They do move off the main floor, Lestat making a path with natural runway swagger, less the hunter in the brush as they cut through the clearing. Floating a hand out to touch the hip of the woman singing as they pass under her spotlight, and then off into the shadows through a discreet side door, and not a single glance back otherwise.
(Halfway, some half-starved beautiful person of non-distinct gender coming up the opposite way and wordlessly passing a bottle of red wine to Lestat like a baton, who takes it by the neck. A shy smile to Daryl as they continue on by.)
It isn't long to walk, down some metal stairs and through a door, where a private room awaits. Clearly not personal digs, but something outfitted nicely all the same, antique furniture, glass lamps that cast golden light around. A low table that Lestat puts the bottle down on—green with a paper label tied with string, something made in the last few years as opposed to a taste of the old world—and a cabinet from which he takes a pair of crystal glasses.
"I never saw for myself what became of your homeland, in the end of everything," he is saying, once they have entered the room. "Though I had been in New Orleans for almost a century. I don't suppose you can speak to its current state?"
He knows enough to know Daryl's accent is differently placed, but if he made it all the way to France, who knows where else he's been?
Down they go. Daryl notices little things, people passing him, shy smiles. He makes a distant note that this place is independently interesting to him, but finds himself unable to engage further with that train of thought. It's different than it would be before, and different than even just before Alexandria. He can look at himself and understand without judgement. It's more than he would have ever dreamed, and for an old dog, it's enough.
Pause.
New Orleans, almost a century. How old had Clive been? A hundred, or nearly. He'd said Rolan (feral, rabid, bite weaponized for something far worse) was older, but it threatened credulity. Jocelyn, they never knew. A strange soap bubble of familiarity floating between them, and information that Daryl notes with healthy wariness. (Though still not fear. Bad at being afraid.)
"Underwater," is his answer. There's no note of sympathy in his voice. It's this world, and that's that. "Ain't been in, but near enough. The military dropped napalm on it and who knows how many other cities, at the start. I watched Atlanta go from the rooftop of a shitty bar." He shrugs, and his voice takes a dip towards wry. "You'll be shocked to hear the American solution didn't fix shit, I'm sure."
Deep red poured into two crystal glasses. These little details are second nature, even if the wine will taste like nothing, less than nothing, and to Daryl, will taste like the autumn harvest that made it.
"Very surprising," Lestat agrees, easy and accommodating sarcasm as he offers out a glass.
He has already done his mourning. Even if the buildings still stood, all he has heard of the state of things in America tells a story of the things that made it beautiful now gone. (The people, not the decor.) The lightning in a bottle that is his favourite city, even beyond the private monuments to personal tragedies, wasted with the mass death of too many talented, charming, unique individuals, a history in speech, in music, in spirit.
That he happily killed a lot of them is neither here nor there.
So: no flinch, or at least, none so strong he can't keep it off his face as he sits down in a plush armchair, one long leg crossing over the other.
"There are a lot of philosophical musings about the point of enduring," he says. "Something we all have in common. This sickness has infected the present, the past, and will persist in the future, and all of those little things that make life worth living, blighted and gone. After much circling the point, it seems France has identified a few, as it always has. Good company, and better wine."
A shrug that says: cute. "Is that why you came, or why you have stayed?"
He accepts the glass, and then stands there awkwardly for a little while. Warring with the desire to tell him Let's get on with it, while aware that he's invited socialization by 1) walking down here and 2) saying more than just 'underwater' and leaving it at that.
Sucks to suck, Dixon. He sits down.
Once there, he shrugs a shoulder. "Just wanted to know."
The journey here was arduous, not always deliberate in its pathing; he did not set out from the very edge of North America and say I'm landing in France, he just ... left. It hurt too much to stay. He wants to be home, but home doesn't have a place for him anymore, and that threatens to stir the only fear in him that he has left. Nearly obsolete again, Daryl is. Best that he's out scouting. Sending back battered letters and bursts over the radio. The world is still out here. We aren't the only ones.
He makes a motion with his glass. Like a salute. Close enough to manners before he takes a drink, and thinks nothing at all about the notes and layers. A waste on a man who'd been drinking moonshine since childhood and has half the amount of taste buds as a normal human left because of it.
Wasted on them both. Lestat salutes, and drinks deeply.
No pleasure crosses his face, of course, not about to feign it. The glass is set aside, considering the fragmented path of pain that follows Daryl Dixon from the wilds of post-apocalyptic Georgia to this room in the catacombs of Paris, the echoes of voices, friends gained and lost. Blood spilled. A lot of blood spilled.
Impressive to kill vampires. Useful to dispatch the walkers. Fascinating to sense the warm bodies that Monsieur Dixon has put in the ground to get to where he is, the more-or-less untainted blood spilled into the earth.
"And now you know," Lestat says. "And you have found new lambs to shepherd through the wilderness. What is it you wish for them exactly?"
They can still hear the music a little—to Daryl's ears, just the bones of it, a deep thrum of a beat. To Lestat's, a full melody. It isn't quiet, just muffled, and when he tips his head, it's to half-listen to the current set as he watches Daryl.
Red wine is on the nose. Daryl thinks of drinking glasses of creek water to stave off hunger when they (the far, far past) couldn't afford groceries, and chewing on twigs when they (the less far past) couldn't find food. Lestat has not selected him, but Lestat could change his mind.
"Their cause is their business."
Putting it out there ahead of time. Daryl doesn't believe in God, and the cult-like fawning over Laurent makes him uncomfortable, both on behalf of the kid who's never been able to be a kid, and on behalf of the adults who should all get a fucking grip.
But.
"They helped me. So I'm helping them. I just want to get them where they're going, which means out of Paris without that dickhead," a pause. What's a slur for English people? He has no idea. He continues. Dickhead will have to do. "Trying to get off over it."
