FIC: Five Families Connor Was Not Magically Squeezed Into After His Real Vampire Dad Slit His Throat
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SWMBO!! This year instead of filling your friends list with raccoon pictures, I wrote you Connor fic. I am sure you think this is an improvement, though I seriously disagree. But ANYWAY. I hope you have THE BEST OF ALL BIRTHDAYS.
Five Families Connor Was Not Magically Squeezed Into After His Real Vampire Dad Slit His Throat
PG. Gen. AtS/Arrested Development, AtS/BtVS, AtS/Supernatural, AtS/The OC, AtS/Harry Potter.
***
1. The Bluths
Connor Bluth had discovered his superpowers just after he had dropped his brother George Michael off at George Michael's girlfriend's house on Friday night.
"Thanks for the ride," George Michael said, as he opened the door. "I haven't seen Ann in awhile. I kind of get the impression Dad doesn't like her very much."
Connor tried not to make a face. "Why would you think that?"
"Oh, I don't know," George Michael said. "He just... you know. Never remembers her name. But I'm sure it's nothing. I mean, how could anyone not like Ann? She's so great. And smart, and pretty."
"Her?" Connor couldn't help saying.
George Michael shot him a nervous look and got out of the car. Connor waved at him as he slammed down the accelerator to get enough momentum to pull away the two tons of stairs away from the curb.
As he was passing by an alley somewhere in between Ann's house and the model home, he realized he'd gotten a hop on.
"God damn it," Connor muttered, and slammed on the brakes. Two blocks later, when the stairs had finally come to a complete stop, he jumped out to make the guy hop right the hell off again. But when he got around to the stairs, the guy had this really weird messed up face, and Connor just got a look at flashing yellow eyes and maybe fangs before the guy was jumping at him and punching him and stuff. Like, who does that? It's Orange County - get a gun or run away, what's with the hand to hand?
But after Connor got over his surprise, he found himself punching the guy so hard that he flew across the alley and into the brick wall of the building. It took a second for the guy to catch his breath and for Connor to figure out what had just happened. But as he was staring at his fist, the monster dude started attacking him again, and then all of a sudden Connor was doing crazy martial arts moves, like he was Jackie Chan or something, and then, he didn't even know why, but he grabbed this piece of plywood just lying next to a dumpster in the alley, and shoved it through the guy's chest. And then the guy wasn't there any more.
It was one of the stranger nights of Connor's life. After that, he started keeping an eye out for any guys with messed up faces, and after he'd caught a few of them in alleys drinking people's blood, he had pretty much figured out that they were vampires, and that he, for some reason, was really good at killing them. That's when he started putting up flyers for his vampire killing detective agency. "Who you gonna call?" they said, and it made pretty good money, as a part time thing.
No one in the family really seemed to notice. Dad was really busy at work and with the whole Saddam thing, and Maeby was never really around anymore for some reason, and Aunt Lindsay was back to taking Teamocil so she wasn't noticing much of anything, and Mrs. Featherbottom had other things to worry about. George Michael had asked where Connor was all the time, but since Connor had found the box of love letters George Michael was keeping in the closet, they had a little agreement about what they asked questions about and what they didn't.
One night, Connor was chasing two vampires down the boardwalk of Newport Beach when he accidentally ran right onto a set, where Jude Law and Rachel McAdams seemed to be filming some kind of make out session.
"Cut," someone yelled disgustedly, as Connor staked the vampire. "Are we just letting people run right across the set now? Where's Alan? I'd like to finish this shot and get home to see my kids sometime this decade."
When Connor picked himself up, apologizing and trying to get out of the way of some extras, he saw that the person yelling behind the camera was, in fact, his cousin Maeby.
"Maeby?" he said.
"Connor?" she said. "Hey, did you just kill something?"
He looked at her headphones and director's chair. "Are you directing a movie?"
"Producing, actually," Maeby said. "What are you doing?"
"Huh?" Connor said, trying to see where the other vampire had gotten to. "Oh. Killing monsters."
He and Maeby looked at each other. "Okay, then," they both said at the same time, and walked off in opposite directions.
The thing about being a Bluth is, you have to know when it is that you really don't want to know.
