DANIEL A Spec by Bette Bourgeois (c) 1996 rbourgeo@cycor.ca This is a speculative story featuring characters created by Anne Rice. No copyright infringement is intended. Not to be distributed for profit. It features major spoilers for QotD. Comments welcome at: rbourgeo@cycor.ca WARNING: Adult language. Adult situations. Reader discretion advised. ............................................................................. ............................................................................. Daniel turned over onto his back with a half-stifled groan. He brought his right arm up and lay it across his eyes in a half-hearted gesture of self-protection. As if he could protect himself from those eyes, that relentless mind. The smell of sex and sweat rose from the bed like yeast-fumes from a loaf of rising bread. The heat dissipating from the two bodies reclining there warmed the chill air of the rented room. A slim-figured male sprawled on his stomach, with legs still spread in accommodation, pushed himself up on his elbows and turned to look at his sated sex-partner. Despite the fact that Daniel had just released himself explosively inside the young man, he didn't think Daniel had enjoyed the experience. The young man had rarely been taken as thoroughly as that, but the passion had been filled with unfocussed violence, with as much self-hatred as lust. They had just been joined in a most intimate embrace. So why did the young man feel that Daniel hadn't even touched him? He stared at Daniel for an endless moment, willing him to look at him. Daniel didn't move. Daniel seemed to be barely breathing. Everything about Daniel seemed to suggest that he was waiting. What was he waiting for? The young man pushed himself up onto his knees and turned to look over his shoulder at the shadowed figure sitting in the chair in the corner of the room; close, but not intrusively so. The dark eyes met those of the young man, but there was no expression in them; no expression on the pale face either. It was like looking at a statue; that kind of passivity, that kind of immobility. It sent a shiver down the young man's spine. He glanced once more at the still figure of Daniel. He hadn't moved a muscle; hadn't even opened his eyes. The young man didn't know what he had expected, but he hadn't expected this. It was as if he didn't exist for these two. Perhaps he didn't. The young man rose from the bed and dressed. Still no sign of life from the other two. He went to the door and paused before opening it. Should he say something? What? He looked at the other two one last time, feeling regret, feeling undeniably sad without knowing why. Then he went out without breaking the unnatural silence with so much as a sigh. The closing door clicked loudly in the silent room. Daniel didn't know who he despised more, himself or Armand. "Well," he said into the silent void. "Was that what you wanted?" Silence. He couldn't make himself look at that face. Not yet. His anger and self-loathing hadn't reach a high enough peak yet. "Did I perform adequately?" the anger was starting to surface. "You should have asked *him* that," came the quiet answer from the shadows. Daniel finally pulled his arm away from his face and turned to look at his tormentor. "Ah . . . but I wasn't performing for *him*, was I?" "He thought you were," the shadowed figure answered. "Bullshit!" Yes, the anger was definitely starting to take hold. "He knew he had nothing to do with it. That's why he left. That's why he didn't say a word. He knew he wasn't even in the equation." Silence. That was one thing about Armand. He rarely argued. Damn him. Daniel was spoiling for a fight. And Armand knew it. So . . . the silence. Damn him to hell. "So," Daniel phrased the question another way. He was going to get an answer out of him if it was the last thing he did. "So, did you enjoy it as much as you thought you would?" Armand's expression was enigmatic. "It was . . . interesting," he said. "Oh? How so?" Daniel felt reckless. He was trying to goad Armand into revealing something. He wasn't sure himself just what that was yet. But the feeling was beginning to obsess him that Armand was hiding something from him. Something he should know, but hadn't realized yet. "That was my ass you were pounding the hell out of a few minutes ago. That was me you were trying your damnedest to physically possess," the soft voice stated unequivocally. Daniel didn't see any point in agreeing with the obvious. "You will never be able to possess me the way that you want to, Daniel. It is an impossibility," Armand told him as gently as he could. "Not even by giving you everything you could possibly ask of me?" Daniel stared into the hypnotic brown gaze. "Not even by giving you things that you would never have asked of me?" Armand's lips lifted in a tiny smile. Daniel's passionate obsessiveness was more preternatural than mortal. No wonder they drew each other like magnets. They both walked the same fine line between sanity and madness. That small smile was like a match to dry tinder. "What do you want of me then?" Daniel sat up on the bed in his agitation. He jumped off and strode to stand naked in front of Armand. "What the hell is it you want?!" Armand studied the fine masculine beauty displayed before him in the form of his lover, trembling with anger. Magnificent, he thought. Flushed with anger, bathed in sweat and sex, violet eyes flashing, blood pumping through the veins spurred on by a rush of adrenalin, Daniel was simply the most gorgeous mortal being he had seen in centuries. Ah, how he adored him. "I already have what I want, Daniel," he told the trembling figure before him. "I have you." "But you're not happy just to *have* me, are you?" Daniel cried. "You have to torment me. You have to make me jump through hoops like some kind of trained dog. You have to see me grovel and pine and pull my hair out, don't you?!" Daniel was beside himself with frustration and despair. "No, Daniel," Armand's voice was affectionate. "You do all these things to yourself. I have no need to ask, or goad, or order, or inquire. I simply watch. I find you endlessly fascinating." "Oh, God . . ." Daniel moaned. Why did he always do this to himself? Confronting Armand never got him anywhere. So why did he keep trying to get his preternatural master to make declarations he was never going to make? Daniel gazed at Armand helplessly, and Armand gazed back helplessly, as well. "You want me to feel your pain, don't you?" Daniel finally came to the only conclusion that made any sense. "You want me to feel the weight of five centuries of pain, five centuries of torment and madness . . ." Silence. Only another enigmatic look from Armand. "And loneliness . . ." Daniel finished. Armand finally stood. He rose from the chair with infinite preternatural grace; perfection of movement; unreal in its sheer fluidity. "No, Daniel," he said, shaking his head. He took Daniel's hand in his and led him towards the bed. He pushed Daniel down onto the bed. Daniel sat on the side staring into those unfathomably dark eyes. "You feel the pain, Daniel. I don't make you feel it. You feel it anyway. It's part of who you are," Armand pushed his lover down flat on the bed and climbed on top of him, laying down on his warm soft sex-and-sweat-scented body with a sigh of contentment. "You feel the pain. And I try to make you feel the pleasure," Armand held himself above Daniel for a moment, resting on his elbows, his face right above Daniel's. Daniel's arms came around his back as Armand leaned down and kissed Daniel's lips tenderly. "I love you," Daniel said, and tears filled his eyes. He didn't know whether they were tears of anger, or tears of pain, or tears of disappointment, or tears of frustration, or tears of self-pity, or tears of relief, or tears of joy. He just let them flow down his cheeks. He didn't try to hide them or stop them. "I know," Armand said, and bent to lick at the tears, but there were too many of them. So instead, he just bent his head and found the vein that was waiting for him and tried to drink away the anger, pain, disappointment, frustration and self-pity, so that only the relief and the joy remained. It was the only thing he could do. ............................................................................. ............................................................................. The end