Lestat smiles to himself, out the window, at this telling little hitch. At the news that comes next. This hypocritical little demon, whom Lestat would not mind tearing to shreds with tooth and claw and! he may!, if they cross paths!, barring Louis looking at him too woundedly about it for some reason. Daniel is keeping his brain to himself, but the slither of rattlesnake hostility, coiling itself, would be easy enough to detect without effort.
Well, it would be a shame to terminate a friendship too quickly at the expense of Armand, if Daniel is feeling some kind of way, and who could blame him? Lestat had wept after Magnus died. He smokes, breathes it out through his nose in a chuckled flutter.
"The stupidity is medieval superstition enduring. From what I have managed to learn," which is not a terrible lot, says his tone of voice, "it is a cult, one that does not extend as far back as our origins. These laws are not commandments written by the Devil himself, handed to the first vampire, although they may pretend at it. Our kind is older than any of that."
A shrug. "But there is nothing else. No other order, no other court. Just the mercy of what ancients persist, and the safety of a pack."
It was a lot. From 1973 til now, it's been a lot, and he's only recently remembered. Still processing. Daniel can't imagine that how he feels about it all today will be how he feels about it all in a hundred years.
It's fine. If he's a little off about it, whatever. Posting through it.
(Eating people through it.)
"The logic," and he draws circles in the air with his index finger, lazily, "doesn't work for me, even if it's just superstition. How can you believe you're damned, if your laws come from the Devil? First he's the warden of God's prison, now he's ordaining codes of conduct to terrestrial demons? But none of that's ever made sense to me in the first place. To believe in God is to believe God is an idiot, and what's the point."
Perhaps a little philosophizing can be forgiven (hah), seeing as he hasn't had a chance to do much of it quite like this. They are near the woods now, and Daniel is careful in his offroad navigation. This junker wasn't made for it even when it was new. An adventure!
"Our origins. Do you know much about it?"
'Akasha' did not make it into the final draft of the book. Daniel had gathered little bits and pieces, but between Louis' disinterest, Armand's silence, and Talamasca's limited intel, he just wasn't left with enough to warrant its inclusion.
Lestat doesn't ignore Molloy's philosophising, offering little agreeable sounds while watching city turn to brush, the speed of the car slowing to take care of the terrain. God is a lie, existence is a curse, and he has never been able to take this nonsense seriously enough to ask anything further once he had proven he could dismantle the belief system of one such group with a little flash and dazzle.
Daniel pulls focus for the last thing, an innocuous and logical kind of question to leap to that nonetheless has Lestat smile as he considers it.
"I don't know if I can say, you haven't said off the record yet. You've been coy in your appearances about a second book and the world is watching."
"I'm not recording," he says, easy banter. "And even if I was, I have an immaculate record of protecting sources who ask to remain confidential."
Too bad about so much of Lestat's life going out without his permission, but how would he say it, c'est la vie, and—
"Did you ever see 'Rashomon'?"
There's one sure fire way to set the record straight, and that would be holding the second book hostage with his own interview. Regardless, they're doing something else at this moment. Daniel would prefer all on the record discussions happen while he isn't actively committing any crimes.
Thunkthunk, the car rattles.
"Damn. Alright, well, we're pretty close." He can hear the river in a way a human can't. He can hear something else, too, maybe a person? But distant enough that their paths hopefully don't cross. Daniel lets the car trundle to a stop, foot on the brake while he shifts it into neutral. It's get out and push from here. "Got any more of those?"
The pack is retrieved, tossed into Daniel's waiting hands.
And Lestat exits the car, the vehicle swaying with the action as if he were five times heavier. Out into the woodlands that, to his senses, feel meagre and nondescript compared to some of the wildernesses he has gotten to know in his life, but breathes it in anyway as he pitches aside his now finished cigarette.
He had already decided to forgive Daniel the publication of his book, its contents. Decided it when he'd viewed him doing his interviews, saw the signs of vampirism. How could he decide otherwise? Good for him. And it brought Louis back to him, at least when it mattered most. He is being gracious in his old age, it's true.
He lights a cigarette the old fashioned way. If Daniel knows the fire gift, he's keep it to himself. (Or maybe he just doesn't want to slip on a banana peel right away.)
"Rashomon," getting a grip on the back of the car, "is a movie about a thing that happens, and the different perspectives it's told from, none of which are the same. It's different than an 'unreliable narrator', because for real people outside of literary devices, perspective is truth."
