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“Could you give us a minute?”
Lestat and Daniel both look up at Louis hovering in the corner of the makeshift interview space. Daniel snaps his laptop shut, stands.
“Not you,” Louis says calmly.
Lestat purses his lips, but obliges, heeled boots clicking perhaps a little harder than usual.
“Hello, Daniel.”
”Louis.”
It’s hard to notice, at first, that anything has changed about Daniel—so much human bottled up inside a vampire’s husk. Wrinkles, gray hair, an occasional tremble in his right hand.
He hadn’t mentioned that the few times they’d spoken.
But the evidence is there, if Louis chooses to look deeper. The hue of Daniel’s eyes, currently a too-familiar golden glow. The thin pallor of his skin that makes him look almost sickly compared to his old self. And, conversely, the vitality that seems to seep from him now—a renewed lease, however involuntary—evidenced by how quickly he stands, the bounce in his step that makes him seem lighter.
There’s a weird tinge in the air between them as Louis steps closer that he can’t quite place. Meeting another vampire for the first time is always a bombardment on the senses, and Louis isn’t sure he’s ever met anyone twice—before and after. Distinctly different than Madeleine’s after, a continuous connection that still hasn’t left him, and he pushes the comparison away quickly.
It’s the simple fact that Daniel is what he is now that flips their old dynamic on its head.
Balance, Louis thinks.
The realization permeates their interaction now. He doesn’t feel stronger than Daniel, like before, though Daniel feels like no fledgling he’s ever encountered. But beyond their ages, they feel like equals, and the realization affects Louis in a way he did not anticipate.
A gullible boy in San Francisco. A fragile man in Dubai. Both wildly uneven playing fields, an unfairness Louis had hardly acknowledged, though their differences were difficult to ignore.
Suddenly the old question populates in his mind. He doesn’t speak it. Doesn’t broadcast it. Maybe another time, another decade. But it feels more sincere now—a possibility instead of a tease—the balance between them perhaps adding to the longing, reigniting a long-held flame needing an ounce more kindling.
Do you want to now?