Les Cousins Dangereux: A Dawn/Connor Fanmix
Les Cousins Dangereux
A Dawn/Connor Fanmix
Featuring the music of Stars, The Mountain Goats, Sia, Margo & The Nuclear So and Sos, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and others.
Yay, flist, I have a project that I'm very excited to share with you! This fanmix has actually been in-the-making for about two years. Yeah. XD As it's based off someone else's fanfic, when I started I wasn't sure if it would ever be kosher to share. The majority of it came together smoothly but it wasn't until I saw the latest challenge on fanmix that I finally put the finishing touches on it. OKAY, LET'S DO THIS. :D
Warnings: Contains references to... quasi-incest? As the author of its inspiring fic put it, "Incest between people who are not exactly related for a number of reasons, but still. Be aware."
Notes: The fanmix is based off the fantastic fic of the same name "Les Cousins Dangereux" by annakovsky. If you're a fan of Buffy and Angel, I cannot recommend enough that you go check it out. It's delightfully twisted and compelling, even if you aren't a particular fan of Dawn or Connor. In short, "Les Cousins Dangereux" is an AU fic in which Connor is inserted into the Summers family as a brother to Dawn and Buffy. It picks up right after the destruction of Sunnydale and follows how the two not-so-normal teenagers spend the summer after the near apocalypse.
Each song comes with an accompanying quote from the fic and this mix follows the course of the story pretty closely. Really, I can't do the fanfic justice. You should seriously go check it out for yourself. I don't want to spoil you! That said, here it is!
"Whatever. It's not like he and Dawn are big sad losers who are "clinging" to each other out of grief or something weird and pathetic. They talk to other people. Or, well, they don't, but it's not their fault that the only other people around are annoying. It's not like it's Connor's fault that everyone sucks but Dawn."
Unemployed in Summertime
Emiliana Torrini
(Full Lyrics)
Sorry don't get mad at me
I just did the sex quiz
From your magazine
You're my best friend in the world
Just like me you don't do
Anything you're told
Unemployed in summertime
I've only just turned 21, I'll be ok
Unemployed in summertime
Don't need money 'cause we're young
I'll just stay awake till the morning
With make up all over my face
There's still more of the day to kill, so they see The Matrix Reloaded (which sucks), and get ice cream at the diner, and browse through stuff at WalMart (more books, plus Dawn gets nail polish and he gets sunscreen). So by the time they wander back to the motel, it's late enough that Buffy's back from the hospital and she yells at them for making her worry. Dawn crosses her arms across her chest and Connor slumps against the wall, and together they are a united front of sullen teenager. It's always been them against Buffy, ever since she started climbing out windows in the middle of the night and making their parents fight. That, plus she's a lot older than them, and pretty bossy.
Maybe Sprout Wings
The Mountain Goats
(Full Lyrics)
a bad dream shook me in my sleep and I woke up sweating.
ran through the dark to the shower,
already forgetting.
ghosts and clouds and nameless things.
squint your eyes and hope real hard,
maybe sprout wings.
That dream had felt so real, like a memory of something that never happened, and he's getting turned on by his sister's back, and he doesn't know what the hell is going on with him.
When he finally goes back to sleep, he dreams he cuts some guy's ear off.
Feeling Oblivion
Turin Brakes
(Full Lyrics)
Once in a while now the lie in the laughter can burn through a hole in my ears,
Like a man with glasses catching a sunbeam and burning the skin of a kid.
Hypereal fragments disturbing the stagnants of almighty fear.
Well I'll just go under the water.
If things get real promise to take me somewhere else,
By the time fear takes me over will we still be rolling & feeling oblivion.
"If he's our real dad, he's like the dad in Hansel and Gretel or something. He might as well have left us in the forest where all the evil things live."
In the dark house where they live with a literal witch, with their older sister out fighting literal monsters, it's hard to argue with. "I guess I should've brought breadcrumbs," Connor says in a lame attempt at a joke, but Dawn doesn't laugh. At anything in the whole episode of the Simpsons, actually, but nothing much seems funny to him either, so. Anyway, she doesn't cry until they go up to bed. He turns the radio up - it's Jimmy Eat World, singing about not writing yourself off yet. Connor wants to hit somebody.
