Lar ||| Buffy & Angel

The Dating Game II: You Always Hurt The One You Love
by Lar

Email: HERE
Disclaimer: Even my AU isn't AU enough to make the boys mine.
Rating: NC-17 (sex, language, bloodplay, disturbing images)
Pair: A/L
Distribution: List archives, my site, anyone else please ask first
Summary: Lindsey has non-random thought patterns. Set post-"Shanshu"
Improv 16: A Very 'Shippy Improv
Notes: Many thanks to Sam and ethrosdemon for the betas (as always) and Olwen for the discussion post-read-thru, as well as the lovely visuals to go with it.

= = = = =

The visiting-nurse left hours ago, and despite the pain killers and the single malt his arm still throbs. It's a vague and incessant thing, not even the phantom pain they warned him about in the hospital or the itch of healing. It's the loss, he thinks. The loss of his hand is a pain beyond the ones the doctors and nurses think they understand.

His thoughts travel in neat paths, round and round. The combination of barbiturates and alcohol makes them slow and steady. None of the frantic pace of his past life when everything was double-time, worrying and planning layered over paranoia to get to the top and stay there. Now there's just a few familiar ideas that're marking circles in his head. There's the one about how he's a cripple now, less than a man, not whole. That one stays for a good bit of time, lounges in his head and reminds him of everything he can no longer do - tie his shoes, button his shirt, knot his own ties. Pretty soon the companion thought will come on over and hustle its way into the spotlight. Whisper pretty notions about ending it all, killing himself, suicide, so simple and right there in front of him, and wouldn't it be oh-so-easy to take all of the pills, wash them down with the rest of the fifth and. just. sleep. That one stays the longest, the beauty of the solution beguiling in the haze of scotch and downers. Eventually though, the final admonition will round the bend and shove its way into prominence. This one sounds a lot like his mama, reciting the old saw about not raisin' no fools, nor no cowards neither. Some vague mutterings about working too hard to get away, no sense in being a quitter, and before too very long he is hoping the crippled loser thoughts will come spinning by. They always oblige.

Circular logic; it's a beautiful thing.

The knock on the door breaks the pattern, and he stares at his bare feet on the glass-topped coffee table for a few moments, wondering if it's worth the effort to get up and gather what is most likely another fruit basket or bouquet of flowers. Another card to add to his growing collection, swirls of elegant printing wishing him a speedy recovery and adding their names to the list of people who are keeping him in their thoughts. All paid for on company expense accounts, every minute spent ordering the damn things written off as a billable hour.

He plans a rather large bonfire of dead flowers and useless cards in the not too distant future. Wonders if rotten fruit will burn and decides to get the door after all. The basket will be wicker, and that should go up like a bitch.

Shuffles over, carpet smooth under his feet, wounded arm held to his chest in a habitual stance they tell him to try to break. Opens the door and is just stoned enough to not show surprise when he sees Angel and not the harried delivery person he was expecting.

"What the hell do you want?" Lindsey's angry, but he's not expending the energy to yell, to break through the fuzz and have anything clear and sharp.

"I wanted to talk to you." Angel's expression never changes. Lindsey wonders how hard it is to keep that same, bland look plastered on all the time, stubbornly refuses to remember that he's seen that face wholly unguarded and open not long ago.

"Would this talking include hacking off any more extremities or ex-sanguinating me?" Cocked head, and he really wants an answer to the question, waits for it.

"It wasn't in the plan, no."

"Then fuck off." Starts to shut the door, slowly though.

"Wait."

Sees Angel's hand come up in a gesture to stop it even though he knows he can't. That's kind of...interesting. Lindsey pauses. "What?"

"You *want* me to hurt you?" Slightest crease of his brow, eyebrows furrowed inward, and Angel truly looks confused.

Lindsey opens the door wide again. "I want to die."

"That can be arranged."

"Promise. Promise you'll do it and you can come in." Lindsey's eyes are clear even if his speech is not, and Angel looks carefully before nodding.

