A spark. Something. Daniel isn't so sure about it, honestly, but he doesn't hold his own uncertainty against Louis. The way he sees it, Louis did desperately need someone to talk to. It had been a long time, decades, since Miss Lily. But he wasn't going to genuinely pursue her any more than he was Daniel.
Despite that, he's glad they met. Despite all of it, he's glad they met. He can't tell Armand he'd endure it again just to get here, Armand would take it the wrong way, but he can trust Louis with it. Unspoken, just felt. It was worth it.
Eyebrows go up.
"I'd love to visit New Orleans with you, but no way am I third wheeling an emotionally significant revisit. You two deserve that time to yourselves."
'Us', they've clearly talked about it. C'mon. Bro code. He can't do that to Lestat. Speaking of—
(No, Louis has not spoken this whim aloud to anyone else.)
"You're not third wheeling," is maybe an early tell for how Louis is going to answer the latter question.
But he does mean it. Daniel has a place, always, with Louis. And he suspects the same is true for Lestat. Daniel belongs with them. Louis' fingers lay over Daniel's, holding his hand there at his chest, pressing down a little harder, instructive. Yes, he means this.
And Louis misses New Orleans, as much as he believes he should be moving farther and farther from it. That he should be putting himself together in new surroundings, circle back when he is certain he's something like whole.
Louis isn't sure what that will feel like. It's been a long time.
"I'm not complaining," Daniel assures him, as he flexes his fingers up briefly into that hand-hold. Reassuring. "I'm just saying."
Sometimes a third wheel is a third wheel. Daniel isn't sore about it, he's an old man who's done plenty of third wheeling, chaperoning, date-crashing, wing-manning. Don't worry about it. He wants to make it clear that it's a fine distinction, and that he doesn't feel left out, preemptively or otherwise.
If Louis needs an old man security blanket to go on a date, well... maybe. He's not the best 'leave room for Jesus' enforcer.
"Yes, you seem alright. I'm not asking about alright, I'm asking for gossip. I didn't give you my cigarettes so you could stand awkwardly in the cold for fifteen minutes, did I?"
A century removed from Grace, rolling her eyes at him over Lestat. Who else has Louis truly gossiped about him with? Who else that would name their association for what it was and say it without scorn in their voice?
Never. No one. Not even his sister.
Louis is a long way away from gossiping, even as a recipient of Bricktop's complaints or the way his girls sighed after this and that gentleman.
"We ain't been awkward," Louis protests. "We're friends. We do like friends do, these days."
Louis has had a lot of time to consider it. He wasn't ready. Still isn't ready. No one's to blame for it. Lestat isn't obligated to wait on Louis. Louis can't ask.
"We smoked, we talked. We came back in so he could watch Jeannie. He likes her. The singing helps it along."
Probably useful for that to be the case, if Daniel interviews Lestat. Jeannie would surely be helping in that process.
"That's very sweet about Jeannie," he says. "But friends? I don't think I've ever had a friend who I looked at the way you two look at each other. Every time one of you turns your head, the other one's staring like you're cartoon characters with big, wet, heart-shaped eyes."
Yeah he said wet. Lestat cries a lot.
"I know you've got serious things to work through with him. But it... I dunno, I just hope for good things, for you guys. And fun things, too, even if you're apparently squandering all the alone time I'm trying to give you like nerds."
Such fond exasperation in Louis' face, watching Daniel's eyebrows go up. A passing urge to put his palm over Daniel's entire face, block him out.
But the urge passes. So does some of the levity, playfulness ebbing into tenderness. Daniel, wishing good things for Louis even after all that's happened. Daniel, who says these things to Louis as if they are set in stone.
Laces his fingers through Daniels, eyes moving over Daniel's face. Expression turning thoughtful, as he casts around for an answer.
"I am having a good time," Louis tells him. "I'm having a real good time traveling with you two."
Speaking of third wheels, what is Louis? Tagging along when maybe he shouldn't be.
"This is a good thing. Being with you, being with him. But I can't be..."
A pause. Thumbing over Daniel's knuckles.
"It's like I don't know myself now. Got all these pieces that I don't recognize, got pieces missing, I think. And if I go back to him, I'll never fix it. I'll fit it all into him instead."
