Title: Blood Rust
Author: Anna
Pairing: Spike/Angel
Rating: NC-17 overall
Feedback: Yes please. [email protected]
Distribution: SU, Soulmates, Soulless, anyone who's hosted my fics before. Anyone else, please let me know. Thank you.
Summary: Angel tells Connor how he turned Spike, but Connor realises there is a lot more to find out.
Author's Notes: This is an AU fic, obviously, but apart from the siring of William the Bloody I have tried not to deviate too much from the canon. It takes place in the current season of Angel, perhaps slightly into an AU future. Cordelia's status makes no difference to the fic, though she appears briefly. She has slept with Connor. Spike has gone through his madness with the First. However, no one in Sunnydale knows about Connor, and no one in LA knows about Spike's soul. Angel has not recently spent any time as Angelus. The Beast is not an immediate problem during the two nights this fic takes place.
I hope I haven't left anything out. I think not. I'm sure it will be fairly clear anyway.
Thanks to Lisa and Ando for betaing, you are both stars.
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Part 1
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Angel shut the door to his office. Connor glared.
"You have other kids?"
"I wouldn't really call them kids," replied Angel.
"But you made them? Like you made me?"
"Well, not exactly." Angel looked sheepish.
Connor shifted in his chair. Angel sat on the edge of his desk looking anywhere but at his son. He had imagined this conversation countless times and, to his mild surprise, it was even more awkward than he had expected.
Connor continued to glare. He did it with such penetrating sulkiness, Angel was quite impressed. Not even at her most manipulative had Darla ever managed such a glare.
He coughed.
"You know," he continued awkwardly, "it took two of us to make you, but with vampires, it only takes one."
"Wow, you don't even get to have sex."
Angel looked into those blue eyes, caught off guard by the provocative use of that word on his son's lips.
"Well, generally not beforehand, no," he mumbled, smiling despite himself.
Connor's lip curled further. Angel frowned again. It seemed more appropriate. He stood and walked behind his desk, leaning on the back of his leather chair.
"So," said Connor, "who are my brothers and sisters?"
Angel sighed, taking a seat. He toyed with a pen on his desk as he answered.
"The only ones still alive are Spike and Drusilla."
Connor saw the conflict in his face, and waited. He knew his father. Knew how to read him.
Angel put the pen down and continued.
"I turned Drusilla first. She was an innocent girl. Had the sight."
"Like Cordelia?" The boy's voice was always brash, always challenging.
"No," replied Angel. "Not like Cordelia. Not exactly. She saw more, and could sense the future. She knew what I was going to do to her."
Angel grew silent, his face like stone. Connor became impatient.
"Which was?" he asked.
"I killed her family, her friends, drove her mad, and turned her on the night before she was to take Holy Orders." He said it without emotion, but Connor could hear beyond his voice.
"Wow," he said, almost impressed. "That's evil."
Angel merely nodded, his eyes dark and far away.
"And Spike?" pressed Connor. He watched the frown lift from his father's face when he said that name. He watched him smile.
"Spike," said Angel quietly. "Spike was my boy." He went back to toying with the pen. It was heavy and silver. "Spike was altogether different. I saw him on the street one night in London. He had all the grace of a newborn lamb. Have you ever seen one of those?"
Connor shook his head.
"Well, they have none, no grace at all. Spike was like that. Skinny legs, trying to rush around. He stormed past us on the street, me, Darla and Dru, and he dropped some pages he was holding. I could smell salty tears on his face." Angel laughed at the memory. "Told me to watch where I was going."
Connor watched his father's face in fascination. He had not imagined that this would be a pleasant conversation for the old man. He had looked forward to more tortured guilt, more pain. Instead he got happy reminiscences.
"I could not help myself. I had to follow him, to find out why such a handsome, graceless young man was storming about the dark streets of London with pages of awful poetry falling from his arms. And the tears, well, they just made it more enticing." Angel leaned forward, the pen between thumb and forefinger. He looked at Connor now, no longer abashed. He had forgotten his awkwardness.
"I found him crying in a stable. I don't know whose, it wasn't his. His family were respectable but not rich. Poor William. He was never all he wanted to be."
Connor looked on, interested now. He had never seen his father talk this way. He vaguely wondered if Angel's eyes lit up like this when he told people about him, Connor. His real son, he thought jealously.
"He looked at me as if I were about to rob him. As if I were interested in his purse." Angel shook his head and laughed. "He wiped his face in his sleeve. His tears turned the wool dark. I was captivated. I had never seen a face like his before, certainly not in the grubby streets of London. I was called Angelus, but William, he had the naïveté of a true angel. White skin, soft hair. I imagined him singing his doggerel before the throne of God."
Angel stood and went to the cupboard. He took out a bottle of whiskey and two glasses.
"You like this?" he asked Connor, raising the bottle. "Or would you prefer a beer?"
Connor's eyes widened.
"A beer, thanks."
Angel went to the fridge and brought back a beer for his son. Connor snapped open the bottle and drank a mouthful as Angel poured twenty five year old Jameson into a crystal tumbler.
"Where was I?" he asked, taking a sip and sighing at the taste. He sat back comfortably.
"The throne of God," prompted Connor.
"Right." Angel laughed. "The throne of God. Of course, in those days, if something belonged to God, I delighted in taking it away. And take it away I did." He took another swallow. It tasted watery in his mouth, but it burned in his belly like real warmth. "I asked him what brought him to such a state, hiding in a stable, tears on his face. He told me it was none of my business. It took some courage to talk to me like that back then."
"Hard to imagine," said Connor, taking another mouthful of beer. Angel saw the light in his eye and laughed.
"Yeah, your old man's gone soft," he said. "Back then, William was so unusual, his words fascinated me more. Of course he was afraid, I could smell it on him. Afraid of me, afraid of my accent, afraid of being alone in a dark place with a strange man bigger than him. But he stood up to me, in his own way. I tore the pages from his hand and read the verses. I ripped them apart, first figuratively, then literally. He simply watched, dumbfounded. He had never seen such improper behaviour in his life."