"I promise."

He steps into the apartment so quickly that Lindsey has to back-pedal to let Angel pass without touching him. He swings the door shut and studies Angel's back, the turn of his head as he looks around the apartment. Wonders if mama's voice will be back now that he's gone and found a way to answer the call of the death wish.

=====

Lindsey's apartment smells like sickness and whiskey, and the man himself smells like despair. Everything in here is neat and orderly, impersonal to a degree that Angel can relate to himself. He turns around and looks back to where Lindsey stands by the door. Sweat pants, t-shirt, bare feet, the out of place vision of a freshly-shaved face at odds with the rest of his rumpled appearance and uncombed hair. It occurs to Angel that Lindsey has a nurse coming by still, maybe a physical therapist, trying to teach him how to function in the world that's no longer made to accommodate him. There's no nicks on the planes of his face, so Angel assumes he's still having the nurse do the shaving.

He shakes off the bizarre flurry of vaguely domestic thoughts and says, "I wanted to see if you were alright."

Lindsey's laughter is harsh, a short staccato bark as he walks over and snatches his half-empty glass from the coffee table. "That means a lot, coming from the guy who did this to me." He salutes Angel with the glass before taking a gulp.

"Well, Lindsey, it's not like you left me much choice. I needed the scroll." Angel tells himself he's not making excuses, not to the man who rolled out of his bed and walked right back into the fire without a word of explanation. He's not convincing, not even in his own head. Non-violent touching didn't mean alterations in the pattern of their distrust.

"There's always a choice. This was yours." Lindsey holds up the place where his hand used to be, small gesture before letting it drop to his side. Takes another drink that empties the glass.

"Cordelia was dying. You knew it, and you knew what I'd do to save her. She's family."

"Frankly your secretary doesn't concern me. You think you're more attached to her than I was to, oh say, my *hand*?" Lindsey stalks past him, slams the glass on the bar, pours it almost full.

"You going to offer me a drink?" Angel's voice hums low, but it carries well in the dim room.

"How long you plan on staying?"

"Until I'm ready to go."

"Guess I'll get you a drink then."

Angel watches him walk around the bar, pull out another crystal glass, slosh the warm golden liquid in it. Lindsey gestures him over. "Come and get it. I'm a little short handed right now." Bitter grin, and Angel flinches before closing the distance and picking up the scotch. Sniffs it, murmurs a pleased compliment at the choice and takes a sip.

"I'm sitting. You do what you want." Lindsey grabs the bottle, slips it under his good arm, takes the glass in that hand and walks back to the couch. Sits heavily and lets the bottle roll onto the cushions. Angel watches him drink deeply, takes another sip of his own before resting the glass on the bar so he can shrug off the coat. Folds it neatly over the barstool, takes himself, booze in hand, over to the opposite end of the couch and just relaxes down into the beige cushions, lets the scent of Lindsey wash over him in layers of anger, sadness and confusion.

=====

The first bottle is a thing of the past, and the second one has a fair amount of open space at the top when Angel finally asks him about The Box. That's the way he phrases it, all capital letters in his speech so that Lindsey sees the title in his head. The Box.

Not about to admit that he's seen the box and has little memory of it, knows it's someone or something named Darla, part of the Senior Partners' grand scheme to rid themselves of Angel. Lindsey wonders, and not for the first time, if the Senior Partners have ever given much thought to becoming more straight forward in their planning strategies. The Machiavellian angle just didn't seem to be working out this time around, not from where he sat at any rate. Maybe it's the extremely deep buzz he's lost in at the moment, but it occurs to him that they need to think smaller -- less ceremony and more stakes.

He gets lost in this for so long that Angel prompts him again. "Lindsey, are you going to tell me about the box, or not? I'll find out eventually."

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're going to find out eventually," he says. Grins at Angel over the top of his glass. "All that work just for you. Hope you're flattered."

"Flattered? Oh yeah, you know me, I'm a real glory hound."