And Daniel has to understand it. He's heard all that Louis has to say about Lestat. The way gravity shifts between them, how easy it has always been for Louis to be drawn into him. Even when Lestat was a dream, a memory, a fragment.
Maybe Daniel's the one playing too fast and loose with it. He was terrified over Louis' safety when Lestat lost his temper, and he's been terrified over Louis shutting down— a shift, to this hope, in part because of that, because of Lestat's infectious magnetism making Louis seem so much less dreary.
(Maybe Daniel's looking to cover his own ass. His own stupid fucking mistakes. How could he have agreed to do what's agreed to, when Louis is right here, Louis who's been hurt the most of anyone, holding on to his hand like this?)
Affection is tangible, like a spilled drink; Daniel is clumsy with this, still. He does understand. And he cares so much about Louis. Stupid, how much.
"Alright," he says, soft. "I do get it."
Daniel's being too much. Wants him to show the great person he is to his employees, wants him to be happy with Lestat. Wants him to be happy, so Daniel can make up for demolishing Louis' life. It's better this way, but it's still in pieces. He could break it, but he can't fix it. He's fixing himself, a worse person, he's making shameful progress with Armand, an infinitely worse person, so why the fuck can't he fix Louis.
"You're just.. you know. Probably the most important person, to me. Ever. I'm going to want you to be happy, all the fucking time, and be real annoying about it."
But it would be unfair. Daniel saved him. It's not Daniel's task to bear all the ways Louis is alien to himself now, an overgrown garden, a structure fallen into disrepair. Louis needs to tear it all apart, see what fits into his body and what must be burned. Inventory what's missing. (Impossible, unless he seeks Armand, coaxes him into honest generosity.) Become something recognizable to himself, before he can be anything to anyone but especially before he can be something to Lestat if Lestat will still have him.
Thinks, not for the first time, that he's overstayed his welcome. Become a burden. Daniel says this and Louis feels his assurances like smoldering coals in his chest. Important. They are important to each other.
Louis can't say the words he feels warming in his body in response, even if they're true. (Because they are true, and so important, too big for his body and this moment and the room they're in and maybe the state of Vermont.) But he feels it. Love. Tightens his grip on Daniel's hand, considers that he can't even promise happiness, not really. They both know Louis isn't exactly built for happiness, not in any kind of lasting way.
"You make me happy," is what Louis can offer. "You being here with me, forever, that makes me happy."
Years passing by and Daniel untouched by that passage. Decades to do more of this, smoking joints, watching bad movies. Talking, about everything and anything. Annoying, but Daniel has permission to annoy Louis however, whenever he wants. Why would Louis ever deny him?
"Another two hundred years, right?" he reminds, soft. "Another book, another couple lifetimes."
Big promises. Reasons for Louis to keep on living.
The silky fabric of the pillowcase whispers as Louis turns his head further, direct eye contact, so Louis can relay to him: "You're important to me. Always have been. Always gonna be."
Whatever doubts Daniel has about it. Louis chose him. Daniel had been a light in the dark, even then.
"I'm okay. We're gonna be okay."
A quiet offering. Louis' alright. Holding together. It won't be such an effort forever.
An unfair question, unasked, that would have offered an unfair answer; best to paper over it. Daniel does and he doesn't get it. What he gets, he gets because Louis told him, and he's choosing empathy, and he's prioritizing how much he cares for Louis. Twenty-year-old Daniel wouldn't have gotten it, or worse, he'd be split down the middle with not getting it and deliberately bulldozing past it because who the fuck cares, think about all the cool shit you're missing by hesitating. And part of that is still there. It's behind him, but it's still him. Like he used to be a student, like he used to work at a newspaper, and so on.
He gets it. Because he wants to get it. He doesn't want to be the person who encourages Louis off the cliff edge because he's curious about what's on the other side, doesn't want to enable him into hurting himself more just to find fulfillment. Even though he's also, still, the person who will go home with some guy he just met in a bar, get high, ask to see the fangs again, give the creature who tortured him a key to his apartment, ask to be threatened with immolation so he knows what pyrokinesis feels like.
