1.
Lindsey continued to drive, weaving from one side of the road to the other, oncoming cars dodging his truck as he struggled to make it back into his own lane. Barely aware of the lights he kept running, he didn't notice the ones flashing in the rear-view mirror either as the big black convertible bore down on him. The sound of the horn wasn't enough to break through the sound of his sobbing. He just wanted to drive, drive until he could escape himself.
A vague fantasy of driving off the end of earth and disappearing somehow, or maybe just barreling off into a canyon or ravine like those gals in that chick flick his mama made him watch with her, were interrupted as the convertible pulled next to him, braving oncoming traffic as it forced him off the road. Jumping a sidewalk, he took out a newspaper stand that had thankfully been closed up for the night before his truck rolled to a stop and the engine stalled out as he kept trying to give it gas even though it wasn't in gear.
"Shit!" He slammed a fist into the dash.
"What the hell do you think you're doing Lindsey?"
Jumping as he discovered that his open window was suddenly full of a very large, very pissed off vampire, Lindsey scrubbed the heels of his palms over his eyes. "I can't do it anymore, Angel. I can't!"
"If you plan on doing yourself in, I can't let you take a bunch of innocent by-standers with you." Angel wrenched the door open and leaned in, then recoiled. "What did you do Lindsey, fall in a whiskey barrel?"
Lindsey fell against him, clinging to Angel's shirt, fisting his hands in the fabric as he broke down completely. "I didn't know, Angel, I swear I didn't. I didn't know they were kids."
Trying to push Lindsey away seemed to be useless so Angel eventually gave up and settled for patting the other man awkwardly on the back.
"I never would have let it happen. Not to kids… never to kids." Lindsey tilted his head up, eyes wet and pleading. "I left there; I just got in my truck and drove away. But it won't matter, they own my ass, Angel, they'll get me - they'll force me back."
"Lindsey…"
Jerking his head to the side, neck stretched, muscles cording with the strain, Lindsey released Angel's shirt and pulled the open neck of his own as far away as the fabric would allow, baring his throat for the vampire. "Do it, Angel - end it."
When Angel only stood staring at the expanse of skin offered up to him, hearing the thrumming of blood but not moving to drink, Lindsey started to tremble.
"Please, Angel. Please help me. It's what you're supposed to do - isn't it? Help people?" Lindsey was shaking Angel, pulling at him, trying to move him closer. "So do it, fucker, help me. Put me out of my fucking misery!"
"No, Lindsey. I'll help you, if you really want it, I'll keep you safe - but I won't do that." And he scooped up the other man, carrying him back to his own car, reaching over the passenger door to deposit him on the seat.
After they were on their way, Angel looked at Lindsey, who was sitting perfectly still beside him, eyes wide, staring without looking at anything.
"Are you okay?"
"I've done something so terrible. How can I live with myself - how can I?"
"You just do it, Lindsey - one day at a time, you just do it."
Lindsey slumped over, sobbing against Angel's shoulder and the big vampire instinctively wrapped an arm around the other man.
"But Wolfram and Hart, they're gonna come after me and…"
Squeezing him tighter, Angel pressed his face into Lindsey's hair for a moment before he'd even realized what he was doing. "It'll be alright, I've got you now - so let's just get you through tonight. One step at a time."
2.
"I'm so sorry."
Squeezing his eyes shut, Lindsey tried to block out the voice, but it just kept talking at him, refusing to leave him alone.
"Did you hear me, Linds? I'm sorry."
"Why the fuck are you here?" He shifted in the narrow bed, reaching for the call button and realizing the bandaged stump wouldn't be adequate to pick up the small device.
"I'm apologizing to you."
"Apologizing? For sticking your nose in after we agreed I'd let you know when you needed to be here? For cutting off my hand? For ruining my fucking life, Angel?" He was shouting now and he didn't care who heard as he tried to get out of the bed.
"No, Lindsey - don't get up. You've had a lot of medication, you could hurt yourself." Angel closed the distance between them, looming over Lindsey, intending to prevent him from getting out of his hospital bed.
But he fell back on his own, laughing so hard that it quickly turned into hysterics, tears streaming down his cheeks until he was practically hyperventilating. Angel just stood and gaped at him until Lindsey finally managed to control himself enough to find his voice again.
"You… don't want me… to get hurt?" Lindsey laughed a little more. "That's rich Angel - that may be the funniest thing I've ever heard. You're a vampire, a detective, and a comedian - who knew you had so many skills. Oh, and did I forget you can cut off your lover's hand in a single slice."
