The Distance Between Us
Aimee
Oct 2000

Characters: Armand and Daniel
Spoilers: IWTV, QotD

All characters © Anne Rice, Warner Books. No infringement of rights intended.

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It was a grim, miserable night outside. The winter had closed in rapidly in New York where myself and my sweet fledgling Daniel had been residing in a lavish hotel in the heart of the city.

Too cold to snow, the sky loomed ominously over head, a leaden grey. People had chosen to stay in their modern apartments rather than venture out into the cold.
I reclined back in the plush leather sofa as Daniel muttered to himself of the cold. He hadn’t fed tonight. As he knelt down to nudge at the fire his face was illuminated by the scorching heat of the flames, creating a illusive warm hue to his skin. Deceptive, I mused. I could tell by his sunken, pale cheeks there was no warmth within him, he relied on blood for that.

We hadn’t spoken tonight. As usual I rose before him and had been sat on the sofa awaiting him to wake.
Even when he rose the communication between us was confined to an acknowledging nod of his head before he disappeared into the tiny adjacent bathroom.

I was not notably angered by this as I would have been before he was mine, when I still insisted on pursuing him through frantic modern cities.

‘I’m toying with you,
biding my time.’

I smiled to myself. How he ran, and what pleasure it gave me to see the look on his face when he would turn to see my timeless, youthful face behind him in Prague, Cairo, Copenhagen, Paris…

And how I loved to hone my predatory senses to hear his frantic cries for my company, for my preternatural blood that bound him to me, before he was even Borne to Darkness.

Now he is mine.

Forever.

He taught me about the world we lived in today. I was cut off, separated by the barrier of time.
I have seen four centuries, I pondered to myself; he hasn’t even seen four decades.

He finished prodding the fire, yet I could see he still felt the cold within the room. How I yearned to listen to his thoughts once again, I was as closed to him as he was to me. Instead I studied him intensely. His silken ash blonde hair, his deep violet eyes.

He still didn’t speak to me.

I wanted to say ‘go out and hunt by yourself, you don’t need me with you.’ I thought it so loudly I could deafen an immortal.

Nothing.

Not a sound was passed.
What had this binding blood done to him? What had it done to me?

Nonchalantly Daniel stood up and brushed the fire’s warm ashes off his soft cashmere sweater. He walked out of the apartment to hunt alone.

How could he just leave like that? Without even saying a word to me.

Memories flooded back to me.

Lestat refusing to allow me to travel with him and Gabrielle. How I begged and pleading with him, losing all dignity in my desperation for companionship whilst my coven lay in ruins around me. His callous insistence that I should join that decadent theatre, to mock what I was, everything my coven had stood for. A wave of nausea ran through me.

Horrific memories of Claudia, the once doll-like paramour of Louis. How irrational was I to condemn her to a death most dreadful. She had plotted to destroy her maker, leave him to live alone with Louis, free herself from the insatiable constraint of Lestat. I thought Louis would come to me, remain with me. How could he, when I couldn’t look him in the eye when he spoke of her, mourned her.

Daniel, don’t leave me.

Four centuries I have searched for a companion. Four centuries of loneliness, not belonging, a drifting shadow of the man I could have been. In truth I know nothing of manhood, I never experienced it. Stolen from my mortal coil at a tender age, today I am looked upon as nothing but a youth.

I thought of Lestat and Louis. How Lestat love Louis so deeply, yet knew in his soul they could never be together.

Have I condemned myself to suffering, yearning for my perfect companion to see me as the source of knowledge and power he once did?
Or was I condemned for all eternity, a punishment for the possession of the Dark Gift?

I was overcome by sorrow and bitterness.

In my rage I grabbed the fine crystal decanter that was sat on the varnished sideboard and hurled it across the room. It shattered into thousands of glimmering shards, soaked in its bitter liquor which glowed like embers in the firelight.

This made me feel a little better, so I threw the six matching glasses at the wall as well, shattering the faceted crystal and covering the floor with razor sharp, glinting jewels.

I was sobbing and the bloodied tears stained my white shirt as I wiped them from my cheeks with my sleeve.

I knelt down among the splinters, my whole body convulsing with my resentment of the situation. My hands cut by the vicious fragments. I didn’t feel any pain despite the blood seeping from the gashes.

I don’t know how long I was there for, it could have been hours or minutes. I do remember the look on Daniel’s face the second he saw me as he returned from the city.

“Armand.” He cried, shattering the silence that had grown between us. “My God!” He exclaimed, shocked by the horrific vision before him.

My face was cut and bleeding, my shirt soaked in blood from the cuts and my tears.

“I though I’d lost you.” I sobbed. My hair stuck to my dripping, bloodied face in curly rat tails.

“I’d never leave you! Not like this.” Daniel gasped, the voice of reason which my mind frequently ignored.

He didn’t offer me his hand to me to aid me rise from the ghastly mess I had made. Instead he bent down next to me and embraced me, warm and human. His manly frame dwarfed my petit body.

The glass cut into his flesh on his hands and he didn’t seem to care. He held me, strongly, breathing in my bloodied hair.

He had me entranced now. He stood up slowly and eased me upright with him.

“Things are different Armand.” He softly whispered to me. “We change yet stay the same.”

He paused, looked at me directly, his gentle violet eyes glowed with a spirited incandescence.

“I owe you everything, I would be dead if it was not for you Armand. A useless drunk on the street. You saved me, you gave me all of this.”

He was truly grateful of the Dark Gift. Even since his change he would still stand out on the balcony, enamoured by moonlight, entranced by flickering candles.

“You would not have died if it was not for me.” I muttered. “I sealed your fate for you”.

“Surely I sealed my own fate the moment I spoke to Louis.” He injected curtly.

“It shall forever be our curse.” I sighed, turning away from him, wiping the tear that trickled down my cheek away with my sodden sleeve. “My curse.” I murmured to myself.

“Armand, when we go our separate ways we will know, there will be no confusion like this. I realise the distance between us, yet there still is an understanding”.

I could see how it pained him to say these words, his face flushed with anguish.

“There is a bond between us Daniel,” I was carefully choosing my words. “The Dark Gift brings an eternal union yet this void remoteness. I loath it.”

“I understand completely,” he said, embracing me firmly again.

He whispered low into my ear. “Things change, yet strangely stay the same.”