For Reasons Unknown
The Killers
(Full Lyrics)
But my heart, it don’t beat, it don’t beat the way it used to.
And my eyes, they don’t see you no more.
And my lips, they don’t kiss, they don’t kiss the way they used to, and my eyes don’t recognize you at all.
For reasons unknown; for reasons unknown.
She rests her head against the wall behind her, and watches the rain out the window, her legs warm against his, and he tries to tell himself that she's not really his sister. She's the Key. There's nothing wrong with being attracted to the Key. Right? And he's not even attracted to her. It's, like, a phase or something. He'll get over it, if he can just stop dreaming.
One More Night
Stars
(Full Lyrics)
Try as he might he's unable to speak
He grabs her by the hair, he strokes her on the cheek
The bed is unmade like everything is
Dark little heaven at the top of the stairs
Take me like that, ruin it all
Then build it again by the light in the hall
One more night, the end should be a good one
They're at the top of a dark empty house, and their father won't return their calls, and all their friends are scattered and their mother is dead and it's just the two of them, refugees from a haunted town, and maybe Giles is right and they're clinging out of grief after all. Connor wonders if Hansel and Gretel did this at the witch's house, or in the woods before they got there, when they realized they were lost and couldn't find their way back. Moonlight's making window-shaped patterns of pale light on the floor next to them.
He's pretty sure this is the worst thing he's ever done, but he's not sorry.
Everything in its Right Place
Radiohead
(Full Lyrics)
There are two colours in my head
There are two colours in my head
What is that you tried to say?
Everything, everything, everything..
In its right place
In its right place
Right place
This must be what an asthma attack feels like; he can't breathe. He doesn't know how long he sits there before he can get a grip, curled up in his boxer shorts against the side of the tub. The candles have burned almost all the way down. He can't think. The tile of the floor is cold on his bare legs.
When he gets it together enough to blow out the candles, it smells like a birthday party, like he should be making a wish. He never had a birthday party. Or he had eighteen. He can remember both. He can't. This is crazy.
He has to be okay. He can do this. He feels his neck - it's okay, in one piece. He's all okay. He tries to push down the real memories and concentrate on the fake ones. He's Connor Summers. He has two sisters. He's from Sunnydale.
He's suddenly completely exhausted, fuzzy around the edges, like he wants to sleep forever. Maybe that's a spell side effect. He manages to clean up the bathroom before he turns off the lights and staggers into bed. Xander's still snoring like Angel isn't Connor's father, like he didn't spend his childhood in a hell dimension, like he and Dawn aren't both made of fake memories, like nothing important has happened at all.
Vampires in Blue Dresses
Margot & the Nuclear So and So's
(Full Lyrics)
Somebody's gonna love you.
Somebody oughta lay you out.
Your mother is a vampire
She sucked your old man's life away
Turn everything off
Just cover your neck
Cause life is full of your regrets
And I should be one
Try telling me off
Try slamming the door
and telling me I'm not worth your time
Or the breath I'm breathing
Don't throw it away
Oh, Calico queen
Cause now you're merely a machine,
And not a person
Angel comes closer, still looking at Connor like he actually cares what happens to him. Connor mentally recites the four ways to kill vampires: staking, beheading, fire, sunlight. "You having a good summer?" Angel asks. He's almost shy.
Connor's summer: his fake home town got destroyed, he committed fake incest with his fake sister, his fake father won't talk to him, and he found out his whole life has been a lie and actually he's the psycho killer son of two vampires. He can think of better ways to spend a summer. "It's okay, I guess," Connor says. Now he's trapped in the conversation by common courtesy. Apparently manners came along with the fake memories, and they're harder to get rid of. Great.
The Walk
Imogen Heap
(Full Lyrics)
Inside-out, upside-down,
Twisting beside myself.
Stop that now,
'Cause you and I were never meant to meet.
I think you'd better leave.
It's not safe in here.
I feel a weakness coming on.
