(no subject)
Title: Connor’s First Christmas! (Part 1)
Author:
lullaby_gg
Disclaimer: I don’t own anything related to Angel. Joss and the rest of the producers own it all.
Rating: PG-13 Warnings: Just some language, for now.
Notes: This was just a little experiment that I thought I’d try (because I’m awful at writing in the Angel fandom in my opinion). But I had a few ideas on my mind and then I saw that Mary (thanks to her!) had posted something in her livejournal regarding Angel and Connor in Christmas time, too. So I decided to run with it. I don’t even know if it’s worth it or if it’s any good, but I think I’ll finish the story within this week. I wanted to post the first part on Christmas day, just for kicks. It may include some very light discipline but I’m not sure yet. I apologize for all the mistakes, this was all written today and not really proof-read, so sorry in advance.
Los Angeles was certainly not the happiest place on Earth, but in fact, one of the most troubled cities men-kind could ever find. The cold deserted streets were filled with criminals, humans or not, that were only disrupting the peace that perhaps once existed. The dusky and wet alleys that characterized the city were inhabited by the most horrible creatures that people never thought even existed and once they found out, they never lived to tell.
Ever since Angel had arrived to his homonymous city, per say, he’d tried to make the city a safer place, not really caring if his non-life could be lost in the process. The vampire with a tortured soul had been living there for quite a while, during which he’d met the most amazing people in his life, not to mention that they were persons that he thought deserved to be called friends. He’d lost a few of them in the process, though, which didn’t make the thought of killing creatures for an eternity any easier. But just last year he’d been given the most amazing gift of all, one that gave him a reason to keep going. Although he hadn’t even expected it, it was by far the most precious thing he’d ever have: a son.
The Miracle child, as everybody seemed to think a son of two vampires should be called, had lived for only a few months with the gang, before he was kidnapped and taken to a hell dimension to live most of his life. When he finally returned, he was already a teenager and was eager to kill his vampire father, thinking he was an evil monster. Both father and son had to pass very difficult experiences for them both, including Connor dumping Angel in the bottom of the ocean and thinking he’d killed Holtz.
After all these events happened, Angel decided to let the kid have some space and allowed him to stay in some empty apartments all by himself. Soon, he realized his son, was in fact a child, and simply could not take care of himself. He then, did everything in his power to bring the child back to live with him and the gang at the hotel. The change hadn’t been easy on Connor, but he’d managed to survive and even start to like the way things were, even though the kid would never admit it.
Months had passed since Connor started to stay at the Hyperion and one day he’d found himself along with Gunn and Fred patrolling around the streets. Connor noticed that most of the houses of that neighborhood had some sort of witchcraft that appeared to be luminous and colorful. It was definitely not there last time, he thought.
“What is that?” the kid asked all of a sudden to Fred.
“What is what?” Gunn responded with another question.
“Those colored lights that are hanging of those houses' roofs?” Connor explained.
“Oh… those are Christmas lights,” answered Fred like it was the most obvious thing in the world, which was actually true to every human being but Connor.
“What do they do?” asked Connor a bit intrigued, but also a little offended by the tone Fred had used.
“Well, they… hmmm… light- ” Gunn hesitated. He’d never really been asked what those lights were for, and truthfully he now realized he had absolutely no idea.
“Connor, they are a symbolism,” Fred explained.
And there she goes again. Whenever she used that kind of longish strange words, Connor never seemed to understand what she meant. Damn.
Fred had kept ranting about what she’d probably read in one of her books, “… they represent hope and perseveration of people. Their will to be forgiven for their sins by their God-”
“God?” interrupted Connor, a dark tone noticeably present in his voice. “I don’t believe in God anymore. I don’t even know if the God I was told about by Holtz really exists. I don’t think He does.”
“Hmmm…” both Gunn and Fred were at lost of words. They now realized how hard everything must have been on the kid; he really seemed out of it. If only there was something they could do for the kid…
********
Cordelia Chase was walking down the street in her brand new shoes along with a couple of boys who appeared to work in a department store that was located a few blocks away from the Hyperion.
One of them appeared to have a hard time carrying a Christmas tree and several lightings and the other one had his hands full with wrapped up presents in different sizes, colors and shapes. When they finally arrived to the hotel one of the poor boys almost fell of the stairs.
“Hey!” Angel exclaimed and ran with his vampire speed to help the kid and prevent all the presents from falling onto the floor. He took several of them and put them on the counter right in front of the register.