"Did you really expect me to tell you? The hand's not enough, right? You got to have the sacrifice and the information, too. You're one greedy son of a bitch."

Angel glances at the bottles on the table, then back to Lindsey. "You're a real people-person when you drink, you know that?"

"You're not people."

Lindsey watches him drain the glass, set it on the table. He makes no move to offer a refill, and Angel doesn't seem to be ready for one. He wonders if vampires can get drunk, if the alcohol can affect them at all. Angel seems to be looser than he can ever remember seeing him before, limbs sprawling on the cushions closer and closer to where he sits. He thinks he might begin to worry, as soon as he can process the realization that closer has become right-next-to, has become touching distance, in fact.

Angel's hand on his arm, the other reaching out and taking the glass from Lindsey's hand as he says, "Let me see it."

Lindsey startles, delayed reaction, "See what? My dick?" Reaches for Angel's belt, fingers twisting under the leather band.

"No, your wound." His voice is the lover's whisper of the suicide-thought, and Lindsey turns his eyes up, blinks once, twice. Licks his lips.

"I'm not that drunk." Tugs on the belt again, gets the tongue free, the buckle undone. Stops when he sees Angel's gaze returning again and again to the bandages that the nurse just replaced not too many hours ago. "You really do want to see it, don't you? You want a look at your handiwork? See what a fine job you did?"

"Lindsey, I..." Guilty stutter gives him away, and Lindsey shoves him back, grabs at the bandages and tears them off. Bright, hot flare of pain when he does it, and even he can smell the copper when his blood hits the air. He's watching Angel's eyes, though, and the way they go from black-brown to golden almost instantly. Not full vamp, he notes with detachment, but right there under the surface, and he's pretty fucking sure Angel isn't even aware of it.

Lindsey's chest heaves as he makes himself sit still, maimed appendage extended. "There. Look. That's what you wanted to see. More of my blood spilled, right? That's what you promised to do, that was your ticket in. Are you happy now?" He can feel the heat in his face, anger and pain clearing the muzziness.

Angel smiles. "Your face is all flushed, Lindsey. That's a waste of perfectly good blood."

He's wondering what the reply should be to that remark, what to say when you've tried to get your hand in his pants, and he's more interested in looking at the place your hand used to be, when Angel stands up. Graceful, unrolling motion of his body, and he takes a hold of Lindsey's bleeding arm. Raises it over pinked-up face and disheveled hair.

"Hold it there. Where're the bandages?" He looks vaguely amused, but there's still gold in his eyes, a neat circle around his iris.

"What are you talking about?" Genuinely confused, half way to hard and beginning to wish for a handful of painkillers, it's difficult for Lindsey to focus on the question. The situation registers though, as he finishes asking, and he amends it. "Bathroom. Down the hall, first door on the right."

"Keep your arm up."

He does keep it up, the arm and the hard-on too, and wonders if the fact that Angel is obviously aroused and taking the time to replace the bandages reflects on his desire to keep Lindsey safe from bleeding to death on his own, not at Angel's hands. Works himself up into a state of high piss-off while Angel fumbles in the bathroom, drops the arm to his lap. Thinks of the request that brought them to this point of the evening, his desire to die and Angel's promise to arrange it. Fresh surge of anger and self-pity to fuel that need to no longer be among the living. It comes to him that maybe Angel had enough the first go-round and wasn't interested in sleazy encounter with the enemy. Shame rears its fiery head, flushes Lindsey's face a darker hue, and he curses his weakness in showing the desire to touch and be touched again by someone he tells himself he hates.

=====

Pacing the marble tiles does nothing to help the burning in his skin, but it's the best he can do right now. Alcohol thinning the barrier, blood taking it down even further, and he's right on the verge, edge of the abyss. Angel feels his grip on reason losing ground to the louder voice that tells him to take what's his, what he's marked, fucked, claimed already. Lindsey's desire to be taken, the offer of blood - it's overwhelming, maddening in a raw temptation that makes his fangs itch in his gums. Even his anger fuels the need until there's nothing to do but get out.