Push, push. The car trundles along, like it weighs as much is a bicycle.
"And of course, an unreliable narrator is different than a liar."
Everything locked away in his head, but imperfectly: impossible, when he thinks of it, not to see in crystal clear HD 4k, every detail permanently burned into his brain with vicious triumph, the look of devastation and terror on Armand's face the moment he realized that Daniel knew, and that Louis was going to believe him.
"What's my point, anyway. I just mean— maybe there'll be a sequel, if there's anything else to add. Or maybe I'll get so addicted to money that I'll just make some shit up."
Yeah right. Daniel used Lestat like a grenade and pulled the pin while maintaining eye contact. The fear-adrenaline-victory rush of getting to the truest, least kaleidoscoped version of the truth is better than any drug. On the record or off it, he's always going to ask.
Lestat helps. Hands braced, pushing along, and between them, it's easy enough that the help is more a matter of balance and direction. He listens, and also listens, and in the dark, looking at the dappled moonlight glancing off the glass of the shitty car's back window, his pupils spread inkily in bright blue.
A very satisfying execution to witness. He laughs, both a response to banter, as well as the rush he can feel that scores this memory bright and vivid into record.
"Then I will tell you, I have met our origins. I have partaken in its blood."
Something faintly ridiculous about even brushing against this subject while trundling a car along the backwoods of Atlanta to hide the evidence of an okay dinner, but there's been little opportunity for graceful landings over the past several decades.
"And although your revelatory text casts me as the narcissistic untrustworthy manipulator, among others," because let's give credit where credit is due, Armand didn't make it out great, "I have never lied when asked for my story."
Edited (the feminine urge to redo a tag) 2024-07-17 12:31 (UTC)
Daniel has learned that everything in life is ridiculous. Drugs, sex, his job, and now, vampires. This is perfect, actually. Even as the car hits a downed log and Daniel has to walk around to lift the front bumper up. This is a blood-soaked cartoon.
"The best role in any story is always the villain," he says. It's not an insult or an accusation, and hopefully he's not walking out onto a lake covered in deceptively thin ice by traversing this path. "Especially if you can sympathize with him. You got the good part. I tried for it in my own autobiography, and just came out tacky and too self-aware."
But it sold. And Louis liked it. (Why does that matter? Ah, well.)
"Our origins, its blood. 'Akasha'?" Back to pushing. (The car, the subject.) "An old Sanskrit word applied to cosmology, the thing that makes space and room for existence. Hard for cosmology to bleed, so I'm guessing that's an actual name."
There are no true villains in commedia, he might reflect. Only stupid and smart, young and old, funny or bland(ly funny), all tangled together to make their drama, their jests, their pursuits. If anything, his casting is more in keeping with Armand's dig of describing him as the Harlequin—who, equally, can often become the audience's favourite. Less a matter of sympathy so much as entertainment.
An agitated toss of his head to re-sit tangled waves as they roll the car along. Sympathy. Is that what the book has given him, in its portrayals? It's a difficult thing to stomach, when his first instinct had been to rend the text to shreds in a dramatic fit of tearful pique—and unexpected enough that Lestat doesn't snarl and snap at it.
And then 'Akasha', and his glance is sharp. Did he ever say that name to Louis? He must have. Recounted in ignorance. His claws leave little pinpricks in the car paint.
"I suppose we have the Great Laws to thank that you couldn't find her on Wikipedia."
The car jars against something, a stone, and Lestat bullies it over with an irritated shove of strength. "Akasha is the first of us. Our neglectful mother. Are you looking for an introduction?"
Sympathy, mystique, revulsion, romance. A seductive monster that readers are as terrified of as obsessed with. Lestat, before taking his first step towards musical stardom, has a fandom.
Which may end up being the worst thing Daniel's ever done! Oopsy.
"Do you think she'd make a good interview subject?"
Probably not. Armand is the oldest vampire Daniel has interacted with (and that Louis has interacted with, and that Talamasca has ever interacted with), and he was a miserable pain in the ass to wring anything out of. Inhuman in a way Louis and Lestat aren't, yet. What must someone his distant senior be like? Alien beyond Daniel's comprehension?
He's curious, of course. What must that be like.
"I'd just like to know. It's all been a bit like falling into another dimension."
They're near the water, now. Daniel takes a moment to look out into the dark, wide river, and is still a little surprised at just how much he can make out. Assessing the best angle to send it in towards the depths.
