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These Reasonable Taboos
by Glossolalia
Summary: "It's a summer day,/and I want to be wanted more than anything
else in the world." (Frank O'Hara)
Rating: NC-17
Author Notes: Written for ros_fod, who requested a Connor story set
between S3 and S4, for the summer installment of the Angel Book of Days.
Disclaimer: These characters belong to Whedon, ME, Fox, et al. They are
not mine.
Summer involves going down as a steep flight of steps
To a narrow ledge over the water. Is this it, then,
This iron comfort, these reasonable taboos,
Or did you mean it when you stopped? And the face
Resembles yours, the one reflected in the water.
(John Ashbery, "Summer")
Connor has to catch himself from slipping into comfort, from enjoying
this too much. He wears the hated name as the first barrier, a hair shirt,
a constant reminder to himself that this is not where he belongs.
He is Stephen, not Connor. Every time he thinks of himself as Connor, he
pricks himself back to alertness. Goes wary again, remembers to take care.
This place, this world, is horribly decadent and bewilderingly
contingent. In the Quor-Toth, linearity ruled. This corresponded perfectly
with everything his father taught him. If you are hurt, you hurt back, and
worse. Actions have consequences. God ensures this. There are the damned
and the elect.
Connor is twice-elect, an innocent born of evil, then given by God to his
true father.
Here, consequences blur and recede bafflingly. Angelus has been disposed
of. Vengeance has been wreaked.
So why do his thralls continue looking for him, as if he deserves it? Why
do they persist in such delusion?
His father instructed him carefully regarding the duplicity of evil. How
it looks beautiful, pleasing to the eye, only to reveal its maggot-strewn
truth once you get too close. Evil speaks with a silvered tongue, caresses
with you with lie after lie until you doze in its embrace, sated and
doomed.
Connor never thought to ask why. What's good is plain and simple.
Rough-hewn and honest to the eye.
But here, either everything is evil -- which could still be true -- or
the dichotomies that cleave his mind are not enough.
He keeps slipping. He finds himself enjoying this sojourn far too much;
he distrusts pleasure, knows that it is only the first sensation of the
fall, before he is irrevocably lost.
Yet try as he might, he cannot seem to resist; there are no alternatives.
Food, for instance. And television. He gorges himself on oranges he
crosses the freeway to buy, goes sick and lazy in front of the tv for
hours at a time.
Gunn complains because all the programs are reruns. It's all new to
Connor, however. This very novelty makes him anxious. According to Gunn,
the television contains its own seasons, nine months of new pictures
succeeded by three of these reruns.
If they're already on repeat, Connor reasons, he might never have another
chance to see them. He doesn't have the luxury to complain or to let his
attention wander.
He studies the day's schedule, printed in the morning's newspaper, with
the avidity he once brought to cleaning the innards of the smaller demons
he and his father subsisted on during the wet months.
Each day he makes a new grid, slotted by the half hour, a column each for
the story's title, its channel, and theme. Fred offered to print him up
the schedules, but part of the ritual is making the series of boxes in the
first place.
He checks his selections with Gunn; although they do not always agree on
the specifics, he trusts Gunn's taste in the broader sense.
"Nah, you don't want that," Gunn says, jabbing his thumb at the eleven AM
slot.
Connor draws himself up. "Why not?"
"Piece of shit." Gunn chews half his egg sandwich hastily and swallows.
"That season was just crap slopped on top of more crap."
Connor nods, erases the pencilled title and leaves the spot blank. He
used to ask Fred, but she invariably recommended programs that moved
unbearably slowly, narrated by stentorian voices that lulled him to sleep.
*
He patrols almost every night, across Skid Row, down to the docks, and
then back up to the hotel. He usually manages to give Gunn the slip after
several blocks. He suspects he isn't missed all that much.
The docks are always his destination.
He doesn't know what he fears more -- that Angelus will be found, or will
never surface again. In this luxuriant place, where the air is heavy like
metal, he's afraid he may be losing his mind. At best, he's going soft.
Nothing follows here, especially not in this warm season.
There are fires raging in the hills -- he watches the half-hourly updates
avidly, stomach queasy from the way the pictures jump and lurch. Fred
claims that the pictures are taken from a helicopter, just like the one
sent in to kill Angel before he could take his chance.
Connor prefers to think that of the cameras wading into the fire. He
longs to be there, to be home again, outrunning danger only to wheel
suddenly around. Cleave the threat, claim it for his own.
Instead, he flips channels, sinking into the warmth of the set's glow.
During commercials he does not like -- Metamucil, insurance, immigration
and naturalization abogados -- he is jittery and uncertain. He's no longer
comfortable in his own skin.
