Chapter Text
It’s a bad day.
For his body, to be more specific. Daniel doesn’t really remember the last time he had a good day, least of all since touching down in Dubai. Good days are for people younger than him, for people who don’t have medical records that look like novellas, and most especially for people who don’t spend their rapidly dwindling days playing therapist to goddamn vampires.
(Therapist is most definitely an overstatement—but hey, he’s been to at least a couple of bad ones.)
His sleep is disordered to hell and back anyway (again—goddamn vampires) but he slept like shit, even by recent metrics. Maybe it’s the Parkinson’s, he’s pretty sure there’s a section on sleep in the pamphlet his doctor gave him that’s crumpled somewhere in the bottom of a drawer back home, but either way, the interview doesn’t help. It’s Claudia. Every night they get a little closer to the end of her story, like steps in a funeral procession. Daniel knew she was dead, but even if he hadn’t, he would have seen the writing on the wall by now, written in the dark and winding streets of Paris. He’s a storyteller, and he knows a tragedy when he sees one.
It’s fucked. Of course it is, they’re vampires, what else did he expect? But it weighs on him, scratching against all the aching sentimentality of a father. Claudia wouldn’t appreciate him thinking of her like a little girl, but blame it on Louis’ retelling. Blame it on the fact that maybe one bad father understands another a little too well.
The point is that he’s exhausted, and trying to drown it out with caffeine is making it worse, not better. His right hand keeps trembling no matter how hard he tries to subtly press his wrist against his laptop, like he can squeeze the tremors out. It doesn’t work, and his pathetic attempts to hide it don’t work either, they were never going to (not especially when his hosts can read minds—hey, can you hear this? fuck you), and that only makes his sour mood worse. Sometimes the cadence of the interview almost blurs the edges of time, so that he’s of two minds, one following Louis’ footsteps and the other watching from a distance, separating the storyteller from the story with a trained eye as sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel. Other times, today, he feels like he’s barely a mind at all, but just a body. And a failing one at that.
Armand shifts his head toward Louis. “Perhaps we should take a break,” he suggests lightly, and Daniel feels as though that last thought has been captured like a fly in a glue trap.
And it pisses him off. He would say it’s because of the mind reading, annoying habit that it is, but he knows really it’s his own shame that burns him (remember those bad therapists? he did pay attention). Bad enough to be subjected to the whims of his own rebelling body. Worse to be expected to bend to the tactfully unspoken pity of a vampire. Daniel wishes Armand had called out his shaking hand instead. Better than being treated like Thing One and Thing Two’s tottering old peepaw.
“I’m fine,” Daniel says pointedly, flashing a tight smile as he adjusts how he’s sitting so that he can lean forward, his wrist pressed harder against the edge of his laptop. He curls his traitorous fingers in on his palm, but his hand still shakes. He ignores it. His eyes shift back to Louis. “You were saying?”
Louis’ eyes narrow fractionally, but it’s Armand that butts in again, each word arched and delicate. “Your doctor can be called, if necessary.”
“I don’t need a doctor,” he bites out. The computer screen blurs a little and he wants to rub at his eyes (he wants to take a nap and wake up without the headache pressing behind his eyes) but he doesn’t Armand to think he’s right. He’s already latched onto this like a dog with a bone and it’s hard to tell if he’s mocking him with it or legitimately concerned Daniel will keel over before he can finish the interview.
“If you need—”
“I said I’m fine, Alice,” Daniel snaps, and time itself grinds to a halt.
Not literally. Ha. The things you have to specify with vampires. Daniel wishes he could laugh, but the sound is stuck somewhere in his throat, along with his heart. Now, of course, his hand chooses to be perfectly still.
Why the fuck did he say that?
Armand is just staring at him, his lips parted, his eyes wide, though when aren’t they? A part of Daniel thinks he does it on purpose to be perturbing, or maybe just to make sure you notice the color. Orange-red-very-nearly-brown. They remind him of red agate or tiger’s eye, never quite just one color. Stratified from too many years spent under the earth.
“Sorry about that,” Daniel drawls a beat too late, his mouth dry. “You know, divorce—old habits die hard.” He directs the last part at Louis, trying to find an ally there. Price of admission: an off-color joke about Lestat. Ha. No one is laughing.
