Disclaimer: This is a work of amateur fiction. The characters portrayed herein are the sole property of She Who Holds the Copyrights. I'm just playing with them for a giggle, not to get rich from.

~ Daniel ~

Son of a bitch. Why the hell do I let him do this shit to me, damn it?

I stood examining the fist sized hole in the wall of our bedroom - it wouldn't be the first time the Night Island maintenance crew got called in to repair the aftermath of our fights.

Glancing down at my hand, I realized I had been bleeding - the wound was healed over already, but a dark streak of blood snaked its way over my skin. Without even thinking, I lapped it up, still too pissed to actually enjoy the sensation.

What was it that triggered this newest round of pleasantness? Christ, it's hard to pinpoint the exact reasons anymore. But it's always the same pattern: things are great for a while, then slowly the apathy starts building. Then, the distance, with him keeping me at arm's length, and finally deteriorating into open hostility. And it's always because he takes me for granted, acts like he can do and say (or not do or say) whatever he wants with me, and little Danny boy will just sit by and take it. Problem is, he's right, I have. For almost three decades, I've essentially been Armand's bitch - use me, abuse me; I always come back for more. Sure, I find my balls now and again, walk out on his sorry punk ass. But it's never for long. The bastard is like a drug, and I'm his junkie.

Fuck me dead, I don't know why I let him do this shit to me, year in, year out.

Wondering this, the ever burning, never answered question of my non-life, I snatched up the remote for the sound system from the nightstand. Hitting play, I flopped onto the bed, on my back, staring at the ceiling as the impassioned voice of the goddess known as Pink issued forth from the dozen or so speakers hidden around the room.

I'm lyin' here on the floor where you left me I think I took too much... I can't stay on your life support, there's a shortage in the switch, I can't stay on your morphine, cuz it's making me itch...

Damn. Sing it, sister.

I think I'll get outta here... where I can run just as fast as I can, to the middle of nowhere, to the middle of my frustrated fears. And I swear you're just like a pill. Instead of makin' me better, you keep makin' me ill. You keep makin' me ill... I haven't moved from the spot where you left me. This must be a bad trip...Maybe I should get some help.

Have you ever listened to the lyrics of a song and just had a total epiphany, a moment of clarity when the words seem to be just for you? This woman was singing the story of my life with Armand.

I listened as the two lines kept repeating, over and over again, not only in the music, but also in my mind, to myself. 'Run, just as fast as I can... Instead of making me better, you keep making me ill'. Jesus, it's all so familiar. When has being with Armand ever made me better? Sure, we've got our moments, but for the most part? Not really. Is living forever, isolated, at odds with the one being you love more than anything else in the world better than dying of drink and madness? I'm not so sure anymore that it is.

~ Armand ~

They say you always hurt the one you love the most. I think with Daniel and I, this is doubly so.

Sitting in my office, I gazed through the bank of floor to ceiling windows at the bright lights of Miami. In our room, directly over my head, Daniel remained where I'd left him after our latest round of bickering, listening to the same bit of music over and over again.

Love counts for nothing, in the greater scheme of things. I love Daniel with all my heart and whatever soul I may still be in possession of. Yet, here we were again, constantly fighting, constantly at odds with each other. And what does it come down to? What is the cause of it? I don't think I even know anymore. It just seems an automatic response. One says something, the other responds with sarcasm and rancor, without, I think, even hearing what had been said in the first place.

I'm beginning to believe that Daniel and I are doomed, doomed to never know what true happiness is together, doomed to forever be stuck in this vicious circle of adoration and detestation that we call our relationship.

Had I done the right thing, making him my fledgling? I never doubted that I had. It was either that or allow him to die, and I loved him too damned much to let him to slip away from me, couldn't stand watching him waste away from drink and madness. Had I done it for him, or for myself, though? For all intent and purpose, Daniel had seemed to want to die, but this was, I was sure, because I refused, time and again, to bring him over. In the end, had I not simply done what it was he'd wanted in the first place? So whatever the basis of the animosity, it wasn't due to my having made him. He'd begged for it, after all.