Connor laughed. Angel raised his eyes to the sound. It was something unusual.
"I asked him who he thought to impress with such drivel," he continued, the whiskey now a hot centre in his belly. "And he told me there was a woman. Cecily. He eventually admitted that she had spurned him that very evening. I laughed at him, told him it was no surprise, with such terrible verses as his. Told him Keats's laundry list had more poetry. Byron's dinner bill. And I watched him as he remained standing there, back to a wooden beam, taking all the abuse I threw at him. He bit his tongue, but he did not cry. Didn't even try to defend himself. He simply stood, as if there was nothing I could say that was worse than Cecily's rejection." Angel sighed again, lost in the memory.
Connor waited, the acidic taste of beer on his tongue. Eventually he became impatient again.
"What happened then?" he asked. "After you tore up his poetry?"
Angel shook himself.
"I told him I could make him a true poet, bring him closer to death than Keats had ever been. His eyes lit up, those blue eyes, behind his spectacles. William's eyes are marvellous, blue as the sky on a clear day. Suddenly he seemed eager to know more. Poor William," said Angel again. "He thought I held all the answers. He looked into my eyes, and he knew. He knew what I was."
"He knew you were a vampire?" asked Connor.
"Not exactly. I doubt he could give it words, even in his own mind. He knew I was something other. Something… effulgent." Angel laughed quietly. Connor frowned but stayed silent. "I had been fascinated by him; now he was fascinated by me. I pretended to lose interest, to leave him there in his stinking stable. Told him he would never amount to anything. But he pulled me back in, back in to the dark." Angel drained his glass, and refilled it. "Of course, I let him. William was not the strongest of humans. He demanded that I stay and explain myself."
Again Angel seemed to melt into his reverie. Connor almost wished he could go there too. Angel spoke of such alien things with such familiarity and ease. Spoke of his past with such pleasure, now, though usually he looked away when his history became the subject of conversation. Again, Connor was wary of interrupting his father's thoughts, but again, his curiosity and impatience got the better of him.
"Did you?" he asked.
Angel looked at his son.
"Did I what?"
"Explain yourself. To William."
Angel smiled lazily.
"Yes." He sat forward, glass in hand. "But I don't think you want to hear this part."
Connor said nothing, he merely stood up and left the room. He returned a moment later with a fresh bottle of beer.
"I think I do," he said, sitting back and crossing an ankle over his knee.
"You do," repeated Angel. "You're sure? You may hear things you don't like."
Connor flicked his hair from his eyes.
"Tell me about William, Dad," he said.
Angel sat back again, his gaze locked with that of his son.
"Okay. I'll tell you. Though stop me if there is something you don't want to hear."
Connor shrugged at the compromise.
Angel took a large mouthful of whiskey. He had never imagined telling Connor all this. He did not know why he told him now. Perhaps it was the boy's right to know. Perhaps William really was Connor's brother. He was too tired, and the whiskey was too warm inside him to figure it out now, so he simply continued walking through his memories of William.
"William was beautiful," he began, his eyes measuring Connor's reaction. He saw nothing. "So slim, with, as I said, a face more beautiful than I could have expected to see anywhere, let alone weeping in a stable in London. I stood close to him as I promised him the world, I could smell his excitement, and his fear. Those are a heady mixture to a vampire." From the corner of his eye he watched as Connor willed himself still. "Of course," he continued, laughing a little, "he was Victorian almost to the core. Some things he simply did not think about. But I could hear his secret thoughts, the ones he buried in all his ethereal love poems to Cecily." He looked at his son. "You know what I mean?"
Connor nodded slowly, the beer in his hand forgotten now. Angel could smell it, slightly sour in the air.
"To a vampire, no such distinctions are made. Men, women, it's all the same. But it was a different thing then for most God-fearing humans. Though William was not so much God-fearing as mother-fearing." He chuckled, the sound low in his chest. "He could hardly conceive of what he himself wanted. And yet…" Angel's voice trailed away. His eyes were distant and bright. Connor knew he was watching William again, watching him finally submit to his father's charms.
Angel roused himself again from his deep reverie.
"The way he turned his head I will never forget. The way, when he saw my demonic face, he stretched out his neck, baring his throat to me. I hesitated because of my surprise and he looked at me fiercely. I would have laughed if I hadn't been so hungry for his blood. If I couldn't smell how hungry he was for me. I wanted my William, and I knew the sooner I turned him, the sooner I would have him. You know," he said, interrupting his own dreamlike train of thought, "at first, when I followed him, I didn't think I would turn him. I thought maybe I would let him die in that stable, really die. I knew Darla would be furious if I brought him home."
Connor could not help but react to his mother's name.
"Was she?" he asked quietly.
"I will get to that part," replied Angel, smiling. "Do you want to hear more about William's turning? Or should I stop there?"
"Go on," said Connor quickly. "I want to know."
Angel nodded.
"I drained him slowly. It's hard to describe the feeling of drinking one that you know you will turn. With William, it was incredibly personal and intimate, as he murmured all the little sounds into my ear of his life ebbing away. He knew what he was saying goodbye to, and he felt nothing but joy in his slowing heart. He did not know what he was facing, but I felt his courage as if it were finally unbottled. I felt him let go." Angel sighed. "I drank until I felt his heart almost stop. I took almost all of his blood. I held him as he lay on the dirty ground while I slit my wrist with my teeth and brought it to his mouth. He drank weakly at first, lapping up the drops that fell from the wound, but soon he had the strength to hold my arm down and clamp his mouth over the cut, drinking as if he understood that his very existence depended on it. It is a wonderful thing, watching and feeling someone choose to be born."
"Well," interrupted Connor. "It's not really a choice, is it? He would have died."
"Sometimes is takes greater courage not to choose death," replied his father. "Remember, this was eighteen eighty. As far as William was concerned, he knew what would happen after his death. Heaven or hell, hopefully heaven. And yet instead of the known, he chose the unknown." Angel smiled. "Instead of heaven, he chose me."
