Who: Vlad and Daniel What: Conversations. Vlad and Daniel are too manly for 'chats.' Where: R1 When: Oh, we're moving along now, so a couple days after Bellum Black. Warnings: None anticipated.
It was some hours before Daniel was alone, and he could find what damage Ella had done to his study. He didn't want any of his nursemaids there while he inspected it, since they already thought he himself was damaged enough without seeing the mess of that particular room. He estimated he had a few minutes at least before Vlad showed up, and he had an odd, parting thought about where Jude had gone, but he supposed she was off doing the things he had done while he still could. The cloth-bound book was next to the Shakespeare collection, recently disturbed while Rosalie looked for ways to pass the time; a thesaurus, an old edition from before the new century had turned. Daniel didn't believe in using a thesaurus. If you couldn't think of the word, it was too complex to use. A dictionary was something else, of course, but a thesaurus didn't serve any of his literary purposes. He'd cut this one up pretty neat, though not as neat as the pretty box Claire had sent him. It had the key to the study in it, and he shook it out onto his hand before walking out into the hallway and letting himself in.
It smelled musty, which did not surprise him, but there was also something else in the air that he couldn't identify until he'd trekked across the wasteland of paper, empty bottles and spilled books to examine the door in the wall he was certain had been sealed. He found the gifts there, and the notes, and the dried flowers, which was what was adding the floral tinge to the still air. She really had been convinced he was dead, he realized. Without hesitation, absolutely, ironically, dead certain. Daniel found the macabre revelation fundamentally interesting, especially since he himself hadn't thought death to be such a sad thing as to require flowers. He took the notes, folding them and putting them in his pocket (without knowing why), and left the flowers where they were. He shut the door and put his back to it, surveying the tiny room. She'd knocked over the stacks by the door, and, he could see, hastily replaced them. Daniel drifted over to sit next to the piles and robotically straighten them. After they were again neatly aligned, he sat there and stared at them for a moment longer, then removed the short addresses on top of each stack. These notes he put in his pocket as well.
The rest of his research seemed undisturbed. As far as he could tell the journals were still in place, but he couldn't tell which she had read, since not only were they out of order when he put them there, it was too dark under the desk to tell which were dusty. He knew she must have read them, though. This, more than the inspection of his friends' books or his ongoing (stalled) research, was the worst betrayal. No journals were ever meant to be read by anyone other than who they were intended for. (Daniel ignored the literary history of publishing correspondence entirely.) He tried to imagine what conclusions she might draw from this room, but he couldn't find the perspective to do so.
He cursed under his breath and, with the aid of the desk, regained his feet. Passingly, he picked up the whiskey bottle left on the edge of the desk, looking forlornly into its dry innards. Making sure the key was back in one of his pockets, he moved out of the door, grip still idle on the bottle, and pulled the door shut behind him.