"Lindsey, I thought…"
"I don't give a shit what you have to say, Angel." He shook his stump in front of his lover's face. "I wouldn't have burned the scroll. I was just putting on a show for the company boys. Why didn’t you just take it away from me?"
Angel sat on the edge of the bed, leaning over Lindsey. "I didn't know, Lindsey, you didn't tell me about Darla, so I thought you were betraying me."
"Me… betraying you? I didn't know about Darla, Angel. They told me they were bringing back someone who could help them bring you down. They said it was a human, so I figured we'd just deal with that later. How the fuck would I know it'd be your sire… your one true love? I only found out it was her right before you got there."
"She's not my… is that what you thought? Is that why you didn't try and call me - try to warn me?" Angel watched Lindsey's blue eyes as the hurt and anger there was instantly tinged with guilt as well.
"No, I didn't… maybe… I don't know Angel, alright! What the hell do you want me to say? Do you want me to admit that I was jealous, that I wanted to see how you'd react to seeing her - to see if you'd run right past me into her arms? Maybe it's true, but I never would have taken your chance to be human away."
Tears running down his cheeks, Angel bent and pressed his forehead to Lindsey's. "I know that now - I do. Please… I'm not perfect. I'll never be perfect no matter how hard I try to be better than what's inside me. I need you to forgive me Lindsey. Please?"
"But what am I gonna do with this, Angel?" He held up the bandaged end of his arm where his hand used to be. "How can I get over this and not resent you for it every time I can't button my shirt, every time I can't play my guitar - every time I can't open my fucking pants to take a piss without someone helping me?"
Gently wrapping a big hand just below Lindsey's wound, Angel pulled it to his lips and kissed lightly over the white gauze. "I spoke to Wesley. There are things that can be done. I'm gonna send an anonymous tip to Lilah about a mystical surgery center where they can attach a donor hand - let her think it comes from someone evil. If she thinks it'll ruin you, she'll do everything in her power to see that it happens. Until then I'll do everything for you, be there all the time, Lindsey - I swear."
"Even if you fix this Angel, how can I know… if I give you another chance - how can I be sure…"
Angel buried his face in Lindsey's neck. "I don't love her Lindsey. I never did. You're the only person I've been in love with in nearly three hundred years."
Pressing his face into Angel's hair and wrapping his damaged arm around him, Lindsey whispered. "Okay… just one more chance. But only because you admitted you're not perfect… and because you love me."
3.
"She's gone and it's all your fucking fault!"
Angel woke to find Lindsey straddling him on his bed, sword pressed to his throat. "How the hell did you get in…"
"Past your security system, Angel? Past your superior vampire senses?" Lindsey sneered at Angel. "I work for an evil law firm, Angel. Do you think no one there knows enough to be able to show me how to disable alarms or sneak up on a vampire?"
"If you're planning to kill me anyway, I might as well tell you that her leaving had nothing to do with me."
"How can you say that? She left me because it was you she wanted, you she loved. Don't think I don't know you fucked her, Angel." Lindsey's voice was barely a growl, hands shaking on the blade, anger running unchecked through his body.
"It's not true and you know it. She did want you, told me so herself; she left because you didn't want her."
The fact that Angel seemed so calm was pissing him off even more. "What kind of ridiculous shit are you trying to hand me now, Angel? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. She said she'd protect me, she was my way out of that place - and I loved her. Why would she say she wanted me when she already had me? And she wants me so much that she runs off and sleeps with you? What kind of fucking sense does that make?"
"You're the one that's stupid, Lindsey. Don't you know that she did that for you? She tried to do what she thought you wanted, tried to make me lose my soul - all to please you."
"What?" Lindsey sat up a little straighter, applying more pressure to the blade so that blood started to ooze down Angel's neck.
"When it didn't work, she confessed everything to me before she took off, Lindsey. Said your involvement with her was really about someone else - about you wanting someone else."
"That's crazy!" His hands were trembling harder.
"Is it crazy, Lindsey? There's no one else that you want?"
"No, of course not - I was in love with Darla… am in love with Darla." He was speaking through clenched teeth, cheeks suddenly blazing.
"Liar." Angel rolled his hips beneath Lindsey's spread legs, breaking Lindsey's concentration. Taking the opportunity he'd built for himself, Angel clasped Lindsey's wrist, tossing the blade away and flipping the smaller man onto his back, reversing their positions, holding the smaller man down on the bed.
"Liar."