Connor watched the fire burn in his father's eyes.
"Was it the same when you allowed yourself to be turned by Darla?" He could not but ask.
Angel shook his head.
"No. I knew I was damned anyway," he replied with a rueful smile. "Just as she did. That's what she liked so much about me."
Connor smiled despite himself. He knew he should not. He knew he should be horrified. But deep down, he found he could not be so. His father's past had never been anything but a litany of sins to him. This was new. This was interesting.
"William loved that about me too. Loved that I was damning him." For once, that melancholy tone of guilt was absent. There was something else in its place. Perhaps nostalgia, Connor was not sure. "Finally he had taken all that I could give. He was voracious from the first, my William. And then I left his body there to be found in the morning. Just one day, and he would be mine."
"So you left him there? How did you find him again?"
"He was buried quickly, that day. I suppose his mother was shamed by his death in a stable, in the dirt. I suspect she knew more of William's heart than he himself did before he met me. That evening, it was a cold evening, crisp and clear. I left Darla and Drusilla, telling them I would hunt alone that night. Darla looked at me strangely as I left. She knew something was different. And she knew I would never leave her with Drusilla unless I had a reason. She hated being left alone with Dru. The whole insanity thing really bugged her." He smiled faintly, drinking more whiskey. He knew it loosened his tongue, and he did not want to stop his story yet. "So I went out into the city and closed my eyes. I listened. And I walked elsewhere and listened again. I did this until I heard him. I heard him wake up, and begin to kick his way out of that coffin."
Connor narrowed his eyes.
"What's that like?" he asked.
"Scary. And you're so hungry, and you know what you have to do, but you're still weak, so you hit the lid until it gives and then gag on the earth pouring onto your face. Then you start to dig your way up, kicking against the bottom of the coffin to try to force your way. Just when you think you'll never reach the surface, you feel air around the tips of your fingers, and you catch hold of anything you can and pull yourself up and out of your own grave. And if you're lucky, your sire is there waiting for you. I was lucky. So was William."
"If you're not lucky?"
"The unlucky ones wander, lost, till they figure it out by themselves, but probably get staked young anyway. They can't survive without some kind of protection." Angel sighed heavily, but then smiled. "William was lucky. I saw his fingers appear over the earth, saw his nails broken and bloody, he had forced his way up so quickly. I loved that. I loved that he was so eager to reach me." Angel was smiling indulgently again. Then he looked up and caught his son's eyes. "I'm sorry," he said, his smile falling. "If I'm making you uncomfortable, tell me. I can skip more."
Connor shook his head.
"It's alright," he said quietly.
"Are you sure? Because I know if my father was sitting here telling me stuff like this, I'd be uncomfortable."
Connor laughed.
"Was your Dad a two hundred and fifty year old vampire?" he asked softly.
Angel shook his head, smiling.
"No, I guess not," he replied.
"Then you have no idea how much doesn't shock me." Connor smiled in return, a real smile. It was good to see his father happy. Connor remembered his beer and drank some. It was lukewarm by now, but he was not going to leave to get another. "So what happened next?" he said.
Angel watched him for a moment before continuing.
"He climbed out without my help. I watched him struggle up. He was fast and able and not afraid anymore. I was already proud. He stood in front of me, brushing the earth from his morning suit. Last time he was ever going to wear one of those." Angel grinned. Connor was amazed.
"Was that a joke?" he asked incredulously.
"Yeah," said Angel, still smiling. "Come on. A little resurrection-to-darkness humour never hurt anyone."
Connor could only laugh in reply.
Angel continued.
"Of course, we couldn't hunt in the good parts of town with him dressed like that. And anyway, he was hungry. So we hunted close by, and then I brought him home."
"What was it like, hunting?"
"He was a natural, of course. William seemed to have been born to be a vampire. Maybe it was because he hated his life so much, the restrictions of society and expectations. He loved his new life. He hunted with passion, a real flair, you know?"
"Yeah," said Connor. The laughter was gone. "But I mean, who did you hunt?"
Angel's face clouded. He hesitated.
"You've told me everything else," said Connor gently, though with a touch of defiance.
"That first night, he chose a young man, the same age as himself. Ever the poet, was William. He drained him quickly, violently. Left his neck gashed and messy. The first kill is never neat." Angel bit his tongue, glancing at his son. He saw no reaction in his eyes. He could smell nothing but beer and whiskey. He decided to continue. The boy was right. He had told him everything else.
"Once the first hunger is abated, then you start learning the art of a good, clean kill. We walked arm in arm for miles, until he saw another he fancied. A young lady this time. I wouldn't be surprised if she looked like his Cecily. I never asked him. This time I showed him how to do it properly, how to slide his fangs in and out again, and then just drink the blood that the heart pumps straight into your mouth." Angel ran a hand over his eyes. Connor looked away, then back again, almost afraid of his father's thoughts. Angel continued with his eyes covered. His voice was low and rough. "Then, as the heart slows, you need to help it along, so you suck more. You can make that pleasant or painful, depending on how you do it. If you suck nice and slow and gentle, the human will think they've already reached heaven as their bodies mistake numbness for weightless pleasure. The harder you suck, the more painful it will be. Imagine your blood being ripped the wrong way through your arteries, the walls of your blood vessels collapsing in on themselves as they're emptied. That's what it's like if you suck hard. William sucked fiercely. The woman died screaming in his arms."
Angel grew silent. Connor felt that he should say something. His father lowered his hand, his eyes black and hard.
"Do you miss it?" asked Connor finally.
"What?" said Angel sharply.
"The killing. Humans."
Connor watched the debate rage inside his father. Watched him gauge his son, ask what he was capable of hearing and understanding. At last he saw the truth win out. Angel's eyes became harder still.
"With every single mouthful of pig's blood, I miss it." He looked at Connor fiercely. "Does that make me more of a monster in your eyes?"
"You know what it makes you in my eyes?"
"What?"
"It makes you honest."