The L-word (is it lesbians?), lurking, sitting on both of their shoulders. Being here forever, with each other. Daniel is glad it was Armand, so he can talk to Louis anywhere, at any time. Daniel is angry it was Armand, because he knows how fucking bad it hurt Louis.
"You definitely don't want another book," he teases softly. Shifts their hands a bit as Louis turns, so he can squeeze his. Feels really good not to be trembling.
"As many lifetimes as we can get. Let's just... go to some shitty theaters, check out up and coming artists, waste time."
Which means, really: I like that you got time to waste. A shorthand around the worry Louis had been turning over his head more and more across the tail end of the interview. It had never been absent, his awareness of Daniel's mortality, it had only been less consuming. And then it had become impossible to ignore, looming large in Louis' consciousness.
Daniel could die. Daniel could be gone.
Louis would have given him the Gift. Drank him near to death, fed him from his own wrist. Would have done like Claudia had done, made it something gentle and vibrant, let it be love made tangible.
But that's not what had happened.
"I'd do another book with you," Louis is telling him now, watching Daniel's face. Steady hands, strong pulse. The fascinating boy, made healthy and whole again. "Maybe make you wait another fifty years so I got something worth saying."
Let Daniel write about their war, about whatever their world becomes. Let him have Louis' voice on tapes again, saying all the things he wouldn't say to anyone other than Daniel. Argue around and around the truth, whatever the truth is then. Louis would give him that. He can give him very little else these days, it feels like.
"Pretty much everything you say is worth hearing," Daniel tells him, small smile on his face. He's ever been entranced by Louis— from silly flirtations meant to lure in prey, to his serious, tear-streaked confessions. Even when Daniel was spacing out, during the interview, it was because he was preoccupied trying to unwrap the mystery he could tell Louis was in the middle of.
"But we won't need another interview, because I'll be around for all this shit, huh?"
It'll have to be some other kind of collaboration. If Louis ever takes pictures again, maybe that. Documentation of a vampire's exploration. Every city is a night city, when you live in the dark.
"Maybe a podcast. You can come on and be exasperated at me."
"A podcast," Louis says, rolling the word off his tongue, testing the idea of it. Envisioning Daniel with a microphone, a platform from which he can say anything he likes. "So long as you don't stop writing, I'll come on whenever you want."
Selfish, maybe. He'd miss Daniel's prose.
But it'd be a loss, Louis thinks, if Daniel gave it up entirely.
Louis laces their fingers together more securely. Savors the promise that Daniel will be there, be close, witness everything the coming years will bring. They can wander together even after the tour ends, spend the time, no need for long decades apart. The future unfurling ahead of them, whatever they make of it.
Dreamy thoughts. Louis is fighting a war. Louis is trying to sort through the wreckage of his own mind, fit himself into his own body again.
It makes him feel good to know that Louis is still willing to read his work, despite his understandable discomfort around the published interview. He does wonder a little, knowing how Louis is still working on himself, it reading it eventually might actually help give him some perspective. If he might find something worthwhile in sifting through Daniel's reflections on what he's said.
"Even then," Louis tells him, very serious. Mars the effect when he smiles across the strip of space between them.
Imagine all the threads Daniel can chase now. Louis has only been treated to occasional spectating, playing audience while Daniel chews over information through phone calls. Oddities beyond the evils and eccentricities of the mortal world, all of that is now open to Daniel.
Louis can't take credit for the opened door. Daniel opened it without him, Louis' story become a key. Louis had no choice but to go through, occupy the space that had been made and spin the fall out to suit him.
His thumb runs a steady circuit along Daniel's knuckles. Wishes uselessly to see his eyes bloom blue again, but knows it can never be. That's not how this has gone.
"I wanna hear what counts as weird, now that you're out here with us."
Daniel had barely scratched the surface of evil, eccentric things in the mortal world, but now he's got double to go after, if he feels like it. And maybe he will, eventually. A few projects to publish 'posthumously', finished by a fictitious research assistant. Until then, the investigation of who the fuck is trying to kill us is taking at least lazy first place. He's not doing a great job running anything down right now, just hanging out on the last few stops of the book tour.