"Stop saying that!" Lindsey wriggled beneath him. "Shut your fucking mouth!"
"Not until you admit I'm right, admit she wasn't the one you wanted."
Lindsey shook his head furiously, "No, she was - there wasn't anyone else."
"This," Angel leaned over, rubbing his hard sex over Lindsey's thick erection, "says you're a liar Lindsey."
"It's not you," he spat. "Why would I be stupid enough to want you? You fucking hate me."
Rolling his hips again and smiling as Lindsey gasped, "Don't hate you, Lindsey. I never hated you. If I did you would've been dead a long time ago."
"Fine!" Pressing up on his elbows, he forced Angel back a little. "It is you. Are you satisfied now that I admitted it? Does it make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside knowing that? Now you can laugh about how fucked up I am for falling for the vampire that's my sworn enemy - or how I always fall for the one's I can't have. Take your pick, Angel, I don't give a shit."
"Who said you couldn't have me?" Angel smirked down at him.
"Now who's the fucking liar? How much bullshit do you think I'm gonna swallow? You said Darla slept with you because she wanted me so much, and now I guess you want me to believe that's why you did it too? Is that your fucking story, asshole?"
"That is my story. I knew it'd drive her away, and that'd leave just you and me. I thought maybe you'd stop lying to yourself and to me if she was out of the picture - thought once she was gone I could be the one to take care of you."
Brow creased into a deep frown, Lindsey let his head flop back down on the bed. "You… are gonna take care of me?"
Nodding, Angel slid a hand between them, lowering Lindsey's zipper and slipping his hand inside his open fly. "That's right, and the second way I'm going to take care of you is by forbidding you to ever go near that office again."
Angel moved closer and nibbled at Lindsey's lips, kissing all around his mouth before plunging his tongue inside the other man's parted lips and taking his mouth fully.
Groaning as he pushed up into the hand that had begun fisting him gently, looking for more friction, Lindsey breathed into Angel's mouth as the vampire continued to kiss him gently. "If that's the second - what's the first?"
"First," Angel growled into Lindsey's open mouth, biting at his bottom lip before continuing, "I'm taking care of this."
Pulling Lindsey's thick cock through the open front of his jeans, Angel slid backward, taking the head into his mouth as he continued working the shaft with his hands.
4.
Completely focused on the calming Tai-Chi movements he was completing, Angel hadn't even heard the monk enter the training room. As he finsihed the last combinations and bowed to the east, the sound of a throat clearing broke his concentration.
"You've learned much, Angel."
"I appreciate you saying so, Jin-Soh, but unfortunately it appears I've forgotten some things as well, like how to watch my back when I'm alone in a room."
The monk smiled at him, nodding, "Yes, but you've had nothing to fear while you've been in our care."
Bowing in return, Angel agreed, "No, you've taken excellent care of me. I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't been able to come here. After I lost… Buffy… I just lost my center. There's no way I can ever repay what you've done for me."
"I believe you've found your balance once again, Angel, and that's benefit enough to us. The Powers need you in this world - doing the things you do."
Sighing deeply, Angel gathered up his shirt, slipping it over his head. "I know they need me, I've been feeling the pull for the last couple of weeks. I need to get back to Los Angeles and doing what I'm supposed to do."
"We have another visitor from Los Angeles, which is actually why I disturbed your training."
"Oz's here?"
"No, I'm afraid it's another of your countrymen, Angel - Lindsey McDonald."
Eyes widening, Angel shook his head in disbelief, "Lindsey… here? But he disappeared after Darla left. The Senior Partners have been chasing him for months."
"Exactly. Which is why he's come here seeking our assistance, but we understand you and he were enemies. If it is your wish, we'll turn him away."
"And Wolfram and Hart would have him?"
Jin-Soh nodded, "I'm afraid so, Angel. We seem to be his last hope. We can conceal him while he's here, but he'll never be able to return to the outside world. According to the Powers, the Senior Partners aren't concerned with contracts where your adversary is concerned. I believe eternity of torture were the specific words the Powers used. Again, we're deferring to your wisdom on this matter, Angel - the final decision is yours alone."
Crossing the room and looking out the open wall of the training room, down the side of the snow-capped mountain, Angel was unable to focus on the breathtaking view as he realized he held Lindsey's future in his hands. "Oz told me once that there were markings, tattoos of some sort, which one of your mystics could apply. He said they'd block the wearer from detection by any mystical means. Is that true?"
"It is."