“You’re sure you’re doing okay, Daniel?” Louis asks slowly, leaning forward a little. Like he really is concerned. Maybe he should be. Daniel isn’t the one who spent his golden years hallucinating his dead ex around Paris, but yeah, no, sure. Maybe he should be.
There’s a point where fighting it only makes you look worse. Something about a cornered animal or a dying dog. He can’t really come up with an apt metaphor right now. His head is killing him.
“Yeah, I’ll uh—” He clears his throat and closes his laptop. An actor bowing out. “Maybe I’ll take that break after all.”
*
What the fuck was that, Danny?
He splashes his face with water and presses his trembling fingers against his eyelids until color blooms against the darkness. Privacy is a joke here and it would be naive to pretend otherwise, but at least the bathroom attached to his borrowed room lets him pretend. Armand and Louis took the excuse for a break to go do—something about art and time zones and a Zoom call with a prospective buyer. Daniel isn’t sure he believes any of it, but he’s happy to be left alone, and the less he thinks about vampires using Zoom, the better.
He drops his hands and leans against the ultra-modern sink, leaning close to the mirror so he can consider himself without his glasses on. The picture it paints isn’t flattering, even with the soft blur of far-sightedness softening the edges (that’s a joke, his optometrist would say he’s not anything-sightedness at this point). The too-bright lights above the sink make him look pale and washed out, his wrinkles deeper and the circles under his eyes darker. Look at that. You got old, Danny.
But this old? Fuck. Senile old? Enough to slip and call the vampire Armand the name of his ex-wife. There’s an off-color joke in there somewhere, certainly misogynistic, probably a little homophobic too. The kind of thing they don’t put on TV anymore. Not the sort of thing you should laugh at, but he’d get anything to feel anything other than nauseous.
He should have known this would happen. His father had dementia. He wasn’t that much older than Daniel is now when it first started setting in, like mold spores bubbling up to the surface, corrupting everything underneath it. Daniel had watched him forget. He’d gotten mean, but his dad was always a bit mean. Then again, so was Daniel. Molloy men. Real pieces of shit.
The sink reverberates with the impact as he pounds his fist against it—just once, sharp and sudden—and pain radiates up his wrist where it struck the corner of the marble. Fuck. It’ll bruise, everything bruises at this age, but that’s okay. It’s easier to focus on the bright glow of pain than the dread clawing at him from the inside with heavy hands. He already knows his body is failing him. He knew even before the diagnosis, in the same way dogs know when it’s time to crawl away and die. You can tell when something isn’t right.
But his mind? Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He punctuates each one, pounding his fist against the sink, until he’s afraid that he’ll split the skin and he won’t be able to stop Armand from calling the stupid fucking doctor. The insidious crawl toward understanding the truth of what happened in San Francisco had been one thing. That had been remembering. This feels like the first uneven steps toward forgetting.
Daniel forces a shaky exhale. He’s got time. He saw what happened to dear old Dad, and it wasn’t overnight. Maybe it’d have been easier if it was. Time enough to finish the interview. To finish the book even, though God knows if it’ll be good. That’s what editors are for anyway. Thank Christ.
He lifts his head, abruptly convinced that there’s someone standing outside of the bathroom door. One of his hosts, wondering what all the racket was about? Or maybe they just sent Real Rashid to make sure he didn’t pass out next to the toilet. He waits, his eyes slanted sideways but the world still blurred without his glasses.
Nothing happens. He really is losing his mind.
*
Whoever-the-hell is interested in whatever-the-fuck they’re selling and the rest of the night’s session is postponed, which is definitely a pity-raincheck, but Daniel is too exhausted to care. He takes two sleeping pills and submerges himself in the overly-plush duvet that he’d hated when he first arrived but is starting to come around to now. He drops off into sleep without turning off the light, but not before digging up a couple of those brain game apps from dusty folders of his phone. It’s all a bit like flossing for the first time the night before the dentist appointment.
The next day they pick up where they left off. His hosts are polite enough not to mention the mottled bruise that peeks out over the inside of his wrist even though he wore a long-sleeved button down today in a poor attempt to hide it. It shows anyway, and he feels like he’s ten years old sitting next to his grandmother in a church pew. Real lose-lose situation.
“Fell,” he says dryly, with a half-aborted sort of gesture. Casual. Yeah, real fucking casual. “Clumsy ol’ me.”
