ethrosdemon ||| Buffy & Angel

The Rule of Three
by ethrosdemon

EMAIL: naturallycalm@yahoo.com
Distribution: List archives, people who ask.
Disclaimer: Joss made it up, too bad he is an incompetent ninny. Mutant Enemy and others own the rights. No suing please.
Rating: R (maybe I am not good with the ratings)
Spoilers: Reprise
Notes: This is for my gloveslap at YGTS? I said no more Lindseyfic, because I'm an addict, Sam laughed in my face. The actual challenge is after the fic so as not to spoil what happens.
Dedication: To Sam, the evil wench who wanted me to write this. I wrote it quick, it shows. You are my sweetheart. (Lar betaed me, but I screwed with it after that, so it might have lots of errors.)

=====

Another fabulous day at work, and Lindsey hits the shower as soon as he walks in the door. Glances at Darla lounging on the sofa with a fashion magazine in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. She doesn't even acknowledge his presence, so he doesn't speak, not breaking the code of not speaking until spoken to. The rhythm they have developed since she returned to him. He doesn't want to break the spell and have this time never have happened, discover it was one long dream, the lulling of his tired mind.

The water's hot enough to scald, and Lindsey hopes it chafes off enough skin to expose fresh cells hidden under the thick epithelial layer of wrong. He hums to himself, blanking his mind and drawing up pictures of brown cotton stalks with tufts of white hanging from the woody stems. Calms himself with placid, well-worn images of youth. After twenty minutes or longer, he stops the flow from the spray and steps onto the tile of the bathroom floor. The door to the bathroom is open, and through it he can see movement in his bedroom. Yanks a towel from the rack to his side and moves through drying himself as though he's unaware of the presence in the other room, gives himself time to run through all the hidden weapons around his apartment: bat under the bed, stake in the end-table, .22 in his desk. Those are the first to come to mind. Pulls his robe off the hook at the back of the door and steps into his room still fumbling for the belt.

Darla pauses in mid step. She's half-way to the door to the hallway, heading towards him. Completely naked, burn scars evident but fading on her upper torso, ointment making them refract light coming in from the street. She smiles at him when his hands fall to his sides and his robe drops open. He shrugs it off, stepping forward as he does to merge their personal spheres, so many times this scene's looped in his mind, and the reality of it shattering his control.

Head cocked to the side, she watches him approach. Takes him in, the muscles in his legs clenching and unclenching in a rolling pattern as he walks, water dripping from his hair forming rivulets down his chest and arms. He stops inches from her, the index and middle fingers of his real hand reaching out to brush against her lips. His arousal would be evident to her even if she couldn't smell it the second he saw her from the doorway, engorged flesh sliding against her stomach when he reaches his hand out.

Bending his neck, he brushes her hair off her shoulder with the back of his hand. She stops him before his lips meet hers by turning her head to the side.

"Oh, Lindsey, why would you ever think I would want you?" Spoken as a sigh, and he pulls back, contracts his face, eyebrows drawn together, crease between them.

"Because, you're standing here." Drops his hands, half-step back. Shock that she would be flaunting herself before him like this just to tease him further. Another step and he's trying to find the right words to let her know that this is all he ever wanted, all he'll ever want.

Her smile re-emerging, she knows what happened here, knows what he assumed. "Waiting for you?"

"Yes, I thought." Good hand in his hair, his erection deflating, but no move to cover himself, secure in his body image, even if it has been radically altered in the last year.

Slight edge to the smile now, and she erases the space between them by one step. "You thought I was trying to seduce you?" Blur of bone, muscle and skin realignment, and her face is all ridges and mouth all teeth. "I don't need to seduce you, I could kill you and make you mine every second of everyday."

Rattled to the core, she's spoken aloud the weight he's carried with him since the fire, his secret fear/hope, "But, what." His world dropping away, and he knows he's shown too much, given her the upper hand again, and the black hole is right there at his feet.

Her face shimmers back to human, no smile now, no expression Lindsey can read at all. "I was looking for my black dress in your closet. Why don't you get dressed yourself, you look cold." And he is, colder than she realises, but clothes won't help that, won't cover the exposure he'll have to live with permanently.

+++++++++

Darla's twisted smile, the curve of her hip and marred flesh still in his mind's eye, Lindsey makes his way down the sidewalk. He's starting to fray at the edges, had enough of this part of his life, wants to move on to the next level, like in a video game. Just can't seem to defeat the last dragon to move on. Lets work concerns flood in to staunch the internal bleeding Darla left him with. She was gone when he came home from grabbing something for dinner. Off chasin' the one she can't have instead of waiting home for the one she can.

He's starting to realise that he can't do everything on his own, and his colleagues are limited to their linear thought processes and committee decisions. Druscilla off somewhere out of control, out of their reach, and none of the brass can decide what to do about it. Lindsey thinks a stake would do the trick, but he has to find her first. More time out of his day, one more pain in his ass, and it already feels like a well-used pin cushion.

