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So, trolling around, and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
su_herald has this link to a vid. It's called Counting Bodies
and it's by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
millylicious and it's just... I've never seen 'this' Connor - all feral and desperate - and man...
The vid rocks - go check it out.
Plus, it made me write a little ficlet. See what you think.
It took a while to figure out who the kid was. Dirty-blond hair streaked with mud and blood - dirty face streaked with tears. Running screaming into the remains of the Wolfram and Hart building one night while Spike was there, trying to glean something useful from the ruins.
Hitting him - biting him - inarticulate words and Spike had finally just knocked him unconscious. Dragged him back to the lair he and Blue were sharing, in the smoking pit that was L.A. Didn't eat him, 'cause he smelled like belladonna and rue and Angel, and Spike spent the rest of the night crouched over his twitching, fever-wracked body. Just breathing.
Three days and the kid was well enough to talk, and he haltingly told a story of kidnap and betrayal - other dimensions and fathers who were not. Of pain and rage - magic and murder and madness. Blue chiming in now and again with her stilted observances; gleaning bits of the past from the scattered puzzle-pieces that were all that was left of Fred. His name was Connor - he was Angel's son.
After he was well enough to walk, he didn't. He collected blankets and scraps and made a nest in one corner - took to following Spike when Spike went out to hunt. Spike was done with animal blood - done with being a champion or the shadow of one. Done with it all, as surely as the Powers were done with this dimension. This Earth.
Connor was a good hunting partner. Human enough to attract demons, demon enough to survive them. And he could attract humans, too - play the wounded cub and draw them out with his poisoned-sugar smile. Then Spike could pounce, and feast. Connor would watch him - would loot the corpse and burn it, silent.
He didn't talk much in bed, either, but he parted his thighs to Spike's knee and offered his throat - dug his nails into Spike's back and his teeth into Spike's shoulder. He was a lithe and needle-fanged cat, and so pretty when he bared his teeth. Spike fucked him into screams and bit him until he swooned. Afterwards he would be lazily talkative and tell Spike about his 'real' life and his 'pretend' life. He never seemed to settle on which was which, and Spike never bothered to untangle the skein.
L.A. got worse, in time, and one night they loaded up a couple of packs and struck out across the smoking, pock-marked plain, heading for Portland or maybe Denver. Watching Illyria do her clock-work stalk, watching Connor pick his way through the cracked streets like a deer; all wide eyes and sudden lift of the head - frozen stillness and then movement as he tracked and dismissed the noises from the shadows. Pale, bruised arms under an old flannel he'd ripped the sleeves out of - worn-out blue jeans and sneakers - ring of bite-marks around his neck and the look of being always just over the edge, in one way or another. Spike wore his demon-face and nothing came near them, and near Carmel they found a Humvee that had the keys in it.
The roads weren't so bad further north - Connor slept curled in the back or he sat next to Spike, silent, watching the scenery and stroking Spike's thigh. Illyria abandoned them in Seattle, claming she was going to find a way back to the Well. Spike didn't care - he just wanted to go - to move - and not look back. Not for a long time. Connor - who still smelled of Angel but now always of blood and smoke as well - held him while he slept, and mostly kept the dreams away.
Continued in Ragdoll.
su_herald has this link to a vid. It's called Counting Bodiesand it's by
millylicious and it's just... I've never seen 'this' Connor - all feral and desperate - and man...The vid rocks - go check it out.
Plus, it made me write a little ficlet. See what you think.
It took a while to figure out who the kid was. Dirty-blond hair streaked with mud and blood - dirty face streaked with tears. Running screaming into the remains of the Wolfram and Hart building one night while Spike was there, trying to glean something useful from the ruins.
Hitting him - biting him - inarticulate words and Spike had finally just knocked him unconscious. Dragged him back to the lair he and Blue were sharing, in the smoking pit that was L.A. Didn't eat him, 'cause he smelled like belladonna and rue and Angel, and Spike spent the rest of the night crouched over his twitching, fever-wracked body. Just breathing.
Three days and the kid was well enough to talk, and he haltingly told a story of kidnap and betrayal - other dimensions and fathers who were not. Of pain and rage - magic and murder and madness. Blue chiming in now and again with her stilted observances; gleaning bits of the past from the scattered puzzle-pieces that were all that was left of Fred. His name was Connor - he was Angel's son.
After he was well enough to walk, he didn't. He collected blankets and scraps and made a nest in one corner - took to following Spike when Spike went out to hunt. Spike was done with animal blood - done with being a champion or the shadow of one. Done with it all, as surely as the Powers were done with this dimension. This Earth.
Connor was a good hunting partner. Human enough to attract demons, demon enough to survive them. And he could attract humans, too - play the wounded cub and draw them out with his poisoned-sugar smile. Then Spike could pounce, and feast. Connor would watch him - would loot the corpse and burn it, silent.