“What is all this, Cordy?” the vampire asked when the other boy started to put down the tree in the center of the lobby and put the set of colored lights on the floor.
“Well, duh, it’s all we need for Christmas. One would think that having lived through so much, you’d actually know what day you’re living in…” Cordy answered him with her usual cheerful tone.
“And may I ask how did you pay for all of this?” Angel questioned her even though he already knew the answer. He actually feared the answer.
“Oh, don’t worry. They take credit cards, so I didn’t have any problems while purchasing. I don’t really know what our business card limit is, but I didn’t seem to reach it. There were lots of things on sale,” she said calmly, like it was the best thing in the whole world. Cordy walked to where the Christmas tree was and admired it. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
Angel only raised his eyebrows and kept busy trying to figure out how much Cordy must have spent in all these things.
Once they boys that came along with her settled everything she’d bought, they waited patiently for their tips. Cordelia saw them and knew they were waiting to get paid, so she asked Angel, “Hey, you have some change in that register?”
Angel barely opened his mouth and just looked at Cordelia who went to the register and took a few dollars out of it. “Here you go,” she said while handing the money to the kids, who left immediately.
“Was it really necessary?” Angel asked dryly.
“What? The tip?” Cordelia asked him. What a greedy vampire. “Well, yes. They did carry all the stuff here, they deserved to be tipped.”
Angel looked puzzled. “No, I didn’t mean the tip. I meant all of this,” he said pointing at the presents and the tree and everything else that she’d seemed to buy.
“Well, how you expected to have a Christmas dinner and stuff without a Christmas tree and lights and presents…” she was now a bit annoyed by all the questioning she was getting from the sulky vampire. Here she was doing him a favor and that’s what she got.
“We don’t really celebrate Christmas around here if you hadn’t noticed…” he cut her off a little. He had no clue where she’d gotten the idea of buying all that stuff.
“Well, yes, but that was before. This is now,” she said while she started unpacking the light sets she’d brought from the store.
“What do you mean before?” Angel asked her, not fully understanding what she’d meant by that.
“Before you had a kid. Before Connor,” she explained, not knowing why the vampire didn’t understand it. Maybe the brain does get older and stops functioning after two hundred whatever years.
“What does Connor have to do with all of this?” Angel asked yet another question, which was starting to get on Cordy’s nerves.
“Well, silly, Christmas is about hope and love and celebration. And of course, kids get presents from Santa Claus if they’ve been good all year long,” she told him. “Connor’s never celebrated Christmas before so this is the year for it. He’s still a child after all.”
“Santa Claus doesn’t exist,” Angel muttered looking at the ceiling.
“Well, aren’t you our own personal Grinch,” Cordelia scolded him. “Santa Claus does exist if you believe he does, and of course someone like you would say that. And even though the parents don’t believe in Santa Claus they have to do what’s best for their kids. To keep their innocence.”
“Cordy, I don’t-” Angel started to retort her comment when she finally stood up and cut him off.
“We are going to have a Merry Christmas no matter what it takes, because we all deserve it and because it will be Connor’s first. Understood?” She said with a final tone; one that didn’t leave any room for further discussion.
Angel just stood there, thinking about what she’d said. He really hadn’t thought much about Christmas and all, but this was the first year he had Connor with him. Even though he’d pictured it a little bit different, like for instance having a smiley one year old baby instead of a sulky sixteen year old teenager; he had to accept the fact that it would be nice to get to spend one happy moment with the people he considered his family. He owed it to Connor, he could give him one of all the precious moments he’d missed while being kidnapped and dragged to live with a maniac in a hell dimension whose name couldn’t even be pronounced by most people. He owed it to Connor; he repeated to himself in his head, you owe it to your son.
******
The three members of the fang gang that were outside patrolling decided to get back to the hotel, since that day had appeared to be awfully quiet. Not that they liked it when innocent people were getting killed by demons or vampires, but at that time they had not been at close sight, at least. Besides, they hadn’t gotten a call or anything regarding Cordy having a vision or something, so they thought that was one of those days were you got to rest. God knew it was well deserved.
As the three of them entered the lobby, Connor acknowledged that Cordelia was decorating it with the same kind of lights he’d asked Fred and Gunn about earlier. The skinny brunette was on top of a ladder, doing her best to decorate the room without falling. Connor didn’t see the point in that but decided to keep his mouth shut on the subject.