Like a stone is alien to the flesh, is the thought that drifts through Daniel's ponderances. She bleeds at her pleasure.
Blood. Information. Acknowledgment. Take your pick.
The car comes to that brief rest, and the air is full of the sounds of water, heightened to their ears, just as all the layers of shadow render the nighttime world in unpaintable, unphotographable beauty. Lestat straightens from his lean against the car, looking at Daniel looking at the river.
"You land on your feet well enough," he says, careless in tone. "Should we credit your maker with anticipating you would?"
Through the water, vampire eyes will be able to pick out where it runs shallow, and deep. A bar of land beneath the surface that drops off steeply is likely the best chance of hiding the whole thing, with enough of a push. Lestat doesn't point it out, not while Daniel is still thinking it through.
"Armand begat Daniel. Marius of ancient Rome begat Armand. And those that begat Marius were servants of our queen, who ruled over a place we now call Egypt." A little shrug, resetting his hands against he end of the car. "There is your origin. A few knots in a long crimson thread."
Daniel skips a rock out onto the river. It's moving water, not the best, but it still hops before sinking.
"Armand," easier, like exposure therapy, "had a tantrum."
Orange eyes watching him from across the room. From an inch away from his face. Hands, careful and horrible, on his face. In Dubai, in San Francisco. Something is always burning. (A tree. A person.)
Not too many degrees in between him and our queen. But he supposes that's the same for all of them, considering these long lives and laws about who gets made. Daniel had a laugh about it, reading the full list that his informants provided him. The Violation Club, he'd said to Louis. All of them.
"Kinda neat." Neat, about all that, yes. What's he supposed to do, ask Lestat why? He's not a child. But he tucks it all away to think about. "Over the shoal, into the deeper part?"
Closer than most, Lestat might say, but he does not actually put so much stock in pedigree, despite his own occasional bragging point, dredged up from the muck. Daniel will either grow into the kind of power that Armand's blood will work on him, in time, or he won't and perhaps he will suffer instead, and so, it doesn't matter. The vampire population has doubled in the last decade, he thinks. It's become all the rage.
"Oui," Lestat says, and they set the car to rolling beneath their hands again. The water, lapping around their ankles. "Glamourous, isn't it."
All this. Alleyway murders, body disposal. For every long night with blood collected in crystalware while he unraveled the egos of his victims like a ball of yarn while dressed in white tie, there were a dozen or more messy scuffles, quick murders in the shadows, bodies dragged across the flagstone.
"There are double the amount of young ones than there were some years ago. It is harder than it ever has been to hide a murder," counter to Armand's claims, unknowingly, "and now this book. It's an exciting time. You haven't asked me what I thought of it."
You know, as a reminder. Maybe Molloy was getting around to it.
Daniel has done some pretty embarrassing murders. Dark corners, public bathrooms; there are fewer flop houses in this day and age, but he still knows enough about big cities to find places where people go to score, and fade. He has, as of yet, not drained anyone high— careful about it, aware he will be pushing himself, but the temptation is there. All the time.
Cold water that doesn't feel as cold as it should. Up to his knees. Shove.
Lestat watches the car roll forwards, sink, tip a little beneath its own imbalance. Content to stand there for a moment and ensure neither of them will have to go for a swim, but beneath the whorl of muck, released gouts of air, the car is finding a soft and muddy landing below.
He looks back to Daniel. Considers lying. Yeah, the Great Conversion, everyone knows.
"I tore my copy into little pieces," he says, pleasantly. "And then purchased another." He turns, starts wading back to shore, the tails of his long coat dragging along through the water. "So I suppose you can say I was a passionate reader."
It would have been an absolutely miserable time if by some twist of fate, Lestat was the vampire that Daniel had stumbled across and had decided to interview. Hours of truly useless audio files of fond anecdote, poetic description, circuitous justification, and probably several meltdowns. Maybe the end product would have worked out to be nearly the same, assuming a skilled editor, and minus the clusterfuck of a riveting plot twist at the end.
He dips a hand into the water as they go, absently cleans one with the other. "And I found it to be clarifying. Of course, flawed. Many glaring errors. But for that, you can hardly be blamed. What is the Great Conversion?"
Daniel has this tone, dry and a little mocking, that is ever-present no matter what he's saying. Part of it is being mortal-old; people just get like this, after a while. But it speaks to a kind of social apathy, too. A lonely old man who has run everyone out. All his books are championing underdog causes, writing about the AIDS crisis and climate change abuse (and now, queer, mostly non-white vampires). He's seen too much of people, seen the truth of too many people.
