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Crystal City
by Rubywisp
Pairing:Xander/Lindsey
Rating: PG-13
Summary:According to Xander, nothing happened.
Spoilers: Set post-Chosen, ambiguously during this season of Angel in my own
little AU.
Distribution: www.ficaddiction.com/we, list archives. You want it, email me at rubywisp@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: Sadly, neither Xander nor Lindsey belong to me. It's a wrong,
wrong thing, I tell you.
A/N: This is completely unrelated to any other Xander/Lindsey fic I've ever
written. Thanks to Glossing for the title, among other things.
---
Xander takes to haunting a not-really-local honky-tonk bar in the days
following the Scoobies' arrival in L.A. Everybody's consumed with sorting
things out, with picking themselves up and dusting themselves off, but
Xander's tired of it. He picked himself up, dusted himself off, and jumped
back in the fray for seven years, and he thinks it's about time he gets to
wallow if he fucking well feels like it. So he takes himself away from
worried Willow-glances and Giles-frowns, from Buffy-questions and
Andrew-pesterings, and disappears two, three, four times a week to a place
where the music's loud and the beer is cold. And on Thursdays, it's a buck
a bottle before 8 p.m.
He doesn't dress up when he goes out. Sometimes he doesn't even remember to
change out of whatever shirt he's spattered paint and spackle and sawdust on
all day long, supervising the Hyperion's transformation from vampire lair to
Slayer dormitory. Just grabs his keys and his wallet and takes off in
whatever car Angel's scary new corporation has made available to them this
week. His lack of care with his appearance seems to be outweighed by the
something-or-other of his eye patch, and he invariably gets hit on once or
twice a night by girls wearing the tightest jeans he's ever seen on anybody
not named Spike.
He ignores them all, which would be a shame if he gave a shit. But all the
girls look like Anya to him, with their too-bright smiles and their
too-cheerful voices and their too-tight blouses full of firm and supple warm
embraces. It hurts in a way that makes the ache in his empty eye socket
seem like a good time, in a way that Xander knows there's no salve for, so
he does the only thing he can, and doesn't care.
The girls aren't the only ones wearing tight jeans, Xander notices. And
notices and notices and notices, which leaves him wondering if Willow
thought he was in any way serious about the gay thing and decided to help
him along a bit. But he can't ask her, because that way lies health
pamphlets and condom giveaways, so he keeps his mouth shut. Just tries to
stop noticing. The fact that it requires effort is not lost on him.
Somewhere amongst his sitting and drinking and staring and drinking and
not-flirting and drinking, he meets up with Lindsey and the two of them hit
it off. Xander likes Lindsey's lack of ability to deal with bullshit almost
as much as he secretly admires Lindsey's ability to spread it. He doesn't
have a clue what Lindsey likes about him, but Lindsey laughs a lot, and even
a guy with only one eye can see that that's something new for Mr. Lindsey
McDonald, and maybe that's it.
So Xander works at it, takes care with it the way he does his measuring and
sanding and painting, laying wisecracks and drywall and friendship and
flooring in an unconscious dance that Xander can almost see the shadows of
every once in a while, just off to the left like they are.
Time fluxes, nights at the bar turning into time at the movies, at horse
races, at concerts for bands Xander's never heard of in clubs he'd never
notice from the outside. Restaurants and strip bars and even a weekend in
Vegas to escape the winter rain, where Xander discovers both the clean,
sharp thrill of hitting a royal flush and the humid, murkier tang of getting
sucked off by a obligingly enthusiastic lap dancer while Lindsey smirks his
way through a blowjob of his own on the other side of the room and Xander
pretends not to watch.
He can still taste the traces of the final slide of Lindsey's satisfied
glance in his direction when he's creeping through the front door of the
hotel the next morning, late enough that he's crossing his fingers for time
to shower, shave and suck down a pot of coffee before everybody's awake and
he has to finish painting the hallway on the fourth floor. Early enough
that the double throat-clearing from the couch quick-stops his heart and his
feet in unison.
There's worry and clear confusion in Willow's eyes, something muddier and
darker in Angel's, and Xander takes the easy route - why are you even here?
Don't you have some Armani you could be ironing? - but the belligerence
bounces off Angel like it's not just his head that's made of brick, and
Willow's worry sharpens to blunt words.
It's Spike, surprisingly, who breaks the stalemate of Xander's stubborn
refusal to either answer or back down when he walks in through the door of
what is now Giles' office and uses his convenient corporeal/not powers to
jab Xander forcefully in the chest and say the first word that's made sense
in the last 10 minutes.
Lindsey. Xander can't believe this is all about Lindsey, that they even
know about Lindsey, know Lindsey at all. A few - carefully-edited, Xander's
positive - stories later, and Xander's already past tired of trying to
convince a couple of people who he personally had to help keep from
destroying the world that a morally ambiguous ex-employee of the company
Angel now *runs* isn't enough of a bad guy to need worrying about. He says
so, ferociously, ignoring the hitched breath his words pull out of Willow as
resolutely as he revels in the not-quickly-enough shuttered pain he sees on
Angel's face.
Inside, he's surprised by his own exultation, unaware until this moment just
how much he'd been keeping Lindsey at a convenient and frustrating
civilian-arm's-length. Suddenly, everything else can wait - Willow's
wavering between scolding and solicitousness, Angel's unwelcome
heavy-handedness, Spike's running commentary as he watches the whole scene
unfold, openly waiting for the bell to ring and the half-Nelsons to fly.
Xander blows through lights and his own apprehension simultaneously, making
it to Lindsey's apartment in record time. He pounds on the front door with
cold hands, loud enough to wake the neighbors and the hung over; Lindsey's
still rubbing the not-enough-sleep out of his eyes when he pulls the door
open with a raspy "Better be fucking good, or I'm taking back the whole
'trip-is-on-me' thing."
Xander doesn't answer, just pushes Lindsey up against the door frame and
kisses him. Hands on Lindsey's neck, fingers in his hair, leg between his
thighs, ignoring both the neighbor lady's window slamming shut and the
enthusiastic horn-honking from across the street. Everything except the way
Lindsey unfolds into him, one hand on Xander's hip, the other scratching
softly on Xander's chest where Lindsey'd started to push him away when
Xander leaned into him. Xander's not sure which one of them is breathing
harder when he finally pulls back.
They lick their lips in unison, and Xander ducks his head, chuckling only
almost-bashfully. "Good enough?"
Lindsey thinks about it, head cocked. Xander would worry if Lindsey didn't
have that 'I'm about to lay down four kings and take all your money' gleam
in his eye. "Don't have enough evidence to go on."
Xander's grin widens then disappears as he fights to look suitably
concerned. "No? Hm." He shivers in the rain just starting up again.
"What would you say if I said I'm better once I'm warmed up?"
Lindsey grins and pushes away from the door, into the apartment. "I'd say
you can do better than that, I'll pay for this trip *and* the next one."
Xander follows with a laugh. Lindsey ends up paying for Vegas for the next
two years.
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