"He wants the woman," agreeable, they both know this, but, "which puts the boy in danger."
Simple, as far as predictable chess moves go. Leverage, bait, whatever you might call it. Lestat's eyes flick upwards in a show of thought, but then they glaze, become distracted.
He lifts a hand, pointing to the ceiling, as a small smile plays out on his face.
"I don't know if you can hear it in here," he says. "But that's Marie now, singing. I first heard her while she was serenading the waters off the coast of Jersey. A natural talent, beautiful tone. I only meant to visit her, you know, but she insisted, and so I was forced to deprive the good people of her failing little community of her talents, for the Demimonde's gain."
Whoops, says the twist of his hand, before it lowers, folding with the other in his lap. Refocusing, looking to Daryl. "Fuck Quinn. He will infect this place with his grasping, if not now then later. And it is of importance to me that our little establishment not die with him. It is a haven."
Of many kinds. Songbirds, paintings, shelter, nexus point of factions, trade, gossip. A beating heart.
That is not sure if he likes the way Lestat is elsewhere every so often, even in this short time they've shared space. That he has questions about Marie and her failing little community, if there was any good reason to take only her and let the community fail. That he is curious how Lestat was visiting the coast of Jersey.
A neat basket, bumping into a vampire who would be fine with Quinn out of the way. Temping to just reach out and take it.
"I don't know much about this place," is what he says, instead of digging into anything he's thinking about. "How'd you get here? You a singer too, or something?"
It's a careful balance, indicating in these subtle ways of the breadth of his ability without overwhelming a person. Even this man, who knows of vampires like they're a particularly elusive but verifiable predator, has his limited information and experiences to go off of. Maybe he suspects Lestat can read his mind, for instance. Maybe Lestat has confirmed it already several times. Speaking his thoughts back to him, at a constant, is liable to tip their conversation off-balance.
And he's enjoying their conversation, especially now that it swerves back to him, evoking a broader smile. "A singer, oui," agreeably, why not? He sings. "Or if we need a man on the piano, I can be convinced to serve," pressing hand to breast. Magnanimous.
"I came to Paris because it was my home, once," is an extremely pared down version of a story for the sake of a mortal who hardly needs a rundown on vampire pseudo-politics, "and some of our renegade immortals were making a mess of things. Only young ones, others infected, none respecting the new natural order we find ourselves in. Removing them was a necessary evil," picking up his glass, a gesture, "and then, here I am."
He doesn't drink further, just keeps the glass as a prop for the moment. "The Demimonde advertised itself as a place to go when there is something you need if you have something to give. I need blood to sustain myself and no desire to meaningfully contribute to a mass extinction event and I protect those willing to be generous."
Another smile, as he adds, "And the exceptionally talented. I have my favourites, blood or no blood. What did you come to trade, Monsieur Dixon?"
"Sounds like you're just an ordinary guy trying to make it."
A hint of a joke in his smoke-rough voice. No one left in this world is an ordinary guy, much less a vampire. But either Lestat is trying to be, or he understands the value of operating as honestly as possible. Every step is a complication in the apocalypse. Trying to keep steady shows awareness, at least.
Then—
"We had drugs." Flat. "Speed mostly, some ecstasy. Pretty old, gonna take hours to kick in. If that ends up passed around, just keep an eye out. Figure you know, but this guy who was going around with us for a while, he drained some asshole who turned out to be cranked on a whole vet's office worth of ketamine. He puked up a perfect bloody jell-o mold of his small intestine."
I wasn't always a nun, said Isabelle as she dragged out her contraband, worth tens of thousands in the old world. Daryl could have popped a rib laughing, if he were the type to laugh anymore. He swallows more wine.
"But now he wants the nun. So there's no deal to be made."
And in return, Lestat's attention, a crinkle of amusement for the warning and the twitch of his eyebrows indicates a much appreciated.
A flex of his fingers, subtle agreement. "Does the good sister know where she wants to go?"
Good thing Daryl doesn't buy the cause, or else he might find himself catching some strays at the slightly tense way Lestat holds his mouth when he refers to her affiliations. Not hostile, really, just distaste.
Other questions filed away for when they both have a mutual understand of the thing that needs to happen.
The 'Nest' is ... somewhere. Maybe they've said, in French, discussing it over Daryl's head. He hasn't needed to know the specifics and wouldn't understand them anyway, and he hasn't asked. Now, it's useful, because he can't betray them even if his mind is read. It doesn't matter if Daryl believes or not — and he doesn't — but they're allowed to have their strongholds and safe havens, and should be allowed to get there without Quinn or whoever else trying to burn them down.
Paris is too dense to sneak out of or around in that direction. It's safest to go by boat, and because of that, there are checkpoints. Daryl gets it. He'd put in checkpoints, too. But between Quinn wanting Isabelle to stay, and one of the major factions here having a big problem with the religious nutjobs, the checkpoints pose a major hurdle. They'll need somebody to waive them through.
Or they checkpoints need to be empty by force. Daryl would prefer to just have a pass, though.
A hummed sound, "Comme ci, comme ça," and the inflection and context does the translation work: maybe.
"Degradation, erosion, the decline of things. We live in that now, and need to guard against this slow annihilation. You remove Quinn, and we open our doors tomorrow, we have a wonderful time, but his deals are undone. Our clientele breaks apart. Not tomorrow, but eventually. And he has friends, you know, who would not take too kindly to his removal."
But, a shrug. "If he and his closest are removed with discretion, if there is no chance of reprisal, then there's time to find another Quinn. I," a roll of his wrist, gesturing to himself, "try to limit my day to day interferences." A tip of his head. "Like you do."
And maybe, he's just as bad at avoiding it.
