Honorable
Sons: 9
by Josie_h
Notes
The following days were filled with joy and frustration. Pins and needles were one thing, but the traction had to remain for another few days according to F’Iaid. Thankfully the patient was released at the end of day four and moved back to the ‘big bed’. Angel still did not have the vampire healing rate of old but he was definitely improving.
Willow rang Giles to give him the good news, then rebooked her flights to remain with ‘her boys’ for another month.
Spike took to drinking three and four bags of blood at a time, then feeding his sire until the whole volume had been siphoned off. Repeating the process over and over until he felt like a ‘milk machine’.
With Angel drinking Childe’s blood almost continually for more than a week, one wonderful Friday afternoon, he pushed himself up to a sitting position unassisted.
“Spike! *Spike*!!” The blonde was at his Sire’s side in an instant. He paused and realized the posture and position. His darling Sire was leaning back on the bed head and had been able to sit up and bend his own knees up, admittedly he did not have the strength to keep them upright and they had fallen open, but it was more than Spike could have possibly hoped for during the last nine months.
“Oh G…. Sire!”
Angel was rewarded for his efforts with a passionate kiss and joyful embrace as Spike called to the witches and celebrated another little recovery with the lovely ladies who were so instrumental in the same.
A day later and Spike had begun the now familiar pattern of feeding his Sire; massaging the spent limbs and torso; manipulating and working the joints; then feeding the older vampire again. The difference, post antidote, was that his Sire did not cry out in pain, and he knew he could *feel* the improvement every time the cycle was repeated. Each day he watched the emaciated frame put on a little more weight, the knees that on the first day were unable to stay upright, by the seventh night were able to weakly grab an arm laid between them.
Some days were still spent in traction but for the most part they were in the ‘big bed. On the twentieth day after the last treatment, Spike awoke to… ‘Please let me stand up today Spike… *please*… I know I can.”
With a smile that spoke his own joy, Spike sat up and faced his Sire.
“Well, it’s just you and me pet, so how’s about we give it a quiet go now.” With that he moved to the other side of the bed and grabbed his partner’s still wasted legs, shoved the elder vampire ninety degrees and helped him to a sitting position with legs dangling over the side of the bed. He knelt down near Angel’s knees and whispered “Lean forward luv and let’s you and me dance shall we?”
Spike leaned forward to hold under his Sire’s arms. Angel closed his eyes and concentrated hard on feet and limbs that were still in the early days of awakening. Leaning forward and with demon to the fore, he allowed Spike to aid the shift to standing, then fell back into human guise as shaky legs, that still did not feel like his own, supported him for almost thirty seconds until he sat back down with a triumphant ‘humph’.
Thrilled, tear filled chocolate eyes met Spike’s own brimming blue gaze. After nine months of anguish, Spike’s reward was the near joyful set of words that defined the moment. “ I did it! Oh G…H! Will, Spike, I stood up!” Beaming as if he had just won an Olympic marathon, the elder vampire pulled his Childe back onto the bed and into a passionate kiss. Spike simply grinned and succumbed to the celebration.
Pulling away momentarily Spike managed a, “Yeah, yeah, ya old ponce!” trying to keep up the image of the ‘big bad’ but failing dismally as he returned to the joyful embrace.
F’Iaid visited daily, though more and more it was to spend time with the other witch rather than to check on Angel or Spike. Both witches had adopted a cautious approach around the pair acutely aware of Spike’s near obsessive protectiveness intensifying with the blood bond as Angel increased his feeding from barely two, to drinking from his Childe five or six times a day. Spike had increased his own blood intake to a point where F’Iaid pushed a large delivery box containing a variety of bags of the red liquid through the front door almost every time she arrived.
When his Sire began to sit up comfortably by himself, Spike had pulled out the long neglected wheelchair and afforded the older vampire a measure of independence. His standing was much stronger and tentative steps were practiced daily with the aid of a hand rail and Spike, but it would still take time to regain full use of his legs and even longer for his vampire speed and stamina to return. Until then the wheelchair helped.
