Chapter Text
Eating is important, obviously.
It's important to humans, it's important to vampires, there's no questioning the matter. But it's absolutely crucial in times like these.
Ever since the book came out there has been this huge discourse amongst readers. Did Louis eat the baby? Daniel sees and hears it everywhere. It's on twitter, there are video essays, fans ask him personally at book signings, he literally can't escape it. Whenever Daniel is confronted with the question he'll usually say that it's 'up for debate' or something vague like that. Because, frankly, he doesn't really care. He supposes there's some element of mystery to it, but he never understood how that could be someone's sole takeaway after reading the book. He's decided not to bother Louis with it either. Especially considering they both have had plenty of other stuff to deal with since the interview ended. What it did teach him though is that a vampire, especially one of Daniel's age, should make sure to eat before any 'human affairs'.
For once, Daniel was thankful to wake up to over twenty DMs inquiring about the baby ordeal. If it wasn't for them he could've very easily forgotten, which would've really messed up the family reunion he was hoping for.
Daniel stands over a body. He's underneath a bridge somewhere more unfrequented than the busy streets near his house. It's a great place for hunting. There's this cavity in the wall, behind some rubble, roughly 10 feet deep. Daniel imagines it was probably meant to become a tunnel for a sewer system at some point. Thankfully for him, it never got finished, leaving a pretty good spot to dump bodies.
He disposes of the body and makes sure to close the hole back up with the rocks that had been there before. Eating has taken the edge off of Daniel's nerves for the time being, he feels relaxed enough to move at an acceptable human speed, which he hadn't done much since his cleaning craze began. Sleeping has also helped. It might've worked even better if he went to sleep at a normal time instead of staying on that couch for as long as he did, but hindsight is 20/20. The point is, he feels better about the upcoming events than he did yesterday.
He gives his clothes a once-over, considering this would really not be the time to have more shit to clean. Amazingly, he's looking pretty presentable. He does another once-over, so it's technically a twice-over, then one more, so it's actually a full inspection. But he finds nothing out of the ordinary. He's getting pretty good at this. His face might have a little more than the acceptable amount of blood on it but he can easily clean that off with the bottled water which he carries around for that exact purpose. After that, he looks perfectly fine.
He checks his watch and sees that it's nearly 10PM. That leaves him enough time to get home before Rachel arrives and little to no extra time to start freaking out about the fact that she's coming over. He planned it that way on purpose, knowing himself enough to know that he spirals in prolonged periods of boredom, yesterday night being a perfect example.
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When he gets home the first thing he does after closing his front door is standing still on the doormat, his back to the door. From there he looks over the apartment. It's one last chance to fix anything that might be out of place. When he doesn't immediately see anything, he starts slowly walking through the place. He repeatedly takes one or two steps at a time before standing still to look around. He imagines he probably looks like a burglar creeping through the living room, careful of setting off alarms. That is, a burglar who also seems to be weirdly obsessed with rearranging decorative pillows on a couch. Halfway to the kitchen he starts thinking that maybe he should've stayed outside a little longer, this is starting to look bad in terms of not-spiraling. For now though, maybe he should move that chair a little to the righ--
There's a knock at the door.
Daniels first thought is thank god. He felt like he was going to go crazy if he had to spend one more minute with himself. That thought, however, is almost immediately followed by a string of panicked curses to himself. He checks his watch again. 10:17 PM. This is either a terribly timed neighbor asking for a cup of sugar or it's actually Rachel.
All the confidence Daniel had built up earlier seems to fly out the window as he turns to face the door. There's a pit in his stomach and his legs suddenly feel heavy. The sound of the clock ticking is the loudest in the room, drowning out the sound of his own footsteps as he slowly nears the entryway. It's awkward if anything, approaching his own front door as if it were something dangerous, in complete silence. How about you just get it over with? The last reasonable piece of Daniel decides that that's probably the best course of action if he ever wants to get that door open. He takes a deep breath like he's about to jump into a pool and then dives in head first.