And yet. In all that. He sounds like he means it. Passion is everything. What do you have, if you don't give a fuck?
"I could always print a revision." :)???? But—
"Apparently, it's a conscious effort on behalf of an unknown sect of vampires to create more and more vampires as a global power play. I've been looking into it, but despite the connections I've made, I still can't verify whether it's legitimate or..." one of his shoes is stuck in mud. Sigh. Splishsplash, he fishes it out, one hand held above water as to not submerge his watch. "Or just some obsessed vampire-watchers finally succumbing to paranoia. Great Laws and all that— doesn't really matter, eventually, the math is going to explode. Nobody's perfect, everyone's going to make a friend or five and not tell the coven cops."
Out onto the shore, a negligent flick of his hands to rid them of water. A laugh at the promise of a revision, and then—
Politics.
Lestat turns back to watch Daniel arrive at the shore, wearing an expression that gets increasingly less impressed with every word. Vampires should simply never make a conscious effort to do anything, he thinks, particularly in large groups, particularly if it involves making more of the fucking things. Distaste curls his lip.
Ugh.
"And I am going to make a guess and say that Louis knew of this Great Conversion," gReAt cOnVeRsIoN, "when he decided to have our love story published and invite everyone around for the bloody afterparty?"
Daniel hasn't figured out how to move things with his mind yet. Or with his vampire mojo. Or whatever does it. Louis hasn't been terribly helpful, about 'gifts', seeming to have no real interest in them himself, even after so many decades. A bit of insight, about producing fire, but Daniel has had little opportunity to focus on it.
About the gReAt cOnVeRsIoN, anyway,
"He used it as a pretense for inviting me to Dubai," Daniel tells him. "An excuse for why he was bothering. But it felt flimsy, and I didn't really believe him, and it just never came up again."
And as such, Daniel has not been inspired to confidence about its legitimacy. Even Armand never mentioned it, never seemed interested, and so Daniel has decided he thinks it's something Louis heard chatter about over vampire brain radio. Perhaps the same for Sam, who forwarded the tip to Talamasca.
"It could be a conspiracy for all I know. Flat earther vampires. Still, I'm gonna keep an eye out."
Maybe the most. In quantity, quality. A reflex, nearly, to dangle a carrot, point out his virtues, but he doesn't linger. What, is he going to take Armand's abandoned fledgling under his wing? He would prefer to adopt the role of fun uncle (or wine aunt) than daddy in this particular instance. Maybe the occasional cool trick.
Depending. Daniel has what he needs to get by, and Lestat moves past it, moves past this talk of Great Conversions, even though it feels to him like it's going to become something he may need to catch up on about, after his long reclusive seventy-seven years. Which brings them to,
"I don't want a revision," and Lestat abruptly in front of Molloy, hands out to touch his leather jacket, straighten it unnecessarily. "Is that how you imagine my story, crammed into the footnotes of another?"
Daniel knows that. Daniel heard (and recorded, and printed) tales of his abuse, his rage, his passionate chaos. Daniel is danger here, perhaps even more than in that alley with two angry opponents wanting to bring him to justice for exposing their world. And yet when Lestat film-edit blinks his way to being there, touching him with a silken threat, he feels energized instead of terrified.
A big problem for him. Always has been. Something looks like it's going to be an awful time and he goes I bet it'd be cool, though. Like leaning against the counter and asking Louis to show him his fangs again. Like fucking drugs.
This'll kill me, maybe, but it'll feel good.
"I don't want to imagine your story," he says, not pulling away. "I want sequels and movies and fucking world tours out of your story."
The absence of dilating pupils, the telltale of being made a mark of any kind, is probably not especially assuring when being regarded this intensely, this closely, with the unearthly glow of pale blue. Warmth never quite gets there, no matter how friendly, how amiable, how charming Lestat might choose to be in a given moment. Not here. Appraising.
But: Daniel says this thing, and the sense of a pending change in mood swings around. A smile, blooming slow, displaying only blunt human teeth, and the hands settled on Daniel's jacket tugs it playfully with the throaty chuckle that follows.
"Now you are speaking my language," he says.
