Like a hell family

Chapter 7: To break the ice.



They walked in the street looking forward them. They said not a word. Buffy remembered the time when Angel and she walked in Sunnydale's street. In fact, Angel wasn't very talkative so that wasn't so much different but Buffy could kiss him in compensation at this time now that wasn't possible anymore. They was too much different, well not because she was a human being and him a vampire (not being :D) but much more because now Angel had his business and he had his gang like Buffy had her'. Before he was on the background, alone. Here he had a crew that loved him. It's true that the Scooby gang's members didn't carry him in their heart. Oh! And he had a son.

Buffy hadn't understood all about the deaths and resurrections of Darla. But she didn't know Darla so much even if she had realized, when Angel had killed her for impeded her to kill Buffy, that that had affected Angel.

Anyway, she didn't feel concerned by this entire story, she had her own life and Angel wasn't a part of it anymore. But she was very curious about Connor.

Maybe because she thought that this prophecy would have could came true at the time when Angel was in Sunnydale. She and he didn't protect them, because a vampire by his dead side, that is the principally side of the fact to be a vampire, doesn't transport diseases or babies.

Or maybe because the kid was unique like her. Well, unique, not anymore since Faith was here. She hated Faith. When she came for help Buffy, Buffy asked her to go away then Giles told her that Faith's help could be useful so Buffy resigned herself. But she stayed cold to her "little sister" especially when Dawn had took her defence and struck up with her. Buffy didn't want that Faith turns around Dawn, she could be a bad influence for the teenager. And Buffy didn't tolerate that the people she loved the more take the side of someone had hurt her, that's true Angel now Dawn, so she had been happy to see her leave for New-York. What she gonna do there Buffy didn't care at all.

- "It's here" said Angel pointing a little simply pub out.

- "What? That? No, it's not possible, when I was younger I went here with mom all the Friday before go in high school"

- "Follow me" said Angel.

They went and Angel pushed the door. Inside there were few people, but they were normal. Two persons were eating and some drunks at the bar. Angel went toward the men's room. He pushed the door but stopped when he saw that Buffy had stopped in the middle of the corridor:

- "Well, what are you doing?" asked Angel intrigued.

- "I'm waiting you finished" replied her embarrassing.

- "I thought you wanted to come" said Angel confused.

- "What!? Listen, I know we had been very close but even if we have been married about twenty years ago I wouldn't go with you in toilets" said Buffy moving her hands in signs of negation.

- "What?!" Angel turned back looking in the men's room "Oh! No! There is a back room, it's there the demons are"

- "Oh....." she entered.

They walked forward. That was big enough men's room but in a pitiful state. Buffy held her nose. The smell and the filthiness were here certainly for dissuade the humans to enter in.

Angel knocked at a toilet room and the door opened. A big room at the end of a stairs stretched out front of Buffy's eyes:

- "My mother would have less appreciated this place knowing that"

- "Come on, he's there" Angel went downstairs followed closely by Buffy.

There was a guy at the bar, he was very fat but seemed human. Buffy wondered why he was here. Angel sat beside him and Buffy in his other side:

- "Oh, look who's here, Angi!" said the fat guy gorge himself on chicken's wings "And who is the little girl?"

- "We have questions to ask you" said Angel very serious.

Buffy loved see him when he was like that, he was sex. But she was here for her sister, so stop!

- "Oh?! And what about?" said the fat guy smiling.

- "A young girl has been kidnapped, there is two nights" said Angel.

- "You took me for a cop, kids disappear that can be everything, or everybody" said the fat guy thrusting his teeth in the chicken that he held at full hands. Seeing that Buffy hadn't doubts that he was a demon anymore but apparently not a vampire, she said:

- "It's my sister, she's....special"

- "Special how?"

- "She has the power to open dimensional portals, but the powerful" said Angel noting the disapproving look of Buffy.

- "Oh! It's the Key, it's that hum?" he looked Buffy "So you're the slayer of the hell mouth"

Buffy was astonished, she didn't know that she was popular in LA, well she had been but in the cheerleader clan not the demon's one.

- "You know something?" said Angel.

- "No, I hadn't heard talk to that but......" the fat guy looked Angel fixedly. Angel took an envelope off of his jacket and made it slid on the counter.

- "What?"

- "I know any demons or other who able to control the key but there are new players in town and they travel through the dimensions"

- "Who are they?" asked Buffy calmly but she wasn't calm at all.

- "They are mercenaries, we called them the "controllers""

- "And they work for?" asked Angel.

- "For who can pay them"

- "And what they control?" added Buffy.

- "They hunt"

- "And they hunt what?" said Buffy annoyed.

- "The peoples that their clients ask them to hunt, and then they punish them"

- "How?"

- "They shut their essence in a jar and then they must sale it in another dimension"

- "Why they could need the Key?" said Angel.

- "I didn't say that they NEED the Key, I said they are able to control it"

Buffy burned inside her hearing this lummox talk about her sister like she was a thing.