“Hey guys!” Cordy greeted them as she realized there were people on the lobby staring at her.
“What are you doing?” Fred asked her, while going to the counter and checking if they had any voice messages.
“Well, duh, I’m getting everything settled for Christmas, isn’t it obvious?” Cordy answered her, feeling the annoyance Angel had caused earlier come back.
“We celebrating Christmas this year?” Gunn asked. It had been a while since he’d done that. Ever since his little sister died he’d never felt much like partying, at least not on the family-like holidays anyways.
“Well of course we are. It will be Connor’s first Christmas,” Cordy responded while getting off the ladder and visualizing the decoration she’d made.
“My first what?” Connor heard his name but had been actually distracted by the lights and all their colors.
“Your first Christmas, sweetie,” Cordy told him as he hugged the little figure that was standing before herself, absent minded and looking deeply to the bright lights. “They look beautiful, don’t they?”
“Huh…” was all Connor answered.
“I know this isn’t near the decoration I usually had at my mansion back in Sunnydale, but it’s as close as we could get for now,” she said looking at Fred and Gunn, who were actually very happy about how colorful and full of life the place seemed to be.
“Hey guys,” Angel said while coming down the stairs, from a nap he’d felt like taking while Cordy did all those cheesy stuff down at the lobby. “How was the patrol?”
“Pretty quiet, man,” Gunn answered right away. “Guess demons and vampires are trying to be good so Santa will bring’em presents too,” he joked.
“Santa?” an unexpected question came from the kid with the messy brownish hair, who was right across the room.
“Oh… he doesn’t know, does he?” Fred said with incredulous eyes.
Connor sulked. It made him feel stupid not knowing things that he should.
“No, he doesn’t,” Cordelia answered with a smile. “But he’ll know soon enough. When his father explains all about Christmas to him, while you two go to buy some presents for all of us,” she said pointing at the couple that was in front of her, “and I go over and cater some food to decide what we’ll be ordering for Christmas dinner. God knows none of us could cook a homemade dinner ourselves.”
“Wait, what?” said Angel raising a brow. Had she gone completely insane? Perhaps she fell of the ladder while decorating.
“Oh, I was just saying that you and Connor are going to get the Christmas tree ready and talk all about Christmas, while the rest of us gets busy with other stuff,” she explained really simply to him.
The old vampire came close to Cordy so no one would listen but her. “Look, I don’t think I could explain to Connor all about Christmas. Lots of things have changed since i was... alive. I bet Santa now rides a full-power rocket instead of a sled with reindeers. And then the Christian stuff, I’m not sure I’m up to it…”
“Well, you’ll just have to make your best effort. He’s a child. Your child. And he’s never experienced a holiday before, so you’ll just have to help him through it,” she looked right into his eyes and told him with all the seriousness her voice could gather.
“I’m not really good with decorating Christmas trees either. Back in my time we used was apples and candles, which I think realized was a bad idea since the trees often got burned down, but the point is I don’t know how to work these tiny lights,” he said while holding them up.
“C’mon vampire! How long has it been since you last celebrated Christmas?” Gunn questioned him, since he’d actually overheard the conversation.
“Umm… over two hundred years,” Angel responded. “I was never such a well behaved kid and didn’t get much presents anyways. And back since I was turned, hmm… let’s just say vampires don’t tend to celebrate the birth of those who inspire religions, and most definitely not the one whose figure is in a crucifix.”
“Oh, but I think it would be fun!” said Fred with a big ear to ear smile.
“Well -” Angel was starting to think about it when Connor’s loud yell interrupted him.
“CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN ME WHAT THE HELL YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT?!” Connor bellowed. No one had appeared to acknowledge that the kid was there in the same room that they all were. It happened to him all the time. Grown-ups talking like if he could not understand anything. He would understand if they actually talked to him instead of about him, damn it!
“Yes, sweetie. Your father will explain it all to you,” Cordy said looking at him and grabbing her purse. She also made a gesture directed at Gunn and Fred, “C’mon guys, you have things to do as well.”
And then, they were all gone, leaving a broody vampire with no Christmas spirit and his child, who had no idea what Christmas was, wondering what the holidays had in store for all of them.
********************************* TO BE CONTINUED *********************************
Any comments would be great! Thanks! And Happy Holidays everybody!
~ Gisela