When he slams open the door to the attic, Dawn jumps. She's sitting in one window seat, reading. The radio's on. When she sees him, she automatically goes into the post-incest wariness, and he can't even handle it. She stands up to leave. "Oh, sorry," she says.
He drops his backpack by the door and walks right up to her, pushes her up against the wall, his hips pressed up against hers. Her eyes are wide, and he's so angry he's shaking with it.
"What are you doing?" she whispers.
"Shut up," he says, and kisses her as hard as he can.
Butterflies
Sia
(Full Lyrics)
We've been to the top, we've been to the bottom
We've known everything and forgotten, yeah
You've kicked me around, you've wrapped me in cotton
You've carried our load, and you've shot 'em
Oh yes the butterflies are still there
Because we came from the same cocoon
"You wanna run away to Nova Scotia?"
He's sort of joking, because the idea of staying in this house another day sounds pretty much unbearable, but he doesn't really mean it. Until Dawn says, "Yeah, sort of."
He sits up again. "Seriously?"
"Yeah," Dawn says, and she does look serious, her hair falling in her eyes, her hands holding up the sheet. It has little flowers on it. "Just for awhile. I just… yeah."
Song for Kelly Huckaby
Death Cab for Cutie
(Full Lyrics)
Waking up to the sound of 5 A.M. to take my turn at the wheel.
Climbed up Shasta, oh how the engine ached
as the sun tortured California,
and old alleys turned deep at the heart of me.
Murals of heroes defacing the blank concrete.
Leaving home with our bags from Iron street
as morning turned into California.
Connor's bag is already packed, and Dawn's ready to go in under an hour. It's easy when almost all your belongings fit into a backpack anyway. They leave Buffy a note, taped to the ping-pong table, which explains almost nothing. What would they say? We found out that we're both fictional, and we've been having really taboo sex, so we can't handle staying here right now, but we'll probably be back before school starts?
Dawn's wearing Connor's maroon Stanford hoodie, and it fits her about right, which is funny. He almost says something about her wearing it, but doesn't, and then they're out of the house, walking down the middle of the street in the quiet of three a.m. The night air is clear and cool, and on a whim Connor reaches out and grabs her hand. He holds it all the way to the bus station, and she doesn't pull away.
Broken
Jack Johnson
(Full Lyrics)
With everything ahead of us
We left everything behind
But nothing that we needed
At least not at this time
And now the feeling that I'm feeling
Well it's feeling like my life is finally mine
With nothing to go back to we just continue to drive
Without you I was broken
But I'd rather be broke down with you by my side
They buy one-way tickets on the first bus leaving, which goes to Seattle - once they're there, they'll figure out where they're really going, and for how long. They split a pack of Skittles while they wait - Dawn likes the orange ones best.
The bus is only half full, and Connor pulls her down the aisle to the very back. They put their feet up on the seats and watch out the windows as the bus drives away, away from Angel, away from Buffy, away from fake memories and Slayers and demons and Hellmouths and Southern California. Dawn leans her head on his shoulder and falls asleep. He rests their clasped hands on his knee and watches the scenery flicker by.
Porcelain
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
(Full Lyrics)
Well, I've been dragged all over the place
I've taken hits time just don't erase
And baby I can see you've been fucked with too
But that don't mean your loving days are through
Cause people will say all kinds of things
That don't mean a damn to me
Cause all I see is what's in front of me
And that's you
Well I may be just a fool
But I know we're just as cool
And cool kids...
They belong together
Download Zip (83 MB @ Megaupload)
And because I worked on this project for so long, I also have:
Alternate Coverart (click to open full-size in a new tab)
Credit:
Of course, annakovsky, without whom there wouldn't be a mix! ♥
I also owe a huge debt of thanks to girlyevil and her Michael/Lindsay fanmix! Good old Arrested Development fans insured I already had music I associated with quasi-incest on my hard drive when I started mixing this and this mix shares three songs in common with hers. :)
Thanks for sticking with me! And for listening, if you do!
Any and all comments are loved, this has been in my head so long that I'd be so thrilled to get a fresh perspective on it! ♥ I've actually always dug the idea of Dawn/Connor so I'm just pleased to be putting out my little tribute to them.
