Chapter Text
William is a fool. A sentimental, immature, sad little man whose foolishness has led him, once again, to heartbreak and loneliness.
He doesn't remember quite how it happened. Only that he drank heavily after his greatest humiliation to date and found himself slumped against the wall in an alley. A woman had been there with him, he thinks, at some point after he left the party. Oh, he does hope she's alright. He'd hate for a lovely woman like that to bear this terrible nighttime chill.
When he blinks open his eyes, he's a little surprised to find it still dark out. He must not have been that drunk, then? To not have passed out entirely? Yet there is an undeniable tingly numbness throughout his body, like his sense of touch is very far away. And he truly is so very cold.
"You alright, there?" a voice asks gruffly, and William glances upward to a figure that has joined him in the lonely dark. Not nearly as pleasant a face as the woman who had spoken to him after he fled the party—what was it they spoke about? It can't have been too important, he reasons, if he doesn't remember it. The man is tall and pale, with dark hair tied back behind his head in a low ponytail, and his clothes are quite strange indeed. Just like his hair, his eyes are equally dark, staring at him with the tentative concern of a well-meaning passerby. He sounds rather Irish.
William almost acts quite rudely, thinking in his weary state that perhaps his drinking has attracted the man to him. Like a fly to dung. But he knows such a thought to be absurd, so he shakes his head free of it and starts to climb to his feet. "I assure you I am perfectly well, thank you."
"That so?" The man tilts his head slightly, watching how William wobbles once upright, a hint of amusement in the corner of his mouth. "You have a name, lad?"
"Of course. I am William Pratt. And you would be…?"
"Liam."
William blinks, then asks, "Liam… what?"
"No surname. Just Liam."
"Really?" What an unusual thing. "But what of your father's name?" If he even has a father, of course. Perhaps Liam in his odd clothes and unusual way of referring to himself is an orphan, raised without family or title. That would be quite pitiful, but at the very least it would provide an acceptable explanation.
Liam's expression hardens. "I don't much care to be known by it."
Even with the peculiarity of that statement, William cannot find it in himself to care, for it suddenly feels like he's being pulled. He can almost imagine a rope attached to his heart, tugging him in the direction he presumes to be home. So he readjusts his coat and gives his new acquaintance a polite nod. "Very well. It was a pleasure meeting you, Liam, but I really must be going now."
"William, wait," Liam says as he starts walking to the street, making him pause and look back. Liam's hand is halfway extended, as if he'd tried to reach for William's arm and then thought better of it. "There's something you need to see. I'll show you, if you just come with me."
At that, William scoffs. "You must take me for a fool. Trust me, I know perfectly well not to follow strangers into the night, but I do applaud your efforts. Really, though, I should get home as soon as possible, my mother is very sick, and I—"
"I'm not going to rob you." Liam seems rather exasperated by the notion, but the look in his eyes is sincere. "I swear, I mean you no harm. I only wish to show you something."
'Something'? How clear. How descriptive. William must be losing his mind, or he must indeed be a fool after all, because for some inane reason, he finds himself replying, "Very well."
Liam brings William to a cemetery, which is surely one of the most suspicious of places to be brought in the dead of night. What time even is it? Had he truly slept for such a short time that dawn is not yet near? And if Liam doesn't plan to rob or assault him, then what reason could he possibly have to bring William out here, without so much as the sunrise to light the way?
It is no warmer amongst the gravestones than it was where they began, and William internally curses for not having brought a more substantial coat. Even so, he follows the strange man willingly, knowing that he probably shouldn't, but growing awfully curious as to what this 'something' could be. That strange pull inside him has eased now, like this place is where he had intended to go from the beginning. How peculiar.
It is then, at the height of his wonderings, that he sees her. A woman standing a good distance away, watching a particularly fresh resting place. His heart aches for the pain she must feel, as the grave must belong to a loved one, newly deceased. When Liam stops, and begins to simply watch the grieving woman from afar, William frowns in confusion.
"What is this? Liam, what is this?" William asks. A gasp escapes him as he suddenly recognizes the woman they observe. Her thin frame, her dark hair. "Oh, Lord, that's the woman who spoke to me in the alley! Just before I nodded off, she was there, she was…" She was beautiful, and strange, almost otherworldly. But what a scandal that would be, for him to speak of her in such a manner. He doesn't even know her name!