Sighing, I leaned as far back in the leather high backed office chair as I could, propping my feet against the window ledge. No matter how I tried to push the thoughts aside, the various accusations and epithets Daniel had spat at me moments ago echoed through my mind. Uncaring, unfeeling, cold, control freak, many worse things that stung too deeply for me to repeat to myself. What ability he has to cut me to the quick every time he speaks. And truly, I am none of these things he accuses me of being. Uncaring? If I don't care, why was it so hard for me to sit by and watch him commit slow suicide? Unfeeling? I don't know that any being could feel more deeply for another than I do for him. Daniel is my world, my life. I built up Night Island from nothing, to give him paradise. But it is my nature to be self-possessed; I had to become so to survive those centuries with the Children of Darkness. I was their leader, after all. Regardless of how little credibility I placed in the doctrines I was forced to embrace and confer to others, I had to make them believe I thought it was the gospel truth. Daniel doesn't, can't understand this. How could he? He had the good fortune to be Born to Darkness well after those days, when the Satanic coven was the norm and those of us who walked with mortals were heretics, outlaws, damned to be hunted down and persecuted as criminals. Not that such thinking doesn't still exist. There are the odd practitioners of the old ways here and there; now and again, we get hateful messages left on our voice or e-mails condemning us for our extravagant lifestyle. But by and large, they were wiped out of existence by Akasha's rampage.

Ah... What to do about these continuing problems with Daniel? Perhaps it's time for another separation. How horrid it feels to say those words. I can't bear to be away from him, yet this seems the only way to resolve the harshness between us. After a while, we simply miss each other too badly and we come together once again. Of course, nothing of the problem is actually solved by doing this...

~ Daniel ~

Ok, I need to do this, and I need to do it now. Damn, I hate confronting Armand. Aside from being my maker and his mind being closed to me, he's totally unreadable, body language wise. You could sit there and tell him someone just raped and tortured his Goddamned mother, and he wouldn't even bat an eyelash. Half the time, it's like what you say doesn't even register with him. That or he plain out just doesn't give a flying fuck. More often, it seems the latter rather than the former. Christ, I need a drink. I should go out and score a couple of drunks from one of the clubs before I do this. No, damn it, Molloy, you aren't going to dodge this that easily.

Instead, I kept repeating my new mantra over and over again to myself as I made my way down to find where in the house he might be. Instead of makin' me better, you keep makin' me ill. You keep makin' me ill...

Just as I thought, hiding out in the office. I don't think he even heard me as I came into the room - he just sat there, not moving, starting out the window. I can do this. I am not nearly the pussy I feel like right now...

"Armand, turn around and look at me."

Slowly, he let his feet slide from the windowsill to the floor and swiveled his chair 180 degrees. As usual, his face was completely devoid of emotion.

"What more would you like to say, Daniel, that hasn't been said?"

"Oh," I huffed. "Believe me, there's plenty I'd like to say. But what the hell would be the point? Nothing is going to change the fact that anymore we're oil and water. It's just no good, Armand. Why do we keep butting heads? All we do is hurt each other over and over again."

Cool as a cucumber, he says, "This is true. Maybe then we need some time away from each other again..."

...run, just as fast as I can, to the middle of nowhere...

The mantras weren't doing the trick of keeping my temper from boiling over. My head felt like it was about to explode.

"You cold hearted bastard! Do you even fucking care that things are this bad between us? Because somehow, I really don't think you ever do!"

Holy shit! The great ice prince winced! Something I said actually made an impact on that stone facade! And are those tears I see misting over his eyes? Nah, can't be...

With a huge, melodramatic sigh, Armand shook his head and looked to me. "Daniel, why must you always say such hateful, ugly things when we fight? Never have I called you names or cursed you as you so freely do me."