Only when the dusk is past and night, however smeary and shit-brown the
sky actually looks, has fallen, does his old confidence return. He unfolds
the map from his back pocket and traces out the night's route with his
fingernail.
The old confidence? As if several weeks here could have affected him so
much. Just torpor, just idleness of mind; nothing that he won't be able to
shake off with enough exertion. He fights constantly, he reassures
himself, against everything, this unbearable weight of feeling like
everything's in suspension, no visitors, no difference among the days,
fate and vengeance held in abeyance -- all of that slides back into
activity once he prepares to go out.
*
His sweep of the docks is nearly complete. Connor pauses against one
rusty shipping container to unwrap the cake in his pocket. Ten vampires
dusted, and he's only now about to turn back home. The hotel, that is. Not
home. He's earned an early sweet, or had earned it, before that particular
slip.
"Tall and dark? Man, that's like half of who we see out here--" The voice
overrules chocolate and thick icing, and Connor stuffs the cake back into
his pocket.
"Dark hair, yes. But quite pale, with reference to skin tone." The second
voice is quieter, accented. Very mild.
"Got a picture?"
Connor edges around the container and sees a burly man in a filthy
undershirt examining something held out by a taller man. The second man is
lean and pale, nearly haggard. Intense.
The dockworker shakes his head. "Sorry. Probably would remember somebody
like that. Don't get too many yuppies down here."
"No, I expect not." The taller man closes his billfold and slips it back
into his jacket pocket. "Very well. I wonder if you could tell me anything
about tidal variations? Undertows from here to, shall we say, northward?
Point Dune?"
Hearing that name, Connor feels his face tighten; the rest of his body
tenses as he leans fractionally forward.
"Fuck if I know," the dockworker says. "I load 'em, unload 'em, check the
manifests. Don't care how they float in or outta here."
"Thank you. Sorry again to trouble you."
Connor follows the Englishman to the parking lot. The man walks quickly,
apparently casually, but the angle of his head and the tension in his neck
and shoulders reveal his wariness. Connor keeps alert, several paces
behind him, sticking to the shadows. He will have to move rapidly, which
of course he can do, if he's to catch the man before he reaches his
vehicle. For now, though, he stalks silently, relishing the coiled stress
of the hunt, memorizing the view of his quarry.
Connor steals forward, rolling easily on the outsides of his feet to
minimize noise, and has nearly closed the distance between them when the
man opens the driver's side door. The scent of Justine pours out and
assaults Connor, swamping him for a moment.
Justine: Musky and salty, a warrior's sweat, and beneath that, something
flowery and sweet. As if she used to wear perfume like Fred's a long time
ago.
Connor stops short and hears himself exhale.
The man turns, slowly, carefully, in his direction.
"Who's there?"
Connor goes absolutely still.
The man shakes his head; his lips curl briefly in a smirk. "No sense in
prolonging this. Just show yourself." He shifts back his jacket, revealing
the handgun holstered at his side.
Connor steps backward.
"Very amusing," the man says. He straightens his jacket and steps up into
the car. The ignition starts and he slams the door before lowering the
window and glancing around. "Give my regards to Miss Morgan, won't you?"
Connor remains frozen in the shadows as the car backs up, turns, and
heads for the exit. Only when the taillights start to blur does he
remember himself and take off at a run to follow.
He would wait outside in the park all night if he could. Wait hunched
here in the shadows until the dew soaks his feet. Because he needs to see
what's in the wallet, needs to know where Justine is.
Needs to see the Englishman.
He can't, however, so he marks the route down on his map and lopes his
way home.
Hunting is an exercise in patience and here, now, in the heat and filthy
air, he has all the patience in the world.
*
He is alone much of the time.
He has explored the hotel thoroughly, top to bottom, and can draw the map
of each floor and every room from memory. He has trapped birds on the roof
with absurd ease and decapitated them just to watch them loll and flee
while the blood gushed. He has crouched down the hall from Fred's room to
listen to her and Gunn rutting. Repeatedly.
He has eaten four baking sheets' worth of chocolate chip cookies in one
sitting, earning Gunn's brief admiration and Fred's quivering disapproval.
He has dusted countless vampires on patrol with Gunn.
Not countless, in fact. He keeps a running tally in the back of the Bible
he found among the books Angelus gave him. Here too he records the number
of times he touches and pollutes himself onanistically. The total far
exceeds that for dead demons, and is rather startling.
Here again he has had to strike a bargain between worlds. It is sinful to
pollute himself anywhere, whether here or at home. So he does, because he
can't help himself, but he's not proud of it. By assigning a tally mark to
each instance of sin, he hopes he is assisting future judgment.
