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apocalypsos) wrote2004-02-11 01:00 am
apocalypsos) wrote2004-02-11 01:00 am
Entry tags:
Sleep! I'm coming, just give me a second to post fic!
Title: An Unbearable Lightness of Brain Cells
Author: Troll Princess
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Buffy/Angel
Pairing: None, I swear. Witch's honor. I don't care what it looks like.
Summary: A chance meeting between Connor and Dawn results in some major life-changing damage.
Archive: Just give me fair warning.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters. Otherwise, I'd be much nicer to them, with the exceptions of Connor and Dawn, who'd be fed to rabid mutant squirrels. (So I won't really be hurting them, unless you count ripping their emotional stability to shreds as pain.)
Chapter Four: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility
"Doc?"
The creature hissed out an amused chuckle, the sound scratching through the darkness like nails against a chalkboard. Its grip on Dawn's throat tightened, and her whimpers became choked, raspy wheezes as her sunglasses slipped off and clattered onto the sidewalk. "Ah, you mean the Guardian. Oh, we tore him to pieces years ago," it said almost dismissively, its rancid breath replacing what little clear night air Dawn managed to inhale. "So eager to spill your blood for Glorificus, and so cowardly when it came to taking his punishment."
Behind him, Connor tried to rise to his feet once again. The creature's tail casually whipped out and flung him down against the pavement. Dawn could have sworn she heard bones crack.
"At least he tasted good," it said, ignoring the young man groaning in pain behind it.
Blinking back tears, Dawn choked out, "Are you g-going to kill me?"
The demon's lip curled in a creepy smile, and its grip on her neck remained firm as she clawed desperately for release. "Oh, no, dear. The only one who won't come out of this battle alive will be me, I'm afraid. But this isn't about killing you. This is about letting the others know where you are." Its massive head moved closer to hers, almost as if to kiss her, and in a frighteningly cold whisper, the creature hissed, "They come for you now."
Dawn's eyes widened as the demon's beady eyes flickered briefly, the sudden weight of a thousand excited gazes upon her. "C-c-connor ..."
Coughing roughly, Connor rose to his feet in an unsteady sway, gripping his midsection as he stared down the creature holding Dawn in its scaly grasp. Then Connor narrowed his eyes at the demon and did the first thing he could think of.
He ran.
The demon's high-pitched cackling echoed over Dawn's increasingly strained whines. "Some warrior," the demon said, turning its full attention to the pale, trembling girl in its grasp. She whimpered from the most intense fear she'd felt in years as heat rose from the pavement in rippling waves, and a sick squishing sound echoed up as the demon's shifting feet lifted up and down in the swiftly melting sidewalk.
"B-but I'm not the Key anymore," she said.
"Is that what your precious witch told you?" Dawn winced at that, remembering the day she'd begged Willow to do a spell or something, to make sure she'd stay safe from any of Glory's minions that might still be around. Glass shattered loudly not far away, but Dawn was too freaked out to pay much attention. The creature grinned in sick anticipation as the heat rising from her skin started making her clothes smoke ominously. "The Key was merely waiting, dear."
She didn't want to know, but the question came anyway. "For what?"
"To become what it was meant to become. And to find itself a hero."
It tilted its head curiously, and the two of them spotted Connor, standing not five feet away as if he'd teleported out of thin air. The creature's beady eyes narrowed, and it gifted Connor with an almost piteous look. "If only you knew, boy --"
But Connor didn't want to hear it, a strange grin crossing his face as he raised a can of hairspray in the air and hit the button.
The supernaturally overheated air ignited the hairspray as soon as the two connected, and the demon let out a high-pitched scream as it was engulfed in flames. Dawn fell to the ground after it let go of her neck, trying to catch her breath and desperately ignoring the greenish tint the world seemed to have taken on. The creature flailed backwards in agony, only succeeding in making the flames grow higher and swallow it whole.
Connor took a step back from the sudden rush of flames only a moment before the hairspray can exploded in his hand.
