AN: Okay, I beg a little tolerance as to canon with this thing. I know that the second word out of Connor's mouth on his return from Pylea is "Dad" - he did not learn it from Sunny. I figure I get leeway because honestly, that doesn't make sense. Just like, well, in general the way Vincent Kartheiser talks. Connor learned from Holtz, so it should all be British English, and outdated. I'm glad they went the way they did, not arguing with canon per se, I just think I should get to exploit the loophole in the meantime.
And Connor does call Holtz "dad", and though I don't remember it specifically, probably calls Angel "father." I just noticed an overall pattern and ran with it.
(And damnit, Grace, yes, I ripped off the title. I tried to think of another one for a few seconds, but couldn't pass up a perfectly good chance to reference Shakespeare and yourself in one fell blow.)
Disclaimer: All belongs to Joss-Whedon-Who-Is-God.
"Please… Dad?"
It hadn't meant anything. He'd said it (for Cordy) to get a job done, and you did what you had to in order to finish a job. Angel, Angelus, Dad, Daddy - same thing. Same monster.
Only he knew he could have been lying when he thought those things - that it could matter. It could have been a betrayal - if he had said "father." "Father" was respectful; "Dad" was something he picked up here, a token of Sunny's, and Connor told himself that he was not betraying her by bestowing it on Angel. Not her, and not Daniel Holtz. Holtz was not Dad, because there was no respect, no love in that throwaway word. He wished there was a neutral word to use on them both sometimes so he could stop always having black and white inside, be like Lorne (even if he was a filthy demon) and see gray, but he wouldn't ever use "sire" and everything else was just too Latin and tasted funny in his mouth - "pater", maybe, or "patriarch." "Parents" included "mother", and Darla - Darla was gone. So he had separate titles.
Things were only what you used them for. Maybe a book was meant to be read, but if you used it as a doorstop, it didn't matter any longer, did it? It was just a doorstop. So it didn't matter when "dad" stopped being a word to call Angelus sometimes, started to be the concept that made up every bit of Angel in Connor's head. He was still using the word to get his way, ergo it was still just a tool.
It worried him, though, that a book behind a door could always be picked up again and read. It never stopped having the potential to turn back into what its creator had meant it to be.
He had asked Fred, over the summer he'd spent with her and Gunn, about the difference between "father" and "dad." She'd wrinkled up her nose. "Father?" She'd said. "No one calls their dad that anymore to their faces. That's so formal. I think people came up with 'dad' so they could be more affectionate, you know? Heck, that even sounds kind of stiff to me, but I'm used to 'daddy.'" She'd shrugged, sympathy trickling down her cheeks like tears, said nice things to take his mind off what she'd thought it was on.
Didn't matter. He didn't have to pick up the book, didn't have to read it. It could stay under the door and gather dust forever, for all he cared. After all, while he might not, Daddy had forever.
AN: The "please dad" part is from "Apocalypse, Nowish." Witness Connor wrapping Angel around his finger. God I adore those two. So screwed up.
La. Okay. My ever-present plea: reviews be like unto lifeblood! So give them me, give them me. Please?