If nothing else, he is honest in his fall.
*
He follows the Englishman for several days. The man does not move around
much; spends the days inside and leaves every evening for various points
along the coast.
But Connor is attuned to rhythms, and follows the stranger when he leaves
the house alone on foot. Late at night, the air hushed and soggy with old
heat.
Follows him, knife in hand, until the street is narrow and fairly empty
of foot traffic.
Connor knocks him hard on the shoulder with his elbow and pushes the
Englishman into the alley. Up against the wall, knife at his throat.
His prey goes still under his hands.
"Why do you go down to the docks?"
He tries to shrug, but Connor presses the blade against his skin. "I'm
renting a boat."
"What for?"
"You are quite the terrier, aren't you?" The Englishman's eyes are
intent, glimmering and wet, his voice quiet. Almost untroubled.
Connor shoves him again so his head bounces against the wall. "What for?"
"Looking for something."
"On a boat?"
"Sunken treasure."
Connor knows he doesn't need the knife. He is easily the stronger and
quicker of the two. He suspects further that he would get the same answers
if they discussed this over iced tea.
But he likes the knife. The tip of it fits snugly in the stubbly skin
just below the man's jaw. The blade shines against the dull maroon scar on
his neck like they're twins.
He nudges the man's chin up and runs the tip of the knife over the scar.
Then his thumb. The skin is smooth to the touch, fascinating. The man
trembles for several moments but after a harsh gasp of breath, seems to
draw in on himself.
"What's your name?" Connor asks.
"Quentin," the man says. "Quentin Travers." His voice is raspy, raspier
than it was before. Connor experiments by drawing his nail across the
scar. Quentin shudders and licks his lips quickly. His eyes are hooded and
Connor has to tilt his head to see them clearly.
Connor nods, far less interested in the words themselves than the quality
of the sounds they make. Breathy and harsh.
This is a different kind of power, less dependent on force and speed than
on touch and stillness. He slips the knife back into its sheath and
scratches his nail over the scar again.
"And you?" Quentin asks. "Your name?"
Connor smiles. Away from the hotel and its carpet-heavy weight of lies,
he can speak the truth. "Stephen."
Quentin's eyes dart and almost seem to brighten. "The crown, in Greek.
The first Christian martyr."
Connor nods. "The Destroyer."
Quentin closes his eyes. When they open, his gaze has gone flat again and
his breathing has smoothed out. Connor realizes he misses the glitter and
the rasp.
"Why are you here?" Quentin asks. It's as if he doesn't notice, couldn't
care less, that Connor still has him up against the wall, hand on his
throat. "Shouldn't a boy your age be tucked into bed by this hour?"
Connor digs his nail against the scar and tightens his grip on Quentin's
shoulder. "Not a boy."
"I only meant," Quentin says and licks his lips again, eyes darting over
Connor's face, "that your parents must be worried sick. Mum wringing her
hands, dear old Dad pacing grooves in the floor."
Connor has lost the power now; the memory of it, still and palpable, is
just an illusion.
He didn't trust it anyway. There was nothing to hold onto about it; it
was slippery as television, just as changeable.
He'd spit if he could.
He releases Quentin's shoulder and steps back, sliding his palm much more
slowly across, then off, Quentin's throat. Quentin's eyes never leave his,
and even when Connor is fully out of reach, he remains where he is. Connor
has the distinct feeling that he is still being questioned by those eyes.
"Just like to take walks," Connor says despite himself. "No one's
worried."
"No, I don't imagine so," Quentin says, lips curling again.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Not much of anything." Quentin massages his throat with one hand. "You
seem a very self-sufficient boy. Quite capable."
Connor finds it difficult not to watch those long, elegant fingers as
they flex and straighten. "Not a boy," he says, not putting much into it.
"No, of course not."
It's infuriating -- or it would be, if it wasn't so fascinating -- the
way this man can say one thing but communicate exactly the opposite of the
words. Silvered tongue, Connor thinks, and wonders how a human has such a
talent at that when a demon like Angelus spoke so obviously, so bluntly.
Almost brokenly, reduced to the simplest phrases, like the songs and
parables Holtz taught Connor.
*
Fred is shy and kind with him. Gunn tried to be jovial and buddy-buddy,
but after several attempts were met with Connor's confusion, he's gone
back to being gruff. Gunn calls him "little man" and slaps his shoulder;
Connor doesn't like that. He suspects he's being insulted.
