Chapter Text
-2022-
When Daniel first opens the letter, he chokes on air.
Before that moment, his day had been okay. Not spectacular by any measure of the imagination, but decent. He woke up alone. He had cereal and fruit for breakfast. He watched that ridiculous commercial for his journalism class. He worked on a puzzle and checked the mail. There were bills and a letter inside. It’s nothing particularly unusual for Daniel to get a letter but nothing too common either. The strange part of it all was the complete and utter lack of information on it. It was just a blank brown envelope. Not overfilled, and not underfilled. Intriguing if only for its oddness.
He’s talking to his doctor on the phone when he opens it. There are but two pieces of fancy stationery inside, an expensive letter addressed to him. Again, not exactly normal but not too strange. He flips through the pages and sees the initials on the parchment. He thinks nothing of it. At least not until his eyes fall to the bottom of the second page, reading only the last two lines.
All affinities,
Louis de Pointe du Lac
Daniel’s whole fucking world stops spinning.
“I gotta call you back,” he murmurs to his doctor and disconnects the call before the man has time to get a word in edgewise.
He sets his phone down and lets the letter fall on the table before stepping back a few paces. Trying to get some distance between himself and the damn thing so he can think.
‘Louis de Pointe du Lac’, Daniel repeats over and over again in his head. A name belonging to a vampire he has never met but has been intimately familiar with for forty-nine years.
This moment feels like a long time coming, and it is. Louis is an inevitability, Daniel knows. The infamous vampire was bound to learn of his existence eventually. In all honesty, Daniel’s surprised it took the vampire this long.
Daniel takes a deep breath in and gathers his courage. Or rather, gathers up that fucking yearning for truth that comes from a lifetime of investigative journalism, and walks back toward the table. He picks the letter up with a shaking hand and takes it with him as he makes his way toward the couch. He needs to be sitting down for this.
Mr. Molloy,
The letter reads.
I hope this letter finds you safe and thriving. If such a thing were a possibility in this bleak hour. You don’t know me, and before this moment, I suspected we would never meet. But right now, as my pen meets parchment, I know that was my foresight failing me.
You’re in a unique position. A journalist, a storyteller, with experiences that most would not survive. There are bite marks on your neck, Mr. Molloy. If you know what that says to certain subsets of monsters, continue reading this letter. If you do not, and the words I have written sound like nonsense to you, then burn this letter in a fire and let us both forget we had ever been in correspondence.
‘Jesus Christ’, Daniel thinks, reaching up to rub at his brow with his free hand.
However, if you know what I think you know, then you would be a most excellent candidate for the journey I intend to embark on. It doesn’t involve you or anyone you know becoming a meal, Mr. Molloy, I assure you. Rather, I offer, for your journalistic pleasures, my full attention and my life story.
If you know what I am, as I suspect you do, then you know what I am offering. And you know just how rare of an opportunity it is for someone like you to hear the story of someone like me. In a week’s time, in a setting of my choosing, I will gift you this opportunity. An opportunity many of your kind would kill for. An interview with a vampire.
All affinities,
Louis de Pointe du Lac
With those last lines, only one word echoes through Daniel’s head. A loud, resounding, “Fuck.”
The letter falls from his grip, and Daniel harshly presses the palms of his hands into his eyes. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he voiced aloud.
Of all the things in the world Louis de Pointe du Lac could have ever wanted from him, Daniel would never have expected that.
It makes sense though, truly. From what he knows about Louis, it’s exactly his brand of crazy to spin his long life into a story for a human interviewer. And who better to choose than a world-renowned journalist who has had visible bite marks on his neck since 1973? An interviewer that would have no trouble believing Louis’ tale because he already knows that vampires exist. Truly, if this bullshit wasn’t the result of it, Daniel might admire Louis’ pragmatics.
But as is, Louis’ sensibilities have led Daniel into the dictionary definition of between a rock and a hard place, so he has half a mind to slap the bastard should he ever meet him.
Louis isn’t exactly wrong either, is the thing. If he were anyone else, he would be chomping at the bit to interview a vampire. It’s practically a journalist's wet dream.
What Louis doesn’t know though—can’t, or Daniel would probably be dead by now—is that he has already had his interview with a vampire. He’s already experienced the rush that is standing before a god, and praying they don’t stomp you beneath their boot. It was exhilarating, Daniel will admit. Not a great experience, overall, but a shitty three days that led to the best years of his life. He wouldn’t change it for the world.
An interview with Louis, Daniel is certain, would not be like that. Rather, it would be the equivalent of signing his life away. For one very, very important reason.
A reason that is currently pushing his key into the door of their home, and turning the lock. The door opens with a creek that Daniel can hear even from where he’s sitting in the den. Absent-mindedly, he thinks he may need to buy some WD-40.
“Mon coeur, I am home,” his husband says, as if Daniel hadn’t felt his presence the moment he walked through the door. He has but a moment to compose himself, listening to his husband’s heeled boots click on the floor as he rounds the corner into the room.
Daniel’s first thought when he sees him, just like it has been every time since the day they met, is a simple, worshipping, ‘beautiful.’
It’s true, too. His husband is the most gorgeous man to ever walk the face of the Earth, and you could not convince him otherwise. Long, bouncing golden curls, glowing skin, shiny purple eyes, and a body that could put Aaron Taylor-Johnson to shame. Daniel feels himself begin to calm the moment he catches sight of him.
“Hey, Les,” he breathes, a small smile pulling at the edges of his lips.
“Hello, mon amour,” the one and only Lestat de Lioncourt says as he walks toward him. Daniel reaches a hand up to him as soon as he’s within reach, and Lestat doesn’t hesitate to take it. He sits beside Daniel on the couch, keeping one hand in Daniel’s and using the other to pull him closer so that he might press a kiss to his temple. It’s a sweet gesture, comforting and adoring in equal measure. A staple in their lives, and their home for nearly as long as they’ve been together. And, more importantly, one of the thousand reasons that Daniel knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that if Louis de Pointe du Lac were to ever kill him for this, it would be worth it.
Lestat would be worth it. Always.
“You feel tense,” his husband says, and Daniel can practically hear the way his brows are furrowing when his accent gets just a touch heavier. “Is it your illness?”
“No, no,” Daniel assures, squeezing Lestat’s hand just the slightest bit. “We’ve got a problem, Les.” With those words, Daniel directs his gaze down to the letter on the floor and watches out of the corner of his eye as Lestat does the same.
His husband takes in a breath he doesn’t need, gasping as his eyes glance over the initials on the page. In Daniel’s already shaking hand, Lestat’s hand begins to shake as well. “Louis,” he whispers. A small, broken thing.
“Yeah,” Daniel swallows. “Louis.”
Once more, and certainly not for the last time that day, Daniel cannot help but let one word and one word alone permeate his mind.
Fuck.