He had meant it. He wants to be on television. If his reference point is a little outdated—MTV is not the influence it was, music videos dominate less screens than they used to, and the kind of godlike reverence he has seen ascribed to celebrities means something different in a world with Twitter beef and a cynical societal literacy of pop culture—the sentiment remains.
He rocks back on his heels, and Daniel doesn't have to brace too much to resist being tugged along by accident, and then he is released.
"I'm working on some things," a pivot, heading further away from the lake. Pausing, as if realising just now they are in the middle of the forest—which is fine, but he tips his head to get a sense of direction as he continues. "You will be sure to keep an eye out."
A sense of brushing close to a nightmare and drifting away. A thrill ride.
"I'm already a fan."
For better or for worse. Daniel should hate him, maybe. But even if Lestat rages against what's there in the book, a person crafted from impressions of others who have the worst of complicated connections, Daniel championed him in the end. He thought about leaving the twist out of it - the same kind of twist he mocked as being out of a soap opera - but maybe he was too proud of breaking the case. Too offended, somehow, on Lestat's behalf. He felt like a fictional character.
He has his list of complaints. His objections, some of which question themselves all over again in light of perspective, time, even guilt, and others are blaring, rageful, the scattered remains of torn pages. A symphony of feeling. The story of his turning now escaping containment, escaping him, out into the world to do what it wants. The structure of the chronicle itself, one bad thing after the next.
And then, Louis' words. Louis' clarity. Louis in New Orleans, who was not merely passing through. Later, Lestat may revel in having a fandom, may seek comfort in the notoriety while choking on it, may wear villainy as a costume, as inspiration, but for now, it's enough that the one person in the whole world who matters to him seems to have benefited the most from Molloy's championing.
And he doesn't hate having a fan.
A turn before he heads into the shadows, a mock bow, and then, even to trained vampire eyes, vanishing into the trees as swift as a jaguar. Again, it would be much cooler of him to leave it there. It's the crushing loneliness that ruins it.
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no subject
Well, it would be a shame to terminate a friendship too quickly at the expense of Armand, if Daniel is feeling some kind of way, and who could blame him? Lestat had wept after Magnus died. He smokes, breathes it out through his nose in a chuckled flutter.
"The stupidity is medieval superstition enduring. From what I have managed to learn," which is not a terrible lot, says his tone of voice, "it is a cult, one that does not extend as far back as our origins. These laws are not commandments written by the Devil himself, handed to the first vampire, although they may pretend at it. Our kind is older than any of that."
A shrug. "But there is nothing else. No other order, no other court. Just the mercy of what ancients persist, and the safety of a pack."
no subject
It's fine. If he's a little off about it, whatever. Posting through it.
(Eating people through it.)
"The logic," and he draws circles in the air with his index finger, lazily, "doesn't work for me, even if it's just superstition. How can you believe you're damned, if your laws come from the Devil? First he's the warden of God's prison, now he's ordaining codes of conduct to terrestrial demons? But none of that's ever made sense to me in the first place. To believe in God is to believe God is an idiot, and what's the point."
Perhaps a little philosophizing can be forgiven (hah), seeing as he hasn't had a chance to do much of it quite like this. They are near the woods now, and Daniel is careful in his offroad navigation. This junker wasn't made for it even when it was new. An adventure!
"Our origins. Do you know much about it?"
'Akasha' did not make it into the final draft of the book. Daniel had gathered little bits and pieces, but between Louis' disinterest, Armand's silence, and Talamasca's limited intel, he just wasn't left with enough to warrant its inclusion.
no subject
Daniel pulls focus for the last thing, an innocuous and logical kind of question to leap to that nonetheless has Lestat smile as he considers it.
"I don't know if I can say, you haven't said off the record yet. You've been coy in your appearances about a second book and the world is watching."
Both worlds, in fact.
no subject
Too bad about so much of Lestat's life going out without his permission, but how would he say it, c'est la vie, and—
"Did you ever see 'Rashomon'?"
There's one sure fire way to set the record straight, and that would be holding the second book hostage with his own interview. Regardless, they're doing something else at this moment. Daniel would prefer all on the record discussions happen while he isn't actively committing any crimes.
Thunkthunk, the car rattles.
"Damn. Alright, well, we're pretty close." He can hear the river in a way a human can't. He can hear something else, too, maybe a person? But distant enough that their paths hopefully don't cross. Daniel lets the car trundle to a stop, foot on the brake while he shifts it into neutral. It's get out and push from here. "Got any more of those?"