He doesn't understand touch, first of all. You touch what you're about to
kill -- demons, or Sunny -- after all, he almost touched her and then she
died. That Cordelia woman touched him, filling him with agony, tugging all
the pain, all the fear and uncertainty that he keeps bundled in his gut
upward and outward, exploding beneath his skin, blinding him, flooding his
blood.
But humans touch all the time. On tv, they're constantly reaching for
each other. When words fail, their fingers brush cheeks, arms, hands. Like
it means something. Gunn likes to pet Fred's hair, comb through it with
his fingers and plait it; Fred often rests her cheek on his shoulder, her
arm around his waist, and just sits there.
Connor wonders how it feels at the same time that he knows it's repugnant
and pitiful.
*
Sometimes he sees Quentin's face, just before he wakes. He takes this as
a sign. He needs to see the wallet. Justine. Quentin.
He leaves the hotel now in the middle of the day. When he feels like it,
he will stand and leave.
Fred worries: It's a big city; he's new here; aren't there police
officers looking for children out of school.
Gunn snorts. "Summer, sweetheart. Remember?"
"Keep forgetting," Fred says, ducking her head, smiling.
Gunn rubs her back and strokes her hair. "Not like you can tell around
here," he says. "But it is. Besides, never heard of truant officers
picking up a white kid."
"So I'm going," Connor says. Has to say it like he believes it; these two
have no power over him. "See you later."
Fred sniffs and smiles at Connor. "Just be careful, okay? Big world."
"I can handle it."
He waits in the park for Quentin. Some days he never sees him. But
Quentin's appearances are rapidly increasing. Their meetings lengthening.
*
Quentin crosses the park, newspaper folded under his arm, and sits on a
bench. Connor joins him.
"You smell different," Connor says. "Why do you smell different?"
Quentin blinks slowly and tilts his head. "You have a very good sense of
smell."
Connor nods; of course he does. "You smell like-- silver. And something
else, something kind of dead. Or dying. Why?"
"Perfume, I expect."
Their eyes meet, and Quentin grins briefly. "Not mine. A friend's. Tell
me-- What else have you sniffed out?"
He means Justine. Connor shrugs and looks away. "A lot," he says. If
Quentin can lie so smoothly, so can he.
"So, what are you doing tonight?" Quentin asks. "More lurking in the
shadows? Or can I interest you in something less interesting, but
certainly more comfortable?"
"Like what?"
"Oh, I don't know," Quentin says. "What do boys your age like to do?"
"I don't know."
Quentin smiles. "No, I expect you don't."
They go for ice cream. Quentin murmurs something about this being what
good uncles do. Connor doesn't understand, but the sundae is massive and
occupies him until Quentin broaches another subject.
*
Connor tries to stay alert but the television always distracts him. He
can hear voices in the office, but doesn't bother to listen until he hears
the name Wesley.
"--saying we could ask him," Fred says.
"And I'm saying: No Wes. No way, no how."
"But Wesley's got to--"
"Who's Wes?" Connor asks, slipping around the doorframe. "Is he the
Iscariot?"
They stiffen as he enters, like they always do. But instead of drawing
nearer to each other, as is their habit, Gunn and Fred separate.
"No one," Gunn says.
"Iscariot?" Fred asks. "What do you mean?"
"My father--" Seeing their faces, Connor remembers the story he needs to
stick to -- "Holtz told me about a man. Named Wesley. An apostate, a
betrayer. He tried to redeem himself by taking me."
"Try again," Gunn says. "He betrayed us by taking you. No redemption in
that picture."
"So you know him? Where is he?"
"No." Gunn is looking at Fred, however, as if she was the one who'd
spoken. "We don't."
In turn, Fred looks at Connor and uncrosses her arms so they dangle,
empty-handed, at her sides. She smiles at him with her eyes, and he knows
that this means she'll come to his room later. She will tell him then yet
another version of what happened.
*
There are stories upon stories here. So many that he can barely keep
track, differentiated only by the voices which tell them. He wishes these
stories were as exciting, as garishly bright, as the ones on television.
Quentin tells good stories, ones Connor has never heard before. Gods and
half-demons. Rapes and miracle births. He loves them.
The thing about stories, and Connor probably shouldn't be surprised that
no one here understands this, is that they're always true. Stories are
made out of words, and words are things. Like bread and wood and muscle.
Even if you want to lie, his father always told him, the words will
eventually betray you. And you must never lie, for then the serpent is
already in your mouth.
His father knew everything. He knew how to speak to God and how to start
a fire in a downpour. But that was at home; here, Connor thinks,
everything is already a lie. No one speaks to God, and everyone suckles
the serpent ecstatically.
So he is careful with his own lies and hopes that this care will make the
difference.
