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Like That Song By Stealer's Wheel
by Alex
DISTRIBUTION: UCSL. Others please ask.
RATING: PG
PAIRING: A/L/C (kinda)
SPOILERS: Oh, say all of AtS 1-3 specifically, 2:18 'Dead End'.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything in the Buffy/Angelverse. It's owned by Joss
Whedon, Mutant Enemy and FOX.
SUMMARY: Lindsey comes home.
FEEDBACK: All feedback to prague_spring@hotmail.com please. Flames will be
used to toast marshmallows.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I know Cordelia now has short blond hair but I hate it. So
I've changed it back. 'Stuck in the Middle With You' belongs to Stealer's
Wheel. Oh, and the Xander quote comes from BtVS 2:1 'When She Was Bad'. I
think.
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men
The last traces of afternoon sunlight are trickling down the drains and
scuttling under rugs when Angel manages to get back to the hotel. He's spent
an unpleasant day fighting slime demons in the sewers and he's more than
tired, he's bone weary. An almost dreamy lassitude begins to creep over him
and he starts to wonder exactly why he's fighting the good fight at all. He
hasn't saved anyone today, wouldn't even have killed the demons if they
hadn't had a shady Wolfram and Hart connection.
He hauls himself out of the sewers with some difficulty; every muscle in his
body is complaining. Trekking through the lobby he's thankful to see that
Cordelia had gone home. Lately she has become obsessive about his safety and
has begun waiting up for him. Which was, on the whole, a very sweet and
remarkably unCordelia thing to do. Unfortunately, the visions are starting
to more than take their toll and she's started dozing off in the hotel.
Being Cordelia, she automatically finds the most comfortable place to doze
off. Angel is damned already, he doesn't need to wonder if his seer is on
Wolfram and Hart's pay roll. He has come back from fighting five times in
the last month to find Cordelia curled up looking completely unchildlike in
his bed. Angel defies any man on the planet, gay, straight, confused or
Spike, not to find the sight of a sleeping Cordelia tucked up in his bed,
wearing - for Chrissake - one of his shirts, an appealing sight. For
appealing, read arousing. Angel is wryly conscious of the fact that even his
thoughts seemed to be censored these days.
There is someone in the hotel.
Angel immediately, well, not tenses, he's so wound up he could have been
used as a clock, but rather increases his alertness.
Not Cordelia, he realises. Someone else. Someone... familiar?
The sinking feeling in his stomach would have been accompanied by his heart
skipping a beat, if it still beat, that is.
Angel scans the darkened lobby.
"Lindsey, I know you're here. You may as well come out."
No movement, but Angel's suddenly able to see him, as if speaking his name
made him real and tangible.
"Jeezus Christ, you look terrible!" Angel exclaims thoughtlessly. Lindsey
shrugs with the shoulder not supporting the well-packed rucksack.
"Yeah, well so do you." He drawls, eyeing Angel in distaste.
Angel's ruefully aware that he has a point. His clothes are torn, he's
dripping slime and bleeding from several minor cuts. Lindsey's in one piece,
but it looks touch and go. He's thin, dark shadows in the hollows at his
temples, his cheeks and his throat. He's unnaturally pale under his dark tan
and his frame slouches with exhaustion. Only his eyes seem alive and they
burn fever bright.
Delicious.
Angel turns his back and carefully stores his axe away. Once, he might have
thought twice before turning his back on Lindsey Macdonald, but now, he
knows better. Lindsey isn't going to kill him, for all his bravado, it was
never about killing him. Although, come to think of it, he could have done
without being run over by a truck...
"What do you want?" The vampire asks abruptly. Lindsey's still standing,
guitar case in one hand, rucksack over his right shoulder, swaying gently
from side to side.
"I've been sent," Lindsey says faintly.
Angel stares at him. There's something in the ex-lawyer's voice, a certain
intonation which seemed hauntingly familiar. If he wracks his memory, he
could almost hear another voice, another man, say those words.
"By who?" He demands, although he's beginning to see the shape of the
future. Not understand it, by no means that, but start to catch at the edges
of infinity which is fracturing in Lindsey's blue eyes. That, at least, is
familiar.
"The Powers That Be," Lindsey says helplessly. He drops his bags, the
precious guitar hitting the ground in a discordant twang that better
reflects Angel's mood than a thousand rock songs.
He nods, "I see," he says calmly, eyeing Lindsey with no little trepidation.