Cigarettes, he means.
no subject
And Lestat exits the car, the vehicle swaying with the action as if he were five times heavier. Out into the woodlands that, to his senses, feel meagre and nondescript compared to some of the wildernesses he has gotten to know in his life, but breathes it in anyway as he pitches aside his now finished cigarette.
He had already decided to forgive Daniel the publication of his book, its contents. Decided it when he'd viewed him doing his interviews, saw the signs of vampirism. How could he decide otherwise? Good for him. And it brought Louis back to him, at least when it mattered most. He is being gracious in his old age, it's true.
And yet.
Lestat moves around to the back of the car.
"I did not see 'Rashomon'."
no subject
"Rashomon," getting a grip on the back of the car, "is a movie about a thing that happens, and the different perspectives it's told from, none of which are the same. It's different than an 'unreliable narrator', because for real people outside of literary devices, perspective is truth."
Push, push. The car trundles along, like it weighs as much is a bicycle.
"And of course, an unreliable narrator is different than a liar."
Everything locked away in his head, but imperfectly: impossible, when he thinks of it, not to see in crystal clear HD 4k, every detail permanently burned into his brain with vicious triumph, the look of devastation and terror on Armand's face the moment he realized that Daniel knew, and that Louis was going to believe him.
"What's my point, anyway. I just mean— maybe there'll be a sequel, if there's anything else to add. Or maybe I'll get so addicted to money that I'll just make some shit up."
Yeah right. Daniel used Lestat like a grenade and pulled the pin while maintaining eye contact. The fear-adrenaline-victory rush of getting to the truest, least kaleidoscoped version of the truth is better than any drug. On the record or off it, he's always going to ask.
no subject
A very satisfying execution to witness. He laughs, both a response to banter, as well as the rush he can feel that scores this memory bright and vivid into record.
"Then I will tell you, I have met our origins. I have partaken in its blood."
Something faintly ridiculous about even brushing against this subject while trundling a car along the backwoods of Atlanta to hide the evidence of an okay dinner, but there's been little opportunity for graceful landings over the past several decades.
"And although your revelatory text casts me as the narcissistic untrustworthy manipulator, among others," because let's give credit where credit is due, Armand didn't make it out great, "I have never lied when asked for my story."
no subject
"The best role in any story is always the villain," he says. It's not an insult or an accusation, and hopefully he's not walking out onto a lake covered in deceptively thin ice by traversing this path. "Especially if you can sympathize with him. You got the good part. I tried for it in my own autobiography, and just came out tacky and too self-aware."
But it sold. And Louis liked it. (Why does that matter? Ah, well.)
"Our origins, its blood. 'Akasha'?" Back to pushing. (The car, the subject.) "An old Sanskrit word applied to cosmology, the thing that makes space and room for existence. Hard for cosmology to bleed, so I'm guessing that's an actual name."
no subject
An agitated toss of his head to re-sit tangled waves as they roll the car along. Sympathy. Is that what the book has given him, in its portrayals? It's a difficult thing to stomach, when his first instinct had been to rend the text to shreds in a dramatic fit of tearful pique—and unexpected enough that Lestat doesn't snarl and snap at it.
And then 'Akasha', and his glance is sharp. Did he ever say that name to Louis? He must have. Recounted in ignorance. His claws leave little pinpricks in the car paint.
"I suppose we have the Great Laws to thank that you couldn't find her on Wikipedia."
The car jars against something, a stone, and Lestat bullies it over with an irritated shove of strength. "Akasha is the first of us. Our neglectful mother. Are you looking for an introduction?"
no subject
Which may end up being the worst thing Daniel's ever done! Oopsy.
"Do you think she'd make a good interview subject?"
Probably not. Armand is the oldest vampire Daniel has interacted with (and that Louis has interacted with, and that Talamasca has ever interacted with), and he was a miserable pain in the ass to wring anything out of. Inhuman in a way Louis and Lestat aren't, yet. What must someone his distant senior be like? Alien beyond Daniel's comprehension?
He's curious, of course. What must that be like.
"I'd just like to know. It's all been a bit like falling into another dimension."
They're near the water, now. Daniel takes a moment to look out into the dark, wide river, and is still a little surprised at just how much he can make out. Assessing the best angle to send it in towards the depths.
no subject
Blood. Information. Acknowledgment. Take your pick.
The car comes to that brief rest, and the air is full of the sounds of water, heightened to their ears, just as all the layers of shadow render the nighttime world in unpaintable, unphotographable beauty. Lestat straightens from his lean against the car, looking at Daniel looking at the river.
