Fic Post: Angel the Series, PG-13
Feb. 1st, 2007 11:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stoney321Title: Hell Is Where You Meet The Person You Could Have Been
Author: Stoney
Fandom: Angel: The Series
Rating: PG-13 for violent imagery
Summary: 4 Bible Stories with a Jossian Twist - Angel, Wesley, Gunn, Connor. GENERAL SPOILERS FOR THE SERIES
Disclaimer: No money made, nor am I looking for any. Unless you count that twenty I lost in the washer.
A/N: I've put links to imagery that brought this whole thing on. Uh, dark. Trying to get back into this "writing non-crack" thing.
~*~
Hell Is Where You Meet The Person You Could Have Been
~*~
Not my Will, But Thine Be Done1
Newborns had their own unique smell. Like love and hope and warmth all in a soft fuzzy package. Delicious. He was happy. Not that sort of happy, because his joy was wrapped up in fear of the baby getting sick or dying or not getting into Notre Dame or maybe not being able to stand in the sunlight like him or looking too much like his mother and what if his perfect, delicate skin was ever cut? How red the blood would look on that white, creamy skin. How he would cry.
Angel was drinking more. He barely registered that. Everything was heightened, his smell, his emotions, his hunger. He kissed and touched every square inch of his son, little foot pads, the wrinkles of fat at the baby's wrists, the soft pulsing membrane at the top of Connor's head. So weak and delicate, babies. Would Connor be strong? Was he even human? What would he think when he realized what Angel really was? The people he'd killed, the damage he had wreaked. Would he understand?
He didn't tell Wesley or Cordy about the dreams where he fed from his son and how delicious he tasted. Or how powerful he felt with that innocent blood in his mouth.
He stopped bringing the baby to sleep in his bed for fear of his dreams. He finally let the others hold Connor when his mouth began to salivate every time the baby cried.
*******
My Brother's Keeper2
Years later, Wesley would attempt to kill his own father, his hatred and agony from a childhood ignored emptying out of him with every casing from his gun's clip. As for now, he only knew death was coming for him swiftly, that the prophesy was wrong and perhaps they had all been wrong. He was a man that put his faith into words, and the words had failed him utterly.
Favoritism. Wesley's father had favored the Council over his own flesh and bone. God had favored the younger, wilder and beautiful Abel, and then marked Cain for all to see his insignificance. Wesley touched the ragged hole in his neck where Justine's knife entered. He had always imagined Cain cutting Abel's head off with the boy's plough. Always favored, always loved. Always the chosen one. Had he taken a trophy? Had Cain left a nightmare in his father's tent for him to find?
It wasn't his hand that had killed Connor, but it may as well have been. The blood pumping hot and thick from his neck slowed to a trickle and the stars in the sky grew into fuzzy haloes. He imagined Angel's face as he realized his son was gone - his favored son. He wondered what Adam thought when he found the head of his child on his pillow. The holly leaves poked deep into Wesley's cheek, but the blood didn't come. No one came.
********
Doest Thou Well To Be Angry?3
Moment of clarity. He was only allowed one with each encounter and it was the same every time. His momma'd had an old Bible with pictures that he used to spend hours looking at when he was little. There was a painting of some white dude being eaten up by a huge fish or shark. The story said the man took the easy way out of working for God and didn't like how God was there for everybody. That his kind wasn't special. So God send a big nasty to teach him a lesson. He lived inside that fish for three days, had a change of heart, which, hell yeah you're gonna have a change of heart, then that fish spit him out and the man became a prophet of God.
He'd had countless nightmares growing up about being trapped inside a fish. He didn't think it would be like Geppetto and Pinocchio fishing off their boat inside a whale. He thought it would be cold and slimy and tight, an overpowering stench of rotting death, and the fish's stomach acids eating away your skin. Come out lookin' like Michael with all them white spots and shit.
And every time he hit that bottom step on his way to get lightbulbs and a thing stepped out of the shadows ready to carve him up, Gunn flashed back to being eight years old and staring into the wild eyes of that man of God being swallowed by a fish. How the fish's eyes rolled back, covered in a white membrane. How God really didn't like people to do for themselves. He hoped no one would hear his prayer. He would forsake mercy as the price for his vanity.
********
The Sacrifice Of The Lord's Passover4
Angel had tried multiple times to push them away. Everyone suffered who stayed by his side. Except for Spike, but Angel had always assumed Spike was a special form of punishment that he had to endure, so. He'd had a plan. He didn't always. The plan came together in the end, and he had warned them. They'd already lost so much before the final battle and he was getting tired of shepherding the weak through the valley of darkness. But they had all agreed, so.