Recalls the sincerity of Lindsey's plea for death, and that's nothing more than foreplay to him, an invitation to the dance. Angel knows the other man's confusion, he can remember his own horror and despair when confronted with his past, with atrocities he could no longer bear. His own words echo mockingly in his head as he grips the sink and stares into the empty mirror.

//Am I a thing worth saving? Am I a righteous man? The world wants me gone!//

His answer had been given by the Powers That Be, and he wonders if they are placing him here again. If Lindsey is another test, or *the* test, the one soul that doesn't know it wants to be saved. Angel's life in human form, damned by his own actions and placed before him as a second chance. A living, breathing mirror, a man who has fallen so far that he can't even imagine there being any point in attempting redemption.

Realization that he's failed hits him like a physical blow. Didn't go after Lindsey the night they were together, instead chose to get angry, righteously pissed-off because he went back to the breast of the beast. He chalked it up to Lindsey being spineless, a waste of time and effort that Angel felt was better spent on someone - anyone - else. Too blind in his anger to see that all Lindsey wanted, needed, was for someone to come after him, show some honest desire to help him find his way. He didn't need a hand out, the condescension Angel showed him making it all but impossible for him take it even if it was offered.

And to make matters worse, Angel sees now that he's let it all go much too far. That by taking Lindsey's hand he has in all probability lost any chance of saving him now.

There's a sound behind him and Angel looks up to see Lindsey's face in the mirror. Too-pale skin, eyes heavy-lidded and half-closed, the embodiment of 'victim.' A shudder runs through Angel's body, tightens his muscles, hardens his cock, and that inner voice clamors for him to take what's offered, take what he can tonight. If there's no salvation at hand, then there is the promise to be kept, the darkness urges, and maybe that's the best he can do.

=====

Lindsey sits on the couch listening to Angel in his bathroom, head swimming with shame, alcohol and blood loss. He looks down at his lap, sees the sweatpants turned heavy and dark beneath his arm, blood gathering in the cotton fibers. He wonders if this is how Angel planned to let him die, drunk and stupid and alone on his own couch, too wasted to get up and do anything about it. Brief thought of actually doing something to help it along rather than stop it, and then he sighs.

Gets to his feet awkwardly, wavering as he stands, arm across his chest in that stance he can't help but adopt as soon as he moves. It hurts now, all up the nerve endings he irritated and scraped raw again, a pain he can understand now. Nothing phantom here, he thinks as he walks unsteadily down the hall and peers into the bathroom. No pretend pain in a hand that isn't there, no make believe pain inside his chest. Both the aches are searing and real.

He startles to stand in the bathroom light and blink at seeing himself in the mirror despite Angel standing directly in front of him. He looks over Angel's shoulder, natural instinct to meet his eyes in the reflection...and all he sees is himself, looking too pale and too tired by far.

Angel turns to him and Lindsey watches his eyes flicker to the wound, the blood on his pants, back up to his mouth. That wedge of gold re-emerges, brown shuttered by the brighter tinge, and Lindsey's heart picks up its pace, adrenaline rush making him tilt alarmingly as his balance leaves him. He feels Angel's hands clamp over his biceps, hisses at the pain it sends shimmering down his right arm.

"I told you to stay there and wait," Angel tells him, his voice heavy in the air.

Lindsey blinks at him, licks his lips, tries to summon up something truly stinging, something to shut Angel up, set him in his place. Instead he comes up with one word. "Angel."

"Damn it. Sit down before you pass out." Pressure on his shoulders and Lindsey lets his knees bend, feels the wide edge of the tub hit the back of his thighs, sits there while Angel steadies him like the last piece in a house of cards.

Lindsey blinks, and Angel is gone, his absence a puzzle he can't begin to fathom. There's too many drugs, too much alcohol, and too little blood in his body for anything to seem clear. So he blinks again, thinking maybe it's a dream, a hallucination brought on by exhaustion and stress. When he manages to pry his eyes open this time, Angel is back. Kneeling on the tiles in front of Lindsey, cool fingers taking his arm with gentle insistence that's completely negated by the way he licks his lips while he wraps the white gauze around the bloody skin, ties it tight as if he's too anxious to get away from it to bother with the niceties of tape and scissors.