Connor let the statement hang. He watched Angel react to it. He knew it had been unexpected.
He leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, looking down at the ground.
"I have never not taken what I wanted," he said quietly. "I took you and dumped you in the bottom of the sea. I took Fred and Gunn's trust and threw it back in their faces. I even took Cordelia, when I knew it was wrong." He looked back up at his father. "You're not like that. You take nothing you're not given. You want human blood but you don't take it." Angel looked shocked, as if he didn't trust his own ears. "I mean it," said Connor. "I've never seen you like this before. It's… enlightening."
He sat back. Angel continued to stare. Connor held his gaze.
"Are you going to tell me more or just keep looking at me?" he said.
Angel blinked.
"You want to know more?" he asked uncertainly.
"I told you, it's enlightening." Connor put his empty beer bottle on the ground and sat comfortably into his chair, crossing his arms.
"Okay," said Angel. He thought for a minute before continuing. "William was full now, and warm from the new blood. He was full of life, kept playing around, loving his body and its freedom. He held my hand and pulled me along the dark streets, like a child, but with a knowing gleam in his eyes. He delighted in the shocked faces of people who saw two men so familiar on the street. He began to walk closer to me, smiling and laughing, whispering into my ear, sliding his arm around my waist as he did so." Angel relaxed again, thoughts of William calming him. "Finally we got to the house that Darla and Dru and I had taken. I expected them to be out still, to have time alone with William before facing Darla. But no." Angel smiled again. "She knew I was up to something and had hunted quickly that night. Dru was playing with her dolls when I pulled William into the drawing room. Darla stood by the fire, and I have never seen fury like hers that night."
"My mother," cut in Connor. He wanted to say the words. "What did she think?"
Angel shook his head slowly.
"She looked at William as if he was filth. Asked me what I had brought home. Where I had found him. William just stood beside me, looking mildly alarmed. He kept a hold of my hand, running his other hand along my arm. I stood just in front of him. I was afraid, for a while, that she would stake him then and there."
"She was jealous?"
"I guess so. I was hers, and maybe I loved her, in my own soulless way. I could not imagine continuing without her. But I wanted more. I wanted Dru, for a while, before I forgot about her and just let her tag along because she occasionally amused me. And that night I wanted William. I hated the fact that I had to go through all the shouting and arguing before I could drag him upstairs and…" He cut himself off, looking at Connor. Who was smiling. Angel smiled too, and concentrated suddenly on an invisible blemish on his desk, scratching it with a fingernail. "Heh," he said. "I guess you can finish that sentence if you like. Your choice."
"I think I'll choose not to, and just pretend I did," said Connor. "You're still my Dad."
Angel looked up.
"Okay. I'll skip those bits."
"I appreciate that."
"Don't mention it."
They laughed gently.
"So she was mad. Did you talk her down?" prompted Connor.
"Eventually. She had just become used to Dru, and now here was another member for our little family. I pointed out that it wasn't the same, William wasn't insane. She told me I was. I told her William was a poet and she laughed in his face. I couldn't help laughing myself at that. Dru seemed enchanted by him, though. She said she always liked the taste of poets. She went on about moonbeams for a while. But I growled her down. No one was going to touch my William until I said so, even Darla finally realised that. Then I dragged him upstairs and didn't finish the sentence." Angel laughed and drained his whiskey again. "And that was William's welcome into the bosom of our family."
"And I thought ours was dysfunctional," said Connor.
"You never knew your mother," said Angel, a touch sadly.
"No," said Connor. He looked away.
"For two hundred and fifty years, I was her darling boy," said Angel quietly. "Even when we were apart. But that night, the night she died, before you were born, she put her arms around you while you were still inside her and called you her darling boy. She loved you."
"She staked herself for me."
"Yeah," said Angel raggedly.
"I'm sorry," said Connor. "For taking her away from you."
Angel looked at him.
"No, no, Connor, don't be sorry. You didn't take her away from me." He leaned forward, his elbows on the desk. "You gave her to me. She loved you, and I knew she loved me. For a hundred years we'd been apart, she couldn't stand my soul. Even when she was human. But that moment she understood, and I knew her. I would not change it for the world."
"But you miss her," said Connor.
Angel nodded.
"I do," he said. "And I miss my William. I even miss Dru." He rubbed his eyes. He was tired, and he could feel the dawn tingle at the base of his spine.
"Where is she?"
"I don't know. Far away, I think. We'd hear something if she was close. I miss her, but I think the further away she is from me, the better."
"And what about William?"
"It's Spike now. He can be very adamant about that." Angel smiled wistfully. "He's still in Sunnydale, I guess. I haven't heard anything about him for a few years. I imagine I'd hear if he left."
"In Sunnydale? Where the Slayer lives?"
"Yeah. Where I used to live."
"Don't you think she'd have killed him by now?"
"Last I heard, he had some implant in his head that stopped him harming humans, so she couldn't bring herself to stake him."
"Oh." Connor looked confused.
"I know, I don't understand the whole chip thing either." Angel rubbed his face and yawned. "And I'm not going to tonight, I think," he said, smiling. "Are you okay? Did I tell you too much?"
Connor shook his head gently.
"No, you didn't," he said. "You told me just the right amount."
"Good," replied Angel, pushing himself out of his chair. "In that case, I am going to bed now. If you think of any questions, ask me tonight."
"Can I have more beer if I do?"
Angel laughed and put his hand on Connor's shoulder as he passed.
"Sure," he said. "If I can have whiskey."
"Hey, it's your liquor," said Connor, standing too.
Angel turned to face his son.
"Thank you, Connor," he said. "For listening."
Connor shrugged.
"Thanks for telling me."
Then Angel pulled him into a bear hug and kissed his head.
"Goodnight," he said, letting go.
"Night," said Connor, watching his tired father walk across the lobby.
It was almost five thirty. Connor reckoned that if he slept for a few hours, and then stole the car, he could be in Sunnydale by lunchtime.
He headed to bed. He did not need an alarm clock.