It hadn't been forty years of wandering with his team, but it had felt almost as long. Especially during the non-corporeal Spike months. He had taken them into the desert and they hadn't all come out. Doyle, Cordelia, Wesley, Gunn... All gone. Angel would have gladly lain himself on an altar, would have given himself up so the others could have lived. But he didn't get to choose how redemption was given.
The city lay in ashes and ruin. Somewhere on this earth it was still green, and he knew Connor lived. He hoped that the future would be in the hands of the son. The days of the father were done.
1Saturn Devours His Son, Goya
2 Cain Leading Abel To his Death, James Tissot
3 Medieval Woodcut of Jonah Swallowed By A Whale
4 Untitled Apocalypse, Zdzislaw Beksinski
Author: Stoney
Fandom: Angel: The Series
Rating: PG-13 for violent imagery
Summary: 4 Bible Stories with a Jossian Twist - Angel, Wesley, Gunn, Connor. GENERAL SPOILERS FOR THE SERIES
Disclaimer: No money made, nor am I looking for any. Unless you count that twenty I lost in the washer.
A/N: I've put links to imagery that brought this whole thing on. Uh, dark. Trying to get back into this "writing non-crack" thing.
Hell Is Where You Meet The Person You Could Have Been
~*~
Not my Will, But Thine Be Done1
Newborns had their own unique smell. Like love and hope and warmth all in a soft fuzzy package. Delicious. He was happy. Not that sort of happy, because his joy was wrapped up in fear of the baby getting sick or dying or not getting into Notre Dame or maybe not being able to stand in the sunlight like him or looking too much like his mother and what if his perfect, delicate skin was ever cut? How red the blood would look on that white, creamy skin. How he would cry.
Angel was drinking more. He barely registered that. Everything was heightened, his smell, his emotions, his hunger. He kissed and touched every square inch of his son, little foot pads, the wrinkles of fat at the baby's wrists, the soft pulsing membrane at the top of Connor's head. So weak and delicate, babies. Would Connor be strong? Was he even human? What would he think when he realized what Angel really was? The people he'd killed, the damage he had wreaked. Would he understand?
He didn't tell Wesley or Cordy about the dreams where he fed from his son and how delicious he tasted. Or how powerful he felt with that innocent blood in his mouth.
He stopped bringing the baby to sleep in his bed for fear of his dreams. He finally let the others hold Connor when his mouth began to salivate every time the baby cried.
*******
My Brother's Keeper2
Years later, Wesley would attempt to kill his own father, his hatred and agony from a childhood ignored emptying out of him with every casing from his gun's clip. As for now, he only knew death was coming for him swiftly, that the prophesy was wrong and perhaps they had all been wrong. He was a man that put his faith into words, and the words had failed him utterly.
Favoritism. Wesley's father had favored the Council over his own flesh and bone. God had favored the younger, wilder and beautiful Abel, and then marked Cain for all to see his insignificance. Wesley touched the ragged hole in his neck where Justine's knife entered. He had always imagined Cain cutting Abel's head off with the boy's plough. Always favored, always loved. Always the chosen one. Had he taken a trophy? Had Cain left a nightmare in his father's tent for him to find?
It wasn't his hand that had killed Connor, but it may as well have been. The blood pumping hot and thick from his neck slowed to a trickle and the stars in the sky grew into fuzzy haloes. He imagined Angel's face as he realized his son was gone - his favored son. He wondered what Adam thought when he found the head of his child on his pillow. The holly leaves poked deep into Wesley's cheek, but the blood didn't come. No one came.
********
Doest Thou Well To Be Angry?3
Moment of clarity. He was only allowed one with each encounter and it was the same every time. His momma'd had an old Bible with pictures that he used to spend hours looking at when he was little. There was a painting of some white dude being eaten up by a huge fish or shark. The story said the man took the easy way out of working for God and didn't like how God was there for everybody. That his kind wasn't special. So God send a big nasty to teach him a lesson. He lived inside that fish for three days, had a change of heart, which, hell yeah you're gonna have a change of heart, then that fish spit him out and the man became a prophet of God.
He'd had countless nightmares growing up about being trapped inside a fish. He didn't think it would be like Geppetto and Pinocchio fishing off their boat inside a whale. He thought it would be cold and slimy and tight, an overpowering stench of rotting death, and the fish's stomach acids eating away your skin. Come out lookin' like Michael with all them white spots and shit.