Liam doesn't seem nearly as moved. "She spoke to you, did she?" His tone is oddly conversational despite the grim look on his face. "Do you remember what about?"
"I…" he falters, for as hard as he tries to remember, his memory fails him. "I'm afraid not. My mind was clouded with both heavy drink and heartbreak, so unfortunately the nature of our conversation alludes me, now that my thoughts are clear."
"Ah." Liam nods as if this makes a particular amount of sense. "And you remember absolutely nothing else?"
"No, not at all. Why, what are you insinuating? That she was a thief?"
"In a way," he replies vaguely, then it's as if his attention is firmly glued to the alleyway woman, a sadness tugging faintly on his lips. "Shouldn't be long now."
It is for a long time that they watch her. An irritatingly long time, made worse by the cold numbness of the air, and the lingering feelings of drunkenness in William's skull. But the woman seems unbothered by the chill, and stands by the grave with apparently limitless patience. It becomes clear to William after almost an hour that she, too, is waiting for something. A blanket of fog shrouds much of their environment, and the anticipation for that mysterious 'something' builds to a nearly unbearable degree.
It almost frightens him out of his skin when Liam speaks up again.
"It's time, William. I'm…" Liam turns to look at him, brows knit together. "I'm truly sorry."
Before William can ask him what he's sorry for, or perhaps reprimand Liam for startling him, something finally starts to happen.
At first, it's the strange woman. For the first time since the men had arrived, she breaks free from her stillness and clasps her hands together, bouncing on her toes in what looks like excitement. What could she possibly have to be excited about, if she is here to mourn?
Then the reason for her excitement—and her being there at all—reveals itself, as the fresh soil in front of the grave marker starts to shift and shudder, like something is forcing its way up from beneath the surface. It is a dreadful sight, one that William can't seem to make sense of. One that unsettles him to his core. Over the course of about a minute, this… thing… claws out of the ground, dragging itself out and up and into the arms of the alleyway woman. It looks dazed and confused, but greets her with a familiar sort of reverence and relief. Like it did not expect her to be there, but is beyond glad that she is.
This would be terrible enough were it not for the cause of that sense of sick familiarity.
That thing, that creature which crawled out of the earth like a child being torn from a dead mother's belly, not only is it shaped like a man, but it looks like him. Like William. It has his hair, his clothes, even his face, but it is not him. It can't be him, because he's standing right here, and he's fine, and he…
"Oh, God," William gasps, bringing a hand to his mouth in horror. Except he doesn't really feel the contact between his fingers and his lips, nor does he properly feel the weight of his clothes, or the earth beneath his shoes. He knows it is there, and yet he is disconnected. Untethered. Not… not really there.
He turns to Liam in a panic. "Is it true? Am I truly…?" He can't bring himself to say it. To utter the word aloud, for whatever it might mean for him to do so in this state of being. But long before Liam can answer him, he knows the answer.
William Pratt is dead.
The woman in the alley was a monster, and seduced him into trusting her, before tearing out his throat like an animal while he screamed. She killed him, and he's only just now realizing it.
"Afraid so," Liam says regretfully.
"Then how… Are you, as well? How can I possibly be speaking to you, if… if I'm…"
He steps closer to William, and draws in a shaky breath. Though that must be for show, mustn't it? For surely the dead do not need to breathe. Oh, God, he's really dead. "Yes, I'm dead," Liam admits. "Just the same as you. I'm sorry, again, that I couldn't make this transition easier for you, William. You seem a good man, not deserving of all this, but those devils unfortunately don't care who deserves it."
"Those…" His attention is drawn back to the alleyway woman and his own reanimated corpse, covered in dirt yet grinning widely. "What are they?"
Liam sighs, following his gaze. "They're of the devil. Demons put into human bodies to… feed on the living. Vampires." Despite the shocking and horrifying nature of that truth, Liam somehow doesn't seem disturbed to share it. He appears only weary and apologetic, as if he is informing William of property damage, not… not that he's been replaced by a vampire.
"Vampires," William repeats. "Vampires?"
"Yes."
"And what of me, then? My soul? I—I was never a fully devout man, but I… I prayed, I went to church, I… Why am I still here? I was a good man, I should—I should be in heaven, shouldn't I?"
