a.connor  a.doyle  a.lindsey  a.oz  a.spike  a.wesley  a.xander  a.other  three.somes  het.fic  character.study           
Title: Phantasm
Author: Eleasha
Pairing: Angel/Connor
Rating: NC-17
Setting: Post-'Origin', Pre-NFA



Angel has never understood the term ‘poetry in motion’. How can poetry be in motion? Doesn’t motion defeat the entire purpose of poetry? And now, watching Connor… well, actually, it doesn’t make any more sense to him than it ever has. But he has a feeling that when Cordy says it— “Poetry in *motion*”— she means more than just a hackneyed bit of metaphor. He assumes it has something to do with words like fluid, and grace, and catlike. Something to do with the way Connor slithers and twists and bends and ducks. The charm is lost on him. It just looks like a half-vampire boy trying not to get killed.

*

Sometimes, Angel thinks about those first few hours of Connor being back in this world. Dogging him around LA, nostrils yearning for the scent of him, tasting him, following a winding trail of smell and sensation like dragging yourself along a rope in a pitch-dark cave. And finding him—relief. Then fighting, punching, throwing. Whirl him around and smash him into walls like nothing. Like he could take it. Like he wasn’t a newborn sack of delicacy and yielding flesh just weeks before. Frightened, angry boy. Snarling and wide-eyed at the demon face that his previous, tiny self had chortled at.

What Angel really thinks about, really obsesses about, is that moment when he had Connor face-first against the wall, and was pressing full length along his back. The throb of his adrenalin-laced heart against Angel’s chest. Blood and sweat. So normal, so clichéd. But this was *his boy*. His baby, heaving and tensing against him, trying to throw him off. Angel remembers the overwhelming desire to press his face against the narrow back, between quivering shoulder blades, and just breathe. Tuck his arms securely around the fluttering ribcage, hold wiry arms tight against vulnerable sides, think about that forbidden, delicious taste of baby’s blood; child’s blood. Maybe just a lick, a sniff, a quick nibble.

Maybe not.

*

“You know what I think?” Lorne; glowy. Chin in hand, perched on a desk, shimmering with body paint and slight drunkenness. Yellow silk shirt open. Collar bones glistening. Jacket rumpled and crooked.

“No, what do you think?” Angel says.

Lorne guffaws in his throat. Happy, deep sound. “I think Tootsie is the funniest movie ever filmed. Dustin Hoffman in drag!” He throws his hands up, gasps through laughter. Nearly topples off the desk. “What more could you ask for?”

Connor is watching from the corner. Angel, blunt instrument though he may be, notices the way his spine is arched, the way his whole body leans—however slightly—toward the centre of the room. Toward Angel. Oh, please, let it be toward him.

“What more, indeed,” Angel says. No trace of irony. Irony is for pithy movies and Oscar Wilde and Terry Pratchett books. Not that he’s ever read Terry Pratchett, of course.

“What’s Dustin Hoffman?” Connor whispers.

Lorne lets out a shriek of what must be indignation, and Angel has a feeling that Connor’s going to fit in just fine around here.

*

It’s too much to hope for, Angel knows, that Connor will one night knock oh-so softly on his door, angle his head around the corner, and whisper, “I can’t sleep.” He can’t quite imagine that sweet little pillar of boyflesh tiptoeing toward the bed, slipping beneath the covers, tucking himself into a snail curl beside Angel. He’d like to envisage it, he really would, but the images never take on a quite realistic cohesion. There’s always a blur around the centre, as though, quite rightly, they’re nothing more than the fevered phantasmagoria of a desperate, lovesick father.

But oh, how very much he wants to snuggle against warm flesh, slide his fingertips over ragged hair that smells like Fred's aloe-scented Head and Shoulders shampoo. Press his mouth, open and innocent, against Connor’s cheeks and mouth. Just taste him, a little. Drape his leg across a bony hip and flatten his hand against knobs of spine. Hear Connor murmur, “Love.”

One afternoon, he hums as he’s heating up his blood, and knows Lorne is about to read him before the green SOB even enters the room. He stops, but not quick enough. Lorne chokes on his Sea Breeze, hacks and wheezes for a moment, then squeezes out, “Is this a vampy thing, or should I be calling Social Services?”

Angel tosses a tight smile over his shoulder. “Vampy thing,” he says. Easier than calling it an Angely thing, which is closer to the truth.

*

Connor is a horrible kisser. Angel suspects that he’s had no experience whatsoever. Although maybe there’s some weird clause about purposefully kissing your father badly. Not that Angel cares much. That’s Connor tongue he’s sucking, Connor’s growl he’s hearing muffled against his lips, Connor’s teeth scraping on his own. He’d be happy doing this if Connor had three tongues and a no teeth at all.

They hit the bed hard. Smear blood and vamp dust all over the sheets. Angel hears the wind rush out of his son’s lungs. Shoves forward from the hips, opening Connor’s thighs, rubbing between them. Weird whine from the boy below him, contorted spine, heels pressing bruise-hard into Angel’s calves. His face is scratched from the night’s fighting. His eyes are wide. Angel wonders if he knows just how many times he came *this close* to death earlier. Angel knows all too well. He keeps a running, cringing tally. He kisses Connor again, grinds him into the mattress with his crotch.

And: “Dad?
And: “Auuugh…”
And: “Ohgod—ohgod—ohplease…!”

Sharp, jagged nails tearing at his half-bare shoulders, scoring troughs down his arms. Angel can’t get enough. Wants to unzip his boy and climb inside. Wants more than that. Wants to unzip his soul and his mind and all the horrifically small passages of his body and wallow. Absorb, be absorbed. To be one and nothing. Swallow Connor whole and let the thousands of tiny defunct mouths in his stomach chew the boy up. There’s no way they can get close enough to satisfy Angel. Not even when Connor comes all over his stomach like a writhing puppy, staining a Miu Miu shirt and sending Angel’s brain zinging against the walls of his skull.

Connor cries and cries and cries, then. Limp, damp, shaking. Lets Angel, either through design or neglect, pet him and kiss him and croon and rock. It’s so sweet right there, with Connor’s face pressed against his shoulder, feeling him quiver, feeling tears and snot and saliva soak through silk and touch chilled skin.

Gently, Angel murmurs “Shh,” and “Hush,” with his lips pressed to Connor's silky head, and finally, “It’ll be okay.” Nothing he hasn’t said before, to dozens of people over the years, but, strangely, it doesn't feel like he's lying this time.


-End

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