"Stay a while," Lestat says. "After they go, say you will help ensure the continuation of this place. I will assist you in your shepherding. And wolf killing."
"I can't stay forever. Ain't my scene, and ain't my lifespan besides."
A horrible little lie that Daryl barely realizes is a lie. Wouldn't it be nice? To experience the kind of culture you would have been killed for interacting with? The kind you can't let yourself be curious about? Isn't it funny, a sick kind of irony, that the young man you had a crush on was called Jesus, and you find this club trying to help a nun? You know Rick would be—
Daryl has a good poker face.
"You gotta figure out what can move in and fix the holes Quinn's absence will leave. I can handle him, I can handle his friends. The rest of it I'm no good at."
"I said a while," Lestat says, breezily, smoothing out some invisible wrinkle at his knee. "Not forever." Amusement, reaching his eyes. "Even if you asked nicely."
Daryl's poker face is good. Lestat's is—fine. That he catches a thought that is something he would very much like to sink his teeth into only flickers across his expression, a sharpening of his focus and the narrow lifting of the corner of his mouth at its scarred side, showing only the expected set of blunt white teeth.
Who's Rick?
"I say you can be useful to me, to this place. If I am wrong, then I've made a bad deal. I'll live with it."
Yeah he'll live with it. He's immortal. Daryl gets it. He gets the joke. ANYway.
"Fine. It's a deal. Quinn dies 'cause he tried to extort the wrong asshole and you get to salvage the pieces. I stick around to help make it right, and make sure nobody goes after the nun."
A plan might be a luxury not afforded to idiots taking on this kind of wrecking ball move, but they can at least spare a few days first to gather as much intel as possible. Daryl knows Isabelle will be angry with him, but he's told her and told her again: he isn't her godsend, he isn't a joiner, and he sure as shit isn't a believer. If she wanted this handled in a way that didn't involve getting rid of the problem, she asked the wrong guy.
"Santé," Lestat says, bringing up his glass in salute, before knocking back the rest of the wine. "And one last thing."
Not to push his luck or anything, to apply a condition to a deal already struck—
"Kasim is performing tomorrow night, and I intend to warm things up with my own compositions. You should come along. You can bring your expired drugs and I can find you someone to give them to."
Okay, not really a full amendment, but a beginning step in the direction to transporting the second coming of Christ up a river. Indulging him in some vanity, if he can get away with it, is a part of it.
An empty maybe; Daryl will show, and knows as he says it he'll show. Not an indefinite courtesy— this is not a situation where he feels obligated to just do as Lestat says until further notice. But these next few days will be critical, and if he has an invitation, then all the better reason to be here and be taking mental notes.
He leaves. It's a long day, after, and tensions within Quinn aren't eased. Isabelle wants to throw herself on the proverbial fire, and feels like Daryl's pulling some... paternal bullshit, he guesses, by putting his foot down about not wanting her to trade herself. By the time Fallou helps him get back into the club, he's got a headache, but he's also got some speed and some packets of zero-calorie wild cherry water flavoring powder, which causes more greedy stares than the drugs.
People are funny. But he supposes he misses some things, too, that'll never be again. Sonic sweet tea. Shitty tree-shaped air freshener cards that reek of chemical coconut.
Whatever. He finds a place to sit. Coco flounces his way to chat, and Daryl is polite enough— baffled or impressed, he's not sure, as the artist is all dolled up as usual. Not sure if he should look at him (her?) in the eyes, or in any of the sparkly bits.
It's possible that Coco is enough of a distracting entity in herself, or that Daryl wasn't keeping an eye out in particular, but Lestat's own appearance in the club is an unexpectedly subtle affair. It isn't until the sound of piano keys and the lighting gradually changing that anyone particularly notices his presence, including those who could have sworn they were just looking in the right direction.
Spooks a few, but most only notice the shift in atmosphere. Likewise, the music wends its way through, slow but deliberate in its capturing of attention.
Lestat, like most of the performers who frequent the spotlight in the Demimonde, is dressed for the occasion. A black tuxedo shirt fitted to his body shows up see-through under the light, legs encased with shiny black material that probably requires some amount of peeling to remove, and tall heels beneath the piano attend to the pedals. The diamonds set into the barrette that pins his hair over an ear are probably fake, but who knows? Silver rings on fingers that dance across the keys, and eyeliner does very little to diminish vampiric blue when he flicks a glance aside.
The music changes up, taking on a more deliberate melody. "Je ne sais pas pour vous, mais je suis d'humeur à ramener quelque chose d'entre les morts," is spoken with great intimacy, even through a sound system that enwraps the floor. "Changé et peut-être mieux qu'il ne l'était. For our friends across the seas."
This rendition of I've Got You Under My Skin is only recognisably Sinatra in lyric only, melody changed, key changed, decidedly more dramatic than lounge music would otherwise permit. His voice is deep, full-throated, utterly unself-conscious while also consumed in itself. He doesn't really need the microphone, but he minds it. No sense in scaring the fishies.
It's not a performance that invites participation in song or dance, only observation, and the low murmur of conversation gradually dwindles as attention is won. Yes, for the talent, a novel display, but also Lestat makes himself the centre of a kind of invisible, dark gravity, inviting adoration. Possible to dig your heels in, of course, if you know to.
Less noticeable, the keying in of focus at the back of Daryl's mind. It feels stressed in here.
Daryl is a difficult one to pull in. Not inclined to adoration; he doesn't resist so much as side-step, and it has nothing to do with awareness. Instead, a long-ingrained habit of turning himself away from interest, like a dog that's been trained out of running towards food. He doesn't think anything about it.