Rachel startles when the door opens. "Hey, dad," she says. Her hand is raised, as if about to knock a second time (Daniel might've taken a bit too long to actually get to the door). She lowers it. She's wearing a long coat over a navy sweater. Her hair is pulled back into a ponytail and she's holding a brown leather purse.
"Hey Rach," Daniel smiles, "sorry I was just cleaning up a bit."
"That's fine, can I come in?"
"Yeah, of course, come on in."
Daniel moves out of the way, letting Rachel walk past him, and closes the door.
"Did you just get in?" Rachel says while she walks through the living room. She looks around, like Daniel had earlier, but she doesn't seem to be inspecting as much as he was. It has been a while since she was here, Daniel supposes she's just taking everything in. Daniel doesn't properly register her question until she turns to him and gestures to the jacket he's still wearing.
"Oh! Yeah I was uhm, arranging some meetings for a new project, got back here just 15 minutes or so ago." Truthful enough.
Rachel seems to be surprised by that. "You're starting a new project?" she asks.
"Well, it's not definitive yet, very early stages. There's still a lot of things to work out. Bit of a difficult.. client." Not a lie. The rumored world tour has only been mentioned a couple of times but Daniel is sure Lestat won't be the easiest to work with if it does happen. Not that Daniel isn't up for that challenge. Meanwhile, Rachel is looking at some picture frames on the TV stand.
"Right. You've been working a lot then?" There's something different in her tone. Daniel can't quite make out what it is. It sounds a little uneasy, or maybe nervous. Nervous would be okay, it would make sense, he wouldn't need to read into that because he'd know where it comes from. God knows Daniel is nervous as hell. So he lets it be. He should really hang up this jacket.
"Uhm, yeah, you know, I'm just trying to keep busy. Do you want something to drink? I have coffee somewhere." Daniel moves to the kitchen and starts digging in a cabinet.
"It's just.. there!" He pulls out a pack of coffee pods and holds them up to Rachel. He still has a Nespresso machine that hasn't been used in a long time. It probably still work fine.
Rachel looks at the dust on the machine. She puts that together with the unopened pack of coffee pods that was all the way at the back of the cabinet and comes to a conclusion, "You don't drink coffee anymore?" She comes to lean against the counter. Daniel wants to make a joke about how she'd make a good detective (or investigative journalist) but he decides this isn't the time.
"No, not really. Cutting back on caffeine lately, I guess. Can't hurt right?" Daniel struggles with the buttons on the coffee machine.
Rachel doesn't reply, instead she watches Daniel look for a mug with an uncomfortable expression. Daniel notices she's impatiently tapping her fingers on her arm before finally saying, "You really don't have to bother with the coffee, dad, I'm fine. Can we just sit down?" She angles her head towards the living room.
"Are you sure? This shouldn't take long, I just have to put the thing in," Daniel gestures to the coffee pods, "or I can just get you a glass of water if you want. It's really no trouble"
"Let's go sit down," Rachel insists.
"Sure, okay."
Daniel puts the coffee and the mug away before letting Rachel lead the way to the living room. Rachel puts her bag down next to the couch, she shrugs off her coat and folds it over her lap as she sits. Daniel sits down on a chair opposite her. It's quiet. Daniel doesn't do well in quiet. He tells himself to say something.
"So," Daniel starts, "are you in town for work?"
"No, I'm just sort of visiting. I'm staying at a friend's house for a bit, she lives not too far from here so I thought I'd stop by, since I'm here anyway."
"That's nice of you, Rach. It's good to see you."
Rachel crosses her legs and rests her hands on top of each other. "I saw you on TV." She says slowly.
"Oh. Yeah, I published a new book. I'm wrapping up the press for it at the moment. I did a segment on a talk show, I think that's what you mean."
"I didn't know you were still writing, you were talking about retiring a couple months ago." Rachel frowns. A polite frown, somehow. Daniel knows that look from other people, it's typically accompanied by bad news and apologies to follow. He doesn't know what it means on Rachel's face.
"Well, I was considering it for a bit. I didn't think anything new would come along, you know. But then-" this vampire I knew in the 70s but didn't remember at all asked me to interview him again, "- someone reached out with an idea and it seemed like a great gig. It's not like I was doing anything else at the time. And I'm actually pretty proud of what came out of it."