But soon, he knows, he'll go a little crazy after sitting mentally still for too long, and he'll have to track down the origins of handcuffs made for vampire strength. Among other things. Maybe none of these undead weirdos will tolerate an interview like Louis had, maybe he'll never ask one a single question face to face. But he still has to find out.
"Venn diagram of weird is still pretty circular, I'd bet," he says. "I just have to find the right beat. And, I guess, something that won't drive me nuts. Looking into somebody who only takes meetings at noon, shit like that. But I'll get there. I thought I retired once already, and still flew to Dubai."
(Daniel's eyes would still have changed even if Louis had been the one to turn him. He has to know that.)
(Maybe the Lioncourt bloodline would have gifted Daniel a shade of blue. Maybe it would have been green, maybe something else.
It would not be Armand's eyes, is the thing.
And he would still miss Daniel's blue eyes, even then.)
"I'm glad you did."
Obviously. Repetitive. Daniel knows this.
"I wondered if I was coming to you too late."
Doubt, doubting his own allure. The story that he gave to Daniel when he was young and they were both drunk, when Daniel was high, was it still enough to draw Daniel across the world?
Lucky for Louis that it was. Maybe bad luck for everyone else involved, including all of vampiredom. Including Daniel, even if Daniel has been militant in holding to the benefits.
Louis knows Armand didn't make it easy. Armand showed it to him, slivers enough for Louis to draw some conclusions of his own.
"Will you tell me what you're thinking about now?"
In which Louis is inquiring, broadly, about what curiosities Daniel might have idly acquired. He is keeping politely out of Daniel's head.
"Well," slight strain in his voice, finding that remark funny, and he's sure Louis won't understand why. He laughs a little as he continues after weighing his options on saying anything. "You almost were." Too late. Another year and he wouldn't have been able to travel, probably. How much is a year, to a century-old vampire? A blink? Does Louis know how close it was?
"Twenty years ago would have been ideal. Still kinda cute at fifty, but had the mileage. Sure, I was mid-breakdown for most of that decade, but who isn't, at that age? Might've been fun if I spent half the interview just throwing martini glasses at you."
Armand would have probably just killed him without transforming him, then.
"Right this second, mostly I'm thinking about you." Ask stupid questions, etc. "I'm working on this shit we're in. And I might go back to Medicare fraud being laundered by the US government."
A flash of memory, speaking to Armand of Daniel's mortality. Of turning him. Wishing to turn him, once all had been done.
No, Louis hadn't realized exactly how close they'd cut it. He had medical records, yes. Had an understanding of the illness, but not quite grasped the reality of—
Swift progression.
His fingers tighten, tighten over Daniel's own, tighten at the nape of his neck. Says nothing immediately, eyes moving over Daniel's face. Processing. Daniel says these other things, twenty years ago, martini glasses, Medicare fraud.
Doesn't laugh. Quiet, listening, looking at Daniel and thinking about the feeling of dread he'd felt, trying to tell Armand what it would be like to lose Daniel. Certainty that it was approaching, wishing to stave it off. Daniel's mortality had existed in abtract, until he was present.
And now it is swept neatly from the table.
Louis can shiver about all of this later. He can. He can set it aside now.
"You know everything there is to know about me," so what's left?
(The disorienting memory of Armand's hand in Daniel's hair overlaid with Louis' overlaid again with Armand's, memories and dreams distorted. Sticking in Louis' chest.)
"You wanna tell me about what you figured out about this shit we're in?"
"You're deeper than that. You just feel like shit about it lately."
So there. Louis still has a million things Daniel doesn't know, but—
"And I'm not gonna ask. I want to find out on my own, without trying to interview you. Which I'm awful at, so you might have to be patient with me as I figure out how to be a real person who has a friend."
Daniel, struggling with the idea of connections that don't end, because everything ends, for him. Family ties, marriages, professional contacts. No bridge unburned. But now they're immortal, and now they're tied together by this thing that was there, and then wasn't, and is here again.
He finally moves his other hand, lifting it to touch Louis' face gently.
"Nah," he says about things he's figured out. "I want you to come here so I can hug you, and then tell you some stupid story that's not in my memoir."