Dawn screamed as she scrambled past the inferno engulfing the demon and headed for Connor, who collapsed to the ground and curled up in a ball. The burning creature still stumbled awkwardly towards her, and Dawn called Connor's name as if he could do anything to help her with --
But all of a sudden, there he was, between her and her pursuer, teeth bared and eyes blazing like an angry Doberman protecting its owner. No weapons at hand and his forearm a bloody, mangled mess, he stood (or rather, crouched) between her and the demon, waves of anger flowing from him.
With one last, anguished cry, the demon fell before them, a barbecued heap of flesh still smoking all over.
The two of them sat there on the ground for a long moment, their chests heaving as they waited for the demon to pull the inevitable horor-movie schtick and get up agan for one more go. But after a good thirty seconds, they managed to relax ... just in time for them both to get a good look at the extent of Connor's burns.
Dawn groaned as she moved close to get a better lookat his charred flesh. "Oh, God ... your arm ..."
"I've had worse," he said, forcing a smile.
The top layer of his skin slid off like a glove two sizes too big and fell to the ground, the two of them staring at it in abject disgust.
Connor winced and looked away. "Okay, I stand corrected," he said. Trying to distract himself, he took in their surroundings, the streets still strangely deserted, and wondered why the hell no one had come out to witness the fight and ensuing explosion. Hell, he was amazed no one had shown up when he'd broken the front window of the pharmacy around the corner in his search for something combustible.
He hissed as Dawn took his injured arm in her hands, and he nearly tugged it away as he said, "Hey, what do you think you're doing?"
Her gaze connected with his, confused and knowledgeable all at once, and he relaxed in total contrast to what his mind was screaming at him to do.
"Guessing," she said with a disquieting roll of her shoulders.
Her fingertips trailed over his burnt skin in a light, feathery dance, and his skin twitched under her artful touch as if reaching for more of her. Connor closed his eyes tight as an almost orgasmic rush swept over his forearm, drowning out the mind-numbing burns that stretched from elbow to fingertips. When he opened his eyes once again, the scorched flesh was nearly whole again, the newly regrown skin still a harsh shade of red. She gently released his hand, and the absence of her touch was like a vacuum to some newfound part of him.
"Thank you," he said softly.
She kept quiet, too busy staring at her own hands to pay him any mind.
Getting to his feet, Connor walked around her and studied the dead creature lying not far away. Her sunglasses lie on the ground undamaged by the heat and fire for reasons Connor didn't even want to start thinking on, and he retrieved them for her to hide the now unmistakable greenish light to her eyes. He handed them to her as he looked down at the corpse, and she slipped them back on in a daze. "Did I miss anything?"
"There are more of them coming for me," Dawn said, her voice oddly hollow.
"They had enough ugly left to make more of these?" Connor kicked the demon, hard enough for something heavy and metal to fall from the smoldering corpse. Curious, he picked it up and examined it thoughtfully.
It was a sword. An real, unmarred sword with weird, greenish symbols carved into the hilt.
They must not have noticed it in the chaos of the fight, Connor thought as he tested the feel of the blade far too expertly for his frazzled mind to contemplate. He narrowed his eyes at the dead demon. All that had happened, and it had never even pulled its weapon? "It doesn't make sense," he muttered.
Dawn snorted derisively at that, as if she understood what he was thinking. "My family consists of a bunch of vampire slayers, a British librarian, a one-eyed carpenter, a former principal, and an ex-bad guy who thinks he's Doctor Who. If you want to see something that doesn't make sense, come to my house at Christmas."
"You almost sound like an escapee from a mental ward, you know that?"
Those eerie eyes of hers peered up at him through the darkness, and she took a deep breath before saying, "I'm really a supernatural ball of energy that can be used to destroy the universe."
A long pause, then ... "Did I say 'almost'?"
"Not believing in it isn't going to make it go away."
"I don't want it to go away, I want --" Dawn's expression went cold, and Conor stopped himself before he could say anything he'd regret later on. Slipping the phones from his pocket, he waved them at her as a peace offering. "You want to try your family?"
