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ethrosdemon & Lar ||| Buffy & Angel
Damnation II - Idle Hands
by Lar and ethrosdemon
Email: naturallycalm@yahoo.com and HERE
Distribution: List archives, people who beg, you know the routine.
Disclaimer: Joss and Mutant Enemy own the boys, we just pretend that we do. We have nothing of value, do not sue us.
Rating: PG
Pairing: X/L
Spoilers: Shanshu
Summary: Lindsey is restless, and the veil stretches thin.
Notes: Dream analysis - it's a festival.
====================
Lindsey McDonald lies on his back in the hospital. Morphine drips into his vein through a needle. He is unaware of his surroundings, of the flower baskets and bouquets overflowing around him, of the balloons bobbing in the corner declaring "Get Well Soon!" on mylar.
Lindsey dreams the dream of the heavily medicated and savagely wounded.
Lindsey dreams of returning to the farm, riding Beau across the freshly plowed fields. The palomino moves under him and Lindsey can feel the horse's flesh shuddering and twitching against his legs. Bareback, always bareback when he was riding for the pleasure of it. The sky is low, full of angry purple thunderheads and he can smell the storm coming.
A rush of wind and a wall of blackbirds take flight from the stand of trees to his right. There are hundreds of them, whirling into the sky, but they make no noise. The horse startles in the eerie silence and begins to gallop. Lindsey clutches the reins, but he's thrown before he can settle the creature down.
Lindsey lands on his back in the dirt, and when he looks up the rain is coming across the fields in a steady visible line. He walks towards the house.
+++++++++++++
Lindsey sits on the front porch of his grandparents' house. It's noon, and the sun is right in his face. He's drinking iced tea, it's so sweet he can feel the sugar on his teeth. He looks to his left and Lilah is rocking in a chair identical to the one he himself is sitting on. She's shelling peas into a large white enameled bowl. She looks over at him at smiles. He sees she's wearing a calico dress in brown and tans, but her face is made up immaculately, red lips, eye-shadow and liner.
"When do you think the harvest will come in?" Lilah asks him.
Lindsey looks to his left, and in a large animal pen are various demons chained about the neck and secured to the ground with spikes at the ends of tethers. He looks back at her.
"Any time now, I suppose." She smiles at him, and her face flashes to one of a corpse, noose around her neck, her eyes bulging and tongue distended and hanging from her lips. Flash to smile, flash to corpse and back again. He gets up and walks into the house. The screen door bangs on the frame as he walks in
++++++
Lindsey's in his office at Wolfram and Hart. His new office. He's still dressed in his farm clothes. Boots, jeans and t-shirt. He takes his hat off and sets it on the desk, riffles through the papers on the desk and realizes all the reports are late.
He panics. He knows this dream.
He hears footsteps in the hall, moves behind the desk to hide the overdue paperwork.
Behind him a female, British accented voice says "It's too late for that now."
"I know. I have to wash my hands anyway." Lindsey responds to the disembodied voice. He turns to leave the office, and the door seems to be miles away. He walks toward it. He walks and walks. He never gets to the door.
++++++++
Lindsey dreams about the bathroom of his apartment. He's standing in front of the sink. The mirror on the medicine cabinet is shattered, and his reflection is repeated a thousand times.
He looks down at the basin, and the water flowing from the tap is brown. Reaching out his left hand, he twists the cold water tap to fully open, and the water runs black. He rubs his hands together under the flow.
From the other room he hears someone calling his name. It's too low to distinguish the sex. He wipes his hands on the front of his pants and sees he's no longer wearing his jeans, he's now in work attire, a suit and oxford shirt.
Leaving the bathroom to follow the voice he steps into the bedroom.
+++++++++++
As he enters his bedroom, he sees that it's not his at all. Not a room he's ever seen before.
The bed is larger than his, and the sheets are satin. It's too dark to make out the color. Suddenly, his limbs feel like lead, and he moves toward the bed before he collapses.
Behind him he hears the female voice from his office. "It's too late for that too."
Lindsey lies down on his back and dreams of sleeping.
+++++++++
Lindsey dreams of the hospital room. He rings for the nurse but she doesn't answer. The buzzing goes on and on, even when he stops pressing the button. His hand hurts, the fingers burn, and he needs the nurse, but she isn't helping him. No one is coming to help him.
The door opens, and Xander is there. He's wearing his Mr. Bubble t-shirt and carrying a burlap sack over his shoulder.
"Is that mine?" Lindsey asks him. His voice is hollow and muffled, stuffed with cotton.
"Present for you. It's Angel." Xander smiles at him, flips the sack off of his shoulder, and tips it up. The sack jiggles open as he shakes it and fine black ashes sift out. They cover the bed, piling up in small mounds between Lindsey's legs. The dust makes tiny puffs in the still room, and the sound is like sand in an hourglass.
"There's too much," Lindsey says, and the ashes keep pouring.
"The righteous shall walk a thorny path." Xander flickers, bright and then transparent. Gone.
++++++++++
Lindsey falls past the place of dreaming to the full blackness of total rest.
=end part ii=
Damnation III: The Devil You Know
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