TBC
Author: Anna
Pairing: Spike/Angel
Rating: NC-17 overall
Feedback: Yes please. [email protected]
Distribution: SU, Soulmates, Soulless, anyone who's hosted my fics before. Anyone else, please let me know. Thank you.
Summary: Angel tells Connor how he turned Spike, but Connor realises there is a lot more to find out.
Author's Notes: This is an AU fic, obviously, but apart from the siring of William the Bloody I have tried not to deviate too much from the canon. It takes place in the current season of Angel, perhaps slightly into an AU future. Cordelia's status makes no difference to the fic, though she appears briefly. She has slept with Connor. Spike has gone through his madness with the First. However, no one in Sunnydale knows about Connor, and no one in LA knows about Spike's soul. Angel has not recently spent any time as Angelus. The Beast is not an immediate problem during the two nights this fic takes place.
I hope I haven't left anything out. I think not. I'm sure it will be fairly clear anyway.
Thanks to Lisa and Ando for betaing, you are both stars.
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Part 1
~*~
Angel shut the door to his office. Connor glared.
"You have other kids?"
"I wouldn't really call them kids," replied Angel.
"But you made them? Like you made me?"
"Well, not exactly." Angel looked sheepish.
Connor shifted in his chair. Angel sat on the edge of his desk looking anywhere but at his son. He had imagined this conversation countless times and, to his mild surprise, it was even more awkward than he had expected.
Connor continued to glare. He did it with such penetrating sulkiness, Angel was quite impressed. Not even at her most manipulative had Darla ever managed such a glare.
He coughed.
"You know," he continued awkwardly, "it took two of us to make you, but with vampires, it only takes one."
"Wow, you don't even get to have sex."
Angel looked into those blue eyes, caught off guard by the provocative use of that word on his son's lips.
"Well, generally not beforehand, no," he mumbled, smiling despite himself.
Connor's lip curled further. Angel frowned again. It seemed more appropriate. He stood and walked behind his desk, leaning on the back of his leather chair.
"So," said Connor, "who are my brothers and sisters?"
Angel sighed, taking a seat. He toyed with a pen on his desk as he answered.
"The only ones still alive are Spike and Drusilla."
Connor saw the conflict in his face, and waited. He knew his father. Knew how to read him.
Angel put the pen down and continued.
"I turned Drusilla first. She was an innocent girl. Had the sight."
"Like Cordelia?" The boy's voice was always brash, always challenging.
"No," replied Angel. "Not like Cordelia. Not exactly. She saw more, and could sense the future. She knew what I was going to do to her."
Angel grew silent, his face like stone. Connor became impatient.
"Which was?" he asked.
"I killed her family, her friends, drove her mad, and turned her on the night before she was to take Holy Orders." He said it without emotion, but Connor could hear beyond his voice.
"Wow," he said, almost impressed. "That's evil."
Angel merely nodded, his eyes dark and far away.
"And Spike?" pressed Connor. He watched the frown lift from his father's face when he said that name. He watched him smile.
"Spike," said Angel quietly. "Spike was my boy." He went back to toying with the pen. It was heavy and silver. "Spike was altogether different. I saw him on the street one night in London. He had all the grace of a newborn lamb. Have you ever seen one of those?"
Connor shook his head.
"Well, they have none, no grace at all. Spike was like that. Skinny legs, trying to rush around. He stormed past us on the street, me, Darla and Dru, and he dropped some pages he was holding. I could smell salty tears on his face." Angel laughed at the memory. "Told me to watch where I was going."
Connor watched his father's face in fascination. He had not imagined that this would be a pleasant conversation for the old man. He had looked forward to more tortured guilt, more pain. Instead he got happy reminiscences.
"I could not help myself. I had to follow him, to find out why such a handsome, graceless young man was storming about the dark streets of London with pages of awful poetry falling from his arms. And the tears, well, they just made it more enticing." Angel leaned forward, the pen between thumb and forefinger. He looked at Connor now, no longer abashed. He had forgotten his awkwardness.
"I found him crying in a stable. I don't know whose, it wasn't his. His family were respectable but not rich. Poor William. He was never all he wanted to be."
Connor looked on, interested now. He had never seen his father talk this way. He vaguely wondered if Angel's eyes lit up like this when he told people about him, Connor. His real son, he thought jealously.
"He looked at me as if I were about to rob him. As if I were interested in his purse." Angel shook his head and laughed. "He wiped his face in his sleeve. His tears turned the wool dark. I was captivated. I had never seen a face like his before, certainly not in the grubby streets of London. I was called Angelus, but William, he had the naïveté of a true angel. White skin, soft hair. I imagined him singing his doggerel before the throne of God."
Angel stood and went to the cupboard. He took out a bottle of whiskey and two glasses.
"You like this?" he asked Connor, raising the bottle. "Or would you prefer a beer?"
Connor's eyes widened.
"A beer, thanks."
Angel went to the fridge and brought back a beer for his son. Connor snapped open the bottle and drank a mouthful as Angel poured twenty five year old Jameson into a crystal tumbler.
"Where was I?" he asked, taking a sip and sighing at the taste. He sat back comfortably.
"The throne of God," prompted Connor.
"Right." Angel laughed. "The throne of God. Of course, in those days, if something belonged to God, I delighted in taking it away. And take it away I did." He took another swallow. It tasted watery in his mouth, but it burned in his belly like real warmth. "I asked him what brought him to such a state, hiding in a stable, tears on his face. He told me it was none of my business. It took some courage to talk to me like that back then."
"Hard to imagine," said Connor, taking another mouthful of beer. Angel saw the light in his eye and laughed.
"Yeah, your old man's gone soft," he said. "Back then, William was so unusual, his words fascinated me more. Of course he was afraid, I could smell it on him. Afraid of me, afraid of my accent, afraid of being alone in a dark place with a strange man bigger than him. But he stood up to me, in his own way. I tore the pages from his hand and read the verses. I ripped them apart, first figuratively, then literally. He simply watched, dumbfounded. He had never seen such improper behaviour in his life."