He tossed one of the phones to her, and she caught it by reflex, then immediately dropped it. The same heat that rose from her skin and bypassed her clothes for the most part had melted finger grooves into the plastic casing of the phone where she'd caught it. Dawn fixed Connor with a withering glare and said, "As much as I'd like the phrase 'You must have the wrong number' to make me bawl like an infant for the rest of my life, thanks, but no thanks."
Something occurred to him, some stark ray of light at the end of the tunnel, and Connor gingerly dialed the phone with his quickly healing fingers. "I didn't even get a chance to try my father's cell phone," he said. "He carries it with him everywhere, and it's late, but --"
"He won't know you," Dawn said.
"I'm not that easy to forget," he said, trying to smile at that.
"And I am?"
A sick, embarrassed rolling settled in his stomach at the look on Dawn's face. He opened his mouth to apologize, but was interrupted as a woman with a honeyed Southern accent answered the phone.
"Angel Investigations, Fred speaking."
Connor frowned. "Sorry, wrong number," he said, staring at the phone in confusion as he pushed "End." How the hell had he dialed the wrong number? His father had had the same damn cell phone number for years. Connor could dial it in his sleep, and on one memorable occasion, had actually done so. From the complaints he'd heard from his amused parents later on, he had impeccable timing and, when he'd asked what they'd meant by that, he'd gotten psychological scarring to last a lifetime.
But he'd probably just misdialed, right? Yeah, he'd just hit the wrong number along the way and ended up calling some detective agency. Exhaling raggedly as a icy thread of fear snaked up his spine, Connor paid closer attention this time as he dialed.
But he wasn't as shocked as he should have been when that Texas twang carried over the phone again with, "Angel Investigations, Fred speaking."
Oh, God. This wasn't happening.
"Is there --" Connor nearly choked on the words, but damn it, this was his father's phone number and he wasn't about to admit defeat without trying. "Is there a Steven Jacobs available?"
"Nope, can't say that there is."
"You wouldn't know someone named Connor, would you?"
The other end of the phone went strangely silent for a long moment, before the woman on the other end spoke in a soft, pained whisper. "Connor?"
Connor shook his head, forcing himself to banish any hopes he might have left. He was fooling himself into believing things that were turning out to be pure bullshit, is what he was doing. He didn't even know the person he was talking to, so that familiar feeling he got when he heard her voice was just the last shred of hope he had left clinging onto his normal, average, everyday life with every ounce of strength at its disposal.
"Sorry. I just ... sorry," he blurted, forcing himself to push the "End" button before she said anything more hurtful. Before she told him that no, there was no one there who knew a Connor, and she was really sorry, and she hoped he found what he was looking for, that he found where he truly belonged.
And if someone on the other end clamored for the phone at the last second and yelled his name, he didn't hear it.
The blade felt right in his hand, the weight of it balancing him out in a place he couldn't even identify. A quick glance at his forearm revealed his burns completely healing over before his very eyes, and he shot Dawn a curious glance.
All she could do was try to stifle her tears as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
The sword and phone both slipped from his grasp, his clammy palms not willing to hold on. Connor exhaled with a ragged shudder as his arms slipped around Dawn's midsection, all of his fear and defiance flowing from him in a single breath. And as simply as that -- if the last twenty-four hours of his life could ever be considered simple -- his life's focus shifted to the trembling girl latched onto him, this force of nature he somehow knew he was meant to guard with his life.
If this was his destiny, then so be it.
********
One year later
"You sure about this?"
She said nothing, but then she hadn't spoken aloud in six months. Connor wasn't surprised by the silence anymore.
Tilting his head to get the too-long hair out of his eyes, Connor glanced at the back seat of the Jeep, reassuring himself with the comforting sight of massive firearms and razor-sharp implements of death. Still-fresh blood smeared off his arsenal onto the upholstery in wet, dark streaks, haunting reminders of their last battle against the demons. In the last twelve months, the heavy scent of demon blood in the air had become a security blanket, a sign that they were safe again, if only for a little while.