And every time he hit that bottom step on his way to get lightbulbs and a thing stepped out of the shadows ready to carve him up, Gunn flashed back to being eight years old and staring into the wild eyes of that man of God being swallowed by a fish. How the fish's eyes rolled back, covered in a white membrane. How God really didn't like people to do for themselves. He hoped no one would hear his prayer. He would forsake mercy as the price for his vanity.
********
The Sacrifice Of The Lord's Passover4
Angel had tried multiple times to push them away. Everyone suffered who stayed by his side. Except for Spike, but Angel had always assumed Spike was a special form of punishment that he had to endure, so. He'd had a plan. He didn't always. The plan came together in the end, and he had warned them. They'd already lost so much before the final battle and he was getting tired of shepherding the weak through the valley of darkness. But they had all agreed, so.
It hadn't been forty years of wandering with his team, but it had felt almost as long. Especially during the non-corporeal Spike months. He had taken them into the desert and they hadn't all come out. Doyle, Cordelia, Wesley, Gunn... All gone. Angel would have gladly lain himself on an altar, would have given himself up so the others could have lived. But he didn't get to choose how redemption was given.
The city lay in ashes and ruin. Somewhere on this earth it was still green, and he knew Connor lived. He hoped that the future would be in the hands of the son. The days of the father were done.
1Saturn Devours His Son, Goya
2 Cain Leading Abel To his Death, James Tissot
3 Medieval Woodcut of Jonah Swallowed By A Whale
4 Untitled Apocalypse, Zdzislaw Beksinski
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 06:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 06:34 pm (UTC)I love the idea of Wes trying to decide for himself what role Angel plays in his life - father, friend, brother?
Thanks, again.
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Date: 2007-02-01 06:01 pm (UTC)Angel angst ... check
beautiful, painful imagery and gorgeous, clean writing ... Hell, yes.
Thank you, Stoney! Thank you for sharing this. Wonderfully done.
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Date: 2007-02-01 06:35 pm (UTC)Thanks, Snow! That means a lot. *hugs hugs hugs* And if you'll excuse me, I'm going to make out with your icon now.
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Date: 2007-02-01 06:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 06:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 06:38 pm (UTC)Oh, thank you SO MUCH for saying that. I really appreciate it.
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Date: 2007-02-01 06:43 pm (UTC)because his joy was wrapped up in fear of the baby getting sick or dying or not getting into Notre Dame or maybe not being able to stand in the sunlight like him or looking too much like his mother and what if his perfect, delicate skin was ever cut?
I LOVED this. So Angel. So any parent.
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Date: 2007-02-01 06:48 pm (UTC)You know. Minus the eating my child bit. :)
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Date: 2007-02-01 06:51 pm (UTC)"sniff" Poor doomed little woobie. These are all great, in a Biblical sense and just as a commentary on the tragedy of life.
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Date: 2007-02-01 07:18 pm (UTC)Thanks so much.
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Date: 2007-02-01 07:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 07:19 pm (UTC)Thank you so much for your kind words!
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Date: 2007-02-01 07:07 pm (UTC)Damned fine, in short.
Julia, the shock of recognition gets the heart started.
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Date: 2007-02-01 07:20 pm (UTC)Thank you so very much.
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Date: 2007-02-01 07:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 07:22 pm (UTC)I just love the idea of Angel leading them into death = 40 years of wandering in the desert to kill out the dissenters for challenging Canaan.
Thanks so very much!
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Date: 2007-02-01 07:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 09:08 pm (UTC)Thank you very much!
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Date: 2007-02-01 08:05 pm (UTC)And yes, I do have a Bible kink - from years of study and church and school, even through college I was required to take it daily...I still study occasionally when I can find a group that's willing to not lay hands on me and simply let me soak in the literature of it, the complications and the contradictions. Let me fight with them about it.
So yes, you hooked me on these on SO many levels! We should have a Bible-Banging Ficathon.
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Date: 2007-02-01 09:06 pm (UTC)Thank you so much for reading and telling me your thoughts. I appreciate that, Ely. *hugs*
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Date: 2007-02-01 08:33 pm (UTC)He hoped no one would hear his prayer. He would forsake mercy as the price for his vanity.
Awesome, baby.
Also - I clicked the links for the images as I went. That first one popped up and i was all "Goya! Saturn! Steve!" Steve would be my old boss who sent a postcard of that painting to our department last year when he was vacationing in Spain. I had it on my bulletin board for months. *g*
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Date: 2007-02-01 09:05 pm (UTC)I love that your boss sent you that as a postcard - it probably had some humdrum message on the back, which tickles me to no end.
