We were back to heading to the graveyard. You'd think I'd be used to the silence by now...and the walking in silence.
It was a while before we were getting to the graveyard, and I didn't have much to say at all...well I had a lot to say, and I knewthat Angel wasn't going to bring it up. I didn't want to bring it up, what was I saying?
I wanted my mind off the smell too, I liked the shirt I was wearing, but as soon as I got to my unhome, it was getting burned with everything else that was currently sticking to my body...and I was going to take a long hot shower with 3 bottles of shampoo and soap, and fragrances...that is of course, if the house was still there when we got done figuring out why it was there.
My house was like an unstable chemical reaction.
I kept walking and, so did Angel..which was annoying me...I was annoyed. We needed to talk and neither one of us were willing to bring it up. I didn't blame us. It wasa bad subject that had to do with children and mothers, and stress...and vampires that aren't allowed to have children.
what better way to bring it up than random, right?
"So, a father. What's that like?"
I was half serious, half mocking, and coated with a lot of sarcasm. It's how I work.
The silence that was between us just kept getting more and more awkward and..more silent. At this rate, we'd never get anything said. Maybe if we got some vampires to punch that would take the silence away.
"So, a father. What's that like?"
Well.. so would that. I guess that it had been on her mind about as much as it had been on mine. I paused in my steps for a second but then kept on.
"I, uh.. well,..it's different than I thought. Or at least lately. Guess you might be wondering how I have a teenage son, huh? That's a whole different story that causes me to retreat in a more.. well, broodlike state."
There was another brief moment of silence and then I decided just to get it all out. Was there ever going to be a 'right' time? Probably not.
"Connor's mother is Darla." Wait, she didn't know about Wolfram and Hart bringing her back. Damn. This was going to take a while.
"Wolfram and Hart decided to bring Darla back from the dead.. but human and with a soul. They wanted me to sire her again.. bringing my not so soulful half back out. Things happened, and they ended up bringing Drusilla back to sire her. After that.. I wasn't exactly someone you'd wanna be around. I fired Cordy, Wes, and Gunn and went to try to get rid of them myself."
Sighing, I thought about that time. Wasn't one of the best times of my long life. "More things happened.. and Darla and I ended up.. well yeah. After that I went back to Wesley, Cordy, and Gunn and worked under Wes. Months later, Darla showed up pregnant."
I stopped there, letting it all sink in. Not only for her, but for me too. This part of the story I didn't really think about that much. The scene that I relived was seeing Holtz jumping through the portal with Connor. And we hadn't even gotten to that yet.
That was more sarcastic. That was very sarcastic... I had a reason for being sarcastic..because all of this made no sense. No sense at all, so therefore I had reason and I had perfect excuse to be sarcastic.
Angel was old, and he probably thought that this was the most childish thing that--well, you know what? I didn't care. This was impossible..and Angel was being serious.
The thing was, I didn't know whether to be completely jealous and pissed off at Darla, or to accept it, or to laugh in his face and yell uncle.
Couldn't say I didn't understand, because I knew what he was saying was just going to get more confusing if I asked for even more detail. I can get detail when the answer actually sets in, I fully believe it, and accept it.
We'd stopped, which made me give Angel eye contact, that was more proof that he was telling the truth...so my line of reality was actually coming bigger, and it was scaring me.
We stopped and I looked at her. From her tone, I could tell that she wasn't entirely happy or comforted by the fact that this was all happening. She was looking at me, trying to figure out if this was all really true. Could I really have made this all up? No, I'm not that creative. I wasn't exactly sure if I was supposed to answer her next comment or not. It was more of a statement than a question. I shook my head. "No, really isn't."
Sighing, I turned away from her and began walking again. This part of the 'story' might take a little longer than the first half.
"Darla stayed at the hotel and after a couple of days we found out that the baby was human and had a soul. Darla started to love him and was probably the first thing she ever loved. On the night that she gave birth to Connor, I ran into another 'friend' from our past, a man named Holtz who vampire hunter that hunted Darla and I over a hundred years ago. Holtz apparently made a deal with a demon named Sahjahn who brought him forward in time. Just before Holtz showed up, Darla staked herself, leaving Connor lying there on the ground where she had been."