He turned around again, giving Dawn a casual once-over. She sat perfectly still and straight in the passenger's seat, her hands clasped in her lap. The pink track suit she wore didn't show half the wear that his trench, cable-knit sweater and jeans did, but they'd been through just as much. The intense heat she generated during stressful situations only affected her clothes anymore when her concentration was off, so the track suit didn't have the same scorched holes in it that her outfits inevitably developed over time. The newsboy cap and sunglasses she wore hid her beauty more than Connor would have liked, but they also hid more important things.
Dawn's eyes and hair had long ago disintegrated from the intense energy throbbing away in her tiny body. Some things weren't worth showing off to the general populace.
Dawn tilted her head slightly, almost as if to look at him, and a gentle smile crossed her face. You're afraid, aren't you?
Connor's narrowed gaze darted to her, and he frowned. The voice wasn't in his head so much as it was all around him, in the soft yet demanding tone of a woman narrating a '50s public service film. It hadn't taken him long for him to figure out that as her destined protector, the sworn knight born to serve the Key, he was the only one who could hear that lovely, enchanting voice settling over him like a warm, heavy fog.
That's not to say, however, that hearing it didn't seriously piss him off sometimes.
Gritting his teeth, Connor needlessly shifted his gaze back to the road. "Why the hell would I start being afraid now?"
She reached out and dragged her fingertips over the tear in the front of his sweater. The frayed edges had gone a dark, rusty maroon.
He squirmed away from her touch, though more from denial than anything else. "Damn demon shoved a barbecue fork into my stomach," he muttered. "Considering how many inches of my intestines came out with it, I think I'm allowed at least another two weeks of sulking."
Dawn's smile slipped a little, and she lifted her hand to touch his cheek.
Against his better judgment, he leaned into her touch a little. Couldn't help it, really. He knew damn well by now where his destiny lie.
The car's horn bleated, and Connor glared down at the steering column. "Don't you start."
The steering wheel spun a bit under his palm, and for once, he didn't even flinch. Sighing, Connor kept one hand on the wheel while he leaned over to change the radio station with the other.
Ha ... as if he had any control whatsoever over either device. Not long after they'd first come together, Connor had come out of a defensive battle against three of Doc's brethren sore, bedraggled, and generally pissed off. Walking alongside Dawn afterwards with an overloaded pack, Connor had made a casual crack about having to walk across the continent and back again dragging a wheelbarrow full of blades and ammo behind them.
Two minutes later, as they'd passed a car dealership, the Jeep had roared to life, flipped on its high beams, and rolled up behind them like a lost puppy.
Dawn had gotten into the passenger's seat as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Yeah, right.
Lacking much of an argument, Connor had hurled the pack into the back and climbed into the driver's seat. In a fleeting moment of annoyance, Connor dubbed the Jeep Brad, mostly because it insisted on finding his last nerve and fraying it beyond recognition. The fact that it fought him on every little decision he made and fawned over Dawn like a hopeful suitor hadn't escaped Connor, either.
Like now, when the car's response to Connor switching the radio to a hard rock statio was an eardrum-piercing squeal of feedback and a return to its own personal radio station. Which, at the moment, was playing the StrongBad techno song.
Connor couldn't resist a smirk at that. He had no idea how the Jeep played whatever damn music it wanted, but he also didn't know how it drove on its own and rolled after Dawn wherever she went. Connor had stopped questioning things like that a long time ago.
The lights of Los Angeles came into view as they came to an open spot in the road, and Connor rubbed the ragged stubble on his cheek as he eyed it anxiously. Tramping their way through the countryside to avoid large concentrations of Dawn's demonic pursuers had gone on long enough. Now, the real battle began.
Dawn took one of his hands in her own and flashed him a reassuring smile as a single, meaningful word floated through his head.
He clenched his jaw when her voice resounded in his mind, and his grip on her hand tightened. "I don't need answers, Dawn, I just need you safe."
She nodded at that, as if maybe she'd actually bought it. Seemed only fair one of them did.
