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Interstate Love Song
A 'Just Drive' Piece
by zahra
Email: (frans_angel@hotmail.com)
Rating: PG13 (finally out of Disneyland)
Feedback: I've got this sledgehammer out back, or, I could just ask nicely.
Please?
Disclaimer: Joss rules. Nuff said.
Dedication: To Lar and ethrosdemon because they hate songfic. It is. Only it's
not.
Summary: Lindsey. Driving. (Yes, again)
Note: For inspiration see the album 'Purple' by Stone Temple Pilots.
Improv #19: damn-still-noble-struggle
UN-BETA'D ALERT
**************************
He's had a song in his head since he drove out of the Los Angeles city
limits.
He can't help it, but it's not a bad thing. It's the little things like
this that keep him grounded and occupied. They keep his foot on the
accelerator and his arm firmly nestled in the window frame as his fingers
tap the rhythm into the metal roof.
Musical notes on the brain guarantee that his mind is not obsessing over
broody dead men who want to give him a lethal hickey, or paranormal senior
partners who need rings to come here from the Home Office.
He's learning to take pleasure in all the little, simple things because they
all add up to the same conclusion.
He's free. He's out of his cage. Even if it's only temporary.
Lindsey knows it's got to be temporary. As temporary and fleeting as good
wishes and the last bar of a good chorus. He's going to be caught sooner or
later. It's all a matter of time.
There are too many people out to get him. It's not paranoia, it's the
truth. There are too many applicants wanting to play Salome to his John the
Baptist.
Nathan. Lilah. Darla. Angel. Even the fucking police.
Angel and 'the' sign.
He could stake the virtue-laden vampire for the prank he pulled. Cops suck.
Angel sucks.
Sucks. Lindsey wonders if Angel actually does suck, if he swallows. Bets
he sucks pretty damn well with that superior mouth of his. Like a cool, wet
Hoover.
Groans and shifts in his seat uncomfortably. Not really a thought conducive
to the long drive he's got ahead of him.
Better to be angry - to be ambivalent or removed. Better to be anything but
thinking of sepia-colored eyes and immaculately gelled hair.
Definitely better not to drift into the other lane. It would just give the
cops another reason to nail his ass. Destruction of private property.
Discharging a firearm. Breaking and entering. Theft of private property.
Christ, the list is endless, and then right at the end, right before Wolfram
and Hart get their hands on him - reckless driving.
Shit.
He nearly ended up in jail in Hesperia. That damn sign again. Angel once
again yanking Lindsey's chain. Always winding him up like a toy solider.
Not again. Not anymore. No more struggling to do the right thing. No more
desperation. No more internal Jeykll and Hyde. Sounds like a song.
He can feel something rising in the back of his throat. Clawing at his
esophagus. Words. Disgust. Lyrics. Bile. Vomit. Hope.
Hope.
He's been humming incessantly since he left Route 15. It would be grating
on his nerves if he didn't like the sound so much. Lindsey hopes he'll
remember the title of the song soon. It's kind of bugging him that he still
can't remember it.
He's knows it's something he's heard before, but it's not something of his
making. It's too poppy. Too rock oriented. Too modern and hopeful,
whatever it is.
It's got a hook and a chorus. There's a bridge somewhere. A destination.
He started humming that in Barstow when he took the clover-shaped on-ramp to
Interstate 40.
That interstate will get him away from Los Angeles and Angel. It will take
him through Texas and Arkansas.
The downside is that it goes through Oklahoma.
Always a downside. Always a fucking hitch.
Lindsey SO doesn't want to go through Oklahoma. When he stopped in Needles,
on the California-Arizona border, he bought six different maps hoping they
wouldn't confirm his suspicions. What he knew before he started out.
He would have to go through Oklahoma.
He had no choice. It would be completely impractical to go around, no
matter what his feelings are.
Just because he doesn't want to do it, doesn't mean he won't. He's proved
that time and time again. If the shortest route between himself and his
destination lies through the wasteland, he's not going to detour through six
states.
Lindsey McDonald is no one's coward.
He takes solace in that minute, comforting thought. He's no one's noble
knight in shining armor, but he's no one's coward either.
Say what you will, but you can't deny that.
One admirable trait. It makes him smile. It's quite possibly the first
genuine smile he's cracked in recent memory.
He'd almost forgotten what it was like to do something real. Something
unprompted. Unprovoked.
It's a good feeling. 'Good' feeling something that has been so alien that
he almost can't identify it. So many emotions and feelings he's been
denying and suppressing. So many things he's tried to forget.
He wonders momentarily if he'll be able to handle them if they actually
decide to come out of hibernation. Wonders what it would be like to feel
again.
Real content. Real joy. Happiness is just a byproduct.
Real sadness he knows, but finds himself slightly concerned when he thinks
about real love.
Feelings are like songs, some tunes he just doesn't know.
Love. He's not sure he would know that one if it hit him over the head with
a frying pan or cut off his other hand.
Lindsey definitely doesn't know how that song goes.
Shrugs as he hits the city limits for Flagstaff, Arizona. It doesn't really
matter. He'll cross that bridge when he comes to it. He'll improvise if he
has to.
In the meantime, he's got this interstate love song he's humming to keep him
company, and that's all he needs right now.
It's these little things that mean the most.
-finis-
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