Which is not to say the performance doesn't retain his attention. It does. He likes it, and though the getup Lestat is sporting doesn't do anything for him, he enjoys the way he performs. Reminds him of an old movie, the only kind that public broadcasting had the rights for even while the rest of the world moved on. Black and white musicals on during the day, giving him something to pay attention to besides the everything of his surroundings.
Would Beth like this place? Would artistic Europeans accept a country girl with her guitar and lilting soprano? She played the piano sometimes (he hears her confident but inexpert plinking, back in that lonely funeral home), but not this good. A clear voice singing her own arrangements of Tom Waits song, sounding full and haunting in the echoing acoustics of the prison, a southern siren. Daryl sees Rick's hands, fidgeting with his watch. He used to stand around in the common area and listen to Beth as she wandered and soothed Judith, like he was trying to absorb domesticity he was no longer suited for.
It is stressed, in Daryl's head. He has come a long way, and he's still not sure if he's gotten anywhere worth while, if he should have left, if he should have kept going further, if he should have let himself drown. Being away from those who shaped him into a real person makes him feel formless again, but he knows he can't go back until he understands... something. There's no place for him where he wants to be. It's not their fault. He isn't owed.
Memories, like light refracted on water. The people that have come and gone, the little affections, associations. A songbird. A set of hands that look like they've permanently taken bruises.
Lestat absorbs it all, a busy fragment of his mind as he commits to crooning heartbreak. The resistance he feels from Daryl doesn't compel him to put pressure on it, not particularly—it's enough that the human enjoys his voice, that it makes him think of things that hurt his heart.
A preference for flannel and unshaven throats and rough hands, he wonders, or simply signifiers of something more crucial?
He has read every book in Paris, watched every existing reel of film, talked to everyone of any interested. Novelty is as much a craving as blood.
Who's Rick? comes his voice, blooming tenderly at the back of Daryl's mind. There is no real way to minimise a mortal's alarm at such invasions besides exposure, but Lestat's echoed voice is about as gentle as it gets.
A sly smile, cast his way, flicked across the room.
A startle like a wolf, too still, going from alert to ready, the voice in his mind and traveling up his spine like a shiver, too. He looks at Lestat, and looks at Coco, who's sliding a drink over to him.
"I'm no good with it," he says to her (that seems right), and she smiles and takes a generous sip, leaving the half-sphere glass between them to share. Piano kicks up, I've got, I've got you. Lestat is much better than Beth, or the woman who used to play for church, the few services he went.
Who's Rick.
The question (the confirmation, of what Lestat can do) is laughable, for how large Rick looms over who Daryl is. Even though he knows — he knows — Rick would look at it with kindly pity. The whole of their world from rural Georgia to Atlanta to Washington DC, carved in his image. Just some guy, some regular ass cop, who forced reality into compliance.
Until he didn't.
Who's Rick. Gunpowder, uneven laughter, blood, smoke. Rick is gone. Rick is flashes of You're my brother, the best and worst thing he'd ever heard, Rick is Lori and Jessie and Michonne, Rick is helping Michonne with RJ, is hearing her say I know you lost something, too, and Daryl never, never speaking of it, not even then, not even to her.
Rick is gone, but it wouldn't matter anyway. Rick is safe, because even if Rick wasn't gone, Daryl was never going to say anything.
Not that Lestat would ever describe Louis in this way, but plenty of others would have. No longer, of course, a strange angel of a man in his own corner of this ruined planet, but lifetimes ago. The thought is fleeting.
But something else, less intrusive than his voice spooling alien words through Daryl's mind—or, well, that's subjective, but nonetheless, something that is more feeling than thought. Daryl will become aware of it like an invisible string between them, a temporary sense of connection that is formed, on some other plane of existence, between a common feeling. Like the lowest string on a guitar, gently thrummed, allowed its reverberating.
Empathy. Loss. Not just loss, but a specific kind. A similar texture.
The song is ending. And I, and I, and I, spooling out into vocalisation that feels too intimate, always, purred through the speakers, and then the finishing tinkle of piano in its minor key. The round of applause sparkles through the chamber, and Lestat's mood wrenches from his performance to toss a pleased smile about the place.
That one, a clearer instruction, and Daryl's eyes will land on where a woman is stepping into the club, looking a little out of place herself. Ordinary clothes, hair braided tight, but has clearly been here before when she picks her way to the bar, keeping to the fringes. She has a boat.
Piano, again, this time no song, encouraging the beginnings of some conversation to reenter the atmosphere. Lestat maintains his preferred mood, dark and romantic, eyes now closing, as if this is for himself.
Daryl recognizes empathy, but not as something that he's allowed to receive. It makes him balk worse than the initial intrusion, a shuttering - useless against a vampire's powers, but that flinch is there, shame, the same kind that made him turn away from open interest, only cranked up much higher.
There is nothing he needs empathy for, you see. No commiseration necessary. He is fine, because he has freed himself of old hate. His brother might have killed him, or brought him to the edge to ensure he learned; their father would have killed him. Daryl, because it was all he knew, took on these attitudes as well. He would have had them for his entire life if the world hadn't ended. How fucking pathetic. A man who needed the end of everything to be honest inside his own head.
It's too late for anything else, but it's enough. It's more than he ever thought possible, and he's grateful. He's grateful for Rick, too. And if by some trick of fate, Rick is still out there, then he wants Rick back with his wife and his kids. The pain of that will be nothing, nothing, compared to the relief of that family back together.
That one has the boat. Daryl takes a drink, catching the very edge of a lipstick stain, and asks Coco about the lady with the braid.
Good intel. Thoughts of identity slip away—
Sorry, distinct and clumsy. Whoever it is.
Rick is gone, and it doesn't matter anyway, but Lestat is... a real person. A ridiculous person, but real. Daryl is just an old hunting dog. Fortunately, he's an old hunting dog with some good shit to trade.