***
2. The Summers
After they beat the First Evil and make Sunnydale into a crater, they head to the hospital, a WalMart, and a cheap hotel, in that order. That night, Buffy and Xander and Giles and Willow are all sitting down by the hotel pool, having some kind of bonding moment or something, so Connor and Dawn don't want to intrude. They hole up in Buffy and Dawn's hotel room with a bag of microwave popcorn, sodas from the machine, and the remote control.
Connor starts flipping channels, but nothing's really on. The programs flash by. Everybody Loves Raymond, CSI, some doctor show, some cop show, more cops, more doctors, a suburban family and a laugh track. Finally he tosses the remote to Dawn.
"Here, use your magical Key powers to find something that doesn't suck."
Dawn rolls her eyes at him. "I don't have any magical powers."
"Whatever," Connor says. "As the only non-mystical member of the Summers family, I'm obviously not the one who can make the TV show something good."
"Oh, please," Dawn says, as she starts to flip channels herself. "Dad isn't mystical. You know, not that I've ever actually met him." She tries to make the last sentence sound like a joke, but it's not quite convincing.
Connor kicks her affectionately with his bare foot. "Yeah, well, good thing the monks stuck you into all our memories, 'cause otherwise this family would *suck*. Can you imagine it just being me and Buffy these last couple years?"
Dawn snorted. "You would've, like, died of angst, seriously. Being Buffy's only sibling would be the worst." She stops flipping on a Friends rerun, where Ross is onscreen kissing Joey. She watches for a second as Joey's eyes widen. "Angel was acting weird today, huh?"
"Angel's always weird," Connor says, and tosses a piece of popcorn at his mouth. He misses.
"No, but today he was, like, staring at you the whole time he was here," Dawn says. "Normally he's all Buffy-focused, but today... I dunno, I thought you must have something stuck in your teeth, but you didn't."
Connor shrugs. "Who knows why vampires do anything?"
Dawn grabs a handful of popcorn. "Aren't you, like, at all curious?"
"Not really," Connor says. "Angel's boring." He watches a little more Friends. "Yeah, and so's this program. See if this hotel gets HBO."
Dawn picks up the remote and goes back to flipping.
***
3. The Winchesters
"I really don't see why we have to go get Sam," Connor said, putting his sneakers up on the dashboard of Dean's Chevy Impala. "It's not like you and me can't find Dad ourselves."
"Yeah, except we haven't," Dean said, and shoved a Metallica tape into the stereo and turned up the volume. "Dad's been gone almost three weeks. We need all the help we can get, and that means Sam."
"Whatever," Connor said. "I still think it's a bad idea."
Dean looked over at him and grinned.
"What?" Connor said, making a face at him.
"Nothing," Dean said, still grinning, and he reached over to ruffle Connor's hair. "C'mon, kid, Sam's our brother. It'll be fine."
"Yeah, right, that's why we haven't spoken to him in two years," Connor muttered.
"What's that?" Dean said.
Connor spoke up. "I said, I don't see why we have to listen to this shit."
"Shit?" Dean said. "This is Metallica! It's classic! Besides, I told you, we're only listening to your emo crap for one hour a day, all right? God."
"Loser," Connor said.
"Brat," Dean said.
The Impala sped toward California and their middle brother, down the empty highway.
***
4. The Cohens
Ryan was really not enthused about Chrismukkah. On top of the whole holidays-as-childhood-trauma thing, Seth's brother Connor was home from college and Ryan still didn't know him that well. He'd felt like an intruder ever since Connor had gotten home. And on top of that, Marissa had gotten caught shoplifting, and then gotten drunk at the big Newport Group Christmas party, and the whole thing just gave him that sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that traditionally meant it was the holidays.
The morning after the party disaster, when he woke up and went to get breakfast, Connor was the only one in the kitchen.
"Oh, hey," Connor said, his mouth still full of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. "You're up early."
"So're you," Ryan said, going to see what kind of bagels they had and feeling vaguely uncomfortable. He and Connor hadn't spent any time just the two of them - there were always other Cohens around to make things less awkward.
"Couldn't sleep," Connor said, and poured himself some more cereal. "I keep having these weird nightmares."
"Oh yeah?" Ryan said, pulling an everything bagel out of its plastic bag. "What about?"
Connor shrugged. "I dunno, like, vampires and stuff? And this weird world where everything's, like, on fire, and I'm hunting monsters and someone else is my dad and, man, it kind of freaks me out, it's so real, you know?"
