A/N: Ehhhhh. This chapter was so hard to write. It went in a completely ridiculous direction and actually ended the story at one point, which I might add an extra chapter after the story's actually complete for that most amazing deleted scene. I'm not too pleased with it. I'm not too good at letting things heal. Thanks for the all the reviews, by the way.
Asphyxia
Chapter Nine
A sad story was the story of Connor Angel. A fairy tale where the stepsisters were uglier than sin and the prick of a pin dropped the boy dead. No kiss, no cure. A counter full of medication, bottles tripping over bottles, and not one warning on one label. Not one instruction in the case of mishap. Not one pill less of an overdose.
Not one moment, in seventeen years dreaming, of waking from this nightmare.
Connor shifted now so that his arm brushed his father's, but he never looked up. Wesley and Fred and Gunn and god forbid, that filthy demon, Lorne, were in the room. And they all looked at him with mixed eyes full of accusation and doubt, sympathy and worry.
If there was an explanation for where they'd been the past few days, Connor didn't care to hear it. In fact, he wasn't allowed to hear it. Angel had sent him upstairs for some nonsensical reason that Connor was just too tired to argue with.
"Why don't you go upstairs and read something?" Dad had asked with an encouraging smile and eyes that lied by omission. Connor hated those eyes, because those eyes were the eyes he'd seen from the very beginning. The eyes he'd seen before he'd been sent off to see the ocean for the first time.
The vast, huge, salty ocean where Connor had sunk those eyes.
"Connor," Dad said now and Connor twitched, because he didn't like the careful way in which the vampire spoke. It sounded like Dad was the antelope and Connor was the lion, and the latter was about to be tricked out of his meal.
"Yeah?" Connor prompted, eyeing his father with a long-endured suspicion that would never really go away.
"There's something I have to talk to you about." Connor looked around to see Angel's friends were quietly exiting the room and he quickly decided that out of all the games he played with his dad, this was the one he hated the most.
The story of Connor Angel is a long, drawn out tale of vindication and deceit, the longing for acceptance and the inevitable rejection, the need in want, the love you find in hate. Connor's tale is a tale of winter solstice and life's end - a wound, gaping and gallant, seeping blood by the gallons with the promise of rest.
But his eyes were open and his lids ached, for sad boys with worried fathers were boys forced to heal.
"I don't like it here."
"It's only for an hour, Connor."
Blue eyes flashed and took in the office lobby with its clean, flat, blue carpet, immaculate white walls, and cheerful receptionist working happily at her somewhat-less-cleanly reception desk. Children's toys littered one of the corners and a wide range of outdated magazines were scattered untidily across the table, in which Connor had propped his feet.
An older woman with a strict face and a walking cane sat nearby, looking at the boy's dirty shoes in disapproval. Connor pretended not to notice.
"Dad, why can't we just leave?"
"Because you have an appointment."
"Well, I didn't make it."
"Don't be difficult."
Connor sighed. He didn't know where the thing got these ideas – these crazy, unnecessary ideas. Therapy, his dad had called it. A specialist. Someone who could help Connor be happier.
"Do they know I'm a freak?" Connor grumbled.
"You're not a freak."
"Well, do they know that I'm not normal?"
"Yes."
Which, Connor thought, only makes it worse. That meant that this specialist, whatever it happened to be, came at the recommendation of Wesley or Lorne. Wesley, who was at fault for Connor's entire unhappy existence; or Lorne, who was a filthy demon. Connor didn't approve of either, and thus, knew that he could pass this entire excursion off as a "bad idea".
"Connor Angel?"
Connor glanced up to see the insufferable receptionist outside of her desk, propping the door open for him.
"Your turn, sweetheart."
Connor looked to Dad, who patted him on the back.
"Aren't you coming?"
But Dad shook his head and Connor sat still and rigid.
"You have to go in yourself, pal."
"Why?"
"Because I can't be there."
So Connor got up, albeit slowly, and walked in the manner of a man to the electric chair, through the awaiting door. He followed the happy woman, with the smiling face, down a short hallway and into a warm room.
His eyes flittered from the wood paneling and leather sofa, to the shining wooden desk and the middle-aged man behind it.
"You'll be just fine, honey," the receptionist assured him with a smile so big Connor thought her teeth might break. She retreated out of the room in a most cautious manner, walking backwards, eyes on the desk, all the way out the door.
Hearing the click of the shutting door, Connor immediately asked, "Are you a demon?" Since, after all, that was always Connor Angel's first question.
"Yes," the 'specialist' answered honestly. "But you can call me Dr. Rob."
Against Father's will, Connor sat on the leather sofa and gave this new monster a long, scrutinizing look.
"Do you have any other questions you'd like to ask me?" Dr. Rob prodded.
Connor shook his head.
"Is there anything you'd like to tell me about why you've come to see me?"
"My dad made me."
"And do you know why he made you?"
Silence hit the room like a fist to the gut, and Connor Angel sat with eyes to the wood paneling, scuffing the toe of a dirty sneaker along the clean floor.
"Connor?"
"I don't know."
Connor didn't like this strange room, with this foreign creature that asked him questions that he didn't want to answer. He didn't know why he was here, or why Dad made him come, or why the stupid vampire would make him go in alone.
Dr. Rob asked him questions, lots of questions. Brief questions worded in a very to-the-point way, as if they were directed towards a very small child.
A very small child who set puppies on fire for fun.
Connor didn't answer any of these questions, choosing instead to dirty the floor and stare at the lines between the paneling. After the hour was up, he was sent out to wait in the lobby while a most exasperated Dr. Rob held a short conference with a nervous-looking Angel.
Connor had a few storybooks, all of which came in different packaging. The first, he was pretty sure, was acrylic and fuzzy and smelled like baby powder. The second was bound in human skin and written in blood.
As he slumped in the lobby chair and crossed his arms sulkily over his chest, he wondered, perhaps, if this was the first chapter of the third. And if it was the third, between what were the words written?
"You ready to go, pal?"
"Yeah."
Father and son exited the building in silence.
Connor Angel was a closed book, a vague poem, a novel written out of syntax.
His cover meant everything.
TBC...
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