#tvl daniel

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—THE VIBE—

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—THE SNIPPET—

[*told from Armand’s POV]

I was colored with surprise when Daniel did not take up one of the guitars that sat at the ready at stage right. Breathed a muted disbelieving laugh when he instead stood at the center of the five person group—two guitarists, a solitary bassist, and a drummer with Molloy planted in the middle of the spread adorned in a simple black t-shirt, broken in black jeans, and Chuck Taylor hightops that had seen better days but, at the inverse, had likely seen more worse days than the good.

Pacing about as he drank from his water bottle, it was not the expected behavior of a frontman. Even less so that the one giving the introduction would be the guitarist that entered with him unless there was some dynamic at play between them where Molloy allowed his bandmate to do the majority of the talking while he remained silent. Curious. The word ran on repeat, lapping my waking mind as the scene unfolded—as they greeted all in attendance, thank us for coming, and gave a small bit of history for those, like myself, who were not privy to their group, A Recollection Of. Or ARO as I had gathered after a quick survey around the space at the band tee’s a healthy number of patrons were wearing.

Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet…

“What?” I asked, turning to Sam who stood nearly flush against my right.

“What?” he looked up at me with befuddlement. “I didn’t say anything.”

Breathe. Quiet down and breathe.

What was this frenzied thinking? This panicked chanting like a prayer that—

My gaze cast itself up. Found Daniel as the voice in my ears dialed in a hair more finer than before allowing me to hear it more clearly.

I could hear him.

But can he hear me… I pondered. Attempted to reach through the noise and space dividing us, driven by my own curiosity and newly sparked wonder. Calm.

The boys’ fidgeting hand toying with his backpocket froze.

Then his gaze lifted.

Be calm and breathe. He could hear me.

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Now, all of a sudden, everything in his life has gone haywire in a matter of days. His forgotten trauma of the 6 days in SF, which has probably affected him his entire life, has come to the surface. He has been made into a vampire against his will (as Eric has said). And he has been abandoned by his maker. He has no one to help him with his transformational trauma. No one to show him the ropes. We know that the first years of being a vampire are the hardest. And he is totally alone in this misery. A misery that is significantly heightened by his vampirism. He has relapsed into his addiction to cope with this and possibly it’s more severe than ever before because drugs are no longer doing much physical damage to him, so he’s probably taking copious amounts of them. He left his addiction back in his youth, lived a rich life, and now has relapsed after so long.

And the fucked-up cocktail of all this is taking a toll on his work. He tries to rely on journalism for his sense of self, like he has always done when shit hits the fan, only this time it isn’t working. At all. He is like an incessant provocative battering ram with his questions instead of a brilliantly perceptive investigative journalist at the top of his game. (Just imagine telling human Daniel what question he should ask in his interview. Yeah.) And he’s making no progress despite his almost desperate attempts at making Lestat talk. Lestat is totally fucking with him. He’s an inexperienced baby vamp before this centuries-old mega-powerful god of a vampire. He is nothing in front of Lestat. And he knows and understands all of this even if he is in denial mode. And it’s destroying his self-esteem and his self-identity. He thinks of himself as a professional failure now on top of everything else.

So when Lestat starts spilling the beans about Nicki, Daniel’s open glee is more like, “Yes, finally! I am not a failure anymore.” rather than him finding delight in Lestat’s pain (although that’s there too.) Like, everything in his life and self, right now, depends upon Lestat talking. Daniel is drowning and that one moment of him thinking he made a breakthrough was his raft.