- "And I said too that they travel through the dimensions, and plus they're new"

- "And how do we do for contact them?" asked Angel.

- "I don't know. But I know a demon who is pursuit by them; he could tell you who put them after his ass"

- "He has still his essence?" asked Angel.

-"Yes, some demons have found a trick to the controllers, a weak point"

- "Give me his name"

The fat guy asked a pen and a paper at the barmaid and wrote the address on the paper then held it out to Angel. Angel took it and got up. Buffy got up too and leaved.

In the street:

- "It's weird, who's this guy? If he tells everything he learns why people continue to confide in him? It's that I don't understand with narks"

- "Nobody says anything to him, he's empathic, he pick thoughts up, it's a friend of Lorne" said Angel walking.

- "Oh, so it's for that he guessed for the Key and the slayer thing"

- "yeah"

- "Who's Lorne?"

- "A friend, he works, well works, with us at the agency" said Angel "Oh, and he's green"

Buffy looked at him with wide eyes. Yeah, Angel was a vampire so that wasn't so choking that he worked with a demon. Buffy had slept with Spike, and he hadn't his soul at this time, so....

- "Oh! I hope he didn't hear when I thought that he was disgusting!" Angel smiled.



_______________________________________



- "I've got a mega sore shoulder" said Connor painfully sat on the hospital's bed. He had his shoulder bandaged and his cheek cutaneous stitched up.

- "Yeah, I'd dislike to be in your place or in fact yes coz when Angel gonna see that he gonna make to me worst" said Gunn holding his ribcage under his sweater "I think they broke some of my ribs"

- "We're not obliged to say it to him" said Connor with a petty look.

- "Oh yeah. And how? It's him who pays the bill and anyway you don't have to be worried, you he never does anything to you, me he can throw me in the streets" Connor look at him frowning.

Well Angel threw him in the streets once:

- "He will do it anymore for you" added Gunn.

- "We clear off" said Connor.

- "But we have to wait, there are some papers and they wanted to keep you here some hours" Connor rolled his eyes:

- "You really didn't get anything, do you?"

- "That's illegal!" said Gunn frowning.

- "What, you're a boy scout, you never broke the law" said Connor mockingly.

- "Yes"

-"So?" Connor got up and went out of the bed hangings Gunn followed him sighing.

Suddenly Gunn stopped in front of a room where he saw through the window.

- "What're doing?" said Connor pulling him by his sleeve, he let it "well I split" he leaved.

Gunn looked in the bed. That was the boy that Gunn was searching since three or four days. He was lying unconscious. The positive side was that Gunn had found him. He caught a nurse who passed in the corridor:

- "Excuse me, what happened to this boy?"

- "Are you a family member?" said the nurse, but she knew he wasn't because the boy was white and Gunn no.

- "Im a PI, I made an investigation about his disappearance" he held a professional card out to her, she took it:

- "We found him tonight, in the coma, it's all, the police makes an investigation but we don't know what had made him in this state"

Suddenly he heard a doctor said:

- "Somebody has seen the two young men who were here?"

- "I have to go" said Gunn then rushed outside.



_____________________________________



He went out of the basement. He was in pain. This soul tortured him. He gonna hunt, help someone that could make him feel better. That made three days that he didn't see the slayer. He walked forward the cemetery for find vampires, or Buffy but he fell on Xander.

- "I found a vampire!!" yelled Xander.

Giles went out of thickets followed by Willow and the both were carrying crossbows:

- "It's Spike" sighed Willow.

- "Xander!" said Giles annoyed.

- "Why are you here?" said Spike with a hesitating voice.

- "We hunt" said Xander giving him a dangerous look.

- "Where's Buffy?" asked Spike worried.

- "LA, Dawn has disappeared, she didn't tell you?" said Xander.

- "She didn't want that we go with us. Anyway she does right in LA Angel can help her more than us" said Willow.

Spike understood perfectly that Buffy didn't tell him anything but he liked Dawn a lot even if this time the kid hated him.

-"I go" he said.

- "I don't know if Angel gonna appreciate to see you" said Xander "Okay go"

Willow knocked his shoulder.

Spike turned back and went running.

- "He gonna be thrown" said Xander singing softly.

- "Xander" said Willow rolling her eyes.



______________________________________



He touched his shoulder with the end of his fingers. He would have stayed longer at the hospital in less the time that they gave him some painkilling. He hoped that his father wasn't come back like that he could go quickly in his room without he realizes nothing. He pushed the door. Crap! Cordelia was come back. A guy was busy to catch the poltergeist. That wasn't a big deal because Cordelia couldn't smell blood, his father could.

- "Ah, Connor you fall well!" said Cordelia.

He entered. What she wanted again.

- "Why?" he replied annoyed.

- "Faith needs a room"

He scanned the room looking after Faith he saw her sat on the counter. She was hot but she was too much blunt with him. He didn't like her so much but he didn't know her more than that.