Armand looks at him with half-hooded eyes and Daniel can tell that he doesn't believe a damn thing he says, which is fun, because the feeling is mutual. “It could be a sign of progression of your illness,” he suggests. “You should consider allowing your doctor to see you sooner.”
Consider my ass. Armand doesn't give any indication of having heard him, except to blink. “I’ll think about it,” Daniel says shortly, because even medicated his sleep had been restless and he doesn’t really have anything more clever in him.
Louis, at least, is eager to jump back into his story. Louis, who lingers in the past like it’s a warm bath, like he wishes the water would close over his head. Some people find solace in the past. Some people find it too soured by all the regrets, the fuck ups, and the missteps. As far as those things though, Daniel thinks the former is probably better than the latter. Must be nice.
They’re sitting in the dining room, Daniel at the head of the table, some sort of fancy salad in front of him. He wishes it were a burger—he’s spent enough time abroad to realize that at some point the American spirit requires a periodic dose of grease to thrive—but he doesn’t want to bother asking for it. He did ask for a coffee, at least, the caffeine like a lifeline. Just listen. Forget all that shit yesterday. Do your damn job, Molloy, it’s the one thing you’re good for.
It’s easier said than done, if only because Armand is in his field of vision, sitting next to Louis, though fortunately in his own chair—the sickeningly sweet couple schtick only lasted so long, guess it wasn’t worth the effort once Daniel was clearly unimpressed. Today he’s clearly annoyed as Louis takes a detour back into Lestat territory, and not making all that much effort to hide it. Or maybe it’s just obvious to Daniel. He has the same tell that Alice did.
No. Don’t you fucking think about Alice again. Why would he? It’s strange for her to come up twice in as many days. Of his own volition, not through a vampire rooting around in his brain—or worse, in his book. Maybe if he’d paid this much attention to her during their marriage it wouldn’t have ended.
But it is the same. Armand’s hand rests against the table, his fingers tapping against it in a one-two staccato rhythm. Taptap. Taptap. His fingers loose—if this were another decade he’d hold a cigarette between them, carelessly tapping ash against the table every time. Taptap. Oh, he’s pissed.
It makes him think of that time in—where were they, Prague? Probably Prague. Him and Alice, sitting across from one another at a rickety cafe table, her head taptap-taptapping, actually holding a cigarette between two fingers because this was the 70’s and Europe and what’s what you did. Annoyed at him for something. What was it? There are a lot of possibilities. Probably ignoring her in favor of his notebook.
No, that’s not it. He wanted her to translate for him. Alice knew more languages than you’d expect anyone to have the time for. She liked to pretend not to speak the local language and instead spoke whichever she thought would annoy the locals the most—French most places, except English in France—and then eavesdrop on their complaints, whispering sly translations to Daniel in a little game between the two of them. But Daniel spoiled it this time. One of the waiters said something interesting—he can’t remember what, only that he never got the story—and Daniel wants Alice to help him interview him about it. She’s being spoiled. She doesn’t like that he’s more interested in the subject of their game than the game itself. Than her.
“Are you done pouting or what?” he’d asked, amused.
Alice had scoffed. Taptap. She flicked the same hand as if swatting a fly. “Finish your coffee,” she’d said, but her eyes had cut back to him, shaded by the cafe’s canvas awning. Half-lidded, a little amused, reluctantly fond despite her annoyance. They burned red.
Orange-red-brown. Agate.
Daniel has to give himself credit. He maintains his composure, even though he suspects that the sudden jump of his heart is like a screeching violin crescendo to a vampire. Louis must notice, but he doesn't break the cadence of his story. Probably thinks Daniel is as caught up in it as he is.
But Armand’s hand has gone still. Daniel’s eyes drag upward, as if pulled by an invisible force. As if he doesn’t know what Armand’s eyes fucking look like. He finds them watching him. Half-lidded, a little amused, reluctantly—
Daniel Molloy is a lot of bad things. Bad husband, bad father, almost certainly a bad friend. But he’s a good journalist. He’s a damn good journalist. He knows when something isn’t lining up.
And this is—
This—
He doesn’t know what the fuck is going on here.
But he’s going to find out.
Finish your coffee. As soon as he thinks he’s heard the words, they’re gone again.