The vampires appear to be leaving now, and William feels that tugging sensation again as they leave the cemetery together to prey on the innocent people of London.
"Aye, you should be. But as luck would have it, we're bound to them. Our old bodies. Don't know why it is, but when a person gets turned into a vampire, it… does something, to the soul inside. Taints it, maybe. Traps it here with the monster who replaced it."
"Bound to them," William echoes, feeling suddenly very small, and very afraid. He doesn't wish to spend his eternity as a lost spirit haunting his old body. Perhaps he's made some terrible mistake in life that he wasn't aware of, done some truly unforgivable thing that condemned him to this… this hell. Yes, this must be hell. Surely if he'd been as good as he thought then the Lord would make an exception?
"I'm sorry, William," Liam says again. Why has he apologized so much? It isn't his fault they're in this hell together, since it is merely the callous work of demons. Demons wearing their skin and using their bodies to feed on people. In this terrible hell. "Come on, you don't want to see what happens when you let them get too far ahead."
Well, that's certainly true. He doesn't want to know. He wants nothing more than to forget all of this and wake up in his bed to the sound of his mother scolding him for making her worry. "Oh, God, mother!" he exclaims suddenly as they begin to walk after the vampires. "Oh, she'll be worried sick! She has no one else, no husband, just me. Liam, I must go to her and assure her that—"
"You can't," Liam snaps. "You're gone, William."
"But… She'll be worried. I have to go to her."
"William, listen to me," Liam says firmly, stepping into his space and looming over him. He's quite a tall man. Even so, his voice softens. "There's nothing to be done. You're gone. You've been gone for days already, she's…" When William's face falls even further than it already has, Liam sighs, shakes his head, and repeats to him apologetically, "There's just nothing to be done. I'm so sorry. It's out of our hands now."
He mustn't cry. Even though the thought of her alone—alone in their house with nothing but their servants—makes him even more frightened than the knowledge that he has passed, he mustn't let himself cry. He's a man, and a gentleman, and though he is dead, he must still hold himself to the standards of the living. He cannot let himself fall apart. Otherwise, what kind of man would he be?
So he sniffs and wipes his eyes stubbornly on his phantom sleeve, which feels like nothing at all but serves to anchor him to his decision. And he follows the invisible thread alongside his new companion, resolving to be courageous.
That first night, the vampire—William's vampire—gorges itself on blood. It is a horror like no other, and William forces himself to watch it happen. At the start, anyway. He very quickly finds he has no stomach for such a thing and would much rather ignore it to the best of his ability.
The vampire's day is spent in slumber. William feels as though he is even less tethered to the mortal plane during the day than he is at night. He feels like an afterthought, or a mirage. Still just as aware as before, but seeing the world come back to life while he continues to be dead is a truly alienating experience. He fears he might forget he even exists.
As time passes, he realizes that he and Liam aren't the only spirits tied to these horrible creatures. He hadn't noticed her before, as she seems to be hiding herself from them, but the soul of the alleyway woman—Drusilla—is also present. Liam tells William that she was driven mad before her turning, but refuses to say by what. She doesn't appear often, but William quickly learns that she is never far from her vampire, just like William is never far from his own. Strangely, he has yet to see the vampire spawned by the death of Liam.
And the following night is no better than the first. Worse, in fact, because William's vampire isn't quite so hungry, and has been taken over by a strange excitement for the demonic life of evil ahead of it.
William follows the creature to the front steps of the home that had once been his own, where he knows his mother still resides. Where it plans to take her from him.
Liam steps in front of him before he can enter the house, as if it means anything. As if William can't simply pass right through him. As if he can stop him.
"Don't go in there, I'm warning you. You don't want to see what he does to her."
William glares at him, infuriated by the idea too being interrupted. "I've seen what he does, Liam. But she's my mother. I have to see her one last time."
"Damnit, William, you heard what he was sayin'! He doesn't mean to feed, he means to make her like us!" Liam exclaims desperately. Then he averts his eyes, and his voice drops to a whisper. "She'll be with us soon enough."
William clenches his fists. "Then I'll stop him."
"You can't! There's nothing we can do!"
"Watch me!" he hisses, then storms through the closed door of his home.
