If anyone had asked, Connor would have told them that he really didn't have trouble keeping his two sets of memories separate. There was the overly normal set, with little league games, dances in the school cafeteria and occasionally scaring his sister with a snake from his pocket. Then there was the other set. Brutal and creepy, like some psychedelic trip inside Stephen King's head. That's what made it easy to know which was which. The tough part was avoiding being overwhelmed by the latter. So far, so good. Mostly because the ones that involved vampires and hell dimensions were so surreal that he could tuck them away in the category of fiction, like scenes from a particularly vivid horror movie.
But sometimes they didn't stay put. In fact, they'd been sneaking in during those intervening months before he'd gotten his memories back.
That's the only thing that explained why he, the intended business major, had become obsessed with the story of Iphigenia and her father Agamemnon. He'd sought out every variation of her story. Then he'd compared it to the story of Isaac and Abraham. He thought about the knife and the blood and the sacrifice.
He'd written so passionately about his disappointment in the way people had softened the stories from actual child sacrifice to just animal-as- replacement sacrifice that he'd been asked to stay after class. It was 'A' work, the professor told him, but he was worried that Connor might have... issues. Maybe someone from the counseling center could assist? It didn't help matters that this followed on the heels of his Oedipus paper, which the professor had found to be amazingly insightful, especially for a fall semester freshman. Connor politely thanked him for his concern, but assured him he was fine. His life was wholly uninteresting and void of any major trauma.
Of course now that he remembered Quortoth and Holtz and Cordelia and Angel, it all made sense. Well, very little of it made sense, but at least he knew the source from which his obsessions sprang. The funny thing about it, it was only now that he had memories of Angel slicing a knife across this throat that he understood. He had not been the sacrifice; it had been his father. Angel was the stag put on the stone altar in his place. Angel had bought him a life full of promise and in exchange, the Senior Partners expected to be paid in full.
Other than a metro section article noting that Wolfram & Hart building had been razed under suspicious circumstances, Connor had been unable to learn anything about what had happened to Angel or the others. He wanted to believe Angel was alive and just staying away to keep him safe. Maybe that was why he was reading a children's book, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe for the third time that summer. If Aslan could make it through, then maybe his father had as well.
But sometimes they didn't stay put. In fact, they'd been sneaking in during those intervening months before he'd gotten his memories back.
That's the only thing that explained why he, the intended business major, had become obsessed with the story of Iphigenia and her father Agamemnon. He'd sought out every variation of her story. Then he'd compared it to the story of Isaac and Abraham. He thought about the knife and the blood and the sacrifice.
He'd written so passionately about his disappointment in the way people had softened the stories from actual child sacrifice to just animal-as- replacement sacrifice that he'd been asked to stay after class. It was 'A' work, the professor told him, but he was worried that Connor might have... issues. Maybe someone from the counseling center could assist? It didn't help matters that this followed on the heels of his Oedipus paper, which the professor had found to be amazingly insightful, especially for a fall semester freshman. Connor politely thanked him for his concern, but assured him he was fine. His life was wholly uninteresting and void of any major trauma.
Of course now that he remembered Quortoth and Holtz and Cordelia and Angel, it all made sense. Well, very little of it made sense, but at least he knew the source from which his obsessions sprang. The funny thing about it, it was only now that he had memories of Angel slicing a knife across this throat that he understood. He had not been the sacrifice; it had been his father. Angel was the stag put on the stone altar in his place. Angel had bought him a life full of promise and in exchange, the Senior Partners expected to be paid in full.
Other than a metro section article noting that Wolfram & Hart building had been razed under suspicious circumstances, Connor had been unable to learn anything about what had happened to Angel or the others. He wanted to believe Angel was alive and just staying away to keep him safe. Maybe that was why he was reading a children's book, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe for the third time that summer. If Aslan could make it through, then maybe his father had as well.