A Dawn/Connor Fanmix
Featuring the music of Stars, The Mountain Goats, Sia, Margo & The Nuclear So and Sos, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and others.
Yay, flist, I have a project that I'm very excited to share with you! This fanmix has actually been in-the-making for about two years. Yeah. XD As it's based off someone else's fanfic, when I started I wasn't sure if it would ever be kosher to share. The majority of it came together smoothly but it wasn't until I saw the latest challenge on fanmix that I finally put the finishing touches on it. OKAY, LET'S DO THIS. :D
Warnings: Contains references to... quasi-incest? As the author of its inspiring fic put it, "Incest between people who are not exactly related for a number of reasons, but still. Be aware."
Notes: The fanmix is based off the fantastic fic of the same name "Les Cousins Dangereux" by annakovsky. If you're a fan of Buffy and Angel, I cannot recommend enough that you go check it out. It's delightfully twisted and compelling, even if you aren't a particular fan of Dawn or Connor. In short, "Les Cousins Dangereux" is an AU fic in which Connor is inserted into the Summers family as a brother to Dawn and Buffy. It picks up right after the destruction of Sunnydale and follows how the two not-so-normal teenagers spend the summer after the near apocalypse.
Each song comes with an accompanying quote from the fic and this mix follows the course of the story pretty closely. Really, I can't do the fanfic justice. You should seriously go check it out for yourself. I don't want to spoil you! That said, here it is!
"Whatever. It's not like he and Dawn are big sad losers who are "clinging" to each other out of grief or something weird and pathetic. They talk to other people. Or, well, they don't, but it's not their fault that the only other people around are annoying. It's not like it's Connor's fault that everyone sucks but Dawn."
Unemployed in Summertime
Emiliana Torrini
(Full Lyrics)
Sorry don't get mad at me
I just did the sex quiz
From your magazine
You're my best friend in the world
Just like me you don't do
Anything you're told
Unemployed in summertime
I've only just turned 21, I'll be ok
Unemployed in summertime
Don't need money 'cause we're young
I'll just stay awake till the morning
With make up all over my face
There's still more of the day to kill, so they see The Matrix Reloaded (which sucks), and get ice cream at the diner, and browse through stuff at WalMart (more books, plus Dawn gets nail polish and he gets sunscreen). So by the time they wander back to the motel, it's late enough that Buffy's back from the hospital and she yells at them for making her worry. Dawn crosses her arms across her chest and Connor slumps against the wall, and together they are a united front of sullen teenager. It's always been them against Buffy, ever since she started climbing out windows in the middle of the night and making their parents fight. That, plus she's a lot older than them, and pretty bossy.
Maybe Sprout Wings
The Mountain Goats
(Full Lyrics)
a bad dream shook me in my sleep and I woke up sweating.
ran through the dark to the shower,
already forgetting.
ghosts and clouds and nameless things.
squint your eyes and hope real hard,
maybe sprout wings.
That dream had felt so real, like a memory of something that never happened, and he's getting turned on by his sister's back, and he doesn't know what the hell is going on with him.
When he finally goes back to sleep, he dreams he cuts some guy's ear off.
Feeling Oblivion
Turin Brakes
(Full Lyrics)
Once in a while now the lie in the laughter can burn through a hole in my ears,
Like a man with glasses catching a sunbeam and burning the skin of a kid.
Hypereal fragments disturbing the stagnants of almighty fear.
Well I'll just go under the water.
If things get real promise to take me somewhere else,
By the time fear takes me over will we still be rolling & feeling oblivion.
"If he's our real dad, he's like the dad in Hansel and Gretel or something. He might as well have left us in the forest where all the evil things live."
In the dark house where they live with a literal witch, with their older sister out fighting literal monsters, it's hard to argue with. "I guess I should've brought breadcrumbs," Connor says in a lame attempt at a joke, but Dawn doesn't laugh. At anything in the whole episode of the Simpsons, actually, but nothing much seems funny to him either, so. Anyway, she doesn't cry until they go up to bed. He turns the radio up - it's Jimmy Eat World, singing about not writing yourself off yet. Connor wants to hit somebody.