"Weird," Ryan said, and got out the cream cheese.
"You ever feel like this isn't really your life?" Connor said. "Like, Newport Beach is some foreign country and you didn't really grow up here at all?"
Ryan looked at him.
"Well, okay, yeah," Connor said, and looked sheepish. "Sorry. I mean. You know. Do you ever feel like the life you have isn't your real one?"
Ryan shrugs. "I guess things can seem surreal sometimes, sure."
"Yeah," Connor said, and chewed thoughtfully. Ryan sat down on the stool next to him.
"So," Connor said, after a minute, and then did a pretty decent impression of Seth. "How do you like your first Chrismukkah? Eight days of presents followed by one day of many presents? Twice the fun of any normal holiday? Jesus and Moses both on your side?"
Ryan laughed.
***
5. The Weasleys
Harry always felt bad for Ron's brother Connor whenever they were home for the summer holidays. Being a squib was bad enough, but being a squib in a family as big as the Weasley's just had to be humiliating. Everyone else was at Hogwarts, but Connor had to go to the Muggle school in the village. Which maybe wasn't so bad when everyone else was away, but during the summer, he was just completely left out. If everybody decided to play Quidditch, Connor had to be the one to keep score, or else he had to go inside and read a book and pretend he didn't care.
It's weird to see a Weasley who can't even make a broom fly. Once Harry caught Connor trying, even though after all these years he must know that it's not going to happen. But there Connor was, up before everyone else, out in the garden with Fred's broom, whispering "Up!" as the broom just lay there. It didn't even wiggle.
When he saw Harry, he jumped and tried to kick the broom behind him, out of sight.
"Oh, no, don't," Harry said. "Sorry. I didn't mean to sneak up on you."
Connor looked at him with a sort of shamed desperation. "You won't tell anybody you saw me trying that, will you?"
Harry shook his head. "No, of course not."
Connor kicked at the broom again. "Stupid Quidditch," he muttered, and his ears were bright red. "Nobody's life is worse than mine."
"Hey," Harry said, and felt awkward when Connor looked up. "Uh. I mean. Do you want to play checkers or something?"
Connor shrugged and put his hands in his pockets. "I've never played. And I can't do anything that uses magic."
"Oh, no, it's a Muggle game. I'll teach you," Harry said. "It's easy. Come on."
"Well. All right," Connor said, and they went to play.
***
END
Five Families Connor Was Not Magically Squeezed Into After His Real Vampire Dad Slit His Throat
PG. Gen. AtS/Arrested Development, AtS/BtVS, AtS/Supernatural, AtS/The OC, AtS/Harry Potter.
***
1. The Bluths
Connor Bluth had discovered his superpowers just after he had dropped his brother George Michael off at George Michael's girlfriend's house on Friday night.
"Thanks for the ride," George Michael said, as he opened the door. "I haven't seen Ann in awhile. I kind of get the impression Dad doesn't like her very much."
Connor tried not to make a face. "Why would you think that?"
"Oh, I don't know," George Michael said. "He just... you know. Never remembers her name. But I'm sure it's nothing. I mean, how could anyone not like Ann? She's so great. And smart, and pretty."
"Her?" Connor couldn't help saying.
George Michael shot him a nervous look and got out of the car. Connor waved at him as he slammed down the accelerator to get enough momentum to pull away the two tons of stairs away from the curb.
As he was passing by an alley somewhere in between Ann's house and the model home, he realized he'd gotten a hop on.
"God damn it," Connor muttered, and slammed on the brakes. Two blocks later, when the stairs had finally come to a complete stop, he jumped out to make the guy hop right the hell off again. But when he got around to the stairs, the guy had this really weird messed up face, and Connor just got a look at flashing yellow eyes and maybe fangs before the guy was jumping at him and punching him and stuff. Like, who does that? It's Orange County - get a gun or run away, what's with the hand to hand?
But after Connor got over his surprise, he found himself punching the guy so hard that he flew across the alley and into the brick wall of the building. It took a second for the guy to catch his breath and for Connor to figure out what had just happened. But as he was staring at his fist, the monster dude started attacking him again, and then all of a sudden Connor was doing crazy martial arts moves, like he was Jackie Chan or something, and then, he didn't even know why, but he grabbed this piece of plywood just lying next to a dumpster in the alley, and shoved it through the guy's chest. And then the guy wasn't there any more.