Connor laughed. Angel raised his eyes to the sound. It was something unusual.
"I asked him who he thought to impress with such drivel," he continued, the whiskey now a hot centre in his belly. "And he told me there was a woman. Cecily. He eventually admitted that she had spurned him that very evening. I laughed at him, told him it was no surprise, with such terrible verses as his. Told him Keats's laundry list had more poetry. Byron's dinner bill. And I watched him as he remained standing there, back to a wooden beam, taking all the abuse I threw at him. He bit his tongue, but he did not cry. Didn't even try to defend himself. He simply stood, as if there was nothing I could say that was worse than Cecily's rejection." Angel sighed again, lost in the memory.
Connor waited, the acidic taste of beer on his tongue. Eventually he became impatient again.
"What happened then?" he asked. "After you tore up his poetry?"
Angel shook himself.
"I told him I could make him a true poet, bring him closer to death than Keats had ever been. His eyes lit up, those blue eyes, behind his spectacles. William's eyes are marvellous, blue as the sky on a clear day. Suddenly he seemed eager to know more. Poor William," said Angel again. "He thought I held all the answers. He looked into my eyes, and he knew. He knew what I was."
"He knew you were a vampire?" asked Connor.
"Not exactly. I doubt he could give it words, even in his own mind. He knew I was something other. Something… effulgent." Angel laughed quietly. Connor frowned but stayed silent. "I had been fascinated by him; now he was fascinated by me. I pretended to lose interest, to leave him there in his stinking stable. Told him he would never amount to anything. But he pulled me back in, back in to the dark." Angel drained his glass, and refilled it. "Of course, I let him. William was not the strongest of humans. He demanded that I stay and explain myself."
Again Angel seemed to melt into his reverie. Connor almost wished he could go there too. Angel spoke of such alien things with such familiarity and ease. Spoke of his past with such pleasure, now, though usually he looked away when his history became the subject of conversation. Again, Connor was wary of interrupting his father's thoughts, but again, his curiosity and impatience got the better of him.
"Did you?" he asked.
Angel looked at his son.
"Did I what?"
"Explain yourself. To William."
Angel smiled lazily.
"Yes." He sat forward, glass in hand. "But I don't think you want to hear this part."
Connor said nothing, he merely stood up and left the room. He returned a moment later with a fresh bottle of beer.
"I think I do," he said, sitting back and crossing an ankle over his knee.
"You do," repeated Angel. "You're sure? You may hear things you don't like."
Connor flicked his hair from his eyes.
"Tell me about William, Dad," he said.
Angel sat back again, his gaze locked with that of his son.
"Okay. I'll tell you. Though stop me if there is something you don't want to hear."
Connor shrugged at the compromise.
Angel took a large mouthful of whiskey. He had never imagined telling Connor all this. He did not know why he told him now. Perhaps it was the boy's right to know. Perhaps William really was Connor's brother. He was too tired, and the whiskey was too warm inside him to figure it out now, so he simply continued walking through his memories of William.
"William was beautiful," he began, his eyes measuring Connor's reaction. He saw nothing. "So slim, with, as I said, a face more beautiful than I could have expected to see anywhere, let alone weeping in a stable in London. I stood close to him as I promised him the world, I could smell his excitement, and his fear. Those are a heady mixture to a vampire." From the corner of his eye he watched as Connor willed himself still. "Of course," he continued, laughing a little, "he was Victorian almost to the core. Some things he simply did not think about. But I could hear his secret thoughts, the ones he buried in all his ethereal love poems to Cecily." He looked at his son. "You know what I mean?"
Connor nodded slowly, the beer in his hand forgotten now. Angel could smell it, slightly sour in the air.
"To a vampire, no such distinctions are made. Men, women, it's all the same. But it was a different thing then for most God-fearing humans. Though William was not so much God-fearing as mother-fearing." He chuckled, the sound low in his chest. "He could hardly conceive of what he himself wanted. And yet…" Angel's voice trailed away. His eyes were distant and bright. Connor knew he was watching William again, watching him finally submit to his father's charms.
Angel roused himself again from his deep reverie.
"The way he turned his head I will never forget. The way, when he saw my demonic face, he stretched out his neck, baring his throat to me. I hesitated because of my surprise and he looked at me fiercely. I would have laughed if I hadn't been so hungry for his blood. If I couldn't smell how hungry he was for me. I wanted my William, and I knew the sooner I turned him, the sooner I would have him. You know," he said, interrupting his own dreamlike train of thought, "at first, when I followed him, I didn't think I would turn him. I thought maybe I would let him die in that stable, really die. I knew Darla would be furious if I brought him home."
Connor could not help but react to his mother's name.
"Was she?" he asked quietly.
"I will get to that part," replied Angel, smiling. "Do you want to hear more about William's turning? Or should I stop there?"
"Go on," said Connor quickly. "I want to know."
Angel nodded.
"I drained him slowly. It's hard to describe the feeling of drinking one that you know you will turn. With William, it was incredibly personal and intimate, as he murmured all the little sounds into my ear of his life ebbing away. He knew what he was saying goodbye to, and he felt nothing but joy in his slowing heart. He did not know what he was facing, but I felt his courage as if it were finally unbottled. I felt him let go." Angel sighed. "I drank until I felt his heart almost stop. I took almost all of his blood. I held him as he lay on the dirty ground while I slit my wrist with my teeth and brought it to his mouth. He drank weakly at first, lapping up the drops that fell from the wound, but soon he had the strength to hold my arm down and clamp his mouth over the cut, drinking as if he understood that his very existence depended on it. It is a wonderful thing, watching and feeling someone choose to be born."
"Well," interrupted Connor. "It's not really a choice, is it? He would have died."
"Sometimes is takes greater courage not to choose death," replied his father. "Remember, this was eighteen eighty. As far as William was concerned, he knew what would happen after his death. Heaven or hell, hopefully heaven. And yet instead of the known, he chose the unknown." Angel smiled. "Instead of heaven, he chose me."