When his vampire and his mother come face to face, he starts talking. He tells his vampire not to, that he knows better, that their mother wouldnt want this. Despite what Liam has said, he knows a small part of himself still lives on in the creature. Otherwise it never would have come back for her. So he reasons with it, pleads with it, screams and begs with everything he has, don't hurt her. Let her go to heaven.
But the vampire doesn't hear him. William's pleas fall on deaf ears and he watches helplessly as his own body murders his mother and implants her with a demon, damning her to the same fate that's befallen him. In a way, it's as if he himself has killed her. If he'd never gone to that party, never humiliated himself, never fled, then her soul would be safe. There wouldn't be a vampire to kill her if William had just been less of a lovesick fool.
It gets worse when she rises the very next night. Her soul is there with him, disoriented, but a sudden conflict between the vampires leads to her vampire's destruction, and her spirit vanishes before William can so much as reassure her that it's going to be alright, that he's here for her. He may be nothing more than a ghost, but losing her twice in a row still nearly kills him.
Liam says nothing in the two nights that this happens. He just watches, as if to say I told you so. And William wants to hate him for it. He wants to hate him for it so desperately, but as he stands over the bed of his dead mother, he finds that he has no hate in his heart but for himself and the monster he's been turned into.
As if reading his thoughts, Liam says, "It wasn't your fault, lad."
"How can you say that?"
"Because you said it yourself, just as I've seen it clear as day: You're a good man, William. You never would have let this happen if you'd known."
Her bedsheets are still rumpled and soft-looking, and he cannot smell the sickness in the air like he could when he was alive. Aside from a pile of dust downstairs, there's hardly any sign of her left. When he reaches to feel whatever warmth that might remain, it isn't there. No sensation rises up to greet his ghostly hand.
"A good man would have known. A good man would have stopped it," William mutters miserably, still staring at the bed.
"Don't be daft, boy. There's no way you could have known about all this," Liam scolds him in a way that is clearly meant to be reassuring, but only serves to sink William deeper into his pain.
William stares in silence for a moment more, then a choked sob escapes him. He doesn't understand how he could be without a body and yet have so little control over his own self, and yet, impossibly, his perception of himself starts to weep. And though the physical sensations of crying allude him, he feels his emotions just fine. They're no less vivid than when he was alive. He feels them so much it's as if he's drowning in them.
A watery glance reveals to him that Liam is watching him cry, a conflicted look on his face, like he isn't sure what to do but feels just terrible about it. When Liam starts to leave, perhaps thinking his presence isn't wanted, William realizes that although he feels like a blubbering fool, he cannot bear the thought of blubbering alone.
"Don't go," he begs quietly, and Liam pauses.
William has nothing left to say, and it's all just too much to bear, and he misses his mother and he misses feeling. There is nothing he wouldn't give to feel something physically right now, even if that something is pain. He hates feeling this numb and detached from the world he'd barely even gotten to experience.
Just wishing to be close to her again, he climbs into his mother's empty bed. The sheets and pillows are not disturbed by his touch, but just as he does not fall infinitely down into the earth, the concept of the bed's shape seems to accept his incorporeal form, and makes no fuss as he curls up and sobs quietly at the lack of her scent. There is nothing left of her, nothing left. It's as if she was never there at all. His mother is dead and it's his fault. Liam may say otherwise, but he knows it's his fault. He just knows.
He does not feel the sensation of Liam tentatively climbing into bed behind him, nor does he physically feel the arms that curl around his middle. Even so, he knows innately that it is happening, like a sixth sense. Even curled around him, Liam is so far away, so distant, but he is indeed there. Cradling William like a child. It should feel strange, to be held like this by another man, let alone a man he hardly knows, but it doesn't. If anything, knowing that Liam is there is a desperately-needed balm on William's agony.
So, on the third night since William became aware of his own death, he cries softly in the gentle arms of a man just as dead as he is, grieving both the death of his mother and of himself, and coming to terms with the vastness of an eternity spent unable to truly feel.
Truly, this fate that has claimed him is the worst he could have ever imagined. But it would surely be worse if he were forced to do it by himself. At the very least, he has the knowledge that although he is indeed trapped in this hell on earth, he isn't alone.
"I have a few questions, if you might humor me," William says one night. It has not been especially long since this terrible journey started, but he has slowly begun to adjust. He is miserable, yes, but it isn't often that he's still frightened by the inhuman efficiency with which his vampire kills and drains his prey.
