William wasn't even remotely surprised to hear his sire's footsteps approaching the filing room where he was waiting. There was nothing for him to do, he had finished the filing the day before, but he hadn't known where else to wait for his sire.
He was already standing, unwilling to risk sitting on the seat after having angered his sire (especially given that there was no work for him to do), and equally unwilling to risk Mistress Cordelia catching him sitting on the floor, so he simply bared his neck towards the door as his sire strode in.
"Kneel!" Angel snapped.
William dropped to his knees, his insides quivering in fear at the anger in his sire's voice. He didn't think he had heard his sire so angry with him since he'd rejoined Angel's court.
"You know better than that, William." Angel's voice snapped across the room.
William glanced up at his sire's face in surprise, before instantly regretting the movement when he saw Angel's furious expression. He glanced back at the floor, before quickly lowering his head down until his forehead was resting on the floor – his hands resting by his knees and making it all but impossible for his to rise without moving them.
Angel stalked closer, until he was standing in front of William's head. "So, you think I act more like a human than a vampire?"
William didn't say anything, just waited silently for Angel to speak again.
"And you wish I didn't?" Angel added.
There was another long silence and William focussed his attention on holding his body perfectly still.
"If it wasn't that I knew Drusilla's spell had been completely removed, I would presume that it was behind your shameless disdain for your sire." Angel growled.
William's stomach turned in horror, he'd never thought disdainfully of his sire, never! "No, sire…"
"Silence!" Angel snapped, his foot coming to rest heavily on William's neck. "Clearly I have been neglectful if you think that this sort behaviour is acceptable. Did you think that I would allow you to speak contemptuously about me before my court without consequences?"
William held himself frozen, not even daring to swallow, as Angel's foot lifted.
"Follow me!" Angel commanded him, striding towards the door.
William glanced unsurely after his sire, did Angel expect him to crawl or walk?
"On your feet." Angel added, as though reading William's mind. "I have no time to wait for you to crawl like the disrespectful little shite you are."
William winced as he pulled himself to his feet, Angel's Irish accent never signalled anything good. The worst punishments he had ever received from his sire had always be preceded by an Irish accent.
He followed Angel through the hotel, past the training room, through a door he hadn't been through before and into a room that bore a startling resemblance to the punishment rooms his sire had always had before being cursed with a soul.
There wasn't much too the room, certainly no stone walls like some of Angel's punishment rooms had had, but there were chains hanging from the ceiling.
"Strip!" Angel commanded, before beginning to do something to the chains.
William quickly began to remove his clothing, carefully folding them and placing them near the door. As afraid as he was, he was simultaneously delighted. This was exactly the sort of thing that he had been talking to the humans about and, while he knew that his thoughts and words had been unpardonable, he was thrilled that they had managed to coax out this side of his sire.
Angel ignored him for a few minutes, continuing to fiddle with the chains, and after a while William suddenly remembered one of Angel's rules that he had forgotten. He quickly lowered himself to his knees, trying to ignore the fact that he was naked, and placed his forehead on the floor again.
"At least you remember something." Angel commented eventually, his tone hard. "Stand up."
William stood, and barely managed to contain his flinch as Angel stepped towards him and manhandled him towards the chains. Then, without any warning, Angel picked him up and flipped him around.
"Hands on the floor." Angel commanded, and William obeyed instantly.
William's stomach clenched as Angel closed the manacles at the end of the chains around his ankles. His sire knew him well. Of all the creative punishments that Angel had delivered to him, hanging from his ankles had always been one of the ones he hated the most.
Within a few minutes, Angel had hoisted the chains up until William's hands could no longer reach the ground and had stepped away.
"You are a fledgling!" Angel told him coldly. "My fledgling, and you have no right to have an opinion regarding my actions, or the actions of the masters in my court."
William swallowed heavily, unsure of what was to come.
Then, without another word, Angel stepped forward and lifted William up and roughly sunk his teeth into his neck. Then, after a few seconds, Angel ripped his neck out, tearing through the skin, before doing the same thing on the other side of William's neck.
William flinched as Angel unceremoniously dropped him, causing the manacles around his ankles to dig in, but the pain wasn't nearly as horrible as watching Angel walk out of the room without looking back.
William hung still, blood slowly dribbling up his neck and into his hair line.
He knew from experience that the blood wouldn't stop until there was none left, or Angel came back. He had no idea how exactly Angel managed to keep the wounds from healing but they never did.
He also knew that it would take hours for him to run out of blood, and by the time he had his hair would be completely drenched with it and there would be a large puddle on the ground beneath him.
He knew that he would start to get dizzy, and the pain around his ankles would get increasingly worse as the blood slowly dripped out of him.
He knew that eventually Angel would come back and stand irreverently in the puddle of blood to demonstrate just how worthless it was to him.
He knew that Angel would most likely then whip the skin from his back, while commenting in dark humour about the lack of blood to run out of the welts.
But he also knew, that as horrible as this was, and as much as the humans would hate the very thought of it, this was exactly what he had been missing from his sire. This was what sires did to their childer that they found valuable. And while the humans certainly wouldn't see this as a demonstration of familial love, William did.
9-9-9
It was after dinner that Angel eventually returned to the room to release William from the chains that were hanging him the ceiling. He had visited the room around mid-afternoon, after at least two thirds of William's blood had spilled out onto the floor, to deliver the second half of William punishment (a thorough whipping), before leaving him there again.
It had been annoying to dodge Wesley, Gunn and Cordelia's questions about William's location, but he had simply told them that they didn't want to know. Cordelia had grimaced, Gunn had shifted uncomfortably, and Wesley had looked as though he wanted to ask another question but had thought better of it, and then they all left him alone about the issue.
