#[banging pots and pans] I LOVE LOUIS AND DANIEL! I LOVE LOUIS AND DANIEL! I LOVE LOUIS AND DANEILLLLLLLL!

[covenofthearticulate]

@vamptember's 12 Nights of Christmas | Night 4

It is too easy, these nights, for Louis to pass the entire evening in his library. Armand has so thoroughly spoiled him with every comfort he could ever want; collections of the rarest manuscripts, translations that lend new meaning to his beloved favorites, delightful little surprises of new titles which appear every now and then as unspoken tokens of love, just to let Louis know that Armand is thinking about him.

It was no accident that the library was tucked into the heart of the sprawling complex; away from any windows through which the sunlight might cut his reading short, and sequestered far enough from the street that Louis needn’t worry about the noise and chaos of the outside world. No, he could spend his every evening and every day in this library, just as he finds himself doing on this very evening, tucked quietly in his favorite armchair with only the company of the roaring fire and his beloved Rimbaud on the page, and—

“Jesus CHRIST—” 

A flash of bright white light sears across his line of vision, and there is Daniel, fumbling with his phone in an all-too-mortal fashion as he clicks to turn off the flashlight. 

“Merde alors—Daniel!” Louis yells right back. 

His book hits the ground with a thud as Louis’ hands fly up to cover his eyes from the sudden onslaught. 

“Sorry, sorry!” Daniel apologizes with a huff. “I thought you went out with everyone else.”

Even after Daniel turns the light off, Louis cannot help but squint in his direction, his raisined expression clearly reflective of the resentment now brewing in the wake of his disturbed peace.

“...and you were expecting to come into my library while I was away?” Louis raises a brow in suspicion. 

“Well I didn’t want to go all the way downstairs for a candle. You’ve got spares in here, right?”

Stepping fully into the room, Daniel looks around for a moment. He’s rarely ever in this room; there are other libraries in the house, and it had always been made clear from the instant Louis moved in, that he requires a space of his own.

“A candle?”

“Yeah…for the outage.”

Louis blinks, cocks his head to the side for just a moment, but before he can even voice his question—

“For the outage, Louis. The power’s out!” Daniel raises his arms, motions up and out as if to say look around, you idiot! 

“There’s a massive snowstorm. It’s been coming down hard for hours. Christ, you really didn’t know, did you?”

“I’ve been reading,” Louis replies with the stunning simplicity which never fails to get a breathy laugh of disbelief out of Daniel.

“I swear to god, between your library and Armand’s movie room, you two could wait out the whole end of the world in this place.”

“But the world hasn’t ended, Daniel.” Bending down with a sigh, Louis retrieves his book from the floor and flips through the now-bent pages in an attempt to find his place once more. “It’s only a few hours of darkness. We’ve both survived worse.”

Daniel gives a small scoff at that last remark which, admittedly, was slightly less kind than Louis would be on any other ordinary night, had his reading not been so rudely interrupted by a blinding light. 

“You really don’t use any electricity? Like, at all?” Daniel fixes him with a skeptical, narrow-eyed look. In the shadows, the pinch of his brow looks ghastly.

“Why would I need it? I could read in complete darkness if I so wished; the fire is mostly for warmth and, I suppose, a bit of ambiance.”

With a roll of his eyes, Louis catches a glimpse of all the things Daniel wishes to point out: it’s not just the lights— it’s the alarm system, the wifi, the refrigerator, hell, the heated tiles in your bathroom that you keep pretending to hate! Stop acting as if you’re above it all when you benefit from it just as much as I do! 

“Great, well…I’ll let you get back to your reading, then,” is what Daniel finally does say.

He grabs a candlestick from the mantle, sticks it into the open mouth of the fireplace to let the flames catch the wick, and…and then he holds it for a moment, once a small flame is caught, and realizes he doesn’t know exactly what to do with it. Maybe he’ll be fine holding it with his bare hands, it’s not like the wax will burn him, and he only needs it long enough to find the stupid flashlight from the cupboard and—

“Here,” Louis says with a tsk as he crosses over to his grand desk, grabs a beautiful brass candlestick holder from the corner. “Allow me.”

With his usual gentlemanly grace, Louis snatches the candle from Daniel’s hand, tips the flaming end toward the top of the holder and waits patiently for the first few drops of wax to land. 

“It isn’t that I refuse to use electricity,” Louis finds himself explaining. “It’s simply that…well, it’s similar to the way you prefer listening to your music on vinyl instead of…what was it that you yelled at Benji for the other day? Spot?”

“Spotify?”

“Spotify. Overhead lighting is my spotify, Daniel. It’s helpful, but it doesn’t put me at ease, and it doesn’t feel natural.”

Turning the candlestick rightside up once more, he presses the bottom into the shallow pool of melted wax until the seal has cooled and the candle is cemented in place. 