"Alright," is Liam's very predictable response.
"Why have you been so kind to me, Liam?"
He asks because it does not make sense. Liam has said very little about himself, but of the few things he has said, his own goodness is one of them. He claims he was not a good man when he was alive, and yet he has been very gentle and accomadating to William in this afterlife they've found themselves in.
They're sitting side by side on the front doorstep of the current den of William and Drusilla's vampires. God knows what those monsters are entertaining themselves with inside, for they have made all manner of cheers and blood-curdling screams. William has accepted that in most circumstances, he would truly rather not look.
Liam sits with his arms resting informally on his knees, leaning forward and watching contentedly as the night rolls by. Street lamp flames flicker ambiently, and every now and then there is a pedestrian totally unaware of how much danger they are in by straying so close to their only real predator.
"Because I would have liked it, when I was in your position," Liam answers softly. "I was a drunken, reckless fool, lured to my death by a pretty face and vague promises. Died with my throat ripped out in an alley."
"Sounds familiar," William murmurs.
Liam makes a somewhat amused expression. "But the soul of my maker was distant and angry. Didn't want anythin' to do with me, so I had to learn of my own demise, the whole vampire thing, all of it, all on my own. Wasn't fun. I would have liked to have had it explained to me. To have been… held, while I came to terms with it."
"Oh." William feels quite moved by this act of compassion. That Liam might be so kind because he himself was shown no kindness upon his death. "I'm so terribly sorry that you had to do this alone. I cannot imagine how awful that must have been for you."
It seems, for a moment, that Liam is touched, that he might give thanks, but that expression of vulnerability clears a moment later. "Ah, don't be sorry. I was a damned hedonistic scoundrel long before I was a vampire, and besides… It's been more than enough time for me to accept what became of my body and soul. I hardly need that wound reopened." He clears his throat and slaps his knees. "So. You said questions, as in you have more than one. What else have you got for me?"
"How… how long has it been for you? If you don't mind my asking, of course. It's perfectly fine if that's too personal."
"Too personal? We're dead, William. Don't think privacy really matters all that much to us ghosts," Liam says with a weak chuckle. "I'm not too great with the maths of it all, stopped keeping such careful track a while back, but I know I've been gone over a century. Died seventeen-fifty-three, at the age of twenty and six."
"Seventeen-fifty-thr—" William stops to count in his head for a few moments, and his eyes go wide. "Christ. You've been dead for a hundred and twenty-seven years?"
An actual smile creeps across Liam's face at that. A small one, but very real. "Suppose I have."
"But that means… A whole different century… Everyday life must have been so different in comparison to now! I can hardly even picture it."
"Isn't much to picture, really. Dirtier. Smellier. Ridiculous clothes, in hindsight. But it wasn't so different. There's still horses and alcohol and people sayin' things they shouldn't. Everything that matters is still the same."
"Even still, it must have been so spectacular to watch the world around you change."
He shrugs. "Sure, some things aren't so bad. The women have gotten more attractive, I'll give them that."
William laughs at Liam's boldness. Oh Lord, if he had ever dared to say such a thing whe he'd been alive… He dares not even think of how such a statement might be taken in the civilized times of today. And yet, he finds himself also charmed and delighted by it, despite its outrageousness. Perhaps a bit of boldness is exactly what he's been needing. Something silly and crass to distract him from the agonizing numbness of this spectral existence. A good laugh to ease the existential dread of it all.
His reaction only makes Liam smile even wider, and to laugh as well, though he clearly doesn't understand what has amused William so.
Shortly after their shared amusement settles down, a loud crash from inside the building reminds them of the bloodsucking fiends that have taken over their bodies, sobering the mood once again, though William clings to the comfortable air of their conversation like a lifeboat at sea.
And besides, he has one more question he's been just dying to know the answer to.
"How is it you've been able to stay by my side?" he asks. "When I stray from my vampire, it is like I am a horse, and I am being tugged most violently by the reins. I always know where it is, and I cannot go far away from it without experiencing great discomfort. But of all the time I've spent like this, I've never once seen the demon you're bound to. How is that possible?"