"You land on your feet well enough," he says, careless in tone. "Should we credit your maker with anticipating you would?"
Through the water, vampire eyes will be able to pick out where it runs shallow, and deep. A bar of land beneath the surface that drops off steeply is likely the best chance of hiding the whole thing, with enough of a push. Lestat doesn't point it out, not while Daniel is still thinking it through.
"Armand begat Daniel. Marius of ancient Rome begat Armand. And those that begat Marius were servants of our queen, who ruled over a place we now call Egypt." A little shrug, resetting his hands against he end of the car. "There is your origin. A few knots in a long crimson thread."
no subject
"Armand," easier, like exposure therapy, "had a tantrum."
Orange eyes watching him from across the room. From an inch away from his face. Hands, careful and horrible, on his face. In Dubai, in San Francisco. Something is always burning. (A tree. A person.)
Not too many degrees in between him and our queen. But he supposes that's the same for all of them, considering these long lives and laws about who gets made. Daniel had a laugh about it, reading the full list that his informants provided him. The Violation Club, he'd said to Louis. All of them.
"Kinda neat." Neat, about all that, yes. What's he supposed to do, ask Lestat why? He's not a child. But he tucks it all away to think about. "Over the shoal, into the deeper part?"
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"Oui," Lestat says, and they set the car to rolling beneath their hands again. The water, lapping around their ankles. "Glamourous, isn't it."
All this. Alleyway murders, body disposal. For every long night with blood collected in crystalware while he unraveled the egos of his victims like a ball of yarn while dressed in white tie, there were a dozen or more messy scuffles, quick murders in the shadows, bodies dragged across the flagstone.
"There are double the amount of young ones than there were some years ago. It is harder than it ever has been to hide a murder," counter to Armand's claims, unknowingly, "and now this book. It's an exciting time. You haven't asked me what I thought of it."
You know, as a reminder. Maybe Molloy was getting around to it.
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Cold water that doesn't feel as cold as it should. Up to his knees. Shove.
"You haven't heard of the Great Conversion?"
Hey what.
Anyway. He looks at Lestat.
"Did you like it?"
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He looks back to Daniel. Considers lying. Yeah, the Great Conversion, everyone knows.
"I tore my copy into little pieces," he says, pleasantly. "And then purchased another." He turns, starts wading back to shore, the tails of his long coat dragging along through the water. "So I suppose you can say I was a passionate reader."
It would have been an absolutely miserable time if by some twist of fate, Lestat was the vampire that Daniel had stumbled across and had decided to interview. Hours of truly useless audio files of fond anecdote, poetic description, circuitous justification, and probably several meltdowns. Maybe the end product would have worked out to be nearly the same, assuming a skilled editor, and minus the clusterfuck of a riveting plot twist at the end.
He dips a hand into the water as they go, absently cleans one with the other. "And I found it to be clarifying. Of course, flawed. Many glaring errors. But for that, you can hardly be blamed. What is the Great Conversion?"
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Daniel has this tone, dry and a little mocking, that is ever-present no matter what he's saying. Part of it is being mortal-old; people just get like this, after a while. But it speaks to a kind of social apathy, too. A lonely old man who has run everyone out. All his books are championing underdog causes, writing about the AIDS crisis and climate change abuse (and now, queer, mostly non-white vampires). He's seen too much of people, seen the truth of too many people.
And yet. In all that. He sounds like he means it. Passion is everything. What do you have, if you don't give a fuck?
"I could always print a revision." :)???? But—
"Apparently, it's a conscious effort on behalf of an unknown sect of vampires to create more and more vampires as a global power play. I've been looking into it, but despite the connections I've made, I still can't verify whether it's legitimate or..." one of his shoes is stuck in mud. Sigh. Splishsplash, he fishes it out, one hand held above water as to not submerge his watch. "Or just some obsessed vampire-watchers finally succumbing to paranoia. Great Laws and all that— doesn't really matter, eventually, the math is going to explode. Nobody's perfect, everyone's going to make a friend or five and not tell the coven cops."
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Politics.
Lestat turns back to watch Daniel arrive at the shore, wearing an expression that gets increasingly less impressed with every word. Vampires should simply never make a conscious effort to do anything, he thinks, particularly in large groups, particularly if it involves making more of the fucking things. Distaste curls his lip.
