“Is it better to out-monster the monster or to be quietly devoured?”
— Friedrich Nietzsche
. . .
…that’s not surprising.
Unlike Winters, William is fully human. His body, no matter how much he was trained and conditioned to fight and survive against monsters, wouldn’t be able to withstand this much pain and hurt, not without care or much needed rest.
Because after everything, William was so sure it won’t be long before he truly dies here, in this cell. In Roman’s hands no less.
…and maybe that would be for the best.
There is nothing more preferable than seeing what his own body has become. Mangled, corpse-like, a broken, ruined thing… he swears he can feel his very own skin crawling just at the very thought of what has become of him.
Roman dares call it his masterpiece.
William was not even the kind of person to be considered vain. Growing up with a sister who’s beauty had been nothing but a nuisance to them, he has never been someone to take such pride in his looks.
…but it always used to help, in a bittersweet sort of way, to know that William looks so much like his dad, a fact that Winters and the people who personally knew of Warren Veil from happier times would remind him of time and time again… and maybe that’s why it hurts it hurts so much, just seeing how much of him (of his father’s memory) has become so corrupted—all for the sake of a bloodsucker’s twisted amusement, no less.
So, was William a coward for looking away? For screwing his eyes shut and trying to ignore whatever has become of him, his body…?
(Childishly, he thinks: if I don’t look, it will go away…)
Sometimes, it’s easier to just ignore everything and pretend that he was anywhere but here again. And that was why William often found himself cycling through his memories, thinking of home, his family, friends, and people he had come to know and care for during his time as a hunter—both alive and dead.
At this point, he was just trying to hold onto what he remembers them looking like, what they were supposed to look like.
He remembers his father’s face easily enough, a mirror of what was once his own when he was not here. The ghost of the woman he thinks could have been his mother was harder to grasp, as elusive as a mirage on a desert…
William thinks of his best friend Nick, of Lady Artemis and her hunters, Rei, Eiji, Rosie, Aria, Mac, Alastor, Cherish and… and Winters.
His sister’s eyes have always held an air of sadness in them. Those eyes that looked impossibly sad as she looks at him like he was some sort of saving grace. Like she had already known that one way or another, she’s bound to lose him.
That she is going to lose him.
…or was it him who lost her?
And remembering just why they have to be hunters in the first place instead of getting to live a normal life after everything makes William feel so helpless, so angry again that it feels so much better when he hurls spiteful curses and throws himself in a fight he knows he surely has not a single chance in winning.
When he pulls himself up to his feet and forces his bleeding body to throw a punch or a kick in what he believed to be is Roman’s general direction was a whole lot more better than knowing that Winters still hasn’t quitted on life even after being violated and tortured for years, it was him… it was all because of him, damn it!
Because William is a stupid, human kid that still needed his big sister to look after him. Because her little brother is so useless without her protecting him from the monsters.
Luckily, Roman sometimes forgets his strength (more so when William angers him well enough) that William was promptly knocked out for days. Or was it just hours? Weeks…? William doesn’t remember, doesn’t know and even though it used to scare him, quite frankly he now no longer cared how long it has been. How long he has been held captive.
At least he wouldn’t feel or deal with the blood and the all too consuming hunger, the pain that he has to endure during the times he still found himself with some semblance of consciousness or clarity.
He wasn’t even sure if he’s still sane.
Because when William wakes up and opens his eyes again, the world around him looks absolutely no different from before.
In this place, it was either candlelight dim or dark.
And William wasn’t talking about just slightly dark or city dark—but can't-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face, pitch-black wilderness—dark… he can’t even tell if he himself looks worse, so really, he just doesn’t know.
He doesn’t get why he’s still alive, either.
He thinks he might have asked, once, somewhere in between being awake but not quite there, but if Roman himself had answered, William doesn’t remember what the vampire had said either way.
Does it even matter?
From what William can tell at this point is that the vampire is bored most of the time, perhaps, with the rest of his fanatically loyal kin that answers his every beck and call without questions.
The idea of… not a challenge, but resistance, must have been something like a novelty to someone like Roman. Maybe that’s why Roman had decided to take Alistair Nyx when they had managed to escape all those years ago.
Or maybe Roman is really much more angry and jealous at William than he truly lets on, because at least… this so-called ‘useless bag of flesh’ was someone that Winters cared about.
Still cares about, William reminds himself.
So, maybe, this might as well have been the closest the King of vampires can come to getting his anger out, by hurting William over and over again until he breaks and become something so unrecognizable.
But William can be spiteful too.
He doesn’t intend to give his sister’s rapist the fucking satisfaction of making him beg, of breaking him down to the point of being unrecognizable. Roman can beat him, chain him, and even treat him like some rabid dog for all he likes but William will never break even if it kills him.
(Briefly, it occurs to William then, that his childish rebellion wouldn’t really matter if he dies in the end. Roman might as well have won once Winters finds out that he’s dead.)
He doesn’t know what else to do, though.
What was he even supposed to do…?
For some reason, Roman continues to heal whatever wounds he gives to William—at least, enough to keep William from actually dying but otherwise weak to even attempt an escape because the vampire is petty like that—and at this point, William’s just practically running on sheer spite and stubbornness, so the only option left for him is to fight or die trying.
He doesn’t know what else he can do.
Was he supposed to do something else…?
William doesn’t want to believe that it’s been months, so he has absolutely no idea how long it has been… but one day, he wakes up and finds his dad’s ring was gone.
He only knows this because he always keeps that ring close to him, so much so that most people aren’t even aware of its existence. The ring was always secured in a thick, blessed silver chain around his neck, hidden, always tucked underneath his shirt.
Winters had given it to him when he turned thirteen, just a few weeks after she first returned from the underworld, telling him that their father’s wedding ring belongs to him by right as Warren’s real child.
The ring has always been in the same place, no matter when or where he is for so long that throughout the year, it had felt like a part of his being. And this time, when William painstakingly reaches for it in search for comfort (as he usually does by habit), right where he feels his heart is barely beating, his fingers only clasped on nothing but thin air.
William’s lucky that he can’t see, or that there is no light, let alone a mirror in this accursed place, because he doesn’t want to know what he looks like in this moment, when the last piece of his father he used to hold on to is gone.
The rest of his stuff is missing… was already missing when he first woke up, his weapons stolen from him on the very first night he was brought here and he…
He never really had anything to remember Winters by in the first place, because the two of them had never thought that he would even need something like that. Not when his sister could reach out to him no matter the distance because she’s shadow, and the shadows are everywhere.
But their dad’s ring is gone, this place is too dark, and even the shadows are gone, and William thinks a huge part of him is gone too and he… has never felt more alone. So helpless.
Then, he hears it.
The silver chain’s faint, ringing sound.
“…looking for this?” Roman asks, smiling.