Inwardly preparing himself for battle, Connor stared at the approaching lights of Los Angeles on the horizon and muttered, "Well, it sure as hell can't be any worse than Cleveland."
Author: Troll Princess
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Buffy/Angel
Pairing: None, I swear. Witch's honor. I don't care what it looks like.
Summary: A chance meeting between Connor and Dawn results in some major life-changing damage.
Archive: Just give me fair warning.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters. Otherwise, I'd be much nicer to them, with the exceptions of Connor and Dawn, who'd be fed to rabid mutant squirrels. (So I won't really be hurting them, unless you count ripping their emotional stability to shreds as pain.)
Chapter Four: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility
"Doc?"
The creature hissed out an amused chuckle, the sound scratching through the darkness like nails against a chalkboard. Its grip on Dawn's throat tightened, and her whimpers became choked, raspy wheezes as her sunglasses slipped off and clattered onto the sidewalk. "Ah, you mean the Guardian. Oh, we tore him to pieces years ago," it said almost dismissively, its rancid breath replacing what little clear night air Dawn managed to inhale. "So eager to spill your blood for Glorificus, and so cowardly when it came to taking his punishment."
Behind him, Connor tried to rise to his feet once again. The creature's tail casually whipped out and flung him down against the pavement. Dawn could have sworn she heard bones crack.
"At least he tasted good," it said, ignoring the young man groaning in pain behind it.
Blinking back tears, Dawn choked out, "Are you g-going to kill me?"
The demon's lip curled in a creepy smile, and its grip on her neck remained firm as she clawed desperately for release. "Oh, no, dear. The only one who won't come out of this battle alive will be me, I'm afraid. But this isn't about killing you. This is about letting the others know where you are." Its massive head moved closer to hers, almost as if to kiss her, and in a frighteningly cold whisper, the creature hissed, "They come for you now."
Dawn's eyes widened as the demon's beady eyes flickered briefly, the sudden weight of a thousand excited gazes upon her. "C-c-connor ..."
Coughing roughly, Connor rose to his feet in an unsteady sway, gripping his midsection as he stared down the creature holding Dawn in its scaly grasp. Then Connor narrowed his eyes at the demon and did the first thing he could think of.
He ran.
The demon's high-pitched cackling echoed over Dawn's increasingly strained whines. "Some warrior," the demon said, turning its full attention to the pale, trembling girl in its grasp. She whimpered from the most intense fear she'd felt in years as heat rose from the pavement in rippling waves, and a sick squishing sound echoed up as the demon's shifting feet lifted up and down in the swiftly melting sidewalk.
"B-but I'm not the Key anymore," she said.
"Is that what your precious witch told you?" Dawn winced at that, remembering the day she'd begged Willow to do a spell or something, to make sure she'd stay safe from any of Glory's minions that might still be around. Glass shattered loudly not far away, but Dawn was too freaked out to pay much attention. The creature grinned in sick anticipation as the heat rising from her skin started making her clothes smoke ominously. "The Key was merely waiting, dear."
She didn't want to know, but the question came anyway. "For what?"
"To become what it was meant to become. And to find itself a hero."
It tilted its head curiously, and the two of them spotted Connor, standing not five feet away as if he'd teleported out of thin air. The creature's beady eyes narrowed, and it gifted Connor with an almost piteous look. "If only you knew, boy --"
But Connor didn't want to hear it, a strange grin crossing his face as he raised a can of hairspray in the air and hit the button.
The supernaturally overheated air ignited the hairspray as soon as the two connected, and the demon let out a high-pitched scream as it was engulfed in flames. Dawn fell to the ground after it let go of her neck, trying to catch her breath and desperately ignoring the greenish tint the world seemed to have taken on. The creature flailed backwards in agony, only succeeding in making the flames grow higher and swallow it whole.
Connor took a step back from the sudden rush of flames only a moment before the hairspray can exploded in his hand.
