Title: "Devour"
Author: Sassette
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: All characters belong to someone else. I'm borrowing them for fun and not for profit.
Distribution: If anyone wanted this, I'd be so utterly flattered I'd have to say yes. I'd still like to be asked, though.
Summary: "The father will kill the son." Wes angsts and unravels as he tries to avert prophecy.
Feedback: I'd love any comments, especially constructive ones. E-mail me at lori_es@hotmail.com.
If I keep him here, maybe he'll be safe. A dirty trick, I know, to tell Angel he was needed, the helpless needed helping, get him out of the apartment, take his son. He'll come home to an empty crib and imagine the worst. He won't know that he is the worst. And I can't be the one to tell him that. Not after the lullabies and the miniature hockey stick. Not after his pride at being complimented by the mothers in the waiting room and the softness in his eyes that I've never seen before. Not ever.
And so I took him. I told Angel he was needed and sent him off into the sewers, and when he was gone I picked up his son and carried him out into the sunlight. And now we are in a hotel room with a rental car parked outside, Connor lying beside me, waiting for me to figure out the next move. Counting on me. But I can't think right now, can't plan. All I can do is look at him, and marvel.
He is so tiny, so perfect. It would be easy to devour him. If he were mine I'd buy him a teddy bear and read to him from Winnie the Pooh every night. I'd buy a house outside of L.A. and begin worrying about things like the quality of the school systems and learn how to remove a bandage without causing more pain. I'd tell him that monsters weren't real and that Santa Claus was. I'd take him on a trip to England and never leave him alone with my father. If he were mine I'd probably destroy him, too.
Because it is so easy to devour them. They are so small, so new. You don't have to eat them, you know. You don't have to drink their blood. There are other means of consumption. You buy them miniature hockey sticks and numbered jerseys and a part of them is gone. A part of them is you. You carry them with you like a trophy and expect a shelf full of them in return. And what can he expect in return? His chubby hands grasp my finger gently and his mouth curls into a smile. There are so many ways to devour them.
I call him once a month. The second Thursday, an hour before supper. Tradition is important, even now. I still don't know what I expect. He'll never say he's sorry, and I'll never be able to say it enough.
So many ways.
"The father will kill the son." Prophecies are getting rather banal nowadays, aren't they? I certainly didn't need the Nyazian scrolls to tell me that. All I had to do was look around me. That is what fathers do. Cronos devouring his sons. Abraham poised to slaughter his child. And then Oedipus slays Laius and Hamlet runs the blade through Claudius and the newly-risen vampire drains the blood of the man who raised him. The son rises up against the father. That is how history works. All I had to do was look in the mirror. The father kills the son, and the son kills the father, and most of the time the world still goes on.
But I looked into the crib and saw this child, sleeping and innocent and still unscarred, and I knew that this time it wouldn't.
Author: Sassette
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: All characters belong to someone else. I'm borrowing them for fun and not for profit.
Distribution: If anyone wanted this, I'd be so utterly flattered I'd have to say yes. I'd still like to be asked, though.
Summary: "The father will kill the son." Wes angsts and unravels as he tries to avert prophecy.
Feedback: I'd love any comments, especially constructive ones. E-mail me at lori_es@hotmail.com.
If I keep him here, maybe he'll be safe. A dirty trick, I know, to tell Angel he was needed, the helpless needed helping, get him out of the apartment, take his son. He'll come home to an empty crib and imagine the worst. He won't know that he is the worst. And I can't be the one to tell him that. Not after the lullabies and the miniature hockey stick. Not after his pride at being complimented by the mothers in the waiting room and the softness in his eyes that I've never seen before. Not ever.
And so I took him. I told Angel he was needed and sent him off into the sewers, and when he was gone I picked up his son and carried him out into the sunlight. And now we are in a hotel room with a rental car parked outside, Connor lying beside me, waiting for me to figure out the next move. Counting on me. But I can't think right now, can't plan. All I can do is look at him, and marvel.
He is so tiny, so perfect. It would be easy to devour him. If he were mine I'd buy him a teddy bear and read to him from Winnie the Pooh every night. I'd buy a house outside of L.A. and begin worrying about things like the quality of the school systems and learn how to remove a bandage without causing more pain. I'd tell him that monsters weren't real and that Santa Claus was. I'd take him on a trip to England and never leave him alone with my father. If he were mine I'd probably destroy him, too.
Because it is so easy to devour them. They are so small, so new. You don't have to eat them, you know. You don't have to drink their blood. There are other means of consumption. You buy them miniature hockey sticks and numbered jerseys and a part of them is gone. A part of them is you. You carry them with you like a trophy and expect a shelf full of them in return. And what can he expect in return? His chubby hands grasp my finger gently and his mouth curls into a smile. There are so many ways to devour them.
I call him once a month. The second Thursday, an hour before supper. Tradition is important, even now. I still don't know what I expect. He'll never say he's sorry, and I'll never be able to say it enough.
So many ways.
"The father will kill the son." Prophecies are getting rather banal nowadays, aren't they? I certainly didn't need the Nyazian scrolls to tell me that. All I had to do was look around me. That is what fathers do. Cronos devouring his sons. Abraham poised to slaughter his child. And then Oedipus slays Laius and Hamlet runs the blade through Claudius and the newly-risen vampire drains the blood of the man who raised him. The son rises up against the father. That is how history works. All I had to do was look in the mirror. The father kills the son, and the son kills the father, and most of the time the world still goes on.
But I looked into the crib and saw this child, sleeping and innocent and still unscarred, and I knew that this time it wouldn't.