Louis contemplates for only a moment before he discards the uncertainty. Daniel is touching his face. Louis has a hand in his hair. They have survived all the worst things together. All their ugliest moments shared between them.
Louis lets Daniel have his assertions, his promises for the future. No argument just now, though maybe in the future he'll pick a fight over what he does or doesn't feel. To remind Daniel of their promises, the prospect of centuries together.
It is a short distance. Louis slides across it, lets Daniel draw him in.
Breathes out, thumb rubbing back and forth at the nape of Daniel's neck as they embrace.
Says, eventually, "Thanks."
For sticking around. For forgiving Louis. For being alive still.
Daniel is not much of a hugger, but there's something about Louis, especially now, reunited after so long and seeing him on the path to understanding himself and being his own person, that has turned Daniel into one specifically for him. Another element of transformation, perhaps. Some small thing that Louis gets to keep for himself, even if the rest of it was accidentally sacrificed to Armand.
"For what, annoying the shit out of you? Making the other night awkward with your employees? Shut up."
This all sounds very affectionate, of course. A squeeze, and then they can settle wherever is most comfortable, and pretend to have paid any attention at all to the movie. Another joint shared between them, which truly does nothing without being indulged in through someone else's blood, but feels calming in a socially bonding way.
Nothing to do but enjoy the rest of their night, and presumably say hello to Lestat whenever he rolls back in from taking e-meetings and finding wee-hours meal.
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Despite that, he's glad they met. Despite all of it, he's glad they met. He can't tell Armand he'd endure it again just to get here, Armand would take it the wrong way, but he can trust Louis with it. Unspoken, just felt. It was worth it.
Eyebrows go up.
"I'd love to visit New Orleans with you, but no way am I third wheeling an emotionally significant revisit. You two deserve that time to yourselves."
'Us', they've clearly talked about it. C'mon. Bro code. He can't do that to Lestat. Speaking of—
"How are you guys? Honestly."
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"You're not third wheeling," is maybe an early tell for how Louis is going to answer the latter question.
But he does mean it. Daniel has a place, always, with Louis. And he suspects the same is true for Lestat. Daniel belongs with them. Louis' fingers lay over Daniel's, holding his hand there at his chest, pressing down a little harder, instructive. Yes, he means this.
And Louis misses New Orleans, as much as he believes he should be moving farther and farther from it. That he should be putting himself together in new surroundings, circle back when he is certain he's something like whole.
Louis isn't sure what that will feel like. It's been a long time.
"He and I, we're alright. Don't we seem alright?"
Inviting the opinion Daniel might give anyway.
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Sometimes a third wheel is a third wheel. Daniel isn't sore about it, he's an old man who's done plenty of third wheeling, chaperoning, date-crashing, wing-manning. Don't worry about it. He wants to make it clear that it's a fine distinction, and that he doesn't feel left out, preemptively or otherwise.
If Louis needs an old man security blanket to go on a date, well... maybe. He's not the best 'leave room for Jesus' enforcer.
"Yes, you seem alright. I'm not asking about alright, I'm asking for gossip. I didn't give you my cigarettes so you could stand awkwardly in the cold for fifteen minutes, did I?"
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A century removed from Grace, rolling her eyes at him over Lestat. Who else has Louis truly gossiped about him with? Who else that would name their association for what it was and say it without scorn in their voice?
Never. No one. Not even his sister.
Louis is a long way away from gossiping, even as a recipient of Bricktop's complaints or the way his girls sighed after this and that gentleman.
"We ain't been awkward," Louis protests. "We're friends. We do like friends do, these days."
Louis has had a lot of time to consider it. He wasn't ready. Still isn't ready. No one's to blame for it. Lestat isn't obligated to wait on Louis. Louis can't ask.
"We smoked, we talked. We came back in so he could watch Jeannie. He likes her. The singing helps it along."
Probably useful for that to be the case, if Daniel interviews Lestat. Jeannie would surely be helping in that process.
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Eyebrows go up higher.