That line you pulled is a twist on the scripture in Jonah: they that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercies. :D
Thanks again. (And it's snowing! In Texas!!)
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Date: 2007-02-01 08:55 pm (UTC)I especially love Wesley's, the different ways the story fits. Love the image of Adam finding Abel's head. The first one was just heartbreaking, esp. this line: He finally let the others hold Connor when his mouth began to salivate every time the baby cried. Gunn's was particularly unexpected, and I loved this bit: hell yeah you're gonna have a change of heart.
The last one made me think a lot. I had to look up the story again. It seems to work in several different ways, each of which is powerful.
I really loved the art work you linked, too. It adds a lot to the story.
One little typo you might want to fix: Had Cain left a nightmare in his father's tent him to find? I think you mean for him to find...
no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 09:02 pm (UTC)Joy, you simply give the BEST feedback. You're the feedbacker's feedbacker, haha. I know what you mean about not being able to get it until the *click* but I've never been able to articulate that, so thanks. (And I'm glad this clicked for you.)
I kept looking at that picture of Saturn eating his son. And I couldn't get the idea of Wesley as Cain (not Judas, because I've done that before.) I just sat down and tried to make it make some sense, and REALLY didn't think it worked, so I appreciate what you've said.
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Date: 2007-02-01 09:04 pm (UTC)Seriously. These are GREAT.
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Date: 2007-02-01 09:10 pm (UTC)<3 you.
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From:for my opinion on you, see: icon
From:Re: for my opinion on you, see: icon
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Date: 2007-02-01 09:07 pm (UTC)Gah.
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Date: 2007-02-01 09:11 pm (UTC)Yay for the first two hitting you! *hugs*
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Date: 2007-02-01 09:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 09:54 pm (UTC)Thanks!
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Date: 2007-02-01 10:44 pm (UTC)You're beautiful, witty, talented and have a great family.
You need to share the wealth.
Oh wait. That's what you're doing, isn't it!?
Thank you.
Seriously, thank you for sharing you. And this good stuff that comes from your brain.
*looks around* Where did that come from?
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Date: 2007-02-01 10:51 pm (UTC)In other words, you (and your lovely DT) are awesome, and I appreciate this. Thanks, sweetheart.
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Date: 2007-02-01 11:24 pm (UTC)He stopped bringing the baby to sleep in his bed for fear of his dreams. Oh, Angel, Angel.
Wonderfully done.
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Date: 2007-02-01 11:30 pm (UTC)I'm so happy this worked for you. Thanks so very much!
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Date: 2007-02-01 11:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-01 11:31 pm (UTC)I really appreciate your taking the time to tell me what you thought. Thank you.
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From:no subject
Date: 2007-02-02 12:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-02 05:40 am (UTC)Thanks so much. I'm glad this worked for you!
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Date: 2007-02-02 12:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-02 05:40 am (UTC)Heh. Thank you.
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Date: 2007-02-02 12:27 am (UTC)This is a wonderfully chilling line:
How red the blood would look on that white, creamy skin. How he would cry.
I think you capture his worries so well, and why Angel wouldn't tell his friends about his thoughts.
I love how the Wesley one begins - very powerful! And the ending is equally powerful and poignant:
The holly leaves poked deep into Wesley's cheek, but the blood didn't come. No one came.
This is a fantastic image:
He thought it would be cold and slimy and tight, an overpowering stench of rotting death, and the fish's stomach acids eating away your skin.
You also have a fabulous Gunn voice!
Oooh, the last one is fabulous! I especially love the last paragraph - exceptionally beautiful and poignant language!
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Date: 2007-02-02 05:42 am (UTC)Thanks so much - I'm just overwhelmed that this isn't utter crap. :)
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Date: 2007-02-02 01:55 am (UTC)How the fish's eyes rolled back, covered in a white membrane. How God really didn't like people to do for themselves.
You really capture Gunn's despair and self-loathing in that phrase. And the religious kink always does it for me. >:} Lovely job.
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Date: 2007-02-02 05:44 am (UTC)And really, I wrote this in about an hour, trying to get my creative juices flowing. I've had a really hard time getting anything half-way decent recent for a while, now. I'm blown away that I'm not being exposed as a fraud. ;)
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Date: 2007-02-02 07:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-02 01:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-02 09:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-02 01:19 pm (UTC)