"If he'll allow it, give him the markings. That'll give him a chance to live a normal life, free of the Senior Partner's control."
"Are you certain, Angel?"
"Yes." Angel still hadn't turned back to face Jin-Soh. "Can I please have a moment?"
"Certainly, I'll go and see to your friend."
"He's not my friend."
"There's a saying, Angel - the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Are you familiar with these words?"
He nodded, "Yes, but we'll never be friends."
"Then it is a great kindness that you've extended to this man who's not your friend. I'll leave you to your thoughts, Angel."
"Thank you, Jin-Soh - for everything."
Listening as the door slid shut behind the monk, straining further until he heard his footsteps had faded far back into the interior of the monastery, Angel let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding and folded to his knees, burying his face in his hands, trembling and rocking himself.
"He's alive." His eyes welled with tears, "Now if he'll only accept the markings and stay away from me, maybe he'll finally be safe."
5.
Rushing from the crumbling building, having just barely defeated Marcus Hamilton, Angel searched his pockets, cursing when he realized he'd left his cell phone on his desk. One look at the slowly imploding building told him there was no chance of going back in to retrieve it. He ran down the street, heading in the opposite direction of where he was meant to go, wasting precious moments he'd intended for meeting the others in the alley, searching for a pay phone, water splashing up from the sidewalk as the rain began falling and running into the cracks beneath his feet.
"Shit!" Angel had run for eight blocks without passing one, "Fucking cell phones!" There wasn't a phone to be found, but he had to find a way.
"I don't know Kyle; ten's a little late for golf. If we don't tee off by nine I'll never make my meeting."
Snatching the phone from the hand of the business man passing by him, Angel turned back in the direction he was supposed to be moving, dialing as he ran.
"Hey, that's my phone. Give that back!"
Angel heard the man shouting at his back, but didn't spare him a second glance, turning into an alley and scaling a building, clawing into the brick as he went, knowing he could move faster along the rooftops and draw less notice for how fast he was running. Stopping on a roof top and growling as he got Lorne's voicemail, Angel shouted into the phone.
"Pick up the phone, Lorne. Please pick up the phone!"
He punched the re-dial button and leapt across the gap of space over an alley, landing lightly on the next roof before taking off at a run again. By the time, he'd crossed five buildings and dialed Lorne an equal number of times, Angel was starting to panic. He paused again, unsure of whether he still had time to make it to the address he'd sent Lindsey and Lorne to before it was too late. Checking his watch he knew that he couldn't possibly make it in time.
Starting off at a run again, moving faster to make up for lost time, Angel punched in another number, listening to it ring.
"Dad?"
"Connor, I need your help."
"I'm there, where are you?"
A knot of pride rose into Angel's throat; alleviating a tiny piece of the guilt he felt over everything he'd done to protect his son. "Thank you Connor, but I don't need you in the fight. I don't want you killing any more. I need you to stop a murder."
"Okay Dad, whatever you need - I'll do it. Who's murdering who?"
"I'm the murderer… I'm murdering Lindsey."
"What?"
"I don't have time to explain, Connor; Lorne's taking care of it for me. I need you to stop him."
"Okay."
Angel paused as he made another leap, skidding a little as he landed, rain now falling heavily. He was almost to the alley where he hoped all the others would be waiting for him. "Do you remember where I told you I sent them?"
"Yeah," Angel heard Connor's breathing and heartbeat speed up and realized he was already running. "I'm on my way. But, if you wanted him dead, what's changed?"
"You." Angel could already scent Spike's blood and he was pretty sure he could smell Illyria's musty, center of the earth smell as well.
"Me?"
"Fighting at your side tonight - it made me realize that some people deserve a second chance… if you love them enough."
"Are you saying you…"
"Yeah, that's what I'm saying, son. So get there - please. And keep him safe… even if I don't make it back. Protect him until he can get out of town and back off the Senior Partner's radar."
"Okay. Dad?"
Angel stepped off the roof, landing lightly between Spike and Illyria, turning his head toward the alley entrance as he heard Gunn coming toward them. "I know, Connor. I love you too. And I can't tell you what it means that you're doing this for me. I've screwed up so many things… so many lives. I needed to know that I saved the two who meant the most to me. I've gotta go."
He clicked off the phone and slid it into his pocket, the amount of Gunn's blood he could scent in the air told him his friend wouldn't have long. "Where's Wesley?"
Illyria looked at the ground as Spike put a hand on Angel's shoulder.
Angel nodded. At least he was able to save two.
The End
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