Connor watched the fire burn in his father's eyes.
"Was it the same when you allowed yourself to be turned by Darla?" He could not but ask.
Angel shook his head.
"No. I knew I was damned anyway," he replied with a rueful smile. "Just as she did. That's what she liked so much about me."
Connor smiled despite himself. He knew he should not. He knew he should be horrified. But deep down, he found he could not be so. His father's past had never been anything but a litany of sins to him. This was new. This was interesting.
"William loved that about me too. Loved that I was damning him." For once, that melancholy tone of guilt was absent. There was something else in its place. Perhaps nostalgia, Connor was not sure. "Finally he had taken all that I could give. He was voracious from the first, my William. And then I left his body there to be found in the morning. Just one day, and he would be mine."
"So you left him there? How did you find him again?"
"He was buried quickly, that day. I suppose his mother was shamed by his death in a stable, in the dirt. I suspect she knew more of William's heart than he himself did before he met me. That evening, it was a cold evening, crisp and clear. I left Darla and Drusilla, telling them I would hunt alone that night. Darla looked at me strangely as I left. She knew something was different. And she knew I would never leave her with Drusilla unless I had a reason. She hated being left alone with Dru. The whole insanity thing really bugged her." He smiled faintly, drinking more whiskey. He knew it loosened his tongue, and he did not want to stop his story yet. "So I went out into the city and closed my eyes. I listened. And I walked elsewhere and listened again. I did this until I heard him. I heard him wake up, and begin to kick his way out of that coffin."
Connor narrowed his eyes.
"What's that like?" he asked.
"Scary. And you're so hungry, and you know what you have to do, but you're still weak, so you hit the lid until it gives and then gag on the earth pouring onto your face. Then you start to dig your way up, kicking against the bottom of the coffin to try to force your way. Just when you think you'll never reach the surface, you feel air around the tips of your fingers, and you catch hold of anything you can and pull yourself up and out of your own grave. And if you're lucky, your sire is there waiting for you. I was lucky. So was William."
"If you're not lucky?"
"The unlucky ones wander, lost, till they figure it out by themselves, but probably get staked young anyway. They can't survive without some kind of protection." Angel sighed heavily, but then smiled. "William was lucky. I saw his fingers appear over the earth, saw his nails broken and bloody, he had forced his way up so quickly. I loved that. I loved that he was so eager to reach me." Angel was smiling indulgently again. Then he looked up and caught his son's eyes. "I'm sorry," he said, his smile falling. "If I'm making you uncomfortable, tell me. I can skip more."
Connor shook his head.
"It's alright," he said quietly.
"Are you sure? Because I know if my father was sitting here telling me stuff like this, I'd be uncomfortable."
Connor laughed.
"Was your Dad a two hundred and fifty year old vampire?" he asked softly.
Angel shook his head, smiling.
"No, I guess not," he replied.
"Then you have no idea how much doesn't shock me." Connor smiled in return, a real smile. It was good to see his father happy. Connor remembered his beer and drank some. It was lukewarm by now, but he was not going to leave to get another. "So what happened next?" he said.
Angel watched him for a moment before continuing.
"He climbed out without my help. I watched him struggle up. He was fast and able and not afraid anymore. I was already proud. He stood in front of me, brushing the earth from his morning suit. Last time he was ever going to wear one of those." Angel grinned. Connor was amazed.
"Was that a joke?" he asked incredulously.
"Yeah," said Angel, still smiling. "Come on. A little resurrection-to-darkness humour never hurt anyone."
Connor could only laugh in reply.
Angel continued.
"Of course, we couldn't hunt in the good parts of town with him dressed like that. And anyway, he was hungry. So we hunted close by, and then I brought him home."
"What was it like, hunting?"
"He was a natural, of course. William seemed to have been born to be a vampire. Maybe it was because he hated his life so much, the restrictions of society and expectations. He loved his new life. He hunted with passion, a real flair, you know?"
"Yeah," said Connor. The laughter was gone. "But I mean, who did you hunt?"
Angel's face clouded. He hesitated.
"You've told me everything else," said Connor gently, though with a touch of defiance.
"That first night, he chose a young man, the same age as himself. Ever the poet, was William. He drained him quickly, violently. Left his neck gashed and messy. The first kill is never neat." Angel bit his tongue, glancing at his son. He saw no reaction in his eyes. He could smell nothing but beer and whiskey. He decided to continue. The boy was right. He had told him everything else.
"Once the first hunger is abated, then you start learning the art of a good, clean kill. We walked arm in arm for miles, until he saw another he fancied. A young lady this time. I wouldn't be surprised if she looked like his Cecily. I never asked him. This time I showed him how to do it properly, how to slide his fangs in and out again, and then just drink the blood that the heart pumps straight into your mouth." Angel ran a hand over his eyes. Connor looked away, then back again, almost afraid of his father's thoughts. Angel continued with his eyes covered. His voice was low and rough. "Then, as the heart slows, you need to help it along, so you suck more. You can make that pleasant or painful, depending on how you do it. If you suck nice and slow and gentle, the human will think they've already reached heaven as their bodies mistake numbness for weightless pleasure. The harder you suck, the more painful it will be. Imagine your blood being ripped the wrong way through your arteries, the walls of your blood vessels collapsing in on themselves as they're emptied. That's what it's like if you suck hard. William sucked fiercely. The woman died screaming in his arms."
Angel grew silent. Connor felt that he should say something. His father lowered his hand, his eyes black and hard.
"Do you miss it?" asked Connor finally.
"What?" said Angel sharply.
"The killing. Humans."
Connor watched the debate rage inside his father. Watched him gauge his son, ask what he was capable of hearing and understanding. At last he saw the truth win out. Angel's eyes became harder still.
"With every single mouthful of pig's blood, I miss it." He looked at Connor fiercely. "Does that make me more of a monster in your eyes?"
"You know what it makes you in my eyes?"
"What?"
"It makes you honest."
