disclaimer: I don't own anything from Buffy, I don't own anything from Angel. I'm just a fan submitting ideas to an audience.
Angel POV Angel recalls an argument he-Liam-had with his father long ago.
Never A Man
I'm sleeping in my bed, the afternoon sun shining down upon my brow. I should have gotten up hours ago, but my drinking from last night has yet to fully fade from me.
My 'healing' is interrupted when my father bursts in, furious. Father storms over to my bed.
"The sin of sloth infests you, boy!" he rages.
He grabs me by the collar and throws me out of my bed-not bad for the old man. I hit the ground hard, and my head screams like the legendary banshee. Usually, I would have a remark lying in wait for times like this, when I am belittled, but I'm too dazed.
Father takes advantage of the moment.
"You expect lenience when you go out at night to poison yourself with ale and pursue sins of the flesh?" he roars, hitting me on the back with his cane. It doesn't hurt as bad as it has in the past.
"Lenience? From you, Father? I would never think of it," I reply snidely. Yes, that's better. It may earn me another hit with the cane-which it does-but it's worth it.
Father glares down at me. I glare back at him. This isn't the first time we've come to a confrontation of wills, and it's nowhere near the last.
Finally, Father straightens, fixes his gaze upon me, and points his cane accusingly.
"You listen, boy, and listen well," he says in his authoritative voice-otherwise known as his usual voice, "You think manhood within your grasp. You think that this gives you warrant to act without law, without courtesy. How mistaken you are! You think a man spends his days quiescent and his nights making a fool of himself, fondling the village whores?"
I've had enough of Father's speech, so I add in my own remark, hoping to get arise out of him and make him forget what he was talking about. Not because it bores me, but because he's getting to me.
"And you, Father? You be a man for all of the great accomplishments you have to show? Yes, I suppose losing two out of three wives is only a trifle loss when compared to King Henry…"
My silver tongue has always been an asset of mine. I've always known what to say to what people. I got it from my father, actually.
And that sliver tongue of mine just earned me a firm hit on the chest that makes me cry out in pain. Father didn't hold back on that one. Or on the next three.
When he stops, I know that a rib is broken. So much for that work… He'll probably make me do it anyway…
"A man is what you will never be, Liam!" he fumes.
That sentence hits me harder than Father's blows. But I'll never show that. I probably don't have to; Father knows how to hurt me.
He continues, "You will never be more than the pathetic, sorry swine that you are now! You will never be able to carry yourself with pride the way a man can! Never!"
It's too much. I'm hurting physically and internally. I use my precious mouth to get him to stop.
"Another failure for you then, Father?"
He stops. He jerks back, like I've struck him. But he regains his composure in an instant. But he's finished.
He looks down at me on the floor in disgust.
"Get dressed and get your work done," he says briskly.
He turns on his heel and starts out of my room. I start to get to my feet, using the bed for balance. He pauses at the door, and our eyes meet.
He's sorry.
I'm sorry.
But we'll never say it.
He leaves and I get dressed.
I was nineteen at the time; only seven years before I met Darla and became Angelus. I was just entering my drunken life, and just on the very cusp of my evil career. My father never called me a man and I don't think I really ever was.
Well, I'm certainly not now. My soul might have made me more human, and I may have become a Champion, but at the end of the day I still drink pig's blood and I get burned from sunlight and crosses.
I am not a boy anymore, I am not a man anymore. I'm just a vampire.