Dawn screamed as she scrambled past the inferno engulfing the demon and headed for Connor, who collapsed to the ground and curled up in a ball. The burning creature still stumbled awkwardly towards her, and Dawn called Connor's name as if he could do anything to help her with --
But all of a sudden, there he was, between her and her pursuer, teeth bared and eyes blazing like an angry Doberman protecting its owner. No weapons at hand and his forearm a bloody, mangled mess, he stood (or rather, crouched) between her and the demon, waves of anger flowing from him.
With one last, anguished cry, the demon fell before them, a barbecued heap of flesh still smoking all over.
The two of them sat there on the ground for a long moment, their chests heaving as they waited for the demon to pull the inevitable horor-movie schtick and get up agan for one more go. But after a good thirty seconds, they managed to relax ... just in time for them both to get a good look at the extent of Connor's burns.
Dawn groaned as she moved close to get a better lookat his charred flesh. "Oh, God ... your arm ..."
"I've had worse," he said, forcing a smile.
The top layer of his skin slid off like a glove two sizes too big and fell to the ground, the two of them staring at it in abject disgust.
Connor winced and looked away. "Okay, I stand corrected," he said. Trying to distract himself, he took in their surroundings, the streets still strangely deserted, and wondered why the hell no one had come out to witness the fight and ensuing explosion. Hell, he was amazed no one had shown up when he'd broken the front window of the pharmacy around the corner in his search for something combustible.
He hissed as Dawn took his injured arm in her hands, and he nearly tugged it away as he said, "Hey, what do you think you're doing?"
Her gaze connected with his, confused and knowledgeable all at once, and he relaxed in total contrast to what his mind was screaming at him to do.
"Guessing," she said with a disquieting roll of her shoulders.
Her fingertips trailed over his burnt skin in a light, feathery dance, and his skin twitched under her artful touch as if reaching for more of her. Connor closed his eyes tight as an almost orgasmic rush swept over his forearm, drowning out the mind-numbing burns that stretched from elbow to fingertips. When he opened his eyes once again, the scorched flesh was nearly whole again, the newly regrown skin still a harsh shade of red. She gently released his hand, and the absence of her touch was like a vacuum to some newfound part of him.
"Thank you," he said softly.
She kept quiet, too busy staring at her own hands to pay him any mind.
Getting to his feet, Connor walked around her and studied the dead creature lying not far away. Her sunglasses lie on the ground undamaged by the heat and fire for reasons Connor didn't even want to start thinking on, and he retrieved them for her to hide the now unmistakable greenish light to her eyes. He handed them to her as he looked down at the corpse, and she slipped them back on in a daze. "Did I miss anything?"
"There are more of them coming for me," Dawn said, her voice oddly hollow.
"They had enough ugly left to make more of these?" Connor kicked the demon, hard enough for something heavy and metal to fall from the smoldering corpse. Curious, he picked it up and examined it thoughtfully.
It was a sword. An real, unmarred sword with weird, greenish symbols carved into the hilt.
They must not have noticed it in the chaos of the fight, Connor thought as he tested the feel of the blade far too expertly for his frazzled mind to contemplate. He narrowed his eyes at the dead demon. All that had happened, and it had never even pulled its weapon? "It doesn't make sense," he muttered.
Dawn snorted derisively at that, as if she understood what he was thinking. "My family consists of a bunch of vampire slayers, a British librarian, a one-eyed carpenter, a former principal, and an ex-bad guy who thinks he's Doctor Who. If you want to see something that doesn't make sense, come to my house at Christmas."
"You almost sound like an escapee from a mental ward, you know that?"
Those eerie eyes of hers peered up at him through the darkness, and she took a deep breath before saying, "I'm really a supernatural ball of energy that can be used to destroy the universe."
A long pause, then ... "Did I say 'almost'?"
"Not believing in it isn't going to make it go away."
"I don't want it to go away, I want --" Dawn's expression went cold, and Conor stopped himself before he could say anything he'd regret later on. Slipping the phones from his pocket, he waved them at her as a peace offering. "You want to try your family?"