"It's called emotion, Armand, it's called passion and feeling. It's perfectly normal to lose one's temper and say harsh, rash things when arguing."

"So it's perfectly fine to add insults to injuries? This solves problems how, exactly? How does it help make things better? Please explain this to me, Daniel, because from this side of things, all it does is hurt. And before you say it, yes it does hurt. I'm not the cold, emotionless monster you seem to think me. "

Ok, so it was completely off the wall for Armand to be saying stuff like this. Normally this was when he was asking what my problem was, why was I being so ungrateful of all he'd done for me. Did he not keep me in grand style (despite the fact he'd long ago signed controlling interest in the Night Island enterprise over to me, so it was more like I kept him in grand style)? I wasn't sure now what my game plan was. After all, this was a new offensive strategy on his part, not the well-worn page from his normal playbook.

~ Armand ~

I don't understand why Daniel is so shocked by the fact that I responded to his hurtful words. As I said, yes, I am rather self-possessed most times, but it can't be that rare for my feelings to show. Can it?

I asked Daniel this, and he laughed at me! Laughed as if I'd just said the funniest thing he'd ever heard! When he realized that I wasn't laughing, he stopped and stared at me, incredulous.

"Armand, I can probably count on my fingers the number of times you've shown passion of any sort, other than in bed. Most of the time, I've got no damned clue what you're feeling or thinking. It's like there's a switch that you've thrown within yourself and complete shut off your ability to register emotion. And God knows you never share those things with me! You fight fang and nail to keep your thoughts in and the rest of us out."

My mouth opened as I began to object to these statements, but I stopped myself. Listen to what your lover is telling you, Armand. Listen not to the words but the feeling behind them, what he's really saying.

"So you assume that since I don't, to your satisfaction, display what I feel, don't wear my heart on my sleeve as they say, that it means I don't possess those emotions?"

Daniel gave a lackadaisical shrug of his shoulders. "Well, yeah, that's pretty much it."

That confession wounded me deeply. Never did I realize that this was how I came across to him, and probably to others. True, for years he'd thrown insults such as cold hearted and unfeeling at me, but always I had assumed that by this he meant I was unsympathetic to the emotions he was expressing, not that I lacked them myself.

"You've no idea just how wrong you are, my beautiful boy."

Slumping back into my chair, I cast my eyes away from the figure of my love and let them fix momentarily upon some point on the floor.

"Have you ever considered, for a moment," I began, my voice soft, tremulous, "that because I've had such pain in my life, I can't bear to let it begin to surface, as it may never stop?"

Looking once more to Daniel's pale violet eyes, I made no effort to hide the tears welling up in my own.

"You've read my story, Daniel, the tale of my life as I spread it out before David. Granted, there was some artistic license taken here and there, but all in all, what he wrote was completely honest. I realize that to you, it's only words on a page. But I lived it. The psychological abuse I suffered at the hands of my father, the abduction, being treated as chattel and offered for sale to the highest bidder. The various indignities heaped upon me by my Master while I was yet mortal. Seeing him burn to what I assumed to be his death. Watching as those who were as my brothers in Marius' household burned upon funeral pyres by Santino's coven. The torture I endured as Santino sought to break my will, my spirit."

Bowing my head against the onslaught of the memories washing over me, I pressed my hand to my eyes briefly, trying to regain control of the torrent of emotion threatening to overtake me. Sighing, wiping the tears from my eyes, I continued.

"I had to learn to push all of that aside, push all the pain and anger aside, just to survive, to go on night after night. While I led the Paris coven, I had to steel myself, had to be the strict disciplinarian coven master; I held the power of life and death over those who followed my teaching. I had to be able to put those who, according to the law deserved it, to death or torture, and not let on that it bothered me in the least. More than four centuries of this, Daniel. After a while, it becomes so ingrained into your psyche that you don't even know you do it anymore. The me that began walking among mortals again after the destruction of my coven has never been able to separate itself from the me that endured all that I just mentioned."

