The Glitter Jungle:
Fiction:
Appetiser
Connor/Ethan. How it started
He's young, and I wouldn't say innocent but is easy to emotionally manipulate. A teen, and eager. Still hasn't had much sex
He has all this power and wild energy and he doesn't know where to channel them properly... Guess who that reminds me of. Youthful wild energy, angry, doesn't know why or where to aim it... Does a lot of stupid things... *I'm* the stupid thing he does, did. And the stupid thing this kid, Angel's kid, is gonna do.
The minute I get near him.
And he'll think he's got the world by the balls, doing an older man, a witch - and he hates magic so much, the little hunter, doesn't he. Hates anything he can't see or understand.
But he will love you, she says. So easily, so fully.
No, I don't think he will, I smile. Not if I don't want him to.
No, she agrees, he'll only fall in love with you if you want him to. It'll be just a game, no strings attached.
Just like with Rupert.
Sequel:
Part II: Strange Bedfellows
Caught
He *wants* to be caught, it's pretty obvious. I should be deterring him, but maybe I'm also immature enough, risk-loving enough to want to be caught and gloat at them all. If anyone's expected me to be the responsible adult in this relationship...
Is this a relationship? I doubt it.
We spend hurried nights in dingy motel rooms, and on occasion he brings me to his hotel and we fuck in the dusty, unused hallways, terrified that his father will hear us or smell us. Between kisses and gasps he promises me that if the vampire attacks, he'll stake him for me. I hear it and wince and try not to think about the implications.
It isn't Angel who catches us in the end. It's the ex-watcher who's heard suspicious noises and walked into a storage room to find us necking, naked and sweaty, on a still-packaged mattress. What is it with me and watchers, why must they always spoil my plans and my sex life?
He looks at me like he recognises me and I wonder just how detailed those council reports are, and how much access one watcher has to his predecessor's files. Or maybe he's just heard about me through the magic circles - yes, we use that word. It makes us witches laugh. I preen and try to appear self-confident in the face of a crossbow. The blue-eyed man, who looks like until not long ago he was a boy, lowers his weapon slowly.
"Mr... Wyndam-Pryce, am I right?"
Of course I'm right, but I don't want young Connor here, who pathetically tries to appear arrogant and at the same time find his pants, to know just how well I know Mr. Wyndam-Pryce and the rest of the watchers. Wesley nods.
Will he yell? Be angry? Leave? Join? I can't predict him the way I can Rupert. And he's carrying a weapon.
He's also very quiet, contemplating. Connor glares but Wesley's unfazed, and eventually just says, "Be careful of Angel."
He closes the door quietly behind him.
Sequel:
Part III: Daddy
Angel's pov
I smell it on him, every time he walks by with a sneer on his face. He's... sleeping with a man; I don't mind. But I can smell the magic and blood and alcohol, and somehow the scent is familiar but I'm not sure where from. At least it's not Wesley or Gunn. At least it's human.
The demon inside whispers, taunts. Angelus wants to follow Connor, find
the man and kill him, slowly. Me... I want to follow Connor and find the
man and kill him slowly, but I also want my son to come to me and tell
me he has a lover, or maybe I want him to trust me, and so I leave them
alone. I know when they're doing it at my hotel, two floors above me, and
I grit my teeth and stay in my room.