Ugh.
"And I am going to make a guess and say that Louis knew of this Great Conversion," gReAt cOnVeRsIoN, "when he decided to have our love story published and invite everyone around for the bloody afterparty?"
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Daniel hasn't figured out how to move things with his mind yet. Or with his vampire mojo. Or whatever does it. Louis hasn't been terribly helpful, about 'gifts', seeming to have no real interest in them himself, even after so many decades. A bit of insight, about producing fire, but Daniel has had little opportunity to focus on it.
About the gReAt cOnVeRsIoN, anyway,
"He used it as a pretense for inviting me to Dubai," Daniel tells him. "An excuse for why he was bothering. But it felt flimsy, and I didn't really believe him, and it just never came up again."
And as such, Daniel has not been inspired to confidence about its legitimacy. Even Armand never mentioned it, never seemed interested, and so Daniel has decided he thinks it's something Louis heard chatter about over vampire brain radio. Perhaps the same for Sam, who forwarded the tip to Talamasca.
"It could be a conspiracy for all I know. Flat earther vampires. Still, I'm gonna keep an eye out."
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Maybe the most. In quantity, quality. A reflex, nearly, to dangle a carrot, point out his virtues, but he doesn't linger. What, is he going to take Armand's abandoned fledgling under his wing? He would prefer to adopt the role of fun uncle (or wine aunt) than daddy in this particular instance. Maybe the occasional cool trick.
Depending. Daniel has what he needs to get by, and Lestat moves past it, moves past this talk of Great Conversions, even though it feels to him like it's going to become something he may need to catch up on about, after his long reclusive seventy-seven years. Which brings them to,
"I don't want a revision," and Lestat abruptly in front of Molloy, hands out to touch his leather jacket, straighten it unnecessarily. "Is that how you imagine my story, crammed into the footnotes of another?"
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Daniel knows that. Daniel heard (and recorded, and printed) tales of his abuse, his rage, his passionate chaos. Daniel is danger here, perhaps even more than in that alley with two angry opponents wanting to bring him to justice for exposing their world. And yet when Lestat film-edit blinks his way to being there, touching him with a silken threat, he feels energized instead of terrified.
A big problem for him. Always has been. Something looks like it's going to be an awful time and he goes I bet it'd be cool, though. Like leaning against the counter and asking Louis to show him his fangs again. Like fucking drugs.
This'll kill me, maybe, but it'll feel good.
"I don't want to imagine your story," he says, not pulling away. "I want sequels and movies and fucking world tours out of your story."
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But: Daniel says this thing, and the sense of a pending change in mood swings around. A smile, blooming slow, displaying only blunt human teeth, and the hands settled on Daniel's jacket tugs it playfully with the throaty chuckle that follows.
"Now you are speaking my language," he says.
He had meant it. He wants to be on television. If his reference point is a little outdated—MTV is not the influence it was, music videos dominate less screens than they used to, and the kind of godlike reverence he has seen ascribed to celebrities means something different in a world with Twitter beef and a cynical societal literacy of pop culture—the sentiment remains.
He rocks back on his heels, and Daniel doesn't have to brace too much to resist being tugged along by accident, and then he is released.
"I'm working on some things," a pivot, heading further away from the lake. Pausing, as if realising just now they are in the middle of the forest—which is fine, but he tips his head to get a sense of direction as he continues. "You will be sure to keep an eye out."
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"I'm already a fan."
For better or for worse. Daniel should hate him, maybe. But even if Lestat rages against what's there in the book, a person crafted from impressions of others who have the worst of complicated connections, Daniel championed him in the end. He thought about leaving the twist out of it - the same kind of twist he mocked as being out of a soap opera - but maybe he was too proud of breaking the case. Too offended, somehow, on Lestat's behalf. He felt like a fictional character.
What a night.
"Thanks for the rescue, Lestat."
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And then, Louis' words. Louis' clarity. Louis in New Orleans, who was not merely passing through. Later, Lestat may revel in having a fandom, may seek comfort in the notoriety while choking on it, may wear villainy as a costume, as inspiration, but for now, it's enough that the one person in the whole world who matters to him seems to have benefited the most from Molloy's championing.
And he doesn't hate having a fan.
A turn before he heads into the shadows, a mock bow, and then, even to trained vampire eyes, vanishing into the trees as swift as a jaguar. Again, it would be much cooler of him to leave it there. It's the crushing loneliness that ruins it.