The young man - and Angel has never before been aware of exactly how young
Lindsey is - looks to be on the edge of collapse. The words reverberate
around his skull, "The Powers That Be," over and over again, as
disconcertingly as the abused guitar strings. For a moment, Lindsey's drawl
is overlaid with Cordelia's irritated tones and his own incredulous voice;
You had a vision/Howdy! You know how they look painful? Well they feel a
whole lot worse/You're my link to the Powers.
"They sent you to..." Words fail Angel, choked in his throat, sticky and
uncomfortable, burning like bile with the heaviness of vomit and threatening
to spill out of his mouth. He hasn't thrown up for centuries but bitter
masticated speech falling involuntarily from his lips, that he recognises as
a symptom of disease, his own version of the human condition.
"Don't get all excited," Lindsey warns, "I'm not to be a seer."
Bitter disappointment courses through Angel, coupled with relief and a wild,
guilty delight. Disappointment because this means that he will continue to
watch Cordelia suffer for his sake, relief that this means that he won't be
tied to Lindsey, delight that Cordelia won't be leaving him.
"Why are you here then?" He asks grouchily.
"Apparently, I'm here to help," Lindsey says lightly.
"Huh?" Angel's confused.
"To help you. Got anything to drink?"
* * *
Angel has dug himself into the sofa in the hotel lobby. Despite his initial
confusion about Lindsey's reappearance, Angel's now longing for a hot shower
- or another Scotch. Lindsey is perched on the reception counter, his legs
swinging freely as he swigs from a bottle.
"So I'm travelling 'round the country, right? Tryin' to keep my head low and
not draw attention to me still bein' alive. Last thing I need is Wolfram and
Hart on my back or Darla comin' after me. Then, I had a visitation."
"A visitation?" Angel asks curiously, enjoying the view. Lindsey rubs his
hand through his tousled hair and stretches. His shirt tightens over his
chest, outlining his pectoral muscles. Angel hasn't seen Lindsey wearing
anything like this before, or so relaxed in his presence and he is
disconcerted by his immediate, visceral reaction.
Lindsey sighs, "Yeah. Short guy. Dark hair. Irish accent," his eyes flicker
to meet Angel's and he smiles ruefully, "Yeah, you know who I mean. He came
and asked me if I wanted to do something with my life. Gave me a choice,
come on board in the great fight or die before next summer."
"Nice choice," Angel says sarcastically. "Reminds me of one I didn't have,"
he adds.
Lindsey looks across at him through his ridiculously long lashes, "Yeah,
whatever. So here I am."
He throws the bottle to Angel, who catches it easily and takes a long drink.
"So, what are you doing exactly. And why are you here? I'm handling my own
redemption. Don't think I could handle yours as well."
"Really? Thought your shoulders were holding up the world," Lindsey says
sarcastically. Angel snarls. "That supposed to scare me? I've dealt with a
pre-menstrual Lilah."
"I'll give you Lilah and raise you Cordelia," Angel says immediately.
Lindsey concedes the point with a laugh and indicates that he'd like the
bottle of whiskey back. For some reason, Angel finds himself unable to turn
away when Lindsey drinks, his lips shaping to the mouth of the bottle.
The young man swallows and swipes at his mouth with the back of one tanned
hand, proffering the bottle to Angel with the other. He falters slightly
when he notices Angel's steady regard, something in the vampire's gaze that
suggests to Lindsey that Angel isn't worried about him trying to sell him
out to Wolfram and Hart but rather, worried about something else. He
nervously licks his lips and watches with interest as Angel's expression
changes again.
Lindsey, the man of a hundred educations, fights with himself to name the
emotion that flashed across the vampire's face. Fights, and gets it.
Hunger.
Hunger... for him. Not for his death or his blood - although Lindsey has
been around enough vampires to recognise that bloodlust is there in part -
but for him. For his body, and Lindsey shivers as he takes a moment to
indulge in Angel-fantasies. He imagines Angel simply standing, unfolding his
body from the depths of the sofa, all pale silk skin over heavy muscles.
Standing, and coming over to him, those hypnotic dark eyes flickering a
question, Lindsey immobilised. Imagines Angel's hand gently touching his
cheek. Gently, because there has been too little tenderness in Lindsey's
life. Gently, because he knows the vampire possesses the capacity to be
gentle, has seen it directed at Cordelia, at Darla. Wants it for himself.