"That's very sweet about Jeannie," he says. "But friends? I don't think I've ever had a friend who I looked at the way you two look at each other. Every time one of you turns your head, the other one's staring like you're cartoon characters with big, wet, heart-shaped eyes."
Yeah he said wet. Lestat cries a lot.
"I know you've got serious things to work through with him. But it... I dunno, I just hope for good things, for you guys. And fun things, too, even if you're apparently squandering all the alone time I'm trying to give you like nerds."
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But the urge passes. So does some of the levity, playfulness ebbing into tenderness. Daniel, wishing good things for Louis even after all that's happened. Daniel, who says these things to Louis as if they are set in stone.
Laces his fingers through Daniels, eyes moving over Daniel's face. Expression turning thoughtful, as he casts around for an answer.
"I am having a good time," Louis tells him. "I'm having a real good time traveling with you two."
Speaking of third wheels, what is Louis? Tagging along when maybe he shouldn't be.
"This is a good thing. Being with you, being with him. But I can't be..."
A pause. Thumbing over Daniel's knuckles.
"It's like I don't know myself now. Got all these pieces that I don't recognize, got pieces missing, I think. And if I go back to him, I'll never fix it. I'll fit it all into him instead."
And Daniel has to understand it. He's heard all that Louis has to say about Lestat. The way gravity shifts between them, how easy it has always been for Louis to be drawn into him. Even when Lestat was a dream, a memory, a fragment.
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(Maybe Daniel's looking to cover his own ass. His own stupid fucking mistakes. How could he have agreed to do what's agreed to, when Louis is right here, Louis who's been hurt the most of anyone, holding on to his hand like this?)
Affection is tangible, like a spilled drink; Daniel is clumsy with this, still. He does understand. And he cares so much about Louis. Stupid, how much.
"Alright," he says, soft. "I do get it."
Daniel's being too much. Wants him to show the great person he is to his employees, wants him to be happy with Lestat. Wants him to be happy, so Daniel can make up for demolishing Louis' life. It's better this way, but it's still in pieces. He could break it, but he can't fix it. He's fixing himself, a worse person, he's making shameful progress with Armand, an infinitely worse person, so why the fuck can't he fix Louis.
"You're just.. you know. Probably the most important person, to me. Ever. I'm going to want you to be happy, all the fucking time, and be real annoying about it."
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But it would be unfair. Daniel saved him. It's not Daniel's task to bear all the ways Louis is alien to himself now, an overgrown garden, a structure fallen into disrepair. Louis needs to tear it all apart, see what fits into his body and what must be burned. Inventory what's missing. (Impossible, unless he seeks Armand, coaxes him into honest generosity.) Become something recognizable to himself, before he can be anything to anyone but especially before he can be something to Lestat if Lestat will still have him.
Thinks, not for the first time, that he's overstayed his welcome. Become a burden. Daniel says this and Louis feels his assurances like smoldering coals in his chest. Important. They are important to each other.
Louis can't say the words he feels warming in his body in response, even if they're true. (Because they are true, and so important, too big for his body and this moment and the room they're in and maybe the state of Vermont.) But he feels it. Love. Tightens his grip on Daniel's hand, considers that he can't even promise happiness, not really. They both know Louis isn't exactly built for happiness, not in any kind of lasting way.
"You make me happy," is what Louis can offer. "You being here with me, forever, that makes me happy."
Years passing by and Daniel untouched by that passage. Decades to do more of this, smoking joints, watching bad movies. Talking, about everything and anything. Annoying, but Daniel has permission to annoy Louis however, whenever he wants. Why would Louis ever deny him?
"Another two hundred years, right?" he reminds, soft. "Another book, another couple lifetimes."
Big promises. Reasons for Louis to keep on living.
The silky fabric of the pillowcase whispers as Louis turns his head further, direct eye contact, so Louis can relay to him: "You're important to me. Always have been. Always gonna be."
Whatever doubts Daniel has about it. Louis chose him. Daniel had been a light in the dark, even then.
"I'm okay. We're gonna be okay."
A quiet offering. Louis' alright. Holding together. It won't be such an effort forever.