Liam looks out into the dark of night once more, avoiding William's gaze. His hands come together and start fidgeting. "My vampire and his sire aren't that far from us, really," he says quietly. "They never are. Too far for you, though, of course. But I've had a lot of time to practice getting away from the thing that stole my face."
A lot of time. That seems like quite an understatement, but William doesn't call him out on it.
"I've heard these two talking. Even if you don't want to see what they do, William, you really should pay attention to their words. It helps, knowing what to brace yourself for," Liam advises grimly, before continuing with a shuddering breath. "They'll be meeting up with him soon, by the sound of it. I'd hoped there would be more time, but…"
William tilts his head. "I've hardly been dead a fortnight, and yet already I have seen all manner of unholy, disturbing things. I admit, I am not excited by any means, but… I just don't see how one or two more vampires could possibly make this worse."
Liam gives him a sharp look, and it is so deadly serious that it doesn't even need words to further make its point: it will be worse. However terrible these two vampires are, Liam's vampire and its maker are on an entirely different level of awfulness. "In all the years I've spent trapped on this godforsaken earth, strapped to the heel of a demon," Liam growls, his eyes wild and full to the brim with unimaginable trauma, "I need you to understand that I have never seen a vampire as creatively cruel as my own. He… he isn't anything like the one that came from you, William. I don't want to trouble you with the details, because I don't think you deserve to hear them, but know this: I had much more family to lose, and I lost them. All of them. And know that the broken girl… who talks to the shadows in the corner of your eye…" He nods to where the soul of Drusilla lurks in the distance, "…she is that way because he wanted it so. Because he drove her to that point, and ripped out her sanity like a rotted tooth. Every kindness I've shown you is in spite of him. Because Angelus is so cruel, so evil, that I have to be good as compensation."
Then Liam proceeds to stand abruptly, fists clenched and jaw set. He starts to walk away and only falters to say over his shoulder, "When you face him, you won't be doing it alone. But until then, go ahead and feel the cold."
William is on his own for only a handful of days and nights, but he hates every second of them, and is grateful when he sees Liam again.
It is perhaps unfortunate, though, that their reunion coincides with the first meeting of their vampire selves.
"I'm afraid I don't understand," William says as the vampires hurry off into the night. From a window in the wall of the hotel, it's easy to see where they go, but leaves a comfortable barrier of glass between the souls and the explicit nature of whatever their vampires have planned.
Liam, for all his attempts at keeping things light, seems rather weary. "What isn't there to get?"
"Your vampire…. Angelus. Forgive me if I've misunderstood, but it almost sounded as if he was…" he hesitates to say such a thing aloud, for fear of how his friend might react, should he be incorrect about his inference. He wrings his hands as he ponders the interaction he's just witnessed. "Well, however he meant it, it was a rather odd way to phrase an invitation, was it not?"
"You mean that bit about 'sharin' the slaughter of innocents with another man'?" Liam asks bluntly, putting on a voice of mockery as he quotes Angelus. "Yeah, real subtle, that one. He'll be less subtle after he's had a proper feed and turns on your one to fulfill the promise of that innuendo, I'll tell you what. I'll also tell you I pity your vampire's arse, evil or not, as I doubt he'll like what comes next."
William feels as if he's been punched in the nonexistent gut, for how much Liam's words have shocked him. "I—Surely not!" he protests uncertainly. "That was… I mean, it surely wasn't…"
"Don't tell me you didn't see the look in his eyes, lad. Or both their eyes, for that matter." At William's continued expression of flustered bewilderment, Liam sighs. "They're demons, William—they don't care about these things in the same way we did."
"But… He… Alright, I understand that they're different from us in that respect. But they have our memories, they still—they still think like we do, do they not? So why would they…"
Liam simply stares at him, as if the answer is obvious. William pointedly stares back, awaiting an answer, but instead finds it dawning on him without so much of a peep from his companion. The fact of the matter is, William already knows why the vampires would indulge themselves in such a way, for it is the same reason they do anything at all. Because their urges and ideas do come from the human life they took over.
"Getting it now, are we?" Liam asks drily.
William can't find it in himself to reply, too conflicted by the conclusion he's reached, and the implications it has for Liam. He dares not think of what it might imply about himself.
"Oh," is all he manages to say, for any further intelligent thought mysteriously alludes him.