"You make a lousy nurse," Lindsey mutters, looking at the makeshift wrapping that barely resembles the neat and orderly package his caregiver creates when she changes the dressing. He looks up and shocks when he focuses on Angel looking at his own hands, sticky and dark with Lindsey's blood.

Angel raises his head, locks his gaze on eyes strobing from cloudy to intense, brings his right hand up to his mouth and licks. every. finger.

"What the hell are you doing, you sick son of a bitch?" Panic brings a clarity of thought, washes the fuzziness of booze right away, all systems on full alert as Angel tilts his head and grins at him.

"Your blood is sweet, Lindsey. Did you know that? I'm thinking some of it's from the pain-killers, you gotta love what a morphine base will do for you when you're hurting, don't you?" Rough hands on Lindsey's thighs, spreading them so he can slide across the tiles and get right up in his face. Lindsey tries to resist but not enough to really make a difference. And part of him just thrills to it. //This is what you wanted out on the couch not so long ago, isn't it? Let him fuck you, drain you dry, you asked for it//

As if reading his mind, Angel's fingers trail across the damp, bloody place on his sweats, slip into the waist band and under the t-shirt. Brush against the taunt muscles of his belly and Lindsey inhales deeply.

"Why did you really come here tonight?" he asks, voice low and with the slightest tremor, equal parts fear and want. "Did you know I'd be like this?"

"Like what, Lindsey? Tell me." Another brush of fingers, higher this time under the shirt, tracing the bottom of his ribcage. Lindsey considers his answer, not even sure how to say it, not really certain what to call the miasma of raw emotions that flow over and around him like some flooded river. He can feel Angel watching every thought as it flickers across his face, the well-trained, calm persona that serves him so well in court a thing of the past for now.

"I don't know...stoned? Desperate? Both?"

"Are you? Desperate, I mean."

He sits frozen as Angel brings his face in closer, mouth parted and hovering right in front of his own. Can't help looking away, knows it's the oldest avoidance signal in the book, Psyche 101, and all that seems both far away and incredibly worthless. Forces himself to raise his eyes when he says, "Are you planning on keeping your promise?"

Soft exhale of air from Angel's laugh hits Lindsey's cheek. "Do you know what you're asking for? You just don't seem to realize that every single minute of every single day, I want to give in and do what you're sitting here begging me to do. I'm always right there in the place between the last taste of blood, and the next." Angel leans in further, chest against Lindsey's chest, lips brushing his ear as he whispers, "You're the next, Lindsey. You get that?"

= = = = =

The smell of blood so thick in the room that Angel can barely think straight. His head is full of the reverberating demands to take what is his, feed and fuck, all of it, over and over. A revelry in crimson, swimming in Lindsey's blood as he drives into his body, image bright and inked on his eyelids with every single blink. Never should have taken the taste, but it was right there, all over him, and he's only so strong. Lindsey's scent carries the familiar markers of pain and anger, and god, the drugs are running rampant through him. Not even a mouthful taken, barely enough to coat his tongue, and Angel's head is swimming. Voice of reason losing ground fast as his appetites are whetted for more, the darkness inside him wild and howling for it.

So much heat coming off the body that thrums under his hands, skin pliant, and there's no resistance when he drags his mouth down the flesh from the ear he's been whispering in to the sweet spot where shoulder meets neck. Tang of desire wafts out of every pore, the vibrations from whatever Lindsey is saying traveling straight from Angel's lips on his skin to his gums. Manages to contain that last thin strand of reason, but only just.