*
Connor wants to know why humans touch each other all the time. Quentin
returns his question with another question.
"What's desire for you, Stephen? Mmm?"
Connor sounds out the word in his head, turns it over like a stone.
Quentin is, as ever, testing him. The stream of questions, dissolute and
cloudy, wearies him. Especially when, like now, he's full of sugar and the
first flush of its thrill has drained away.
"Hunger?" Connor tries. "But not like the stomach. Spread out. Under the
skin, trying to force its way out."
Quentin nods. His slim fingers tap his drink slowly, nearly absently. But
not absently. Not truly, because Quentin concentrates. Unlike his
questions, Quentin is concentrated, boiled down to a lean body. He might
look weak, except for the eyes, blazing out of the haggard face.
Connor thinks that if he knew what was in those eyes, he'd know how to
challenge Quentin. At least how to respond. Master him, and thus get free
of him.
"Interesting," Quentin says. "Astute, even."
"Sound surprised." Connor is offended and feels the bristles sprout along
his arms and down his back.
"Oh, I'd never underestimate you," Quentin says. "I'm not that much of a
fool."
When he says things like this, when he speaks in generalities and
deprecations, Quentin isn't speaking to Connor. Like Gunn, when his eyes
are on Fred across the room: His words go toward Connor, but his attention
is focused elsewhere.
Except he is alone with Quentin. They're always alone, no matter how
crowded the restaurant or street.
*
He studies this world, the stories it tells about itself from beneath the
thick screen of glass. He memorizes these stories to tell himself later.
He even laughs at them sometimes.
Faces often reappear day to day, week to week. This confuses him; the
story is finished, the moral told -- why does it start again, with the
same faces, only to go somewhere else?
"'Cause they're episodes," Gunn says roughly, handing him a bottle of
pop. Connor checks the label before opening it. Last week he drank dark
fizzy pop that looked like what he always drinks, but it tasted wrong --
sharp where it should have been sweet and smooth. It was root beer, and he
raged against liquor as Fred first tried to pretend it wasn't alcohol,
then apologized and handed him a damp towel when he made himself vomit.
This, however, is pop, and he gulps it as Gunn flips the channels.
"Episodes," he says again. "Like -- fuck if I know -- chapters in a book.
Keeps going on. That's why you see the same faces. Oh, man! This one
rocks. Odo gets caught outside and Bashir has to--"
Gunn watches raptly and Connor realizes that the explanation, such as it
was, is over.
He hates the weakness he reveals when he has to ask questions. The root
beer incident, however, reminded him that questions are always preferable
to trust.
He is grateful when the explanations trail off like this, yet he feels
even weaker, more ignorant, if that's possible. Now he knows a little more
that will never be enough.
*
Always in public.
Quentin will not allow Connor into his home. Connor could break in easily
enough; he's skirted the building several times.
The terms of this hunt are obscure, but he's gathered enough to know that
forcing his way in is out of the question.
They are canny and subtle together. Not brutes.
Besides, Connor assures himself, he doesn't need to go inside. He only
needs to see what's in Quentin's wallet. He needs to see the picture, not
his living quarters.
He suggests that they meet the next afternoon at the hotel. He
deliberately called it "home", so that doesn't qualify as a mistake worthy
of punishment.
Quentin looks at him for a long time without saying a word. He may have
smiled in that time, but they are rare expressions for the man, so Connor
is unsure.
"I don't think so," he says at last.
The reply as well as its delay prickles at Connor. "Why not? Good a place
as any."
"I don't think your parents would be pleased to see a man my age courting
their little boy." Quentin's lips do curve now.
Connor doesn't have any parents, although of course he's never told
Quentin that. He doesn't think Fred and Gunn would mind anyway. So he
attends to what he doesn't understand. "Courting? What are you doing to
me?"
"Figure of speech," Quentin says. "Merely that most right-thinking people
would look askance on the two of us meeting like this. Nearly daily."
"Why?"
"So you have told your parents?"
Whether it is the stress Quentin puts on "parents", as if he knows
everything about Connor, as if Connor's cover is thinner than tissue, as
if he knows Connor lies -- not lies, his conscience insists, merely covers
-- or the suggestion that he and Connor share a confidence, Connor is
angry. His face flushes hot and his eyes dry as they narrow, until he can
barely see Quentin. He pushes back from the table and stands up.
"Stuff it, Quentin--"
Quentin's eyes widen. "Stuff it, Stephen?"
It sounded right when Magnum, PI said to the helicopter pilot. Why should
Quentin be so obnoxious?
*
Connor wears some of the clothes that the Iscariot left behind.
"You're closer to his build than Angel's," Fred says. "It's weird."