The thought, delivered so gracelessly, has Lestat smile to himself at his piano.
And Daryl is left in peace to conduct his business. The woman with the braid is Narae, and her boat is called The Typhoon, and travels up and down the Seine, transporting all kinds of things. There are quite a few boatman like her (well, grading on the scale of post-apocalyptic numbers) and, like many of them, she has no strong affiliations to the people who man the checkpoints, but has a vested interest in not making herself too much of a problem.
But Daryl has good shit to trade and she has been invited here especially for Lestat's set, primed to receive a deal without asking the kinds of questions that may prove problematic. At least, not for tonight.
Lestat sings a little more. Some Tori Amos, some Billy Joel, people-pleasers. A more American repertoire than is usually enjoyed in the Demimonde, no modern French artists on offer tonight. Maybe it's for Daryl. It would be hard to guess that Lestat's latest musical awakening was in the United States without being told directly. Even when he begins his own composition, a Valentinesy sounding love song, old fashioned but timeless melodies, it's in English.
It's been a long time since he was a mortal, and he tries to think if he ever thought: it's too late for me. He thinks of Nicki instead. A brilliant violinist who picked up the instrument at age 20, and everyone said what he repeated, that he started too old to become the maestro he longed to be. Lestat telling him over and over again how wonderful he played never helped. Perhaps it's like that. Still, they had each other, for a time.
Whoever it is. Quite so, whoever.
When his set finishes, he rises, drinks in the approval like it sustains him. Someone else takes the stage, and Lestat kisses them on the cheek as they pass one another.
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(Halfway, some half-starved beautiful person of non-distinct gender coming up the opposite way and wordlessly passing a bottle of red wine to Lestat like a baton, who takes it by the neck. A shy smile to Daryl as they continue on by.)
It isn't long to walk, down some metal stairs and through a door, where a private room awaits. Clearly not personal digs, but something outfitted nicely all the same, antique furniture, glass lamps that cast golden light around. A low table that Lestat puts the bottle down on—green with a paper label tied with string, something made in the last few years as opposed to a taste of the old world—and a cabinet from which he takes a pair of crystal glasses.
"I never saw for myself what became of your homeland, in the end of everything," he is saying, once they have entered the room. "Though I had been in New Orleans for almost a century. I don't suppose you can speak to its current state?"
He knows enough to know Daryl's accent is differently placed, but if he made it all the way to France, who knows where else he's been?
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Pause.
New Orleans, almost a century. How old had Clive been? A hundred, or nearly. He'd said Rolan (feral, rabid, bite weaponized for something far worse) was older, but it threatened credulity. Jocelyn, they never knew. A strange soap bubble of familiarity floating between them, and information that Daryl notes with healthy wariness. (Though still not fear. Bad at being afraid.)
"Underwater," is his answer. There's no note of sympathy in his voice. It's this world, and that's that. "Ain't been in, but near enough. The military dropped napalm on it and who knows how many other cities, at the start. I watched Atlanta go from the rooftop of a shitty bar." He shrugs, and his voice takes a dip towards wry. "You'll be shocked to hear the American solution didn't fix shit, I'm sure."
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"Very surprising," Lestat agrees, easy and accommodating sarcasm as he offers out a glass.
He has already done his mourning. Even if the buildings still stood, all he has heard of the state of things in America tells a story of the things that made it beautiful now gone. (The people, not the decor.) The lightning in a bottle that is his favourite city, even beyond the private monuments to personal tragedies, wasted with the mass death of too many talented, charming, unique individuals, a history in speech, in music, in spirit.
That he happily killed a lot of them is neither here nor there.
So: no flinch, or at least, none so strong he can't keep it off his face as he sits down in a plush armchair, one long leg crossing over the other.
"There are a lot of philosophical musings about the point of enduring," he says. "Something we all have in common. This sickness has infected the present, the past, and will persist in the future, and all of those little things that make life worth living, blighted and gone. After much circling the point, it seems France has identified a few, as it always has. Good company, and better wine."
A shrug that says: cute. "Is that why you came, or why you have stayed?"
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Sucks to suck, Dixon. He sits down.
Once there, he shrugs a shoulder. "Just wanted to know."
The journey here was arduous, not always deliberate in its pathing; he did not set out from the very edge of North America and say I'm landing in France, he just ... left. It hurt too much to stay. He wants to be home, but home doesn't have a place for him anymore, and that threatens to stir the only fear in him that he has left. Nearly obsolete again, Daryl is. Best that he's out scouting. Sending back battered letters and bursts over the radio. The world is still out here. We aren't the only ones.
He makes a motion with his glass. Like a salute. Close enough to manners before he takes a drink, and thinks nothing at all about the notes and layers. A waste on a man who'd been drinking moonshine since childhood and has half the amount of taste buds as a normal human left because of it.
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No pleasure crosses his face, of course, not about to feign it. The glass is set aside, considering the fragmented path of pain that follows Daryl Dixon from the wilds of post-apocalyptic Georgia to this room in the catacombs of Paris, the echoes of voices, friends gained and lost. Blood spilled. A lot of blood spilled.
Impressive to kill vampires. Useful to dispatch the walkers. Fascinating to sense the warm bodies that Monsieur Dixon has put in the ground to get to where he is, the more-or-less untainted blood spilled into the earth.
"And now you know," Lestat says. "And you have found new lambs to shepherd through the wilderness. What is it you wish for them exactly?"
They can still hear the music a little—to Daryl's ears, just the bones of it, a deep thrum of a beat. To Lestat's, a full melody. It isn't quiet, just muffled, and when he tips his head, it's to half-listen to the current set as he watches Daryl.
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"Their cause is their business."