"Everything was alright for a while after he was born except for the fact that vampire cults and bounty hunters wanted him. Everything was alright until Wesley started translating a forged prophecy that was mostly all about Connor. When he translated it, it said that I could kill Connor. He tried to get more information about it, but everywhere he went said that's what would happen."
I stopped both talking and walking then turned to look again at her. Images of Connor being taken into the portal flashed through my head. "So, when he didn't think he any other choice, Wesley took Connor.. planning on never coming back. Holtz caught up with him as he was trying to leave L.A., took Connor, and left Wesley for dead. I caught up with Holtz and watched him jump into a portal leading to a hell dimension called Quortoth."
I sighed and turned my gaze away from her. "I tried everything I could think of to get him back.. but nothing worked. A few weeks later something happened and Connor showed up in the hotel.. but much older. While he was in Quortoth, Holtz drilled the idea into his head that he should hate all demons.. especially his vampire father. Connor tried to kill me a few times at first.. even stuck me in a box and put me at the bottom of the ocean for a couple months."
Looking back at her I stuck my hands in my pockets.
"After I got out of that situation, the next year was a little.. rough. Things happened.. a lot of things happened that I'd like to forget. Do you remember when Willow come to L.A. to help reensoul me? Well, that was just the beginning of everything that happened. Connor got so messed up that he was about to kill Cordy in the end.. who was in a coma from giving birth to some world peace wanna be demon. But that's an entirely different story."
Sighing, I looked down at the ground just as I began to speak again. In some ways.. a lot of ways, I still felt guilty about taking Lilah's deal. Look at the people who got killed because of it.. Wesley, Fred, Gunn.
"That's when Wolfram and Hart offered me to take over their L.A. branch. If I accepted, they'd take Connor and give him a normal family and a normal life.. without me. He was given new memories and none of them included me, Holtz, Cordy, or anyone else. He was a normal kid in a normal family."
As I looked back to her, I shrugged a little. "I guess the spell wore off after he showed up at the firm and had to come kill Sajhahn anyway. That's the whole reason Sajhahn forged the prophecy. He remembers certain things about his actual past, but not everything. He seems to remember the parts where he didn't like me though. I guess he seems messed up now, but he's not nearly as bad off as he was right before I took Wolfram and Hart's deal. I guess he just needs time.."
Sighing, I stopped. That was about it. I didn't really have to go into as much detail as I did, but I had wanted her to know everything. Since I hadn't said anything at all to her about this until now, she deserved me to be at least that honest with her. And If and when she asked more questions.. I'd answer them.
When he stopped and looked at me, I could tell he was telling the truth...it was Angel, he wasn't and wouldn't lie to me about this stuff, and through his huge speech, that I didn't want to understand, but did...I realized that we had really all grown apart, and things changed...no matter how rapid they were.
A part of me just wanted to go back to my graduation day and chase after him when I watched him disappear into the smoke, and things never to be the same again.
Something would have happened, and things happen for a reason, it's just the reasons that were involved were a pain in the ever loving ass.
it's not like supernatural things didn't happen with me, I mean, I died and had sex with an evil vampire, so it wasn't like I could hate Angel for doing the same thing...I didn't have to like it, but it wasn't that hard to comprehend.
I didn't regain eye contact with Angel after this for quite some time. I just wanted to stare down, knowing that he was in front of me, ready to help out with whatever came our way... I didn't want to think about the things that were in the cracks of the sidewalk, or god, even look at the big picture. Fragments were good. Fragments were very of the good.
"I can't believe how things have changed, Angel. It's surreal. We could fill 5 nights with each others stories, but I can honestly say I think you win with the supernatural."
I looked at her, watching her take everything that I had just said in. And there was plenty for her to absorb - try the past two years or so. Sighing, I was ready for the questions that I knew would come sooner or later.
She stared at the ground, and I knew she was thinking hard about all that had been said. Finally, after a long moment she didn't look at me, but she did speak.
"I can't believe how things have changed, Angel. It's surreal. We could fill 5 nights with each others stories, but I can honestly say I think you win with the supernatural."
Change. Damn right things had changed plenty.
"They have. You've changed, I've changed.. And I know there's plenty of stories that we could share with each other to say exactly how we've changed. Believe me, at the time, I couldn't exactly believe it at first. It was.. well, supernatural."