"What do you mean?" He loathes these moments, where he's talked about
like he's a freak, like one of the specimens swimming in its filthy tank
at the aquarium that Quentin brought him to.
Fred smiles as if it pains her. "Just odd. Like you favor Wes more than
your dad. Lanky, I guess. Like a colt -- you know what a colt is?"
"Yeah. A gun."
He likes the clothes. They're old, shut up in the wardrobe, so they still
smell of the lost man. Unwashed -- and he hates the way humans hide their
scents with soap -- the shirts and pants smell sad. Almost desperate. The
fabric is soft under his hands and against his skin.
*
"Tell me the one about the demon in the maze," Connor says. He slurps the
last of his chocolate milkshake and sits back to listen.
Quentin sips his coffee and sets the cup carefully onto its saucer. "You
like that one, do you?"
"It's like hunting," Connor says. "Tell me that one."
"I'm not in the mood for the minotaur today," Quentin says. "I'm going to
tell you another one."
"I want another drink first," Connor says. His stomach is full to
bursting, and his head throbs already, but he likes testing Quentin like
this. They're always testing each other, parrying and jabbing gently -- he
to see how much he can get, Quentin to see how much Connor will let slip.
Quentin merely nods and raises his hand to catch the waitress. He orders
another coffee for himself and a milkshake for Connor.
"And fries," Connor says. "With hot cheese on top."
"Boys," the waitress tells Quentin. "Bottomless pits."
Quentin nods.
When she's gone, he tells the story. A king and queen had a baby boy. But
a prophecy said that the son would kill the father.
"Do you know what a prophecy is?"
"Yeah," Connor says. Prophecies are like vengeance: Promises made across
time that will always wreak the truth.
"Of course you do," Quentin says. He strokes his scar with one finger.
Startled, Connor scans Quentin's face. He finds only tight, narrow lips
and those steady blue eyes.
So the king and queen sent the boy off to die. Their logic was that if
they killed him, the prophecy could not come true.
Connor snorts, the milkshake catching on his disbelieving laughter.
"Are you quite all right?"
Connor nods rapidly, trying to breathe, fanning his hand before his
mouth.
"Quite," Quentin says. "You seem to be ahead of the story. Smart boy.
Because of course the prophecy will come true, whatever you try to do to
thwart it. It's the nature of prophecies, unless they're forged. But
that's a story for another time."
An honest woodsman, however, pitied the babe and stole him, taking him to
a far different kingdom. The boy grows up there.
"Just like that?"
"Just like that," Quentin says. "Time passes strangely in stories,
haven't you noticed?"
"Yeah."
One day a passing traveler insults the now-grown boy. They fight, and he
kills the traveler. The first kingdom falls into sickness, until the boy,
now a man, arrives to cure it.
"How?"
"Riddles. He answers riddles."
Not knowing what riddles are, but not sure if it's important enough to
ask, Connor tries to nod decisively.
"Word puzzles," Quentin says. "Stories with a secret."
"I know. Not what I asked. How is it sick?"
"Oh, the usual. Rot settles across the land. Famine. Spiritual unrest,
that sort of thing."
"Okay," Connor says. This story is odd; he prefers the demon trapped in
the maze. He senses, however, that Quentin likes this story. He'll listen,
if only to puzzle out why that could be. "Go on."
Having released the kingdom from its malaise, the man marries the queen.
They have children. They are, in general, content. Until one day the new
king learns of the old prophecy. Learns that he has killed his father and
married his mother. Distraught and sickened, he puts out his eyes. The
end.
"Why?"
"Why what?" Quentin smiles thinly.
"Why's he sick? Distraught? He fulfilled the prophecy."
"Generally, one doesn't like to kill one's father," Quentin says quietly.
"Nor fuck one's mother."
"So? His father insulted him. Maybe he deserved it. Maybe he needed to be
killed--"
"Interesting."
"And anyway, it's not like the king was really his father. You said so.
The honest woodsman was his father."
Quentin nods. "And the queen?"
"Not his mother. Maybe they just liked each other. The guy didn't know,
he liked her, so it's okay."
"So you think it's natural?"
"Maybe," Connor says. Recklessly, fully aware that the questions are fast
sliding away from the story like newborn snakes, he looks Quentin right in
the eye. "Yes. Nothing wrong with it."
"I know some Austrians who'd agree with you."
"Don't care," Connor says.
Quentin nods again. "Nevertheless. Some stories are deemed universal.
They apply to us all in one way or another."
Quentin's tone is mild and conversational, his posture relaxed. His hands
loosely cup his coffee.