It would be expected of him, in polite society, to be disgusted by the idea. To turn up his nose and engage in a good and healthy amount of shunning. To scoff at the taboo and then act as if he'd never even had the faintest notion that it had happened.
But, well, one can only harbor so much judgement for someone who truly only wishes to be kind, even if that kindness comes from a man who is so flawed.
"I've always been a sinner," Liam admits bitterly. "Drinking and whoring. Father always said my wild moods were… womanly. There might be a bit of truth to that. Did some things I wasn't supposed to, just because he didn't want me to do them. He was already disappointed in me, why not see how far I could fall?" He laughs, and his grin is mostly playful, with an old pain lingering in his eyes. Then he shakes his head. "But I've never been with another man like Angelus has. Never been with anyone like that." Violently, forcefully, he doesn't say. Purely for the thrill of hurting another. "That's the thing, Will—these vampires, they're our worst thoughts and ideas, explored without fear of consequence. Just as he takes other men to bed as a remnant of my own sinful urges, he dedicates himself to pain and torture because I hated the way I was treated. Because I wanted to inflict that hurt, rather than receive it."
It's no revelation. Nothing William hasn't already come to learn. He figures that Liam knows as such. Really, it's more of a confession on Liam's part, one which William isn't sure how exactly to take, but feels an odd sort of relief that Liam would confess anything to him at all.
With a polite sniff, William drops his gaze from the window to the carpet beneath his feet. "I take it you've put a lot of thought into this."
"That I have. Don't know what else you expect me to have done, before you showed up."
There it is again, that tenderness. A strange kinship between two men who died the same death a century apart. It dawns on William that he probably wouldn't have liked Liam very much, if they'd somehow met in life. He would have found him terribly rude, not to mention ungentlemanly. A slob and a scoundrel, among many other foul descriptors. A sinner indeed. It's inspiring, really, that a man who was so amoral in life might choose to be better in death. Poetic, in a way.
After almost twenty years of being dead, William can hardly remember what it was like to be anything else. To be a part of the world, to speak to those around him, to feel. He doesn't even feel quite as person-shaped as he did in the beginning, as he grows increasingly familiar with lacking a body.
Liam's presence helps as much as it can, reminding William of his own existence and the fact that he is not alone. Although they are both no more than whispers on the wind, they can, at the very least, be people in each other's eyes.
They don't often talk. When they do, it is to discuss the actions of their vampire replacements.
The things those monsters do are truly awful. Disturbing on a level unlike anything else. But in an ever-changing yet unreachable world, their demonic creativity is something that is consistent and familiar, even if it isn't to the tastes of the souls who haunt them.
Their vampires travel and hunt together most of the time, and separate only temporarily. William isn't nearly as adept at stretching the distance between him and his vampire as Liam is, so he isn't there to bear witness to the latest horrific scheme of Angelus. When they are reunited, Liam informs him of all that he missed, and quite frankly, he is quite glad to have missed it. The murder of innocents has never brought him any joy, but the things Angelus does to girls such as this one are particularly loathsome to him.
It is a short time after that the spirits find themselves watching the vampire begins his attack on a camp, where an odd murmur can be heard between the folds of the living world and the place where spirits walk.
"Do you hear that?" Liam asks curiously.
William thinks he wouldn't hear his friend if the screams were even the slightest bit louder. "Hear what?"
"That."
The screams and pleas for mercy drown out almost every thing else, and the terror of these people fleeing from the jaws of death would surely have been too much for William to bear, many years ago. But when there is no entertainment but the slaughter of innocents, a man has very few choices for how to spend his time.
But for whatever reason, Liam seems much more fixated on the quiet whisper in the air, steadily growing louder. It is as if he doesn't even notice what horrors play out in front of him.
"Something's happening to me, William," he says, and William might not have paid attention were it not for the unmistakable note of fear in his voice.
Impossibly, Angelus also falters, as if hearing the sound as well. The words are in a language William doesn't understand, but he can't deny that there is a certain magical taste to them. It is with that indescribable knowing, rather than a physical sense, that William understands the power of these words, and although he does not know their purpose, worry blooms within him, as he has never known Liam to be so obviously frightened.
So William moves closer to him, as if to blot out whatever is causing him such distress. "What, Liam? What's happening? Tell me."