It was one of the stranger nights of Connor's life. After that, he started keeping an eye out for any guys with messed up faces, and after he'd caught a few of them in alleys drinking people's blood, he had pretty much figured out that they were vampires, and that he, for some reason, was really good at killing them. That's when he started putting up flyers for his vampire killing detective agency. "Who you gonna call?" they said, and it made pretty good money, as a part time thing.
No one in the family really seemed to notice. Dad was really busy at work and with the whole Saddam thing, and Maeby was never really around anymore for some reason, and Aunt Lindsay was back to taking Teamocil so she wasn't noticing much of anything, and Mrs. Featherbottom had other things to worry about. George Michael had asked where Connor was all the time, but since Connor had found the box of love letters George Michael was keeping in the closet, they had a little agreement about what they asked questions about and what they didn't.
One night, Connor was chasing two vampires down the boardwalk of Newport Beach when he accidentally ran right onto a set, where Jude Law and Rachel McAdams seemed to be filming some kind of make out session.
"Cut," someone yelled disgustedly, as Connor staked the vampire. "Are we just letting people run right across the set now? Where's Alan? I'd like to finish this shot and get home to see my kids sometime this decade."
When Connor picked himself up, apologizing and trying to get out of the way of some extras, he saw that the person yelling behind the camera was, in fact, his cousin Maeby.
"Maeby?" he said.
"Connor?" she said. "Hey, did you just kill something?"
He looked at her headphones and director's chair. "Are you directing a movie?"
"Producing, actually," Maeby said. "What are you doing?"
"Huh?" Connor said, trying to see where the other vampire had gotten to. "Oh. Killing monsters."
He and Maeby looked at each other. "Okay, then," they both said at the same time, and walked off in opposite directions.
The thing about being a Bluth is, you have to know when it is that you really don't want to know.
***
2. The Summers
After they beat the First Evil and make Sunnydale into a crater, they head to the hospital, a WalMart, and a cheap hotel, in that order. That night, Buffy and Xander and Giles and Willow are all sitting down by the hotel pool, having some kind of bonding moment or something, so Connor and Dawn don't want to intrude. They hole up in Buffy and Dawn's hotel room with a bag of microwave popcorn, sodas from the machine, and the remote control.
Connor starts flipping channels, but nothing's really on. The programs flash by. Everybody Loves Raymond, CSI, some doctor show, some cop show, more cops, more doctors, a suburban family and a laugh track. Finally he tosses the remote to Dawn.
"Here, use your magical Key powers to find something that doesn't suck."
Dawn rolls her eyes at him. "I don't have any magical powers."
"Whatever," Connor says. "As the only non-mystical member of the Summers family, I'm obviously not the one who can make the TV show something good."
"Oh, please," Dawn says, as she starts to flip channels herself. "Dad isn't mystical. You know, not that I've ever actually met him." She tries to make the last sentence sound like a joke, but it's not quite convincing.
Connor kicks her affectionately with his bare foot. "Yeah, well, good thing the monks stuck you into all our memories, 'cause otherwise this family would *suck*. Can you imagine it just being me and Buffy these last couple years?"
Dawn snorted. "You would've, like, died of angst, seriously. Being Buffy's only sibling would be the worst." She stops flipping on a Friends rerun, where Ross is onscreen kissing Joey. She watches for a second as Joey's eyes widen. "Angel was acting weird today, huh?"
"Angel's always weird," Connor says, and tosses a piece of popcorn at his mouth. He misses.
"No, but today he was, like, staring at you the whole time he was here," Dawn says. "Normally he's all Buffy-focused, but today... I dunno, I thought you must have something stuck in your teeth, but you didn't."
Connor shrugs. "Who knows why vampires do anything?"
Dawn grabs a handful of popcorn. "Aren't you, like, at all curious?"
"Not really," Connor says. "Angel's boring." He watches a little more Friends. "Yeah, and so's this program. See if this hotel gets HBO."
Dawn picks up the remote and goes back to flipping.
***
3. The Winchesters
"I really don't see why we have to go get Sam," Connor said, putting his sneakers up on the dashboard of Dean's Chevy Impala. "It's not like you and me can't find Dad ourselves."
"Yeah, except we haven't," Dean said, and shoved a Metallica tape into the stereo and turned up the volume. "Dad's been gone almost three weeks. We need all the help we can get, and that means Sam."