But Connor doesn't trust him at all. He could be shifting and stuttering
helplessly, eyes darting every which way, and Connor would have more faith
in him.
"I mean, there were times when I dearly wanted to kill my father,"
Quentin continues. "I daresay the old bastard deserved it, too."
*
He doesn't know what or whom to believe. He trusts the records he keeps
-- his schedules, his maps, his lists -- to help him sort the carnality
into pieces, contained in boxes. Caged, however briefly.
Sometimes he visits the sea. Never the spot where he played Jacob and
wrestled Angelus down, but other stretches of beach. Sand and tide crawl
and consort together there, and he decides that he does not trust these
places. Where sea meets earth is impossible to pinpoint, always shifting.
The line of contact wavers and jumps, just like people's lips when they
speak. When they lie.
Quentin appears to love the sea. He smells of it, salt and wind. It's in
his hair, soaked into his skin. It envelops him. But he never speaks of
it, has never mentioned it since that second night.
Connor has to believe that Quentin's embrace of the sea and the smell of
Justine in his car are related. He last saw her at the docks, after all,
when she paused to pay off the boatman. Gripped by something close to
panic, though he would never call it that, Connor waited uneasily as long
as he could before taking off at a run for the hotel. He couldn't be out
too late before they realized Angelus was gone. He couldn't blow his
cover.
That's what they call it on the justice shows; detectives are always
talking about criminals blowing their covers. Revealing themselves, laying
themselves open for capture. Even though he isn't a criminal, Connor likes
the expression. It suggests that he is hiding in a blind at home,
patiently outwaiting a demon come to drink.
*
It had amused him that Fred and Gunn insist on referring to his home as a
"hell dimension". Everyone knows that Hell is below us and he fell into
this world.
No longer.
He is still falling; he knows that. He can feel it, his muscles
softening, his mind going lax, his judgments slackening. All he can do is
try to slow the descent. Catch the outcroppings and currents, rise a
little, momentarily, before he continues the plunge.
But there is no way to chart the plunge. Its descent is as interminable
as the gritty sky overhead. No leaves color and fall here. Bitterly cold
winds will never come. In this place, this world, seasons can be marked
only by stories Connor will never learn well enough.
Time is unbearably suspended as he flails and falls.
*
The wildfires have ravaged so many communities that even Connor has lost
count.
He starts seeing new commercials, promising new stories, coming soon. He
notes down those he would like to watch.
Gunn and Fred fight more often these days. They no longer bother to hide
the arguments from Connor. As if they can tell he barely listens any more.
Quentin is more drawn, paler, hoarser than ever. His scar is the only
bright thing about him. Even his eyes have clouded -- with worry, or
exhaustion, Connor doesn't know.
*
He is still learning, always learning, whether he wants to or not. So
Connor refuses to blame himself for missing what must have been the signs
all around him.
He is never at fault. He is elect.
Quentin leaves him in the parking lot to return to the restaurant for his
keys. Connor holds Quentin's jacket, the weight of the wallet pressing
against him.
Promising him.
He flips open the wallet, alert and tense for sounds of Quentin's return.
He barely quells the shiver of rage when he sees the picture.
There is Angelus, holding a squirming, naked baby with one hand. His
other arm is flung around someone's shoulders. The other man, all of his
face, most of his body, is cut off by the edge of the paper. One thin arm,
however, enters the frame, supporting the baby.
Thin arm, blue shirt patched in darker blue at the elbow. The shirt
Connor wore yesterday.
Connor stares at the baby he was, more confused by his presence than the
longed-for confirmation that Angelus's picture is in Quentin's wallet.
The quality of the air shifts slightly, not quite a sound above the hush
of the lot but nearly. Connor fumbles to close the wallet when he sees the
name. Glinting, embossed in silver on a green plastic card: Wesley
Wyndam-Pryce.
Wesley.
"I expect you'll kill me now," he says quietly, reaching past Connor and
taking back his wallet.
Connor twists around. He looks up Wesley's chest, up his throat, finds
the eyes he'd started getting used to glittering back at him, wholly alien
again. "I could."
Wesley nods once. "But you won't."
Infuriating confidence: He shares that much with Quentin. No, Connor
won't kill him.
He's the destroyer, not a murderer.
He'll do worse.
He lashes out, presses Wesley against the hood of the car.
"What happened to the queen?" Connor asks. Wesley's face is drawn,
deathly pale in the dark. He quivers under Connor's grip. "In the story?"
Wesley's jaw sets as he shakes his head very slowly back and forth.
Connor likes it when they resist. He slips the knife from its sheath and
starts cutting away Wesley's shirt. Crisp white fabric takes the blade,
parts willingly beneath it.