Wants to matter to someone, to Angel. And if that is need or desire or
simply hero-worship, well, it's been a while since Lindsey felt anything,
and he's grateful for any flicker of emotion.
Lindsey is so lost in the dream, that reality shocks him sideways.
The hotel door slams open, and the rest of Angel's crew appear. Gunn is
naturally armed to the teeth and carrying his axe carefully, Fred is holding
a crossbow rather as if she has a live grenade in her arms - the sight of
which makes Angel choke and jump up to relieve her of it - Groo has an
impressive black eye and looks ecstatic, and Cordelia. Lindsey feels as if
he's been sucker punched and slides off the desk.
Because Cordelia turned her head to his exact location in the dim lobby and.
Smiled. Smiled and nodded and called his name.
"Lindsey," and there is no censure in her voice, just a warm welcome. "I
knew you'd be coming."
"Macdonald," Gunn nods matter-of-factly, caught up in trying to explain to
Angel why he let Fred have a crossbow.
"Well met!" Groo says, striding over, "Are you too a warrior in our great
cause?" He asks with great enthusiasm.
"Sorta," Lindsey says, feeling overwhelmed.
"Hey, Mac," Gunn calls, "You stoppin'?"
The world waits.
"Yeah," Lindsey replies, surprising no one more than himself.
"Can you read Egyptian hieroglyphs?"
Fred elbows Gunn out of the way and brings a fragment of papyrus to Lindsey
who takes it gingerly, "The Davox demon was guarding this. It looks
important, but none of us are really qualified to read it." She says shyly.
Lindsey looks into her earnest eyes and almost smiles. He bends his head to
the papyrus, "Well, it's not hieroglyphics, maybe some form of early
pictograph. Can't quite make it out. It looks a little like a reference to
Ra, the sun god, but I'm gonna need some texts. Er, you do have books don't
you?"
"You read ancient pictographs?" Angel asks quizzically.
"I'm a man of many talents," Lindsey says without inflexion.
"I'm getting that," Angel says softly.
"So, what? Mac translates, we find, we slay, we party," Gunn suggests.
"Sounds like a plan," Cordelia says decisively, "Although I seem to have
heard those words before." And her eyes rest on Angel for a moment, her look
full of warm amusement.
"I never said anything of the sort!" The vampire objects loudly.
Cordelia looks thoughtful, "No, maybe it was Xander."
"You're getting me mixed up with him?" Angel is offended, "I'm going to go
change. Lindsey, get that translated as soon as you can." He orders.
"Yes, boss," Lindsey salutes.
Cordelia whispers in his ear for a moment and Lindsey's expression changes
to one of pure and unadulterated pleasure.
"Or should that be Dead Boy?" He calls after Angel. Even the vampire's back
looks irritated.
"Mac, you gonna fit in juuust fine," Gunn drawls.
Lindsey, renamed and apparently reinvented, wonders if he will. He can see
that he's being fitted to replace someone. Just as the missing Englishman
might have been fitted to replace... someone else. Angel's friend and
Cordelia's foil. Someone to keep them far enough apart that everyone stayed
safe. The third of three.
His mind flashes to a certain portrait kept in a bank vault a thousand miles
away from the City of Angels. Perhaps it's time to get it out. The dark
haired intellectual vampire, the beautiful brunette seer and between them,
the blond boy. An unholy trio. What Angel cultivated after his blond haired
love abandoned him. Twice.
"Damned if I'm gonna start smoking again," he mutters to himself as he
flicks through various unhelpful tomes, "Took me long enough to give up in
the first place."
"Sorry, Lindsey, did you say something?"
He flashes a smile at Cordelia and shakes his head, "No. Nothing important.
Just talking to myself."
She dimples at him and he is suddenly aware, again, of how beautiful she is.
Lindsey realises he's stuck. Stuck like that song by Stealer's Wheel. Caught
between the man and the girl. Forever. Surprisingly, it does not dismay him.
He's a bright guy. He knows he'll figure something out.
He glances up to where Gunn and Groo are mock wrestling. Fred is trying to
figure out the crossbow while Angel is occupied changing and Cordelia is
laughing.
"Clowns to the left of me/Jokers to the right/Here I am/Stuck in the middle
with you."
Mac sings under his breath as he bends back over the ancient language -
which is really starting to irritate him - and wonders how he'd look in a
red silk shirt.
Finis.
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