In a way, I was thankful for the changes that I'd been through at least. I wouldn't be who I was here possibly even be here.
"Despite the changes, there are still some things that never change." I said quietly.
With that said, I followed her gaze to the ground.
I looked up at him when he said that. I knew exactly what he meant, because I was feeling the same way...
Supernatural, sun or no sun. I'd never stop feeling for him, loving him. I always covered it up when he left, but some people, mainly Riley and Spike knew it all along. Deep down I did too.
"They will never change, either, Angel. You can trust me on that."
I grabbed his hand and leaned against him as I started to walk. They never have changed...just got eluded.
Everything he said to me was setting in, and I didn't really get it, but I guess it was one of those situations that say you had to be there.
Dancing around the subject wasn't normally my choice of activities, but in this particular situation and..setting, it was the right thing to do. we had more things to worry about, and I'd like to live through it so we could..talk, and do that five nights talking about our stories.
And we would, because we were together, and we were stronger together.
"They will never change, either, Angel. You can trust me on that."
I looked again at her when she spoke. Without saying anything, she just took my hand and leaned against me as we started walking again. Who knew that things would work out the way they have.
We continued walking towards the graveyard, but I couldn't get the fact that we were walking together, hand holding there. Even after I'd just told her all about Connor and most all that went along with it. It wasn't exactly the best subject to talk about with anyone, much less with her.
After walking for a little while longer, we finally made it to the graveyard. Looking around, I didn't exactly see anything that would show that vampires were still around, but that didn't mean that there weren't.
"Do you think they're still here or decided to go off and play somewhere else?"
"Do you think they're still here or decided to go off and play somewhere else?"
Dammit, maybe they were hiding....But from the look on Angel's face, I didn't think he could smell them, and as much as I hated to see him doing that freaky smell thing, it was pertinent in this situation.
"So you can't smell any extra undead around here? Like can you block out the dead, and decipher the...not-so-dead dead?"
Yes, we were in need of some Buffy logic here. The kind of logic that makes a situation either worse or more confusing.
"Okay, a town doesn't pop up and all of a sudden have a clean cut graveyard. There's gotta be something here. Anything evil, because the world doesn't work this way. Graveyards are the place where vampires lurk, and are...born for that matter, so there's gotta be something here because I don't think I can take another dead end tonight."
This was just becoming...stupid. Finding nothing when we had found an entire town. Things should have been clear as day, and yet, they were confusing as hell. This was hell.
All hell, except for the sense of comfort and love I was receiving and giving to Angel, who was still holding my hand.
I started looking around, anything, God, even another slime demon....well one that has answers would be nice.
It was a while before we were getting to the graveyard, and I didn't have much to say at all...well I had a lot to say, and I knewthat Angel wasn't going to bring it up. I didn't want to bring it up, what was I saying?
I wanted my mind off the smell too, I liked the shirt I was wearing, but as soon as I got to my unhome, it was getting burned with everything else that was currently sticking to my body...and I was going to take a long hot shower with 3 bottles of shampoo and soap, and fragrances...that is of course, if the house was still there when we got done figuring out why it was there.
My house was like an unstable chemical reaction.
I kept walking and, so did Angel..which was annoying me...I was annoyed. We needed to talk and neither one of us were willing to bring it up. I didn't blame us. It wasa bad subject that had to do with children and mothers, and stress...and vampires that aren't allowed to have children.
what better way to bring it up than random, right?
"So, a father. What's that like?"
I was half serious, half mocking, and coated with a lot of sarcasm. It's how I work.
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"So, a father. What's that like?"
Well.. so would that. I guess that it had been on her mind about as much as it had been on mine. I paused in my steps for a second but then kept on.
"I, uh.. well,..it's different than I thought. Or at least lately. Guess you might be wondering how I have a teenage son, huh? That's a whole different story that causes me to retreat in a more.. well, broodlike state."
There was another brief moment of silence and then I decided just to get it all out. Was there ever going to be a 'right' time? Probably not.
"Connor's mother is Darla." Wait, she didn't know about Wolfram and Hart bringing her back. Damn. This was going to take a while.