"Whatever," Connor said. "I still think it's a bad idea."
Dean looked over at him and grinned.
"What?" Connor said, making a face at him.
"Nothing," Dean said, still grinning, and he reached over to ruffle Connor's hair. "C'mon, kid, Sam's our brother. It'll be fine."
"Yeah, right, that's why we haven't spoken to him in two years," Connor muttered.
"What's that?" Dean said.
Connor spoke up. "I said, I don't see why we have to listen to this shit."
"Shit?" Dean said. "This is Metallica! It's classic! Besides, I told you, we're only listening to your emo crap for one hour a day, all right? God."
"Loser," Connor said.
"Brat," Dean said.
The Impala sped toward California and their middle brother, down the empty highway.
***
4. The Cohens
Ryan was really not enthused about Chrismukkah. On top of the whole holidays-as-childhood-trauma thing, Seth's brother Connor was home from college and Ryan still didn't know him that well. He'd felt like an intruder ever since Connor had gotten home. And on top of that, Marissa had gotten caught shoplifting, and then gotten drunk at the big Newport Group Christmas party, and the whole thing just gave him that sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that traditionally meant it was the holidays.
The morning after the party disaster, when he woke up and went to get breakfast, Connor was the only one in the kitchen.
"Oh, hey," Connor said, his mouth still full of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. "You're up early."
"So're you," Ryan said, going to see what kind of bagels they had and feeling vaguely uncomfortable. He and Connor hadn't spent any time just the two of them - there were always other Cohens around to make things less awkward.
"Couldn't sleep," Connor said, and poured himself some more cereal. "I keep having these weird nightmares."
"Oh yeah?" Ryan said, pulling an everything bagel out of its plastic bag. "What about?"
Connor shrugged. "I dunno, like, vampires and stuff? And this weird world where everything's, like, on fire, and I'm hunting monsters and someone else is my dad and, man, it kind of freaks me out, it's so real, you know?"
"Weird," Ryan said, and got out the cream cheese.
"You ever feel like this isn't really your life?" Connor said. "Like, Newport Beach is some foreign country and you didn't really grow up here at all?"
Ryan looked at him.
"Well, okay, yeah," Connor said, and looked sheepish. "Sorry. I mean. You know. Do you ever feel like the life you have isn't your real one?"
Ryan shrugs. "I guess things can seem surreal sometimes, sure."
"Yeah," Connor said, and chewed thoughtfully. Ryan sat down on the stool next to him.
"So," Connor said, after a minute, and then did a pretty decent impression of Seth. "How do you like your first Chrismukkah? Eight days of presents followed by one day of many presents? Twice the fun of any normal holiday? Jesus and Moses both on your side?"
Ryan laughed.
***
5. The Weasleys
Harry always felt bad for Ron's brother Connor whenever they were home for the summer holidays. Being a squib was bad enough, but being a squib in a family as big as the Weasley's just had to be humiliating. Everyone else was at Hogwarts, but Connor had to go to the Muggle school in the village. Which maybe wasn't so bad when everyone else was away, but during the summer, he was just completely left out. If everybody decided to play Quidditch, Connor had to be the one to keep score, or else he had to go inside and read a book and pretend he didn't care.
It's weird to see a Weasley who can't even make a broom fly. Once Harry caught Connor trying, even though after all these years he must know that it's not going to happen. But there Connor was, up before everyone else, out in the garden with Fred's broom, whispering "Up!" as the broom just lay there. It didn't even wiggle.
When he saw Harry, he jumped and tried to kick the broom behind him, out of sight.
"Oh, no, don't," Harry said. "Sorry. I didn't mean to sneak up on you."
Connor looked at him with a sort of shamed desperation. "You won't tell anybody you saw me trying that, will you?"
Harry shook his head. "No, of course not."
Connor kicked at the broom again. "Stupid Quidditch," he muttered, and his ears were bright red. "Nobody's life is worse than mine."
"Hey," Harry said, and felt awkward when Connor looked up. "Uh. I mean. Do you want to play checkers or something?"
Connor shrugged and put his hands in his pockets. "I've never played. And I can't do anything that uses magic."
"Oh, no, it's a Muggle game. I'll teach you," Harry said. "It's easy. Come on."
"Well. All right," Connor said, and they went to play.
***
END