"This is a public place," Wesley says. Connor hears the tremor in the
words, congratulates himself -- anyone else would think Wesley was
untroubled, but he knows better.
"Yeah," Connor says, twisting the knife, bringing it back up to brush the
fabric away, exposing Wesley's pale, sunken chest. "The queen?"
"He tried to kill her," Wesley says. "But he was too late."
"He fucked up," Connor says. "Right?"
Wesley nods. His arms are spread wide, like an animal hung to drain the
blood before butchering, hands gripping the sides of the car hood. His
chest rises and falls as Connor touches the tip of the blade to his ribs.
"What did you do to Justine?"
"Nothing," Wesley says. He is lying, of course. They all lie. Connor
braces his foot against the bumper and hoists himself up, until he is
straddling his victim's narrow hips, looking down, knife in his hand and
smile on his lips.
Wesley goes absolutely still then. He gazes up at Connor, irises blown
black and wide.
Connor smiles more broadly.
"I'm not going to fuck up," Connor says, tracing the line of Wesley's
nose with one finger. Down his neck, over the scar, to the hollow of his
throat. "I'm not one of your stupid stories."
"No," Wesley whispers. His lips stay parted, dry and dark in Connor's
shadow.
Connor relishes the touch. Paper-dry skin, chilled and soft. He regains
that quicksilver power he had discovered all those nights ago. His hand
dances slowly and lazily down Wesley's chest.
He hears helicopters in the distance, buzzing heavily towards the fires.
Sirens hoot and cars peel past, rushed and empty. Connor holds Wesley
below him, watches the reflection of the knife in his eyes. Sharp and
doubled.
"Where is he, Connor?" Wesley asks.
Hearing that name, the horrible name granted by a demon, Connor laughs.
He hasn't laughed like this since Gunn showed him The Carol Burnett Show.
Joy surges and floods through him; he couldn't be happier if a portal
opened beside him and Holtz stepped through, arms open, welcoming him. His
head thrown back, he laughs, slips a little, feels Wesley stiffen beneath
him.
Throat empty, knife slipping hot in his palm, Connor looks back down. He
rubs the knuckles of his fist over Wesley's chest, one nipple hard against
his skin.
"Does that feel good?" Connor asks. "What's that feel like?"
Wesley's eyes close and Connor slaps his face with the knife.
"What's that feel like?"
Breath whistles deep as Wesley inhales. "Good," he admits. Hoarse voice,
his fear heavy and flavorful on Connor's tongue. "You should know that."
Connor nods. He runs the tip of the knife over Wesley's lips, watches
them pucker, then part wider. "You want this, Wesley?"
Wesley slides down slightly, hands screeching against the metal. Connor
tightens his grip on Wesley's waist.
Eyes darting everywhere, Wesley gasps. Connor rocks back against Wesley's
pelvis.
"Do you want me?" Connor asks.
"Do you want me to lie to you?"
Connor lowers himself until his face hovers just over Wesley's. He smells
fear and desire. He knows desire, he's smelled it on himself, sharp as a
lemon and just as sour. Quite like fear. His face wavers across the
surface of Wesley's eyes.
"You can try," Connor says. "Do you want to?"
Wesley is hard beneath him, skeletal and fierce. Connor shuts his eyes
briefly, praying for his erection to vanish, though it grows and throbs
alongside Wesley's own. "No," Wesley mutters. "Becoming altogether too
good at that."
"Good," Connor says. Whispers his lips along the cusp of Wesley's jaw.
When he grazes his teeth over the rim of the scar, Wesley groans like a
baby, helplessly, and his pelvis rolls beneath Connor's.
Connor tries to breathe. Recites names of the patriarchs and reminds
himself that this is a game. This is a hunt. He will always close the
distance.
"You don't know what to do," Wesley murmurs. His breath is hot on
Connor's cheek. One arm settles around Connor's waist. The knife clatters
out of Connor's hand. "Just say so."
When Connor swallows, he tastes Wesley. He wants to move, knows he must
move, knows that the longer he lies here, the deeper and faster he falls,
the bottom rushing to meet him.
Embrace him.
Wesley's tongue slips over Connor's lips.
"You want me?" Connor gasps as Wesley rocks him with his hips, arm,
mouth.
"Yes."
"Good," Connor says. Sees clouds roll over Wesley's eyes, sees him start
to understand. He braces himself on his hand and rises up and off.
Wesley chokes on laughter below him.
"But you see," he calls, as Connor finds his feet, stumbles away, "I
already knew that."
Up.
Out.
Gone.
Connor flees for the hotel, hunt accomplished, less sure of anything than
ever.
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