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He gets it. Because he wants to get it. He doesn't want to be the person who encourages Louis off the cliff edge because he's curious about what's on the other side, doesn't want to enable him into hurting himself more just to find fulfillment. Even though he's also, still, the person who will go home with some guy he just met in a bar, get high, ask to see the fangs again, give the creature who tortured him a key to his apartment, ask to be threatened with immolation so he knows what pyrokinesis feels like.
The L-word (is it lesbians?), lurking, sitting on both of their shoulders. Being here forever, with each other. Daniel is glad it was Armand, so he can talk to Louis anywhere, at any time. Daniel is angry it was Armand, because he knows how fucking bad it hurt Louis.
"You definitely don't want another book," he teases softly. Shifts their hands a bit as Louis turns, so he can squeeze his. Feels really good not to be trembling.
"As many lifetimes as we can get. Let's just... go to some shitty theaters, check out up and coming artists, waste time."
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Which means, really: I like that you got time to waste. A shorthand around the worry Louis had been turning over his head more and more across the tail end of the interview. It had never been absent, his awareness of Daniel's mortality, it had only been less consuming. And then it had become impossible to ignore, looming large in Louis' consciousness.
Daniel could die. Daniel could be gone.
Louis would have given him the Gift. Drank him near to death, fed him from his own wrist. Would have done like Claudia had done, made it something gentle and vibrant, let it be love made tangible.
But that's not what had happened.
"I'd do another book with you," Louis is telling him now, watching Daniel's face. Steady hands, strong pulse. The fascinating boy, made healthy and whole again. "Maybe make you wait another fifty years so I got something worth saying."
Let Daniel write about their war, about whatever their world becomes. Let him have Louis' voice on tapes again, saying all the things he wouldn't say to anyone other than Daniel. Argue around and around the truth, whatever the truth is then. Louis would give him that. He can give him very little else these days, it feels like.
no subject
"But we won't need another interview, because I'll be around for all this shit, huh?"
It'll have to be some other kind of collaboration. If Louis ever takes pictures again, maybe that. Documentation of a vampire's exploration. Every city is a night city, when you live in the dark.
"Maybe a podcast. You can come on and be exasperated at me."
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Selfish, maybe. He'd miss Daniel's prose.
But it'd be a loss, Louis thinks, if Daniel gave it up entirely.
Louis laces their fingers together more securely. Savors the promise that Daniel will be there, be close, witness everything the coming years will bring. They can wander together even after the tour ends, spend the time, no need for long decades apart. The future unfurling ahead of them, whatever they make of it.
Dreamy thoughts. Louis is fighting a war. Louis is trying to sort through the wreckage of his own mind, fit himself into his own body again.
"Dedicate something to me. Your next one."
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It makes him feel good to know that Louis is still willing to read his work, despite his understandable discomfort around the published interview. He does wonder a little, knowing how Louis is still working on himself, it reading it eventually might actually help give him some perspective. If he might find something worthwhile in sifting through Daniel's reflections on what he's said.
Someday, maybe.
"Even if it's about something totally weird?"
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Imagine all the threads Daniel can chase now. Louis has only been treated to occasional spectating, playing audience while Daniel chews over information through phone calls. Oddities beyond the evils and eccentricities of the mortal world, all of that is now open to Daniel.
Louis can't take credit for the opened door. Daniel opened it without him, Louis' story become a key. Louis had no choice but to go through, occupy the space that had been made and spin the fall out to suit him.
His thumb runs a steady circuit along Daniel's knuckles. Wishes uselessly to see his eyes bloom blue again, but knows it can never be. That's not how this has gone.
"I wanna hear what counts as weird, now that you're out here with us."
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But soon, he knows, he'll go a little crazy after sitting mentally still for too long, and he'll have to track down the origins of handcuffs made for vampire strength. Among other things. Maybe none of these undead weirdos will tolerate an interview like Louis had, maybe he'll never ask one a single question face to face. But he still has to find out.
"Venn diagram of weird is still pretty circular, I'd bet," he says. "I just have to find the right beat. And, I guess, something that won't drive me nuts. Looking into somebody who only takes meetings at noon, shit like that. But I'll get there. I thought I retired once already, and still flew to Dubai."
(Daniel's eyes would still have changed even if Louis had been the one to turn him. He has to know that.)