Angel pushed the door open and took in the sight of his childe hanging limply by his feet over a large pool of blood. William looked pale, but his eyes were open and he stared silently at Angel.
Angel strode across the room, ignoring the blood on the floor, and grabbed hold of William before undoing the manacles that were around his childe's ankles.
"Sorry, sire." William whispered desperately. " 'm sorry."
Normally Angel didn't allow his fledglings to speak without permission, but he had always allowed them to break that rule after punishments. Darla hadn't understood it and had believed that it underminded whatever lesson he had been teaching them, but Angel thought that it was important for his childer to connect with him again.
"You're forgiven, childe." Angel promised, releasing the second manacle and catching William's weight as he fell.
"Sorry…" William said again. "Sorry."
Angel gently turned William over in his arms and carried him out the door, ignoring the mess behind him for now. This was the problem with not having minions, in the past they would have cleaned up after William's punishment, but now Angel had to decide whether to do it himself to have William do it in the morning.
It only took Angel a few minutes to carry William up to his bedroom, and he couldn't help but be relieved that he hadn't passed any of his friends on the way. Regardless of the things they had said that morning, about wanting him to be himself around them, he doubted they were ready to see William like that. He doubted they would ever be ready for that.
Once in his room, Angel used his fangs to rip open the skin on his wrist, before placing his rest against William's mouth. William didn't move as the blood dripped into his mouth, not even to swallow, and Angel smiled with pride.
"You can swallow, William."
William swallowed immediately, and then again few seconds later, but didn't attempt to suction more blood from Angel's wrist.
Angel didn't think he had ever felt so proud of his childe, not in the last century anyway. "Drink, childe."
William's eyes darted towards his face, before his lips tightened around the open skin on Angel's wrist and he began actually sucking desperately at the blood source.
Angel allowed him to drink for a few minutes, but when he started to feel lightheaded he called his childe to a halt. William froze, partway through swallowing and didn't move.
"Swallow." Angel instructed, pulling his wrist away. That done, he lay his childe down on his mattress and covered him with a blanket. "Go to sleep."
10-10-10
It took William a day and a half to recover from his punishment, time which he spent restricted to his mattress. Cordelia, Gunn and Wesley visited him occasionally, mostly to bring him blood (and to ask questions in Wesley's case). William suspected that their actions were likely driven by a need to ensure that Angel hadn't killed him.
Each of them had asked him some questions about what Angel had done to him, all of which William had answered vaguely (as Angel had instructed him to). The humans seemed both horrified at the idea of the punishment requiring him to spend a day recovering and completely flummoxed over how happy William was about it.
William felt more settled than he had for over a century, since Angel had last punished him like that, and he was thankful for the opportunity to spend the day enjoying his mellow glow. However, he was equally as grateful when Angel ordered him to get dressed the next morning. One day on the mattress was nice, two would have been boring.
He followed Angel down the stairs and into the kitchen, baring his neck respectfully at the humans who were already there before moving to warm his sire up some blood. He'd gotten used to the routine by now and within a few minutes he was placing the first cup of warm blood in front of his sire.
"William and I have another appointment with the coven today." Angel told the humans, before turning his attention to William. "Drink it."
William darted his eyes up to Angel's face, to ensure that he hadn't misheard his sire, before obediently downing the blood without taking the time to savour the taste. Did this mean that Angel was planning on drinking straight from his neck in front of the humans?
"Drink three more." Angel instructed, before returning to his conversation with the humans. Though now they seemed to be discussing possible motives for Wolfram and Hart to have brought Darla back to life.
William quickly warmed up a second mug, and then a third, and then a fourth, using the time that they were microwaving to make his sire, and each of the humans, a hot drink. Coffee for his sire, Mistress Cordelia and Gunn, and tea for Wesley.
When he had finished the fourth mug of blood, William moved to stand at his sire's elbow and waited for Angel to address him.
"…doesn't make any sense." Mistress Cordelia was saying. "They must have known that you were the one to kill her."
"Maybe that's why they chose her." Master Gunn suggested. "They could have been trying to play on his guilt."
William was so busy listening to their conversation that he almost missed Angel's hand gesturing him to kneel. He allowed his eyes to dart up to Angel's face again, his sire had never commanded him to kneel in front of the humans, before quickly dropping to his knees.
Mistress Cordelia, who was halfway through a sentence, stuttered before continuing smoothly.
It felt strange to kneel in front of the humans, but not in a bad way. It felt as though the world had suddenly returned to its normal order and everything was as it was. As he knelt, William remembered the horror that he had felt when Angel had informed him that he had to treat the humans like masters. It had seem unfathomable to him, after all humans were food, but now it felt just right.
After a few minutes, Angel's hand grasped William behind his neck and hauled him to his feet. William quickly straightened his feet under him and bore his own weight as Angel sunk his teeth to his neck.
Because of the angle at which Angel was holding him, William couldn't see the humans but he could sense them and smell them. They smelt shocked and a little horrified, but they didn't say anything. After a few minutes, they even started up their conversation again. A conversation that Angel would occasionally release William's neck to take part in, before returning to his meal after he had said his piece.
It reminded William of similar times, over a century beforehand, when this exact thing had taken place, though with Darla and some of Angel's other childer as audience rather than the humans. It felt perfect, it felt like home.
10-10-10
This is the last part of Fledgling Realisations. I hope you have enjoyed it :)
I have one (possibly two) sequels planned, and I have actually started one of them, but it isn't my highest priority at the moment so it might take a while.