At F’Iaid’s suggestion, Spike had taken to wheeling Angel down to the private indoor pool in the apartment block every day and letting the warmed water provide a weightless environment in which to build his muscles. The first time had been the hardest with Angel reluctant to go out in public and Spike never really having taken to swimming of any description. Both vampires had dressed in the black boxer shorts Willow had bought and covered up with a shirt for the short journey to the pool. Arriving poolside their fears evaporated. There was no one else using the facilities and the pool itself was quite shallow at one end – there was little need to be able to swim so long as one stayed in that end.
After Spike helped his Sire into the surprisingly warm water, the older vampire reveled in the feeling of moving his limbs against the resistance of the water. The sensation of walking across the width of the pool where the depth was chest high was made all the sweeter as Spike and he took to ‘racing’ each other across and back, Spike deliberately staying in the shallower section until familiarity after the first week allowed him to bravely step deeper.
Stripped and in the swimming pool, Spike grinned as he noticed Angel’s muscles had definitely filled out again and smiled at the thought that his own were looking more ‘well fed’. It was coming up for a month after the final treatment and Angel had walked seventeen steps unaided that morning and was able to get himself from the chair into the pool. Stepping out again had proved difficult, but the sense of accomplishment was still there. Sadly Willow would have to leave them soon, but Spike suspected that she might return in the fairly near future for her own reasons.
“Think the witch has the hots for our dark lady doc pet.” Spike was supporting Angel under the arms, hands caressing his partner’s torso and occasionally touching the erection obvious through the wet shorts. The recuperating vampire had his head on Spike’s shoulder and continued to gently kick his legs in a breaststroke action, working his knees and inner thigh.
“Hmm, I’m fairly certain the feeling is mutual, s’ nice.”
“What? This?” Spike repeated the stroke up and down his Sire’s member.
“That too, but I meant it’s nice that those two are enjoying their time. Have you noticed they go out every single day together and always come back smiling.”
“You think Red’s getting some then?”
“Nahh we’d smell it”
“S’pose.” Spike shrugged and began to pay very deliberate attention to the hardness under his hands.
One rather awkward side effect of the frequent feeding had been that both vampires sported almost constant erections and were coupling at least four and five times a day. The activity itself was approved of by the doctor for psychological and physical reasons, but the noise from the pair as they reached ecstasy over and over, drove both witches to a regime of long walks and excursions out of the apartment and beyond earshot. F’Iaid had proven a witty and generous companion as the two women explored the city and discovered their deep friendship.
During one particularly long walk along the shoreline, Willow felt their hands brush against each other, then was thrilled to feel F’Iaid’s slim, elegant hand slide into hers and squeeze.
“I hope you do not mind,” the low, dulcet tones of the dark witch had an element of hope that set Willow’s heart aflutter.
“No, no! Not the minding wiccan here, in fact just the opposite of minding, you could say I’m definitely un-mindy, um…. Oops…. babblefest… sorry.”
F’Iaid laughed aloud at her friend’s little outburst.
“Ah, lady. I do like listenin’ to you when you are flustered.” She squeezed Willow’s hand again and they continued on their walk.
Willow had been fascinated to learn of F’Iaid’s global travels, of her wiccan and medical studies and of her African heritage. She had indeed been borne in the very south of Ethopia. Her father had been a local elder and witch doctor. Both women had giggled at the idea of her ‘following in daddy’s footsteps’, though F’Iaid’s look of old grief crossing her dark countenance as she talked more of her father, silenced Willow’s chortles.
“My father was killed by army soldiers – our country was always wit civil war. My mother has da gift of seein’. She is part T’imj’ikk demon. We left our country after da killin’.” F’Iaid flashed an emerald look in Willow’s direction and gave a sad smiled.
“But what of you, lady?” and so that afternoon and many to follow had proceeded, each woman sharing more and more of themselves, until late on the afternoon three days before Willow’s departure for England, they also shared a kiss.