Putting it out there ahead of time. Daryl doesn't believe in God, and the cult-like fawning over Laurent makes him uncomfortable, both on behalf of the kid who's never been able to be a kid, and on behalf of the adults who should all get a fucking grip.
But.
"They helped me. So I'm helping them. I just want to get them where they're going, which means out of Paris without that dickhead," a pause. What's a slur for English people? He has no idea. He continues. Dickhead will have to do. "Trying to get off over it."
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Simple, as far as predictable chess moves go. Leverage, bait, whatever you might call it. Lestat's eyes flick upwards in a show of thought, but then they glaze, become distracted.
He lifts a hand, pointing to the ceiling, as a small smile plays out on his face.
"I don't know if you can hear it in here," he says. "But that's Marie now, singing. I first heard her while she was serenading the waters off the coast of Jersey. A natural talent, beautiful tone. I only meant to visit her, you know, but she insisted, and so I was forced to deprive the good people of her failing little community of her talents, for the Demimonde's gain."
Whoops, says the twist of his hand, before it lowers, folding with the other in his lap. Refocusing, looking to Daryl. "Fuck Quinn. He will infect this place with his grasping, if not now then later. And it is of importance to me that our little establishment not die with him. It is a haven."
Of many kinds. Songbirds, paintings, shelter, nexus point of factions, trade, gossip. A beating heart.
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That is not sure if he likes the way Lestat is elsewhere every so often, even in this short time they've shared space. That he has questions about Marie and her failing little community, if there was any good reason to take only her and let the community fail. That he is curious how Lestat was visiting the coast of Jersey.
A neat basket, bumping into a vampire who would be fine with Quinn out of the way. Temping to just reach out and take it.
"I don't know much about this place," is what he says, instead of digging into anything he's thinking about. "How'd you get here? You a singer too, or something?"
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And he's enjoying their conversation, especially now that it swerves back to him, evoking a broader smile. "A singer, oui," agreeably, why not? He sings. "Or if we need a man on the piano, I can be convinced to serve," pressing hand to breast. Magnanimous.
"I came to Paris because it was my home, once," is an extremely pared down version of a story for the sake of a mortal who hardly needs a rundown on vampire pseudo-politics, "and some of our renegade immortals were making a mess of things. Only young ones, others infected, none respecting the new natural order we find ourselves in. Removing them was a necessary evil," picking up his glass, a gesture, "and then, here I am."
He doesn't drink further, just keeps the glass as a prop for the moment. "The Demimonde advertised itself as a place to go when there is something you need if you have something to give. I need blood to sustain myself and no desire to meaningfully contribute to a mass extinction event and I protect those willing to be generous."
Another smile, as he adds, "And the exceptionally talented. I have my favourites, blood or no blood. What did you come to trade, Monsieur Dixon?"
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A hint of a joke in his smoke-rough voice. No one left in this world is an ordinary guy, much less a vampire. But either Lestat is trying to be, or he understands the value of operating as honestly as possible. Every step is a complication in the apocalypse. Trying to keep steady shows awareness, at least.
Then—
"We had drugs." Flat. "Speed mostly, some ecstasy. Pretty old, gonna take hours to kick in. If that ends up passed around, just keep an eye out. Figure you know, but this guy who was going around with us for a while, he drained some asshole who turned out to be cranked on a whole vet's office worth of ketamine. He puked up a perfect bloody jell-o mold of his small intestine."
I wasn't always a nun, said Isabelle as she dragged out her contraband, worth tens of thousands in the old world. Daryl could have popped a rib laughing, if he were the type to laugh anymore. He swallows more wine.
"But now he wants the nun. So there's no deal to be made."
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And in return, Lestat's attention, a crinkle of amusement for the warning and the twitch of his eyebrows indicates a much appreciated.
A flex of his fingers, subtle agreement. "Does the good sister know where she wants to go?"
Good thing Daryl doesn't buy the cause, or else he might find himself catching some strays at the slightly tense way Lestat holds his mouth when he refers to her affiliations. Not hostile, really, just distaste.
Other questions filed away for when they both have a mutual understand of the thing that needs to happen.
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The 'Nest' is ... somewhere. Maybe they've said, in French, discussing it over Daryl's head. He hasn't needed to know the specifics and wouldn't understand them anyway, and he hasn't asked. Now, it's useful, because he can't betray them even if his mind is read. It doesn't matter if Daryl believes or not — and he doesn't — but they're allowed to have their strongholds and safe havens, and should be allowed to get there without Quinn or whoever else trying to burn them down.
Paris is too dense to sneak out of or around in that direction. It's safest to go by boat, and because of that, there are checkpoints. Daryl gets it. He'd put in checkpoints, too. But between Quinn wanting Isabelle to stay, and one of the major factions here having a big problem with the religious nutjobs, the checkpoints pose a major hurdle. They'll need somebody to waive them through.
Or they checkpoints need to be empty by force. Daryl would prefer to just have a pass, though.
"Does this place fall apart without him?"
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"Degradation, erosion, the decline of things. We live in that now, and need to guard against this slow annihilation. You remove Quinn, and we open our doors tomorrow, we have a wonderful time, but his deals are undone. Our clientele breaks apart. Not tomorrow, but eventually. And he has friends, you know, who would not take too kindly to his removal."
But, a shrug. "If he and his closest are removed with discretion, if there is no chance of reprisal, then there's time to find another Quinn. I," a roll of his wrist, gesturing to himself, "try to limit my day to day interferences." A tip of his head. "Like you do."
And maybe, he's just as bad at avoiding it.
"Stay a while," Lestat says. "After they go, say you will help ensure the continuation of this place. I will assist you in your shepherding. And wolf killing."