Angel lifts his head away from the tempting throb of blood as it thumps and whooshes below the paper-thin skin, focuses instead on the half-open mouth that he claims with his own. Sucks hard on the plump bottom lip, sweeps his tongue into Lindsey's mouth, one hand winding into the tangled hair at the back of his head and the other finding the place on his back that makes him shudder when it's stroked. Inhales and swallows up the moaned protest that is obliterated by the inarguable evidence presented in the way Lindsey's body curves against Angel's, the languidness with which he allows himself to be kissed and touched, lifted to his feet and pulled-tugged-dragged into the bedroom.

Stops himself at the bottom of the bed, just short of throwing Lindsey on it face-down and letting the desire to bury himself inside of all that heat take over. Eases the t-shirt over Lindsey's head, down his wounded arm before tossing it behind him. Takes in the flush that covers the smooth chest, the spots of blood that have soaked through the cotton and dried on pale white skin. Pulls his own shirt off, heedless of the buttons and drops it to the floor before falling to his knees and letting his tongue catch the taste of rust colored flakes that dissolve at his touch. Lindsey's breath hitches in, ragged gasp, when Angel pulls the ruined sweatpants over lean hips and presses his mouth to the newly bared skin. Wrong to be doing this, wrong to be taking pleasure in the slow, wet exploration of this thigh and the added tang of copper he finds there. Hyped to the tremble beneath his hands as they cup tightly-muscled flesh and pull it closer, hold it still so he can get his tongue right...there. Crease where leg joins torso, sweet untouched territory for his mouth to devour.

He feels Lindsey lose his balance, his knees buckling, and stands up reluctantly to break the fall. Drops him to the bed, observes the boneless sprawl of the heavily-medicated, perfect victim. Pliant, willing, aching to be used, and that's the dig. The part of him that wants most to ravage the body as it lies before him listens to faint notes of disappointment at the ease of conquest. No joy gained in victory when the prize comes willingly, when it's already been broken by the inexorable pull of despair and need. Long and lithe as the limbs may be, marked already by the demon's rage, they're not half so enticing in wanton surrender as they would be stretched to the breaking point.

Angel shakes his head, wills the darker thoughts away and fails as he finds himself straddling Lindsey's legs, stroking the hard length of his cock and watching him writhe. The other man all bruised lips and half-closed eyes as Angel's hand closes and pulls, sliding in the glimmer of slickness that covers his fingers. His thumb brushes over the head, and Lindsey's back arches, head rolls side to side, and he moans long and loud. One more rolling twist of Angel's hand, calloused palm rough over the tip, slipping in the wetness, and Lindsey is coming, mouth open and eyes shut tight, as he bucks into the fist that holds him. Moments later his breathing steadies, head turned to the side on the wrinkled comforter, mind far away and drifting on scotch and painkillers, blood loss and endorphins.

Chest tight, cock achingly hard, Angel drops to the bed beside Lindsey. His eyes are drawn again to the patch of skin on Lindsey's thigh that is stained with the dried blood from earlier in the night. Tells himself that there's no harm now, not after all that's happened tonight, nothing wrong in taking those last scant remains. Slides down the bed and slips between legs that part easily and with no resistance to his seeking hands, touches the tip of his tongue to the dull brown swirls that mark the places he missed earlier. Feels the tingle of human blood as it's released by the moisture of his saliva, minuscule amount of Lindsey seeping into his cells. Takes a long lick that draws him further and further up between Lindsey's legs. Back to the crease of the thigh, scented now with semen as well as blood, salt on salt as his mouth covers the skin, tongue laps up everything it can find.

Fangs descending almost without him noting it, so natural and right and everything he once was, until they are scraping flesh, small red welts that yield a few drops of hot, fresh fluid. That's what drives him to it, he will tell himself later when it's him and his soul alone in the brooding place. It's the way the blood is so alive in his mouth that forces him to just bite down on the smooth, damp thigh, forces him to pump his lower body into the mattress as he drinks, savors the way it flows into him. And keeps drinking, rolling his hips with the rhythm of Lindsey's heartbeat until he comes against the bed wearing the pants he couldn't be bothered to remove, groaning against the skin that still bleeds for him.

=end=



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