~ Daniel ~

Have you ever had the feeling that you took a wrong turn somewhere? Like you should have made that left at Albuquerque and somehow ended up in the Twilight Zone rather than where you expected? That's exactly the way I felt, standing there listening to what Armand had to say. Never, in all the years I'd spent with him had he said these sorts of things. It was completely surreal. And now he was sitting there staring at me, the crimson tracks of his tears (which I'm so unused to seeing) blazing their way across his cheeks, and waiting for me to answer him in some way. What the hell am I supposed to say? This is definitely not the way I expected the conversation to go; I wasn't prepared for this!

"Well, are you happy now, Daniel? Are you happy to know that I'm not the monster you imagine me to be? That the reason I don't show what I feel is because I feel it all too deeply?"

I heard his words, but my mind was still trying to sort out exactly what was going on. Part of me wanted to play this all off - he's just putting on a good show. But I knew that wasn't the case. This was Armand, being real, being more of his true self than I had ever seen him. And the other Armand, the demonic, cold being devoid of any emotion was the act.

Jesus, I couldn't wrap my mind around that concept! How fucking sad is that?

"Ok," I started. "I can see what you mean, I can see how a person would want to put a lid on all that emotional garbage. I can see too your point about the whole deal with the coven."

Stepping closer to him, I leaned against the edge of his massive walnut desk. "What about me, Armand?" Wow, how incredibly small my voice sounded.

His ichorous (now there's a million dollar word for ya!) eyes widened briefly, and he blinked slowly, pondering something, so it seemed.

"I'm not sure I know what you're asking me, Daniel."

"Sure you do, it was simple enough. You don't show your feelings for the things that happen to and around you, you push them all aside. What about with me? Do you do the same thing with your feelings for me, or do you not have any real feelings for me?"

How childlike he seemed suddenly, his lower lip quivering ever so slightly, as if he'd burst into tears at any second. This was seriously starting to weird me out...

With a deep sigh, he shook his head slowly side to side. "Oh, God, that you would even ask me such a thing...I love you with all that I am, as I have loved no other in the entirety of my life. If I did not, I could have easily sat by and watched you die. But I didn't, couldn't. If I didn't love you completely and wholly, Daniel, we'd not be having this conversation. Surely you know that much."

"How could I, Armand? At best you throw me a bone now and again. I know you desire me, that I turn you on, that I happen to 'ring your bell'. But anything deeper than that, I can only guess at."

Oh, hell. Here comes the water works. He was about to start crying like bitch with a skinned knee.

"Look, I believe you. You pushed everything, good and bad alike, out of the way and just kind of existed that way. Ok, fine. You love me. Yeah, I guess I knew that, somewhere in the back of my mind."

The tears were streaming their way down his cheeks. Suddenly I felt the impulse to kiss them away, to let my tongue trace the tracks they made and savor the electric sting of them on my mouth, but I resisted. Moment by moment, I was feeling more empowered, like knowing that Armand actually had weaknesses made me stronger.

"Well," he breathed, his voice tinged with sadness. "Does this help resolve things between us, then? Do you understand better why I am as I am?"

Nodding, I said "Sure. But what's more important is that you are starting to understand it. That's the easy part. The hard stuff is still ahead of you, if you want to work on it."

A shadow of confusion drifted over his face. "What do you mean?"

"It's one thing to acknowledge that you've got issues that cause you to push all emotion into some small corner and leave them there. It's another to do something to change that. That's why I'm thinking now that your original thought of us needing some apart time isn't such a bad idea after all."

Sighing again, he leaned forward in his chair and let his fingertips brush over my leg lightly, his hand coming to rest on my thigh. "Yes, I think it might be best, for a while at least. When will you go, and where?"

Taking his hand from my leg, I pressed soft kisses to it and looked him deeply in the eyes. "Oh, I'm not going anywhere, Armand. You forget, legally, Night Island is mine. I think this time, you'll be the one to go."