thatotherperv | Nightmare Lullaby, an Angel-centric genfic

I had this dream last night, and then this bunny ate my brain this morning. I was gonna post more Burn today, but I hope you’ll like this because it had to happen.

It’s always been interesting to me that Angel, who we’re supposed to believe for the first 4 years we know him is very socially awkward, is really comfortable with kids. Every time I watch As1 I’ve Got You Under My Skin, I think about that. if it weren’t for that ep, I’d be inclined to guess that before Connor, the idea of caring for children would panic Angel a little, because he can be so uncomfortable with human emotion, and who wears their heart on their sleeve more than children? But he’s so comfortable with the kids in that family…in a joking-but-not-talking-down-to, I’m-familiar-with-kids way. In fact, he’s more comfortable with the kids in that ep than the parents, and he knows how to talk to them.

Interesting. And unexpected, until I started thinking about it.

thanks to everyone who helped me out by answering this post!

man I suck at titles.

Title: Nightmare Lullaby
Author: Mel (

thatotherperv)
Pairing: none. Angel character study.
Rating: um. R for violence.
Summary: Angel’s always been good with children.
Warnings: angst. Disturbing images. dark, I guess, but no darker than Joss gave us.
Not mine.

Unbeta’d though I thought about getting one for this. feel free to point out errors.

Angel had always been good with children.

It was sort of an accident, really. By no stretch of the imagination had he been born with a natural inclination, and his family had certainly been too small to provide him with the wealth of experience raising brats as you’d expect from good Irish stock—his father being more inclined to visit the local whorehouse after his workday than to visit Liam’s own mother. There had only been himself and Annie, who was well married off by the time Kathy was born.

He’d been fourteen, already a man, according to his father. Already discovering the joys of the fairer sex with every spare minute of his day, so all the baby had been, at first, was a squalling thing to be ignored. He took his cue from his Da in that.

But then the baby grew older, and refused to be ignored. Climbed into his lap babbling questions and tugging on his hair, patting at his face with clumsy hands as she looked up at him with big, adoring eyes.

It was the first and only time he’d ever fallen in love. As a mortal, anyway.

And he had loved her selflessly, with a generosity he didn’t possess, at that age or many others. He wasn’t always the best brother—left her often to her own devices with a mother that was a bit vacant and defeated by that time—but he still doted on her with an attention she got nowhere else.

When she answered the door that final night, he had cupped her wet cheeks in his large palms, as he had done so many times before, and snapped her neck. He left her crumpled in the corner, throat untouched.

He told himself he didn’t like the taste of children and that was all, but then, it had taken him over 200 years to truly understand what Darla had been trying to tell him.

He did find children to be rather boring prey though, as time went on. The destruction of innocence didn’t compensate for the lack of proper terror—children were easily startled, yes, but their fears were irrational and they couldn’t imagine the full extent of the horrors he could bring on them. The lack of proper anticipation in them was disappointing, and in the end, it was all too easy. And their blood…it was too pure.

But little ones could be instrumental in wringing the greatest grief and horror from their parents, and this was far more interesting than terrorizing the tykes themselves. And sometimes, to really rip the heart out of a parent, you had to woo the babe a bit. There was nothing quite like hearing a man beg as his little darling climbed into the arms of a monster, chattering happily. The only thing better was their anguish when he took the child apart piece by piece.

Outside of those games, he had let children be for the majority of his first hundred years.

Dru had been rather like a child at times. She had been another light-eyed, worshipful innocent that demanded his attention guilelessly after she was turned. And he doted on her much the same way he had doted on Kathy—lavishing attention on her when he cared to, and ignoring her utterly when he didn’t.

And again, it was solely his attention that put light in her eyes, and again, she’d have followed him to the ends of the earth, and again, he had abused that love.

Now she’d had a taste for children. After 1860, there was always some shrieking child in Angelus’ household. He had as little patience for it then as he’d had the first time around, and quite a few had ended up with broken spines when he could no longer abide the noise. But Drusilla did cry endlessly when you took her dolls away, so he put up with them more often than he’d have liked, and even helped her care for them, if he was in good humor. At every age, they liked him better—no doubt terrified by Dru’s madness. Instincts didn’t serve them all that well, in the end.

And then William had been made, and there was someone else to clean up Dru’s messes, so Angelus was rarely bothered any more. Spike had taken after his girl, though. In a crowd, he always went for the youngest morsels…which was fine by Angelus, because it left the better prey to him.

After the soul, he had tried to bargain with his own nature. Not in an attempt to dwell in the gray, as he should have done, but to be just as bad as he’d always been.

Children, in the end, had been the dealbreaker. The baby he’d stolen from Darla was the last child he touched for decades. It just seemed better that way.

After Doyle dragged him once and for all into the business of people, his skills came in handy…children needed to be rescued just like everyone else, and it was easier if you put them at ease. Kids were the same as they’d always been, really, and they took to him easily. He dealt with them when he had to. It made him uncomfortable.

Two hundred and seventy-five years of being good with children did absolutely nothing to prepare him for having one of his own. He knew the mechanics but he didn’t know how to nurture. How to quiet a child without killing it. How to protect and play and love the right way. How to raise his son to be a good man.

He’d always been obsessive by nature, but no one and nothing had prepared him for the overwhelming drive to put everything on the line for Connor. For a quarter millennia, children had been a happen-stance part of his life. Now this one child was the only thing that mattered.

Sometimes he would sit by Connor’s crib for hours and watch him sleep. And if Angel was honest, he looked no different than any of the infants he’d taken as a quick, unfulfilling meal. Why this baby? He wanted to know so badly, it hurt. His joy was all wrapped up in worry and pain, when Connor was sleeping.

He was probably the last person on earth that deserved this privilege. No one deserved to be a father when they knew exactly how many mouthfuls of blood it would take to drain his own son…knew exactly how big this child’s heart would be against his palm…knew exactly which vertebrae to crack to keep the child alive but immobile. No father should have increasingly vivid dreams about applying this knowledge to his own flesh and blood.

He was the last person who deserved to raise this child, but maybe he was the best to do just that. He knew exactly how to hurt Connor…so he also knew exactly how to keep him safe.

And he loved him.

Somehow, in his heart of hearts, he was unsurprised when Connor was taken from him. But he didn’t deserve that either.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

willow-25.livejournal.com

Wow. I'm really impressed; with the imagery, with the writing, just with the whole thing. Heartbreaking, touching, really well done. I'd argue with the line about Spike, but then it's always my inclination to defend Spike.

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Nightmare Lullaby, an Angel-centric genfic

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