Connor let the statement hang. He watched Angel react to it. He knew it had been unexpected.
He leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, looking down at the ground.
"I have never not taken what I wanted," he said quietly. "I took you and dumped you in the bottom of the sea. I took Fred and Gunn's trust and threw it back in their faces. I even took Cordelia, when I knew it was wrong." He looked back up at his father. "You're not like that. You take nothing you're not given. You want human blood but you don't take it." Angel looked shocked, as if he didn't trust his own ears. "I mean it," said Connor. "I've never seen you like this before. It's… enlightening."
He sat back. Angel continued to stare. Connor held his gaze.
"Are you going to tell me more or just keep looking at me?" he said.
Angel blinked.
"You want to know more?" he asked uncertainly.
"I told you, it's enlightening." Connor put his empty beer bottle on the ground and sat comfortably into his chair, crossing his arms.
"Okay," said Angel. He thought for a minute before continuing. "William was full now, and warm from the new blood. He was full of life, kept playing around, loving his body and its freedom. He held my hand and pulled me along the dark streets, like a child, but with a knowing gleam in his eyes. He delighted in the shocked faces of people who saw two men so familiar on the street. He began to walk closer to me, smiling and laughing, whispering into my ear, sliding his arm around my waist as he did so." Angel relaxed again, thoughts of William calming him. "Finally we got to the house that Darla and Dru and I had taken. I expected them to be out still, to have time alone with William before facing Darla. But no." Angel smiled again. "She knew I was up to something and had hunted quickly that night. Dru was playing with her dolls when I pulled William into the drawing room. Darla stood by the fire, and I have never seen fury like hers that night."
"My mother," cut in Connor. He wanted to say the words. "What did she think?"
Angel shook his head slowly.
"She looked at William as if he was filth. Asked me what I had brought home. Where I had found him. William just stood beside me, looking mildly alarmed. He kept a hold of my hand, running his other hand along my arm. I stood just in front of him. I was afraid, for a while, that she would stake him then and there."
"She was jealous?"
"I guess so. I was hers, and maybe I loved her, in my own soulless way. I could not imagine continuing without her. But I wanted more. I wanted Dru, for a while, before I forgot about her and just let her tag along because she occasionally amused me. And that night I wanted William. I hated the fact that I had to go through all the shouting and arguing before I could drag him upstairs and…" He cut himself off, looking at Connor. Who was smiling. Angel smiled too, and concentrated suddenly on an invisible blemish on his desk, scratching it with a fingernail. "Heh," he said. "I guess you can finish that sentence if you like. Your choice."
"I think I'll choose not to, and just pretend I did," said Connor. "You're still my Dad."
Angel looked up.
"Okay. I'll skip those bits."
"I appreciate that."
"Don't mention it."
They laughed gently.
"So she was mad. Did you talk her down?" prompted Connor.
"Eventually. She had just become used to Dru, and now here was another member for our little family. I pointed out that it wasn't the same, William wasn't insane. She told me I was. I told her William was a poet and she laughed in his face. I couldn't help laughing myself at that. Dru seemed enchanted by him, though. She said she always liked the taste of poets. She went on about moonbeams for a while. But I growled her down. No one was going to touch my William until I said so, even Darla finally realised that. Then I dragged him upstairs and didn't finish the sentence." Angel laughed and drained his whiskey again. "And that was William's welcome into the bosom of our family."
"And I thought ours was dysfunctional," said Connor.
"You never knew your mother," said Angel, a touch sadly.
"No," said Connor. He looked away.
"For two hundred and fifty years, I was her darling boy," said Angel quietly. "Even when we were apart. But that night, the night she died, before you were born, she put her arms around you while you were still inside her and called you her darling boy. She loved you."
"She staked herself for me."
"Yeah," said Angel raggedly.
"I'm sorry," said Connor. "For taking her away from you."
Angel looked at him.
"No, no, Connor, don't be sorry. You didn't take her away from me." He leaned forward, his elbows on the desk. "You gave her to me. She loved you, and I knew she loved me. For a hundred years we'd been apart, she couldn't stand my soul. Even when she was human. But that moment she understood, and I knew her. I would not change it for the world."
"But you miss her," said Connor.
Angel nodded.
"I do," he said. "And I miss my William. I even miss Dru." He rubbed his eyes. He was tired, and he could feel the dawn tingle at the base of his spine.
"Where is she?"
"I don't know. Far away, I think. We'd hear something if she was close. I miss her, but I think the further away she is from me, the better."
"And what about William?"
"It's Spike now. He can be very adamant about that." Angel smiled wistfully. "He's still in Sunnydale, I guess. I haven't heard anything about him for a few years. I imagine I'd hear if he left."
"In Sunnydale? Where the Slayer lives?"
"Yeah. Where I used to live."
"Don't you think she'd have killed him by now?"
"Last I heard, he had some implant in his head that stopped him harming humans, so she couldn't bring herself to stake him."
"Oh." Connor looked confused.
"I know, I don't understand the whole chip thing either." Angel rubbed his face and yawned. "And I'm not going to tonight, I think," he said, smiling. "Are you okay? Did I tell you too much?"
Connor shook his head gently.
"No, you didn't," he said. "You told me just the right amount."
"Good," replied Angel, pushing himself out of his chair. "In that case, I am going to bed now. If you think of any questions, ask me tonight."
"Can I have more beer if I do?"
Angel laughed and put his hand on Connor's shoulder as he passed.
"Sure," he said. "If I can have whiskey."
"Hey, it's your liquor," said Connor, standing too.
Angel turned to face his son.
"Thank you, Connor," he said. "For listening."
Connor shrugged.
"Thanks for telling me."
Then Angel pulled him into a bear hug and kissed his head.
"Goodnight," he said, letting go.
"Night," said Connor, watching his tired father walk across the lobby.
It was almost five thirty. Connor reckoned that if he slept for a few hours, and then stole the car, he could be in Sunnydale by lunchtime.
He headed to bed. He did not need an alarm clock.
TBC