Before he felt alone and wanted somebody in his life, now he wanted they leave him alone. Faith jumped off of the counter. Connor sighed:

- "Come on" he said coldly going toward the stairs.

She followed him. They arrived on a first floor. Connor reflected then opened a door. That was the room beside his one; Angel had done it up because it was communicating to Connor's.

- "This one"

- "Ok" she entered and turned back to Connor who was in the frame:

- "You don't look like happy to see me" asked her

- "What that matter?"

- "Well, that's matter for me, there's already Cordelia and apparently Fred who are not happy to see me so I hopped have the boys on my side" she said smiling.

- "I don't know you" replied him.

- "Well we can remedy to that. There is somebody in the near room?"

- "Yeah, me"

- "Cool, we gonna can talk"

- "I don't like talk" he turned back and went in his room.

- "Oh, he's a tough. If the kid doesn't like me that gonna be hard here" she went for open the communicating door but hesitated:

- "Oh, in hell the reserve welcome audacity!" she opened.

He was sat on his bed, stripped to the waist. He removed a strip of his shoulder. He looked really kid-ish but Faith wasn't old too even if she had finished her teenager crisis but he was enough hot. Faith began to have dirty thoughts, that made two years she hadn't see a guy so closely well except Angel, and besides that was his son, don't touch!

He looked her and said softly:

- "Fucking door"

- "Sorry, I had felt some animosity between us so I'm coming for break the ice"

- "What ice?" asked Connor incredulous.

Faith frowned wondering if his was serious or if that was sarcasm in any case that wasn't a joke we felt that Connor wasn't the kind of makes jokes.

- "You're wounded?" asked her approaching.

- "It's nothing, that's okay"

- "Let see"

- "No, it's......" but she was already sat beside him removing the bandage. She took the bloody compress off and looked at:

- "It's mega recent, don't say me that's of tonight"

- "Yes"

- "And Angel knows?"

- "No" said Connor and besides the fact that Angel knows he didn't care. What that can do to Angel, he didn't worried that much when Connor was in the streets.

- "Do you have compresses and adhesive?"

- "Yeah, in the bed table" said him pointing the bed table.

She went and opened the drawer; she saw a compresses box, adhesive, disinfectant, pieces of glass and CDs.

- "It's weird, regularly male young people have playboys in their bed table's drawers not compresses" she said and put the compress on the wound. At this moment Cordelia entered in Faith's room; she saw by the communicating door Faith sat beside Connor who was stripped to the waist, she entered:

- "But what are you doing?!" she said panicked.

- "We break the ice" answered Connor innocently.

That made Faith laugh softly she finally understood that he didn't understand the expression.

- "No, I just help him to putt his bandage" Cordelia frowned and looked badly Faith:

- "What bandage?" she approached and saw the stitched up bloody wound "Oh my god!! What happened" she said crouching down front of Connor.

- "I would have stayed at the hospital because now it's done Angel gonna know it and he gonna know too that I cleared off of the hospital without make the papers" sighed Connor "Nothing, Gunn and I had destructed a nest of vampire sooner"

Cordelia pushed Faith and sat beside Connor; she took the strip and the compresses of Faith's hands and said to her:

- "It's good I'll do"

Faith got up. She was angry but said nothing. She leaved and closed the communicating door. It's crazy; she knew that Cordelia didn't like her but as to play the baby who protects her toys! Baby was the word and yet this girl was two years older than Faith.

- "It's okay, I can do"

- "don't talk nonsense" said Cordelia, he rejected her since he was come back lived in the hotel, he refused that she touches him. She put the bandage on his shoulder then noticed the little gash on his cheek and caressed it. Suddenly he pushed her hand away violently with a back of the hand.

- "It's alright calm down, Im sorry" said her hiding her sadness. Connor had a desperate and angst look in his eyes "I go downstairs, pay the guy, you gonna come?" asked her imploring.

- "Don't know" he said shrugging.

- "Ok" she smiled and went out; she pushed back the door and sighed.

Connor got up and took a clean sweat because his one was blood stained a lot, there was blood on his jacket too but it was black so we didn't see it but now there was a hole on so it gonna go in trash like almost all his clothes. He directed him toward the communicating door; he put a hand on the handle then hesitated. He gave up and then returned on his bed looking the door when it opened.

- "She's gone?" she asked.

- "yeah, you can come"

- "Oh, you accept that I come we are in progress" she entered "You okay, you're are not in pain too much"

- "It's supportable"

- "I was burgled"

- "It's bad"

- "You'd have a T-shirt or something I can't sleep dressed like this"

It's sure that she wasn't dressed comfortably all her clothes were squeezed. Connor went toward his commode, opened a drawer and took a T- shirt. He held it out to Faith, she took it.

- "It Gunn's"

- "Talking 'bout Gunn, you know what's the deal between him and Fred"

- "They don't talk together anymore. But it's good Gunn he's more cool now"

- "It's true that Gunn's cool"



TBC.......