For Reasons Unknown
The Killers
(Full Lyrics)
But my heart, it don’t beat, it don’t beat the way it used to.
And my eyes, they don’t see you no more.
And my lips, they don’t kiss, they don’t kiss the way they used to, and my eyes don’t recognize you at all.
For reasons unknown; for reasons unknown.
She rests her head against the wall behind her, and watches the rain out the window, her legs warm against his, and he tries to tell himself that she's not really his sister. She's the Key. There's nothing wrong with being attracted to the Key. Right? And he's not even attracted to her. It's, like, a phase or something. He'll get over it, if he can just stop dreaming.
One More Night
Stars
(Full Lyrics)
Try as he might he's unable to speak
He grabs her by the hair, he strokes her on the cheek
The bed is unmade like everything is
Dark little heaven at the top of the stairs
Take me like that, ruin it all
Then build it again by the light in the hall
One more night, the end should be a good one
They're at the top of a dark empty house, and their father won't return their calls, and all their friends are scattered and their mother is dead and it's just the two of them, refugees from a haunted town, and maybe Giles is right and they're clinging out of grief after all. Connor wonders if Hansel and Gretel did this at the witch's house, or in the woods before they got there, when they realized they were lost and couldn't find their way back. Moonlight's making window-shaped patterns of pale light on the floor next to them.
He's pretty sure this is the worst thing he's ever done, but he's not sorry.
Everything in its Right Place
Radiohead
(Full Lyrics)
There are two colours in my head
There are two colours in my head
What is that you tried to say?
Everything, everything, everything..
In its right place
In its right place
Right place
This must be what an asthma attack feels like; he can't breathe. He doesn't know how long he sits there before he can get a grip, curled up in his boxer shorts against the side of the tub. The candles have burned almost all the way down. He can't think. The tile of the floor is cold on his bare legs.
When he gets it together enough to blow out the candles, it smells like a birthday party, like he should be making a wish. He never had a birthday party. Or he had eighteen. He can remember both. He can't. This is crazy.
He has to be okay. He can do this. He feels his neck - it's okay, in one piece. He's all okay. He tries to push down the real memories and concentrate on the fake ones. He's Connor Summers. He has two sisters. He's from Sunnydale.
He's suddenly completely exhausted, fuzzy around the edges, like he wants to sleep forever. Maybe that's a spell side effect. He manages to clean up the bathroom before he turns off the lights and staggers into bed. Xander's still snoring like Angel isn't Connor's father, like he didn't spend his childhood in a hell dimension, like he and Dawn aren't both made of fake memories, like nothing important has happened at all.
Vampires in Blue Dresses
Margot & the Nuclear So and So's
(Full Lyrics)
Somebody's gonna love you.
Somebody oughta lay you out.
Your mother is a vampire
She sucked your old man's life away
Turn everything off
Just cover your neck
Cause life is full of your regrets
And I should be one
Try telling me off
Try slamming the door
and telling me I'm not worth your time
Or the breath I'm breathing
Don't throw it away
Oh, Calico queen
Cause now you're merely a machine,
And not a person
Angel comes closer, still looking at Connor like he actually cares what happens to him. Connor mentally recites the four ways to kill vampires: staking, beheading, fire, sunlight. "You having a good summer?" Angel asks. He's almost shy.
Connor's summer: his fake home town got destroyed, he committed fake incest with his fake sister, his fake father won't talk to him, and he found out his whole life has been a lie and actually he's the psycho killer son of two vampires. He can think of better ways to spend a summer. "It's okay, I guess," Connor says. Now he's trapped in the conversation by common courtesy. Apparently manners came along with the fake memories, and they're harder to get rid of. Great.
The Walk
Imogen Heap
(Full Lyrics)
Inside-out, upside-down,
Twisting beside myself.
Stop that now,
'Cause you and I were never meant to meet.
I think you'd better leave.
It's not safe in here.
I feel a weakness coming on.