"Wolfram and Hart decided to bring Darla back from the dead.. but human and with a soul. They wanted me to sire her again.. bringing my not so soulful half back out. Things happened, and they ended up bringing Drusilla back to sire her. After that.. I wasn't exactly someone you'd wanna be around. I fired Cordy, Wes, and Gunn and went to try to get rid of them myself."
Sighing, I thought about that time. Wasn't one of the best times of my long life. "More things happened.. and Darla and I ended up.. well yeah. After that I went back to Wesley, Cordy, and Gunn and worked under Wes. Months later, Darla showed up pregnant."
I stopped there, letting it all sink in. Not only for her, but for me too. This part of the story I didn't really think about that much. The scene that I relived was seeing Holtz jumping through the portal with Connor. And we hadn't even gotten to that yet.
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That was more sarcastic. That was very sarcastic... I had a reason for being sarcastic..because all of this made no sense. No sense at all, so therefore I had reason and I had perfect excuse to be sarcastic.
Angel was old, and he probably thought that this was the most childish thing that--well, you know what? I didn't care. This was impossible..and Angel was being serious.
The thing was, I didn't know whether to be completely jealous and pissed off at Darla, or to accept it, or to laugh in his face and yell uncle.
Couldn't say I didn't understand, because I knew what he was saying was just going to get more confusing if I asked for even more detail. I can get detail when the answer actually sets in, I fully believe it, and accept it.
We'd stopped, which made me give Angel eye contact, that was more proof that he was telling the truth...so my line of reality was actually coming bigger, and it was scaring me.
"I'm guessing this isn't an April fools joke."
God, I wish it was.
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Sighing, I turned away from her and began walking again. This part of the 'story' might take a little longer than the first half.
"Darla stayed at the hotel and after a couple of days we found out that the baby was human and had a soul. Darla started to love him and was probably the first thing she ever loved. On the night that she gave birth to Connor, I ran into another 'friend' from our past, a man named Holtz who vampire hunter that hunted Darla and I over a hundred years ago. Holtz apparently made a deal with a demon named Sahjahn who brought him forward in time. Just before Holtz showed up, Darla staked herself, leaving Connor lying there on the ground where she had been."
"Everything was alright for a while after he was born except for the fact that vampire cults and bounty hunters wanted him. Everything was alright until Wesley started translating a forged prophecy that was mostly all about Connor. When he translated it, it said that I could kill Connor. He tried to get more information about it, but everywhere he went said that's what would happen."
I stopped both talking and walking then turned to look again at her. Images of Connor being taken into the portal flashed through my head. "So, when he didn't think he any other choice, Wesley took Connor.. planning on never coming back. Holtz caught up with him as he was trying to leave L.A., took Connor, and left Wesley for dead. I caught up with Holtz and watched him jump into a portal leading to a hell dimension called Quortoth."
I sighed and turned my gaze away from her. "I tried everything I could think of to get him back.. but nothing worked. A few weeks later something happened and Connor showed up in the hotel.. but much older. While he was in Quortoth, Holtz drilled the idea into his head that he should hate all demons.. especially his vampire father. Connor tried to kill me a few times at first.. even stuck me in a box and put me at the bottom of the ocean for a couple months."
Looking back at her I stuck my hands in my pockets.
"After I got out of that situation, the next year was a little.. rough. Things happened.. a lot of things happened that I'd like to forget. Do you remember when Willow come to L.A. to help reensoul me? Well, that was just the beginning of everything that happened. Connor got so messed up that he was about to kill Cordy in the end.. who was in a coma from giving birth to some world peace wanna be demon. But that's an entirely different story."
Sighing, I looked down at the ground just as I began to speak again. In some ways.. a lot of ways, I still felt guilty about taking Lilah's deal. Look at the people who got killed because of it.. Wesley, Fred, Gunn.
"That's when Wolfram and Hart offered me to take over their L.A. branch. If I accepted, they'd take Connor and give him a normal family and a normal life.. without me. He was given new memories and none of them included me, Holtz, Cordy, or anyone else. He was a normal kid in a normal family."
As I looked back to her, I shrugged a little. "I guess the spell wore off after he showed up at the firm and had to come kill Sajhahn anyway. That's the whole reason Sajhahn forged the prophecy. He remembers certain things about his actual past, but not everything. He seems to remember the parts where he didn't like me though. I guess he seems messed up now, but he's not nearly as bad off as he was right before I took Wolfram and Hart's deal. I guess he just needs time.."