He tossed one of the phones to her, and she caught it by reflex, then immediately dropped it. The same heat that rose from her skin and bypassed her clothes for the most part had melted finger grooves into the plastic casing of the phone where she'd caught it. Dawn fixed Connor with a withering glare and said, "As much as I'd like the phrase 'You must have the wrong number' to make me bawl like an infant for the rest of my life, thanks, but no thanks."
Something occurred to him, some stark ray of light at the end of the tunnel, and Connor gingerly dialed the phone with his quickly healing fingers. "I didn't even get a chance to try my father's cell phone," he said. "He carries it with him everywhere, and it's late, but --"
"He won't know you," Dawn said.
"I'm not that easy to forget," he said, trying to smile at that.
"And I am?"
A sick, embarrassed rolling settled in his stomach at the look on Dawn's face. He opened his mouth to apologize, but was interrupted as a woman with a honeyed Southern accent answered the phone.
"Angel Investigations, Fred speaking."
Connor frowned. "Sorry, wrong number," he said, staring at the phone in confusion as he pushed "End." How the hell had he dialed the wrong number? His father had had the same damn cell phone number for years. Connor could dial it in his sleep, and on one memorable occasion, had actually done so. From the complaints he'd heard from his amused parents later on, he had impeccable timing and, when he'd asked what they'd meant by that, he'd gotten psychological scarring to last a lifetime.
But he'd probably just misdialed, right? Yeah, he'd just hit the wrong number along the way and ended up calling some detective agency. Exhaling raggedly as a icy thread of fear snaked up his spine, Connor paid closer attention this time as he dialed.
But he wasn't as shocked as he should have been when that Texas twang carried over the phone again with, "Angel Investigations, Fred speaking."
Oh, God. This wasn't happening.
"Is there --" Connor nearly choked on the words, but damn it, this was his father's phone number and he wasn't about to admit defeat without trying. "Is there a Steven Jacobs available?"
"Nope, can't say that there is."
"You wouldn't know someone named Connor, would you?"
The other end of the phone went strangely silent for a long moment, before the woman on the other end spoke in a soft, pained whisper. "Connor?"
Connor shook his head, forcing himself to banish any hopes he might have left. He was fooling himself into believing things that were turning out to be pure bullshit, is what he was doing. He didn't even know the person he was talking to, so that familiar feeling he got when he heard her voice was just the last shred of hope he had left clinging onto his normal, average, everyday life with every ounce of strength at its disposal.
"Sorry. I just ... sorry," he blurted, forcing himself to push the "End" button before she said anything more hurtful. Before she told him that no, there was no one there who knew a Connor, and she was really sorry, and she hoped he found what he was looking for, that he found where he truly belonged.
And if someone on the other end clamored for the phone at the last second and yelled his name, he didn't hear it.
The blade felt right in his hand, the weight of it balancing him out in a place he couldn't even identify. A quick glance at his forearm revealed his burns completely healing over before his very eyes, and he shot Dawn a curious glance.
All she could do was try to stifle her tears as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
The sword and phone both slipped from his grasp, his clammy palms not willing to hold on. Connor exhaled with a ragged shudder as his arms slipped around Dawn's midsection, all of his fear and defiance flowing from him in a single breath. And as simply as that -- if the last twenty-four hours of his life could ever be considered simple -- his life's focus shifted to the trembling girl latched onto him, this force of nature he somehow knew he was meant to guard with his life.
If this was his destiny, then so be it.
********
One year later
"You sure about this?"
She said nothing, but then she hadn't spoken aloud in six months. Connor wasn't surprised by the silence anymore.
Tilting his head to get the too-long hair out of his eyes, Connor glanced at the back seat of the Jeep, reassuring himself with the comforting sight of massive firearms and razor-sharp implements of death. Still-fresh blood smeared off his arsenal onto the upholstery in wet, dark streaks, haunting reminders of their last battle against the demons. In the last twelve months, the heavy scent of demon blood in the air had become a security blanket, a sign that they were safe again, if only for a little while.