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A horrible little lie that Daryl barely realizes is a lie. Wouldn't it be nice? To experience the kind of culture you would have been killed for interacting with? The kind you can't let yourself be curious about? Isn't it funny, a sick kind of irony, that the young man you had a crush on was called Jesus, and you find this club trying to help a nun? You know Rick would be—
Daryl has a good poker face.
"You gotta figure out what can move in and fix the holes Quinn's absence will leave. I can handle him, I can handle his friends. The rest of it I'm no good at."
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Daryl's poker face is good. Lestat's is—fine. That he catches a thought that is something he would very much like to sink his teeth into only flickers across his expression, a sharpening of his focus and the narrow lifting of the corner of his mouth at its scarred side, showing only the expected set of blunt white teeth.
Who's Rick?
"I say you can be useful to me, to this place. If I am wrong, then I've made a bad deal. I'll live with it."
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Yeah he'll live with it. He's immortal. Daryl gets it. He gets the joke. ANYway.
"Fine. It's a deal. Quinn dies 'cause he tried to extort the wrong asshole and you get to salvage the pieces. I stick around to help make it right, and make sure nobody goes after the nun."
A plan might be a luxury not afforded to idiots taking on this kind of wrecking ball move, but they can at least spare a few days first to gather as much intel as possible. Daryl knows Isabelle will be angry with him, but he's told her and told her again: he isn't her godsend, he isn't a joiner, and he sure as shit isn't a believer. If she wanted this handled in a way that didn't involve getting rid of the problem, she asked the wrong guy.
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"Santé," Lestat says, bringing up his glass in salute, before knocking back the rest of the wine. "And one last thing."
Not to push his luck or anything, to apply a condition to a deal already struck—
"Kasim is performing tomorrow night, and I intend to warm things up with my own compositions. You should come along. You can bring your expired drugs and I can find you someone to give them to."
Okay, not really a full amendment, but a beginning step in the direction to transporting the second coming of Christ up a river. Indulging him in some vanity, if he can get away with it, is a part of it.
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An empty maybe; Daryl will show, and knows as he says it he'll show. Not an indefinite courtesy— this is not a situation where he feels obligated to just do as Lestat says until further notice. But these next few days will be critical, and if he has an invitation, then all the better reason to be here and be taking mental notes.
He leaves. It's a long day, after, and tensions within Quinn aren't eased. Isabelle wants to throw herself on the proverbial fire, and feels like Daryl's pulling some... paternal bullshit, he guesses, by putting his foot down about not wanting her to trade herself. By the time Fallou helps him get back into the club, he's got a headache, but he's also got some speed and some packets of zero-calorie wild cherry water flavoring powder, which causes more greedy stares than the drugs.
People are funny. But he supposes he misses some things, too, that'll never be again. Sonic sweet tea. Shitty tree-shaped air freshener cards that reek of chemical coconut.
Whatever. He finds a place to sit. Coco flounces his way to chat, and Daryl is polite enough— baffled or impressed, he's not sure, as the artist is all dolled up as usual. Not sure if he should look at him (her?) in the eyes, or in any of the sparkly bits.
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Spooks a few, but most only notice the shift in atmosphere. Likewise, the music wends its way through, slow but deliberate in its capturing of attention.
Lestat, like most of the performers who frequent the spotlight in the Demimonde, is dressed for the occasion. A black tuxedo shirt fitted to his body shows up see-through under the light, legs encased with shiny black material that probably requires some amount of peeling to remove, and tall heels beneath the piano attend to the pedals. The diamonds set into the barrette that pins his hair over an ear are probably fake, but who knows? Silver rings on fingers that dance across the keys, and eyeliner does very little to diminish vampiric blue when he flicks a glance aside.
The music changes up, taking on a more deliberate melody. "Je ne sais pas pour vous, mais je suis d'humeur à ramener quelque chose d'entre les morts," is spoken with great intimacy, even through a sound system that enwraps the floor. "Changé et peut-être mieux qu'il ne l'était. For our friends across the seas."
This rendition of I've Got You Under My Skin is only recognisably Sinatra in lyric only, melody changed, key changed, decidedly more dramatic than lounge music would otherwise permit. His voice is deep, full-throated, utterly unself-conscious while also consumed in itself. He doesn't really need the microphone, but he minds it. No sense in scaring the fishies.
It's not a performance that invites participation in song or dance, only observation, and the low murmur of conversation gradually dwindles as attention is won. Yes, for the talent, a novel display, but also Lestat makes himself the centre of a kind of invisible, dark gravity, inviting adoration. Possible to dig your heels in, of course, if you know to.
Less noticeable, the keying in of focus at the back of Daryl's mind. It feels stressed in here.
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Which is not to say the performance doesn't retain his attention. It does. He likes it, and though the getup Lestat is sporting doesn't do anything for him, he enjoys the way he performs. Reminds him of an old movie, the only kind that public broadcasting had the rights for even while the rest of the world moved on. Black and white musicals on during the day, giving him something to pay attention to besides the everything of his surroundings.
Would Beth like this place? Would artistic Europeans accept a country girl with her guitar and lilting soprano? She played the piano sometimes (he hears her confident but inexpert plinking, back in that lonely funeral home), but not this good. A clear voice singing her own arrangements of Tom Waits song, sounding full and haunting in the echoing acoustics of the prison, a southern siren. Daryl sees Rick's hands, fidgeting with his watch. He used to stand around in the common area and listen to Beth as she wandered and soothed Judith, like he was trying to absorb domesticity he was no longer suited for.
It is stressed, in Daryl's head. He has come a long way, and he's still not sure if he's gotten anywhere worth while, if he should have left, if he should have kept going further, if he should have let himself drown. Being away from those who shaped him into a real person makes him feel formless again, but he knows he can't go back until he understands... something. There's no place for him where he wants to be. It's not their fault. He isn't owed.