Sighing, I stopped. That was about it. I didn't really have to go into as much detail as I did, but I had wanted her to know everything. Since I hadn't said anything at all to her about this until now, she deserved me to be at least that honest with her. And If and when she asked more questions.. I'd answer them.
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A part of me just wanted to go back to my graduation day and chase after him when I watched him disappear into the smoke, and things never to be the same again.
Something would have happened, and things happen for a reason, it's just the reasons that were involved were a pain in the ever loving ass.
it's not like supernatural things didn't happen with me, I mean, I died and had sex with an evil vampire, so it wasn't like I could hate Angel for doing the same thing...I didn't have to like it, but it wasn't that hard to comprehend.
I didn't regain eye contact with Angel after this for quite some time. I just wanted to stare down, knowing that he was in front of me, ready to help out with whatever came our way... I didn't want to think about the things that were in the cracks of the sidewalk, or god, even look at the big picture. Fragments were good. Fragments were very of the good.
"I can't believe how things have changed, Angel. It's surreal. We could fill 5 nights with each others stories, but I can honestly say I think you win with the supernatural."
Pun.
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She stared at the ground, and I knew she was thinking hard about all that had been said. Finally, after a long moment she didn't look at me, but she did speak.
"I can't believe how things have changed, Angel. It's surreal. We could fill 5 nights with each others stories, but I can honestly say I think you win with the supernatural."
Change. Damn right things had changed plenty.
"They have. You've changed, I've changed.. And I know there's plenty of stories that we could share with each other to say exactly how we've changed. Believe me, at the time, I couldn't exactly believe it at first. It was.. well, supernatural."
In a way, I was thankful for the changes that I'd been through at least. I wouldn't be who I was here possibly even be here.
"Despite the changes, there are still some things that never change." I said quietly.
With that said, I followed her gaze to the ground.
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Supernatural, sun or no sun. I'd never stop feeling for him, loving him. I always covered it up when he left, but some people, mainly Riley and Spike knew it all along. Deep down I did too.
"They will never change, either, Angel. You can trust me on that."
I grabbed his hand and leaned against him as I started to walk. They never have changed...just got eluded.
Everything he said to me was setting in, and I didn't really get it, but I guess it was one of those situations that say you had to be there.
Dancing around the subject wasn't normally my choice of activities, but in this particular situation and..setting, it was the right thing to do. we had more things to worry about, and I'd like to live through it so we could..talk, and do that five nights talking about our stories.
And we would, because we were together, and we were stronger together.
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I looked again at her when she spoke. Without saying anything, she just took my hand and leaned against me as we started walking again. Who knew that things would work out the way they have.
We continued walking towards the graveyard, but I couldn't get the fact that we were walking together, hand holding there. Even after I'd just told her all about Connor and most all that went along with it. It wasn't exactly the best subject to talk about with anyone, much less with her.
After walking for a little while longer, we finally made it to the graveyard. Looking around, I didn't exactly see anything that would show that vampires were still around, but that didn't mean that there weren't.
"Do you think they're still here or decided to go off and play somewhere else?"
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Dammit, maybe they were hiding....But from the look on Angel's face, I didn't think he could smell them, and as much as I hated to see him doing that freaky smell thing, it was pertinent in this situation.
"So you can't smell any extra undead around here? Like can you block out the dead, and decipher the...not-so-dead dead?"
Yes, we were in need of some Buffy logic here. The kind of logic that makes a situation either worse or more confusing.
"Okay, a town doesn't pop up and all of a sudden have a clean cut graveyard. There's gotta be something here. Anything evil, because the world doesn't work this way. Graveyards are the place where vampires lurk, and are...born for that matter, so there's gotta be something here because I don't think I can take another dead end tonight."
This was just becoming...stupid. Finding nothing when we had found an entire town. Things should have been clear as day, and yet, they were confusing as hell. This was hell.
All hell, except for the sense of comfort and love I was receiving and giving to Angel, who was still holding my hand.
I started looking around, anything, God, even another slime demon....well one that has answers would be nice.
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