediate answer, but soon enough—
"Yeah. I think so. I will be."
As much honesty as he can offer.
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Or that the pause between his question and Daniel's answer can be brushed off. Or that the potential affirmative is enough.
Louis reaches to catch Daniel's hand in his own. Lace their fingers together, draw Daniel's hand to him. Anchoring himself. Maybe anchoring Daniel here, though between them Louis is the one given to walking away. Daniel doesn't flee.
"I'm not sorry," he says quietly. "I couldn't risk it."
He'd gamble with his own life, but not Daniel's. Not ever again.
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Or: Daniel can let Louis take his hand, he can squeeze a return of the touch when Louis pulls it over, he can take a bracing breath. He thinks sometimes about Alice, and all the thing she did to try and draw emotional availability out of him, and how rarely he let it work. She'd deck him if she ever saw any of this, and he'd deserve it. Maybe he should have met her at sixty-five, not twenty-one.
"Look."
Look, what? What the fuck is Daniel going to say, dumbass tough guy. No, he means it, he fucking care too much.
"I don't want to die, I don't have a death wish. But if it's me or you, it's gonna fucking kill me anyway to lose you, so. You just scared me really, really bad."
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Maybe they should have argued last night. Screamed at each other. It might have felt less delicate than it does now, Daniel saying this thing.
And Louis can say what he likes now about certainty, about being so sure they would have come, retrieved him. But there had been a moment where that had not been clear. And Louis had accepted it.
He knows that won't ease any of Daniel's fears.
Tightens his grip on Daniel's hand, tells him softly, "I don't want to die."
Today. Right now. But Daniel is intimately aware of the ways Louis has wanted that, before. Maybe it makes all of this worse for him and Lestat both, knowing the exact shape of this thing in Louis that runs towards the last dregs of his own mortality. That wants to die.
"But I need you alive, and safe. I'll choose you, always. Do you think I could go on living if she burned you in front of me?"
She'd have taken Louis anyway, after. He'd have let her. It would not have gone so well, in this series of events, Louis thinks.
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Daniel leans in, puts his other hand on Louis' shoulder, bracing. Horrible to pitch something like 'Hey man you've lost so much already and I'm just some guy, buck up', so he doesn't, but the facts are that Daniel is the weakest link here, the one most prone to walking into bear traps because it looked like an interesting angle, the one doing public interviews on TV stations and controversial podcasts, and he will be in danger, just like Louis will be in danger because he keeps threatening to kick every vampire's ass for some reason.
"You have the truth, you have Lestat back, you have everything ahead of you. You're a light, okay? You have to keep a reasonable grip on things because we can't control each other, and we can't just throw ourselves out the window with the bathwater or whatever. We have to think about things at least a little, and not just immediately cave to terrorist demands and make your friends throw up out of panic. I promise to try if you will."
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This isn't a moment for sorting through the complicated snarl of Louis's romantic endeavors. Daniel has suffered enough of it already.
He takes Daniel's face in his hands.
"I'll never be careless with you again."
Stubborn. Always stubborn, even without the running loop of Armand's voice paying guilty dividends out in the back of his mind, constantly reminding Louis that he'd left Daniel behind. That it didn't matter what he had thought Armand would do, that he'd trusted Armand's disgust for the concept of making a fledgling. He'd miscalculated.
"I need you alive too. That's what I need."
An incomplete list. Louis refusing to budge on this line item.
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Careless. Daniel is always a little surprised when he's reached for, not used to such open affection still, but he lets Louis touch him. There's no grudges held, Daniel has told him again and again. He doesn't know if Louis will ever believe him, or if it's that his belief doesn't make a difference— if he'll just always shoulder it, even if Daniel doesn't feel weighed down.
"I'm not trying to get out of being alive."
And he still doesn't think that bitch was going to do it. He thinks Louis walked off the ledge too fucking fast. He can get why, but it still hurts, it felt like a mortal wound, it was infuriating and terrifying.
It occurs to him—
He could say: Don't leave me behind again.
Fuck. It feels low even thinking it, and so he sets it aside. Slightly guilty.
"I want to see what another two hundred years looks like on you. I want to actually write a book with you, someday. If it takes a millennia. If we publish it on alien ooze brainwaves or some other fucking thing. I need you to live, too."
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Louis thumbs across Daniel's cheeks, feels the words as much as hears them. A little thaw for the prospect of another book, of two hundreds years, of a millennia, whatever that time makes of them.
"I ain't going anywhere," Louis says, despite having gambled on doing just that. Despite picking a fight with the greater vampire population.
And stays there, quietly looking at Daniel, seemingly leaving off there before:
"I picked this fight. I wanna see it through. But someone threatens you, threatens Lestat, I'll do what I have to do to make sure you aren't hurt," is just the truth, inescapable. Softened by, "I can walk off the ledge because I know you and he will catch me after. I know that. It's what you did."
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(About killing a vampire, possibly multiple. Feels weird still. Feels shitty in a way that it shouldn't. He should feel bad about humans. He should feel bad about all killing. Hamburgers and sushi and bloodtype B drug addicts. Is Daniel a violent person, after all? Is his discomfort hypocritical, because words are violent, too, and he's used them to destroy? He killed humans for food, and vampires weren't, and then Armand fed him, and then he killed vampires. All of this, locked in a box.)
"I don't know if we're going to find a clear-cut resolution." An admittance. But one Louis surely knows as well. "It's sort of stupid, us arguing over who gives more of a fuck. I get that we're being irrational. Still. I want you to be safe. I want us all to be safe. I don't know if that's even possible but it's there."
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bow territory i think