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It would not be Armand's eyes, is the thing.
And he would still miss Daniel's blue eyes, even then.)
"I'm glad you did."
Obviously. Repetitive. Daniel knows this.
"I wondered if I was coming to you too late."
Doubt, doubting his own allure. The story that he gave to Daniel when he was young and they were both drunk, when Daniel was high, was it still enough to draw Daniel across the world?
Lucky for Louis that it was. Maybe bad luck for everyone else involved, including all of vampiredom. Including Daniel, even if Daniel has been militant in holding to the benefits.
Louis knows Armand didn't make it easy. Armand showed it to him, slivers enough for Louis to draw some conclusions of his own.
"Will you tell me what you're thinking about now?"
In which Louis is inquiring, broadly, about what curiosities Daniel might have idly acquired. He is keeping politely out of Daniel's head.
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"Twenty years ago would have been ideal. Still kinda cute at fifty, but had the mileage. Sure, I was mid-breakdown for most of that decade, but who isn't, at that age? Might've been fun if I spent half the interview just throwing martini glasses at you."
Armand would have probably just killed him without transforming him, then.
"Right this second, mostly I'm thinking about you." Ask stupid questions, etc. "I'm working on this shit we're in. And I might go back to Medicare fraud being laundered by the US government."
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No, Louis hadn't realized exactly how close they'd cut it. He had medical records, yes. Had an understanding of the illness, but not quite grasped the reality of—
Swift progression.
His fingers tighten, tighten over Daniel's own, tighten at the nape of his neck. Says nothing immediately, eyes moving over Daniel's face. Processing. Daniel says these other things, twenty years ago, martini glasses, Medicare fraud.
Doesn't laugh. Quiet, listening, looking at Daniel and thinking about the feeling of dread he'd felt, trying to tell Armand what it would be like to lose Daniel. Certainty that it was approaching, wishing to stave it off. Daniel's mortality had existed in abtract, until he was present.
And now it is swept neatly from the table.
Louis can shiver about all of this later. He can. He can set it aside now.
"You know everything there is to know about me," so what's left?
(The disorienting memory of Armand's hand in Daniel's hair overlaid with Louis' overlaid again with Armand's, memories and dreams distorted. Sticking in Louis' chest.)
"You wanna tell me about what you figured out about this shit we're in?"
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So there. Louis still has a million things Daniel doesn't know, but—
"And I'm not gonna ask. I want to find out on my own, without trying to interview you. Which I'm awful at, so you might have to be patient with me as I figure out how to be a real person who has a friend."
Daniel, struggling with the idea of connections that don't end, because everything ends, for him. Family ties, marriages, professional contacts. No bridge unburned. But now they're immortal, and now they're tied together by this thing that was there, and then wasn't, and is here again.
He finally moves his other hand, lifting it to touch Louis' face gently.
"Nah," he says about things he's figured out. "I want you to come here so I can hug you, and then tell you some stupid story that's not in my memoir."
That was a long pause. C'mere.
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Louis contemplates for only a moment before he discards the uncertainty. Daniel is touching his face. Louis has a hand in his hair. They have survived all the worst things together. All their ugliest moments shared between them.
Louis lets Daniel have his assertions, his promises for the future. No argument just now, though maybe in the future he'll pick a fight over what he does or doesn't feel. To remind Daniel of their promises, the prospect of centuries together.
It is a short distance. Louis slides across it, lets Daniel draw him in.
Breathes out, thumb rubbing back and forth at the nape of Daniel's neck as they embrace.
Says, eventually, "Thanks."
For sticking around. For forgiving Louis. For being alive still.
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"For what, annoying the shit out of you? Making the other night awkward with your employees? Shut up."
This all sounds very affectionate, of course. A squeeze, and then they can settle wherever is most comfortable, and pretend to have paid any attention at all to the movie. Another joint shared between them, which truly does nothing without being indulged in through someone else's blood, but feels calming in a socially bonding way.
Nothing to do but enjoy the rest of their night, and presumably say hello to Lestat whenever he rolls back in from taking e-meetings and finding wee-hours meal.
(Until something feels off?)