When he hands it back to Daniel, there is a familiar look of realization on his face. It never fails to amuse Louis, this expression of Daniel’s. It’s the same gentle crease between his brows and soft curl of his lips that appeared that very first night, the instant he began to realize that he was, in fact, speaking to a vampire. It returns to Daniel every now and again, whenever Louis says something in particular that strikes at that sentimental cord and reminds him that Louis is still the same creature he always was, with the very same tragic wisdom about him. 

“...is it really snowing outside?” Louis asks, to break him from his thoughts, if nothing else.

“More than snowing,” Daniel scoffs. “It’s a blizzard.”

“Hmm. I’d like to see it,” Louis decides. 

“Yeah?”

“Oh yes. If the world is ending, what use is it to stay holed up in my library?”

Louis stands, takes a step towards the doorway but pauses before heading all the way out. Turning back, he stares at Daniel, then back to the door, a silent yet glaringly obvious gesture to please get out so that Louis may follow behind. 

The halls of Trinity Gate look different in the near darkness. Only now does Louis realize how truly rare it is, to walk the halls without pollution from the billboards and neighbors, without the odd glow of yellow light leaking from under the doorway leading to Sybelle’s room or one of the various guest suites, without the blitzkreig of colors from the televisions, or even the strange blinking lights from the smoke detectors and alarms. 

Blessed darkness. True darkness. 

The faint flicker of the candle’s flame dances across the crown moulding, the beloved paintings adorning the hallway, the statues that seem now to breathe and loosen their stiff limbs. Little details too small for the human eye, delivered only by the virtue of the Dark Gift. 

This is a liminal space, he realizes, as the shadows warp the halls around them only to give way to the beautiful, insidious wonderland of silver moonlight reflecting from the snow and spilling in transcendent ripples across the hardwood floors.

Louis can hear the wind long before they arrive at the little window seat in the east wing sitting room. It’s low and fierce like a rumbling tide, and yet there’s something comforting in the patter of fresh white snow against the window pane.  

They sit in silence, one on each end, ankles knocking together as they settle against the cushioned alcove. 

“I’ve never seen this city so dark,” Louis breathes in amazement. 

“Yeah…thank god the moon is out tonight.”

Louis has nothing to say, but he offers a soft hum in reply as he allows himself to become transfixed with the rush of snow coming down, the way each icy flake catches the silver moonlight, the way the wind makes them dance across the window pane as it howls and rages against the glass.

“This is the perfect weather for a ghost story,” Daniel says eventually in a voice so unsure, so soft, it nearly blends with the groan of the wind outside. “Know any good ones?”

He stops breathing for a moment, as the request hangs in the air. Louis notices the way his chest stops moving, just as he notices the rattle of the wrought iron gate around the perimeter of the building, and the whole world seems too quiet and too loud all at once. 

It’s less of a question and more of a bait. They both know that. 

Louis hasn’t spoken of it, of her, to anyone. Not even David, with all his well-meaning endeavors to chronicle the whole thing and somehow make sense of it for himself. 

But Daniel is different. There is a softness there, an earnestness. And Louis has always been able to speak to Daniel, hasn't he? Suddenly Louis finds himself staring at him, drenched in silver-blue moonlight and the gentle lick of yellow from the candle flame, and behind the violet eyes and porcelain glow of his skin, he finds that very same reporter boy looking back at him with the very same hunger and curiosity.

“What would you like to know?” Louis asks, with a gentle tilt of his head.

“No, sorry,” Daniel immediately backtracks. “Nevermind.”

“It’s alright.” Louis says, and for perhaps the first time, actually means it. “Really, it’s alright.”

But Daniel continues to look out the window despite Louis’ eyes on him, and there’s a flurry of thoughts racing through his mind, just as quick and harsh and chaotic as the whipping wind outside.

I miss you. I love you. I want to hear you talk again, I want to listen to your stories, really listen. I miss you, I miss you, I miss you—

“Daniel—” 

The instant his voice is imbued with that soft knowing, he can feel Daniel close off his mind, turn off the spout with a hurried sort of embarrassment that lets Louis know any sort of leakage just now was not intentional. He makes a sound in the back of his throat, something whining and self-chastising, and for a moment he seems so utterly, charmingly human. It makes Louis’ heart ache, and for some reason he can’t seem to help himself as he reaches out and lays one hand on Daniel’s knee. 

A simple gesture, and yet they both seem to feel something; something overwhelming and indescribable and familiar and strange all at once. Daniel stares at the hand, then stares right at Louis, and it looks as if he has something to say but his mind is closed now, and Louis cannot seem to see anything past the restless thud of his pulse.

Leaning forward, Daniel places the candlestick on the narrow window ledge, presses his hand over Louis', and for just one flicker of a second, the wind dies outside, and the world is still and quiet and full of possibility.

“There’s a backup generator,” Louis admits, before either one of them does something they cannot take back. “In the boiler room, next to the breaker box.”

“Maybe we can leave it off for now. The darkness isn’t so bad, I guess.” Daniel shrugs.

“Very well,” Louis nods, and allows his eyes to soften just a bit. “Perhaps I can think of a story or two, after all.”