All the usual channels coming up with nothing. No trace, and he just can't believe for one goddamned minute that a creature that flamboyantly insane could drop off the face of the earth. Beggin' isn't his forte, on hands and knees to the enemy makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up, but he just can't come up with a quicker solution. Druscilla has to be dealt with, and this time he's just gonna do it fast and take the humiliation. Anything to take his mind off Darla, even this.

Took him one call to find out the new location of Angel Investigations. Hadn't had much reason to find it before. With Angel doing the solo avenger act, the hangers-on were just faint blips on his radar. But tonight he was seeing the situation more clearly. Truce between warring camps and the exchange of information, he could see that as workable.

The door bangs closed behind him, and the only occupant in the room's on her feet and rounding the desk before the vibrations cease. He would've rather dealt with the English guy, but Cordelia's better than the street kid, and she actually has the first hand connections to Sunnydale, and that's what he needs.

"Angel isn't here." Cordelia in her full glory, hair shorter and lighter than the last time he saw her. Tight shirt, tighter pants, and a walk she must practice to get all the right parts to jiggle appropriately.

"I'm well aware of that." He takes in the décor, or the lack thereof. Heard they had paying clients, that must have been a false rumor.

She distracts him from his musings with the glint of her huge hoop earrings. "What the hell do you want if you know he's not here?"

"I want to help you." Conjures up the most sincere grin he can, the one for juries, for his ex's parents', for Darla.

Hands on her hips, earrings swinging, one foot pushed out in front of her, Lindsey knows this woman must strike fear into the hearts of the men in her life. "Excuse me? Is that some kind of code phrase for wanting to kill me?"

"No, I left my secret decoder ring at home. Would you at least hear me out?" Seen her kind enough, heart of a lamb inside the shell of a predator, and Lindsey's the opposite being, knows his opposing force, realises she probably does as well.

She blows the stray hairs floating in her face and sticks one arm out at him. "You have five minutes before I'm on the phone to the cops, Wesley and Gunn." Fingers splayed in case he doesn't comprehend the word five.

"More than enough time. You have connections I don't, and I have ones you don't. I can tell you what Angel's been up to, and maybe even why, if you agree to find some things out for me."

Lip twitch at the name, but the rest of her face remains impassive. "Why would I care what Angel was doing?"

Lindsey can't keep the sigh in, this girl is impossible, and he just doesn't have the patience for this shit. "Because you love him and you can't turn that off just because he turned you out into the cold."

"Oh, you think you know all about me. You think you know how I feel about Angel? You don't know anything about me." Anger forcing her spine straighter, her eyes to narrow and her voice to raise.

"I know more about you than you realise, but it doesn't matter, think whatever you want." His resignation that this is going nowhere creeping into his voice, he hears the accent too, supposes he should expect the redneck/hick/hayseed taunt to come soon.

"What do you want to know?" She surprises him, sounds earnest, interested.

Rewards her for it with candor, more than he intended to give her. "The firm's lost track of Druscilla. I have my reasons for believing she may've headed to your home town. I want you to make some calls and see if she's there, if anyone's spotted her."

"Why do you care? You used her, she was the domino that knocked Angel over, what more could you want her for?" Her back's to him as she makes her way back to her chair at the desk.

"That really doesn't concern you." Knows it was a mistake by the tight smile she flashes him.

"Right. You know what else doesn't concern me? What the hell Angel's doing now that he's almost evil. He can kiss my ass, and so can you." Fingers curled around the receiver of the phone.

A step toward her, fingers in his hair, pleading as best he can when it comes so hard to him. "Cordelia, I think."

One finger hovering over the key-pad, she looks up at him approaching. "See my finger? Do you know how many digits are in 911?"

"Fine, I'm gone." And he's out the door heading for enough alcohol to knock him out for this round.

++++++++++

In his car watching the nightlife of L.A pass on the street, Lindsey thinks about Druscilla and Darla. Wonders why they split after the fire. He's been made to understand that the bond between Sire and Childe is strong, forged in blood and millennia of tradition. After the ceremonial hooha Druscilla put him through over Darla's rising, he can't imagine her abandoning her off-spring. Knows there are tendrils of their past life that he has no inkling of. Sees himself as Darla's pet human with all the comprehension a pet would normally possess. Turns over Darla's desire and fixation on Angel when the bond between them is once removed. So many lives tied to one being, Angel shadowing his days, every second of waking and dreaming. Lindsey feels the hate starting to eclipse all else, forcing his head under the swells, and he just draws it further into his body, letting it suffuse his limbs.

He stops at a random bar, sees that it's bursting at the seams with young, middle class sorts, meeting up for a drink with friends or to drown out the loneliness, he's the latter, so he heads inside. Makes his way through the crowd and take the first stool open. Waves the bartender over and orders a bourbon.