Even if Rick were to come back—
Especially if Rick were to come back.
Lestat has a nice voice, he thinks.
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Lestat absorbs it all, a busy fragment of his mind as he commits to crooning heartbreak. The resistance he feels from Daryl doesn't compel him to put pressure on it, not particularly—it's enough that the human enjoys his voice, that it makes him think of things that hurt his heart.
A preference for flannel and unshaven throats and rough hands, he wonders, or simply signifiers of something more crucial?
He has read every book in Paris, watched every existing reel of film, talked to everyone of any interested. Novelty is as much a craving as blood.
Who's Rick? comes his voice, blooming tenderly at the back of Daryl's mind. There is no real way to minimise a mortal's alarm at such invasions besides exposure, but Lestat's echoed voice is about as gentle as it gets.
A sly smile, cast his way, flicked across the room.
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"I'm no good with it," he says to her (that seems right), and she smiles and takes a generous sip, leaving the half-sphere glass between them to share. Piano kicks up, I've got, I've got you. Lestat is much better than Beth, or the woman who used to play for church, the few services he went.
Who's Rick.
The question (the confirmation, of what Lestat can do) is laughable, for how large Rick looms over who Daryl is. Even though he knows — he knows — Rick would look at it with kindly pity. The whole of their world from rural Georgia to Atlanta to Washington DC, carved in his image. Just some guy, some regular ass cop, who forced reality into compliance.
Until he didn't.
Who's Rick. Gunpowder, uneven laughter, blood, smoke. Rick is gone. Rick is flashes of You're my brother, the best and worst thing he'd ever heard, Rick is Lori and Jessie and Michonne, Rick is helping Michonne with RJ, is hearing her say I know you lost something, too, and Daryl never, never speaking of it, not even then, not even to her.
Rick is gone, but it wouldn't matter anyway. Rick is safe, because even if Rick wasn't gone, Daryl was never going to say anything.
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Not that Lestat would ever describe Louis in this way, but plenty of others would have. No longer, of course, a strange angel of a man in his own corner of this ruined planet, but lifetimes ago. The thought is fleeting.
But something else, less intrusive than his voice spooling alien words through Daryl's mind—or, well, that's subjective, but nonetheless, something that is more feeling than thought. Daryl will become aware of it like an invisible string between them, a temporary sense of connection that is formed, on some other plane of existence, between a common feeling. Like the lowest string on a guitar, gently thrummed, allowed its reverberating.
Empathy. Loss. Not just loss, but a specific kind. A similar texture.
The song is ending. And I, and I, and I, spooling out into vocalisation that feels too intimate, always, purred through the speakers, and then the finishing tinkle of piano in its minor key. The round of applause sparkles through the chamber, and Lestat's mood wrenches from his performance to toss a pleased smile about the place.
That one, a clearer instruction, and Daryl's eyes will land on where a woman is stepping into the club, looking a little out of place herself. Ordinary clothes, hair braided tight, but has clearly been here before when she picks her way to the bar, keeping to the fringes. She has a boat.
Piano, again, this time no song, encouraging the beginnings of some conversation to reenter the atmosphere. Lestat maintains his preferred mood, dark and romantic, eyes now closing, as if this is for himself.
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There is nothing he needs empathy for, you see. No commiseration necessary. He is fine, because he has freed himself of old hate. His brother might have killed him, or brought him to the edge to ensure he learned; their father would have killed him. Daryl, because it was all he knew, took on these attitudes as well. He would have had them for his entire life if the world hadn't ended. How fucking pathetic. A man who needed the end of everything to be honest inside his own head.
It's too late for anything else, but it's enough. It's more than he ever thought possible, and he's grateful. He's grateful for Rick, too. And if by some trick of fate, Rick is still out there, then he wants Rick back with his wife and his kids. The pain of that will be nothing, nothing, compared to the relief of that family back together.
That one has the boat. Daryl takes a drink, catching the very edge of a lipstick stain, and asks Coco about the lady with the braid.
Good intel. Thoughts of identity slip away—
Sorry, distinct and clumsy. Whoever it is.
Rick is gone, and it doesn't matter anyway, but Lestat is... a real person. A ridiculous person, but real. Daryl is just an old hunting dog. Fortunately, he's an old hunting dog with some good shit to trade.
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And Daryl is left in peace to conduct his business. The woman with the braid is Narae, and her boat is called The Typhoon, and travels up and down the Seine, transporting all kinds of things. There are quite a few boatman like her (well, grading on the scale of post-apocalyptic numbers) and, like many of them, she has no strong affiliations to the people who man the checkpoints, but has a vested interest in not making herself too much of a problem.
But Daryl has good shit to trade and she has been invited here especially for Lestat's set, primed to receive a deal without asking the kinds of questions that may prove problematic. At least, not for tonight.
Lestat sings a little more. Some Tori Amos, some Billy Joel, people-pleasers. A more American repertoire than is usually enjoyed in the Demimonde, no modern French artists on offer tonight. Maybe it's for Daryl. It would be hard to guess that Lestat's latest musical awakening was in the United States without being told directly. Even when he begins his own composition, a Valentinesy sounding love song, old fashioned but timeless melodies, it's in English.
It's been a long time since he was a mortal, and he tries to think if he ever thought: it's too late for me. He thinks of Nicki instead. A brilliant violinist who picked up the instrument at age 20, and everyone said what he repeated, that he started too old to become the maestro he longed to be. Lestat telling him over and over again how wonderful he played never helped. Perhaps it's like that. Still, they had each other, for a time.
Whoever it is. Quite so, whoever.
When his set finishes, he rises, drinks in the approval like it sustains him. Someone else takes the stage, and Lestat kisses them on the cheek as they pass one another.