Rachel nods thoughtfully before saying, "It's very different from your other work, from what I could tell."
"I didn't know you read my work," he smiles but the joke doesn't land.
"You seem different."
Daniel's smile fades. "What?"
Rachel goes quiet for a while. Daniel can see on her face how she experiments with different sentences in her head. She crosses her legs to the other side and tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. He can see her get frustrated when she can't find the right words, something he very much recognizes in himself. She chews the inside of her cheek.
Finally she says, "I just wanted to know how you're doing." It shows in her furrowed eyebrows that those weren't the right words either. Daniel is confused.
"Rach, I'm doing good. I really like the work I'm doing, honestly it's been-"
"I wanted to know if you've been to a doctor," Rachel cuts in.
For a moment, Daniel can see a flash of relief on her face. A quick second of peace, like she'd been holding on to those words for a long time and is now finally letting them go. Daniel wonders how long she had been holding on to that sentiment. Soon after, the relief fades and something depressing replaces it. The same expression that Daniel wasn't able to place before. Something clicks in Daniel's head. Rachel is worried for him. The room goes quiet. Daniel slowly shakes his head, more to himself than to her.
"Rachel,"
"I just need you to tell me. I need to know if there's anything.." She doesn't finish her sentence. As if speaking it out loud would manifest it into existence. Everything she does say is said as calmly as possible. It's unclear whether that's for her or for Daniel's sake.
"No, what- Rachel, why would you ask that?" He doesn't mean for that to come out as offended as it did. Daniel leans forward in his chair, resting his forearms on his legs.
"I thought you weren't working anymore. You told me just a couple months ago you were taking things 'moderately slow' for once. You said you wanted to retire. But then I see you on TV talking about a brand new book and you're preaching about vampires. And now you're saying you want to start a new project. It just seems like a lot right now."
"That's why you came over?"
"I needed to talk to you in person. To make sure you're weren't," Rachel vaguely waves her hand in his direction, "I don't even know. To make sure there isn't anything to worry about." She stops herself when she notices her own voice getting louder. She takes a moment, rubs her hand over her forehead and sighs. "God knows you wouldn't tell anyone if there was."
Daniel says nothing because it's true. Unlike Rachel, he knows that for a fact. When he got diagnosed with Parkinson's disease he made it a point to keep it hidden. He told himself it was a private matter, no need to go advertising it. He didn't tell his family, he didn't tell his kids. But he told his publicist. At the moment, he can't think of anything more pathetic.
"If there is something," Rachel looks at the floor, "or if there's anything you need I can-"
Daniel's head snaps up, "No. I don't want you taking care of me."
"Dad, if you're sick, you need-"
"No, Rachel, stop it." Daniel urges. This is going way too fast. "I'm not sick, it's not like that. I'm fine!" He hears himself sound angry. He takes a step back and exhales. They shouldn't be having this conversation, not now that his hands are steady. Daniel pinches the bridge of his nose. He thinks about how this conversation would have gone had he still been sick. He feels nauseous.
"I'm sorry." Rachel says carefully.
Daniel breathes, "No, it's okay."
"I needed to be sure."
"I know," he says calmly. "Rachel, I don't want you to come here because you feel any sort of obligation to care for me... But I'd like it if you visited. Just to say hi."
It's quiet again. Daniel's words sit undisturbed in open air. Rachel looks down at the carpet.
"I think I should go." She says, getting up and grabbing her bag.
Daniel doesn't argue. He silently nods and gets up to see her out. Rachel makes her way to the door and puts on her coat while walking. Daniel leans his shoulder against the wall a few feet away, giving her some space. Rachel reaches for the doorknob but stops before opening the door. She slowly turns around to face Daniel
Hesitantly she says, "I can stop by next week. Just for coffee."
Daniel's eyes widen. He stands up straight and fails to hide a smile. "That sounds great."
Rachel returns a small smile and says, "Bye, dad."
"I'll see you then."