"McDonald, I didn't know they let beings with slime trails in here." Knows the voice, weighs the overwhelming impossibility in his head, and considers if he might have a curse on him.

"I got that problem cleared up a few months ago." Looks to his right to see Kate Lockley perched on the stool to his right. There's a glass of what he assumes is vodka in front of her and an empty standing close to the well of the bar.

She rakes her eyes over him, and turns back to her drink ."Why don't you go sit someplace else anyway?"

"Because my drink is coming here, and I want to be where it ends up." Watches as the bartender makes the drinks for the people ahead of him, mental urging him to get the hell on with it.

"I can send it along for you." Slow slide of words, no heat, just keeping up the abusive small talk, and his drink arrives.

Rolls the first taste around on his tongue. "Aren't you a saint?"

"Compared to you, yeah, I am."

"The place is packed, could we just have a drink in silence and ignore each other?" His voice is husky and showing the strain he's been under all day.

"You going to cry, Councillor?" Kate pushes a stray lock of hair behind her ear and studies Lindsey's face, the hard set around the eyes, the lines at both corners of his mouth, and she knows that look well.

"I don't cry." He slugs back the rest of his scotch and waves the bartender for another.

"Because you're a man, and men don't cry?" Looks away then, the anger at almost feeling pity for this beast masquerading as a human about to make her storm out into the street, home and a bottle.

"Because I cried my life's worth of tears before I ever came to L.A." Half way through his new drink, and he doesn't give a rat's ass if he just showed his belly to an enemy, someone who could slice him open and leave him bleeding in the gutter. Doesn't care about much of anything anymore except the hate and the need.

Kate turns her stool so that she's facing Lindsey's profile. Sits there and waits for him to tilt his head slightly to acknowledge her presence again. When he does, he sees the blood risen to her porcelain cheeks, the alcohol gleam in her crystalline blue eyes, the touch of shine still left from the lip-gloss she wears even though it's an indulgence in her own mind , he's sure.

"Do you want to go home with me?" Third time's a charm, bullshit, and he knows it, but she looks so alive, so vibrant and most of all, the only important part really, human.

"Just when I thought you weren't a complete prick." Turns away again and brings her glass to her lips. The cubes clicking together in random patterns, the vodka diluted by their melting, clear in clear in clear. Her lips on the rim of the glass are the color of the begonias in his grandmother's garden.

"This doesn't have to be about work. This can be about two people in a bar having too much to drink and doing things they'll regret in the morning." Motions to the bartender again, this time indicating he's buying both their drinks.

"I was fired." Still not looking at him, swirling her drink, first clockwise, then counter.

"I heard." The drinks arrive, and she doesn't decline hers, but does glance at him, far closer than he should be, maybe six inches between them.

"I bet you did." Spark in the transparent blue, and Lindsey thinks she's far more bitter than even he is, which is intriguing and disturbing at the same time.

"I get it, you hate me. I'm at most indifferent to you, except regarding the times you helped my enemy try to screw me royally. If I had any hate left over, I would spread it your way." She laughs, it starts in her throat and works out to be a side clutching roar. Lindsey can't stop himself from being infected, starts to chuckle before he even knows what she's laughing at, probably him, but he doesn't give a damn.

"This is the new tactic? You're going to get me into bed by telling me you know I hate you, and you hate me as well? You should get the award for most original pick up line." Caught out, but he keeps right on smiling. Drains his glass, turns his chair to face her, their knees tangled up. Slides his foot onto the railing between her own.

"Did it work?" The smile still there, but the tone of voice one she's never heard before from his lips. Kate's face morphs, smile gone, cheeks so reddened the skin not flushed looks like one of the undead. She parts her mouth, darts the tip of her tongue out briefly. Lindsey takes the pause as his invitation. Closes the distance between them, brushes the corn silk hair away from her neck and brings his lips so close to her ear they brush it when he speaks.

"Forget my name. I'm just some guy you met who wants to take you home. I can make you forget your own name too, if you want." Traces the line of her ear with the tip of his tongue, feels her fingers come up to stroke his face.

Slides off his stool to stand between her knees, wraps his good arm around her waist and pulls her down, their legs twining together as her feet come towards the floor. Decision made, Kate doesn't pull away or avert her eyes, meets his full body contact with a hand around his bicep and a wiggle of her hips. And this is kind of woman he craves, uninhibited and aware of what she wants, if he can't have the original, a stand in will do tonight.

He disengages long enough to pay up both their tabs and slide his wallet back into his pocket. When he turns around to ask her if it's ok to go back to her place instead of his, she's gone. Out of sight, vanished into the crowd. Lindsey pulls himself back onto his stool and tells the bartender to open his tab back up.

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Challenge requirements: Lindsey to be rejected by three people on ATS or BTVS. At least one of the rejections comes when he's naked. There had to be "fiery lust" I am not so sure I got the fiery part, but I tried.



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