He didn't talk much in bed, either, but he parted his thighs to Spike's knee and offered his throat - dug his nails into Spike's back and his teeth into Spike's shoulder. He was a lithe and needle-fanged cat, and so pretty when he bared his teeth. Spike fucked him into screams and bit him until he swooned. Afterwards he would be lazily talkative and tell Spike about his 'real' life and his 'pretend' life. He never seemed to settle on which was which, and Spike never bothered to untangle the skein.
L.A. got worse, in time, and one night they loaded up a couple of packs and struck out across the smoking, pock-marked plain, heading for Portland or maybe Denver. Watching Illyria do her clock-work stalk, watching Connor pick his way through the cracked streets like a deer; all wide eyes and sudden lift of the head - frozen stillness and then movement as he tracked and dismissed the noises from the shadows. Pale, bruised arms under an old flannel he'd ripped the sleeves out of - worn-out blue jeans and sneakers - ring of bite-marks around his neck and the look of being always just over the edge, in one way or another. Spike wore his demon-face and nothing came near them, and near Carmel they found a Humvee that had the keys in it.
The roads weren't so bad further north - Connor slept curled in the back or he sat next to Spike, silent, watching the scenery and stroking Spike's thigh. Illyria abandoned them in Seattle, claming she was going to find a way back to the Well. Spike didn't care - he just wanted to go - to move - and not look back. Not for a long time. Connor - who still smelled of Angel but now always of blood and smoke as well - held him while he slept, and mostly kept the dreams away.
Continued in Ragdoll.
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Also broken and violent and despairing and hungry.
This is beautiful prose. Brilliant
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Just too inspiring, all the pretty pictures.
:)
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Omg, sooooo lovely. You are so mean for writing dead!Angel, but I loved this soooooooo much.
He didn't talk much in bed, either, but he parted his thighs to Spike's knee and offered his throat - dug his nails into Spike's back and his teeth into Spike's shoulder.
*quiver* I about died at that line. Loved it! Loved. It.
Please please please please write more. Or at least more Sponner.
Thanks so much for this. *wibbles* Thanks :)
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I'm like a big ole fucking spoiled brat, aren't I *cheesy grin*
I love you...*anime eyes*
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:)
Thank you!
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Connor is so amazingly interesting...heh.
I just might with the more thing.
:)
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I swear this is my second OTP. And occasionally it ties for first. Like now.
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*bounce*
Unfortunately, most of my stuff is Spike/Xander. Currently the only thing that mentions Connor besides this is No More Snakes and Ladders that i'm co-writing with
Connor has been in the last few Squares *chapters*, and he's more of a Season Five Angel kind of Connor.
But if you like S/X, i'm your girl!
Thanks again!
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Thank you!
So much.
And fuck - love your icon. Now i'm jonesin' for a Sponnor icon!!
Or at least Connor.
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I just read this to Ros over the phone, and she said, "holy fuck". From The Connor Girl that would be the ultimate compliment. I'm sure you can share her Connor icons too.
Man, I love Feral!Connor, and you did him so well.
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Very evocative. That is an image that will stay with me. This bleak look at post-NFA may be short, but it's powerful.
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Now i'm all....
*squeeeeeeeee!!*
*bounce*
Thank you!!
*runs to snaffle icon*
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*beams*
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:)
Thank you!
I read everything you post, lmao. Knew it wouldn't be crap but I didn't know if I'd like the character of Connor.
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Thank you!
:)
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Thanks you!
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And this:
After he was well enough to walk, he didn't. He collected blankets and scraps and made a nest in one corner - took to following Spike when Spike went out to hunt. Spike was done with animal blood - done with being a champion or the shadow of one. Done with it all, as surely as the Powers were done with this dimension. This Earth.
Not only is that a Connor I can believe, the hunter, the scavenger, the suvivor - it's a post-NFA that you illustrate beautifully with just a few well crafted phrases: Spike's weariness, the heaviness of the world around them.
Just, wow.
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You know you're not through with this, right? You can't be. Please?
*puppy eyes*
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So your fb? A delightful surprise. The little bit of season five Connor I saw made me like him, but the vid showed me his 'wilder' side and that was just too damn intriguing and too poisonous-pretty to NOT write.
Archive away - are you simply linking, or would you like a .doc file? Or something? Email is in my userinfo.
Thanks again! I'm seriously grinning like a total fool, here.
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:)
Ummmmm...stoppitt!!
Heh.
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*whistles*
Your imagination has built a Connor here that's a direct descendant of Connor the way he used to, before the mindwipe and (before that) the trappings of civilization smoothed him over (at least on the surface). You absolutely deserve every bit of praise for the story and the world you've built here.
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:) I'm all a-glow. Heh.
I'm kind of in the 'headspace' of this sort of thing at the moment because of the fic i'm writing for the Yinathon... And the Firefly xover i just did... I like, very much, the sort of future/apocolyptic, maybe even a little William Gibsony kind of world.