@sinister-sanctuary // continued
Daniel doesn’t take her arm right away — not out of fear, but because he’s still catching up to the fact that he’s breathing at all. His pulse is a little too fast, his shirt still clinging to him from adrenaline, but his voice… his voice is steady in that way he’s perfected over decades of interviewing the undead.
"Bravery?" he echoed with a short, incredulous laugh. "No. My profession necessitates curiosity, insomnia, and a questionable relationship with self‑preservation. Bravery is just the flattering word people use when they don’t want to call you an idiot."He finally looks at her fully — the copper eyebrow, the poise, the faint scent of old blood and older memory. She’s beautiful in that dangerous, effortless way only her kind can be, and Daniel knows enough to be wary. He also knows enough to be fascinated.
"You didn’t ‘very nearly’ watch me become a footnote," he corrected softly. "You prevented it. Which I appreciate, by the way, I’m not in a hurry to become a cautionary tale in someone else’s memoir."There’s a flicker of something like amusement in his eyes at her statement. "As for being a waste… well, I’m flattered. Most vampires just call me a nuisance."When she offers her arm, he hesitates only a heartbeat — the human part of him remembering that accepting invitations from vampires is how he ends up in trouble but the journalist in him, the man who’s spent his life chasing stories that could kill him, stepped forward he linked his arm with hers, warm skin against cool. Maybe when they met a year ago they ought to have spoken more rather than be pulled to different rooms after an hour or so...did she remember him from the party? Or did she simply know his name? He certainly remembered her...heck what man wouldn't.
"A drink and dinner in the Quarter sounds perfect" he accepted, tone light but edged with that familiar Molloy sharpness. "Though I should warn you — I’m better company when I’m not freshly traumatized." A crooked smile as he pushed his hair of his face with his free hand to self soothe and shake off what had just happened and off to the French Quarter they would go.
"Are we walking? My car is parked over there but it's a lovely evening if you prefer to walk and take in the Louisianna air"