Liam takes a step backward, shaking his head. "I-I don't know," he confesses. "But I can feel him. Angelus. Whatever it is, our connection is… is changing."
"Changing?!"
Liam suddenly meets William's gaze with a great fearful intensity, brows knitting together, eyes wide. "He's afraid, as well. This magic, it's—it's in both of us, William. I think—I think it's…"
William feels rather panicked now. "What is it doing to you?"
"It's bringing us back together," Liam utters, and William wants to cry again. For the first time in almost a decade, his emotions are right there behind the spectral concepts he calls his eyes, burning their way through. "Putting me back in my body."
"But—but Angelus, he's… No. No!" With little forthought, William reaches forward, grabbing Liam frantically and pulling him closer. "It could very well destroy you! You cannot let this happen!"
Liam puts his hands on William's shoulders, a sad, terrified smile tugging at his lips. "I don't think I get a choice in the matter." His thoughts are almost visible on his face, his emotions shifting from fear to something akin to acceptance. Oh, God, he thinks this was inevitable, doesn't he? Liam believes that after everything he has done, this was always going to happen, or that even if it wasn't, that it should.
To think that Liam would let himself be taken and not even fight back… it drives William to tears. He grabs at him again, hopelessly, wishing for some kind of contact. A sensation of any kind to feel on his skin, that he can remember his only companion by when he is left alone. He doesn't want to be left alone. Eternity like this was already almost unbearable, but an eternity like this without Liam as company? It is nigh unthinkable.
"Don't go," he whispers. "Please, dear God, don't leave me."
Liam stares at him with watery eyes and parted lips, but something odd flickers in his expression. A look of sudden clarity. It is then that he does something truly unexpected.
Moving one of his hands from William's shoulder to behind his head, Liam kisses him.
On a purely physical level, the action is nothing. It is perhaps even less than nothing. But to William, in this moment, it is everything. Because Liam has chosen to kiss him, and William chooses to kiss him back. That knowledge alone is more than enough to make William feel almost alive again. Although he cannot feel the touch of Liam's lips on his own, or his hand sliding down his back, or their bodies as they press together in a desperate bid to feel anything other than that dreadful numbness, he feels the emotion behind it. He feels his own surprise and curiosity at the strangeness of the act, and the sudden and intense longing in himself to reciprocate. He feels a panicked desperation to do more. Feel more. Feel anything, anything at all. Even without the pleasure of touch, he opens his mouth to Liam and feels a distant thrill when Liam does the same, welcoming him inside.
It is nothing. To anyone else, it would be nothing. But for these two lost souls, it is the most vivid sensation either of them has felt in longer than they can remember. Arms grasp and stroke, bodies embrace clumsily, and tongues explore as they try frantically to hold on. William wants nothing more than to keep holding on, to keep Liam so close to him that he cannot be taken away. He refuses to let this be goodbye.
Liam only ever meant it as a goodbye, and William knows it. He hates that this is it, that this is all they could ever have of each other, but he wishes desperately that he could keep it. He's never wanted anything as much as he wants to remain in this very moment for the rest of his unfeeling eternity.
But, as fate would have it, Angelus killed the wrong girl. As punishment, her people have chosen to inflict upon him a curse that shall torture not just him, but his human soul, for as long as he continues to live.
When Liam vanishes from William's grasp, William falls to his knees. He feels more real than he has in twenty years and that realness only serves to highlight the fact that that his only companion has been ripped callously from his grasp, leaving him in complete isolation.
The existential horror of it is not lost on him, but rather, it takes him several moments to process. In that time, he sees Angelus fall much in the same manner.
There's a light in that terrible vampire's eyes that had not been there a minute ago, but had rather danced in the frightened eyes of William's one and only friend. That same fear and confusion is plastered over Angelus' face now. He looks disoriented. In pain, perhaps. He gazes up at a man who has stepped forth to tell him of his new affliction, of the soul that will keep him in agony for the rest of his days.
What he doesn't see, is William. William, who stumbles closer to try and recapture what he has just lost. "Liam? Liam, can you"—he hiccups—"see me?" But that familiar face stares right through him, like he isn't even there, because he isn't. Not really.
Even with his human soul back where it belongs, Angelus—Liam—whoever this man is, he is clearly blind to the fate of spirits.
William is truly, finally, alone. Though the sound falls only on deaf ears, he screams.