When he slams open the door to the attic, Dawn jumps. She's sitting in one window seat, reading. The radio's on. When she sees him, she automatically goes into the post-incest wariness, and he can't even handle it. She stands up to leave. "Oh, sorry," she says.
He drops his backpack by the door and walks right up to her, pushes her up against the wall, his hips pressed up against hers. Her eyes are wide, and he's so angry he's shaking with it.
"What are you doing?" she whispers.
"Shut up," he says, and kisses her as hard as he can.
Butterflies
Sia
(Full Lyrics)
We've been to the top, we've been to the bottom
We've known everything and forgotten, yeah
You've kicked me around, you've wrapped me in cotton
You've carried our load, and you've shot 'em
Oh yes the butterflies are still there
Because we came from the same cocoon
"You wanna run away to Nova Scotia?"
He's sort of joking, because the idea of staying in this house another day sounds pretty much unbearable, but he doesn't really mean it. Until Dawn says, "Yeah, sort of."
He sits up again. "Seriously?"
"Yeah," Dawn says, and she does look serious, her hair falling in her eyes, her hands holding up the sheet. It has little flowers on it. "Just for awhile. I just… yeah."
Song for Kelly Huckaby
Death Cab for Cutie
(Full Lyrics)
Waking up to the sound of 5 A.M. to take my turn at the wheel.
Climbed up Shasta, oh how the engine ached
as the sun tortured California,
and old alleys turned deep at the heart of me.
Murals of heroes defacing the blank concrete.
Leaving home with our bags from Iron street
as morning turned into California.
Connor's bag is already packed, and Dawn's ready to go in under an hour. It's easy when almost all your belongings fit into a backpack anyway. They leave Buffy a note, taped to the ping-pong table, which explains almost nothing. What would they say? We found out that we're both fictional, and we've been having really taboo sex, so we can't handle staying here right now, but we'll probably be back before school starts?
Dawn's wearing Connor's maroon Stanford hoodie, and it fits her about right, which is funny. He almost says something about her wearing it, but doesn't, and then they're out of the house, walking down the middle of the street in the quiet of three a.m. The night air is clear and cool, and on a whim Connor reaches out and grabs her hand. He holds it all the way to the bus station, and she doesn't pull away.
Broken
Jack Johnson
(Full Lyrics)
With everything ahead of us
We left everything behind
But nothing that we needed
At least not at this time
And now the feeling that I'm feeling
Well it's feeling like my life is finally mine
With nothing to go back to we just continue to drive
Without you I was broken
But I'd rather be broke down with you by my side
They buy one-way tickets on the first bus leaving, which goes to Seattle - once they're there, they'll figure out where they're really going, and for how long. They split a pack of Skittles while they wait - Dawn likes the orange ones best.
The bus is only half full, and Connor pulls her down the aisle to the very back. They put their feet up on the seats and watch out the windows as the bus drives away, away from Angel, away from Buffy, away from fake memories and Slayers and demons and Hellmouths and Southern California. Dawn leans her head on his shoulder and falls asleep. He rests their clasped hands on his knee and watches the scenery flicker by.
Porcelain
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
(Full Lyrics)
Well, I've been dragged all over the place
I've taken hits time just don't erase
And baby I can see you've been fucked with too
But that don't mean your loving days are through
Cause people will say all kinds of things
That don't mean a damn to me
Cause all I see is what's in front of me
And that's you
Well I may be just a fool
But I know we're just as cool
And cool kids...
They belong together
Download Zip (83 MB @ Megaupload)
And because I worked on this project for so long, I also have:
Alternate Coverart (click to open full-size in a new tab)
Credit:
Of course, annakovsky, without whom there wouldn't be a mix! ♥
I also owe a huge debt of thanks to girlyevil and her Michael/Lindsay fanmix! Good old Arrested Development fans insured I already had music I associated with quasi-incest on my hard drive when I started mixing this and this mix shares three songs in common with hers. :)
Thanks for sticking with me! And for listening, if you do!
Any and all comments are loved, this has been in my head so long that I'd be so thrilled to get a fresh perspective on it! ♥ I've actually always dug the idea of Dawn/Connor so I'm just pleased to be putting out my little tribute to them.