He turned around again, giving Dawn a casual once-over. She sat perfectly still and straight in the passenger's seat, her hands clasped in her lap. The pink track suit she wore didn't show half the wear that his trench, cable-knit sweater and jeans did, but they'd been through just as much. The intense heat she generated during stressful situations only affected her clothes anymore when her concentration was off, so the track suit didn't have the same scorched holes in it that her outfits inevitably developed over time. The newsboy cap and sunglasses she wore hid her beauty more than Connor would have liked, but they also hid more important things.
Dawn's eyes and hair had long ago disintegrated from the intense energy throbbing away in her tiny body. Some things weren't worth showing off to the general populace.
Dawn tilted her head slightly, almost as if to look at him, and a gentle smile crossed her face. You're afraid, aren't you?
Connor's narrowed gaze darted to her, and he frowned. The voice wasn't in his head so much as it was all around him, in the soft yet demanding tone of a woman narrating a '50s public service film. It hadn't taken him long for him to figure out that as her destined protector, the sworn knight born to serve the Key, he was the only one who could hear that lovely, enchanting voice settling over him like a warm, heavy fog.
That's not to say, however, that hearing it didn't seriously piss him off sometimes.
Gritting his teeth, Connor needlessly shifted his gaze back to the road. "Why the hell would I start being afraid now?"
She reached out and dragged her fingertips over the tear in the front of his sweater. The frayed edges had gone a dark, rusty maroon.
He squirmed away from her touch, though more from denial than anything else. "Damn demon shoved a barbecue fork into my stomach," he muttered. "Considering how many inches of my intestines came out with it, I think I'm allowed at least another two weeks of sulking."
Dawn's smile slipped a little, and she lifted her hand to touch his cheek.
Against his better judgment, he leaned into her touch a little. Couldn't help it, really. He knew damn well by now where his destiny lie.
The car's horn bleated, and Connor glared down at the steering column. "Don't you start."
The steering wheel spun a bit under his palm, and for once, he didn't even flinch. Sighing, Connor kept one hand on the wheel while he leaned over to change the radio station with the other.
Ha ... as if he had any control whatsoever over either device. Not long after they'd first come together, Connor had come out of a defensive battle against three of Doc's brethren sore, bedraggled, and generally pissed off. Walking alongside Dawn afterwards with an overloaded pack, Connor had made a casual crack about having to walk across the continent and back again dragging a wheelbarrow full of blades and ammo behind them.
Two minutes later, as they'd passed a car dealership, the Jeep had roared to life, flipped on its high beams, and rolled up behind them like a lost puppy.
Dawn had gotten into the passenger's seat as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Yeah, right.
Lacking much of an argument, Connor had hurled the pack into the back and climbed into the driver's seat. In a fleeting moment of annoyance, Connor dubbed the Jeep Brad, mostly because it insisted on finding his last nerve and fraying it beyond recognition. The fact that it fought him on every little decision he made and fawned over Dawn like a hopeful suitor hadn't escaped Connor, either.
Like now, when the car's response to Connor switching the radio to a hard rock statio was an eardrum-piercing squeal of feedback and a return to its own personal radio station. Which, at the moment, was playing the StrongBad techno song.
Connor couldn't resist a smirk at that. He had no idea how the Jeep played whatever damn music it wanted, but he also didn't know how it drove on its own and rolled after Dawn wherever she went. Connor had stopped questioning things like that a long time ago.
The lights of Los Angeles came into view as they came to an open spot in the road, and Connor rubbed the ragged stubble on his cheek as he eyed it anxiously. Tramping their way through the countryside to avoid large concentrations of Dawn's demonic pursuers had gone on long enough. Now, the real battle began.
Dawn took one of his hands in her own and flashed him a reassuring smile as a single, meaningful word floated through his head.
He clenched his jaw when her voice resounded in his mind, and his grip on her hand tightened. "I don't need answers, Dawn, I just need you safe."
She nodded at that, as if maybe she'd actually bought it. Seemed only fair one of them did.
Inwardly preparing himself for battle, Connor stared at the approaching lights of Los Angeles on the horizon and muttered, "Well, it sure as hell can't be any worse than Cleveland."