Title: Built For Challenges
Author: Crazy_Girl_Mary
Email: crazy_girl_mary@yahoo.com
Rating: R
Pairing: Angel(us)/Lindsey
Summary: Lindsey is charged by W&H to see that Angel receives his moment of true happiness and reverts to Angelus, but he’s in for a few surprises and one hidden challenge.
Warning: Contains mentions of M/M slash.
Dedication: To SweptAwayBayou, for the interesting and challenging challenge. Sorry I skipped the good part, but I’m just plain out no good at male slash.
Authors Notes: This piece was a response to an Angel ficathon put on by ducks, and the challenge from SweptAwayBayou can be found below.

Lindsey walked into the room, a confident swagger moving his feet. He had bedded the enemy, several wonderful times, and this meant the enemy was no longer a threat. Angel couldn’t possibly pose any semblance of a threat after the nights they had shared. If the proof wasn’t in his sex then certainly it was in his request to never leave a night unshared again… right?

There was no room for second guesses, especially when his swagger had brought him to the open doorway of his much-anticipated destination. He leaned against the doorjamb and took the room in. Candles were littered across the floor and every flat surface the room offered up. The lavish red covers on the massive bed had been folded down and romantic rose petals were sprinkled throughout. It was glowing, and positively beautiful.

“Looks like a little life can be warmed into those old bones after all,” he said lightly. His volume didn’t matter. He knew in this place, in this room, he would always be heard.

“Indeed,” a voice whispered from the shadows of the bathroom door straight to his left. Lindsey stood from his lean as Angel emerged from the shadows. It had been a week and the perfect sight of him still managed to take Lindsey’s breath away.

At first, Lindsey had been kidding himself, telling himself that he was only coming because it was his job. Then, when that proved obviously flawed, he tried to convince himself that he came because Angel’s power was magnetic, and he had promised to share. But he was a smart boy, smart enough to admit that it wasn’t just the power that made Angel attractive, smart enough to find his own flaws and fix or accept them. This one he was willing to accept.

At first it had been about his job, but inside he knew he had longed for the excuse to seduce Angel. He wasn’t naïve enough to think that Angel would be seduced without want. That was where Spike came in. While he wasn’t exactly evil anymore, he still had a big hate for Angel, and Lindsey saw that as a wonderful opportunity.

Some archivist at Wolfram & Hart, kinky little romance whore Lindsey was sure, had stumbled upon a smutty first hand account William the Bloody had written about Angelus teaching him the art of seduction. Lindsey had always shunned the rumors of vampires being bisexual to Rice-ian bullshit until the bookish little college intern had turned up in his office clutching the tome to her chest and blushing as she informed him just what Angel or Angelus was all about.

Lindsey had laughed initially, certain it couldn’t possibly be true. Angel into guys? Then he read the stories, his laughter turned to that of pleasured surprise and mocking, and reported to the Senior Partners that the Idol-wannabe could probably get some sort of ‘hold’, pun very much intended, on their little Angel problem. They had tried to wrangle the once wayward vampire, but after meeting much opposition in the form of ‘Slayer… Vampire Slayer’ they had come to the conclusion that Lindsey would have to make due.

Lindsey had objected furiously. It didn’t matter that he could be trusted! It didn’t matter that he had always had an unwanted sexual attraction to Angel! Christ, who didn’t? It didn’t matter that he had practically jerked himself raw reading the tome- late at night- in his bedroom- with the curtain drawl- and the faint candle light guiding him! He had boundaries after all! He had guidelines!

That first day at work, it seemed like everyone from the mailroom guy to the liaison for the senior partners knew what was going to transpire that night. Lilah had stopped by to wish him good luck.

“Loosen up, Lindsey!” she’d said tossing a thin tube of lubrication onto his desk with perfectly manicured fingers he would never imagine touching something so dirty if he hadn’t seen it himself. He had wanted to strangle her to death, and even told her so, but he had stopped a few feet short of her, and she had walked out of the room cool as a cucumber, agitating him so much further.

That was the day before, and it was worth it for what the night surprisingly held. Lindsey knew Angel hated him more than life itself, just as he hated Lilah, perhaps even more, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have any sexual tension to relieve. The senior partners had directed Lindsey to see that it was relieved, and if there were any problems well then he was all too easily replaced.

Vain? Most definitely, but Lindsey had examined every inch of his naked body in the mirror before he finally dressed in his most expensive suit and headed to the Hyperion that night. He had considered the casual look, but if Angel was going to go for this, he wouldn’t want casual, he wouldn’t want innocent, he’d want to tear down the power, he’d want to take out his frustrations on Lindsey. Just to be doubly sure this didn’t involve his untimely death, Lindsey had a little mojo, a little death protection spell from an affiliate of the firm, a former client of his. Didn’t mean the rat bastard couldn’t bring him nose to nose with the brink, he just couldn’t take him over it.

Angel had done just that, and Lindsey didn’t consider how easy it had been to win him over. They had each other panting and screaming and wanting more. Angel had treated him with quiet disdain afterwards, of course, but a letter had arrived in his mailbox the next morning on warm flawed parchment asking for a rematch in Angel’s pretty yet overstated calligraphy. He had accepted, walked right past Cordelia and Wesley on their way home for the night, and had an open invitation there after.

He was sure they would come to guidelines at some point, but once they were into it, they didn’t talk much. Angel was definitely a talker, a big talker in fact. He talked all about what he could do, what he could make you do, what you could do for him, but once he got to the doing the talking was at an appreciated minimum.

Tonight was obviously different. It looked like a romance novel with Fabio on the cover had thrown up all over the room. That didn’t mean Lindsey couldn’t value it. Angel’s initial nudity was a feisty change. He was usually fully clothed. They could revel in the undoing, in the unwrapping before the gifts, as he fancied it, but Angel was already unwrapped. What did that mean?

It certainly meant Angel had Lindsey’s full attention. He faintly remembered in a normal exchange it would be his turn to talk next… but this wasn’t a normal exchange, he couldn’t find the words, and Angel had been drawling ever so closer as Lindsey went further and further back in his remembrance while staring at his chest.

It was a chest to long after. Any man should be so lucky as to be built like that. Lindsey knew he was no ugly duckling, he had a nice chest too, but he thought it looked a little awkward. The rest of his body didn’t match up to it, except his arms and shoulders, which were large from teenage bar fights, tackle football, and survival of the fittest. With Angel, everything was big, and it all looked like it fit together so perfectly. Lindsey couldn’t quite imagine him with a dreadfully petite girl like Buffy, no matter how tough she was. This thought brought a smile to his lips that Angel obviously took notice of.

“Happy?” the vampire asked with a small grin of his own. Lindsey wondered what kind of beating he would take if he brought up her name. It was an unspoken rule, and he was so in the mood from the setting, he wasn’t ready to shatter the veneer yet. He wanted to find out what happened next.

“I’m getting there,” Lindsey replied smugly, taking a brave step forward. Angel lightly put his hand out and settled it on Lindsey’s shoulder.

Angel looked him up and down a few times, paying special care to his face before locking his eyes on the collar of Lindsey’s suit. He had actually went out and bought a suit special for the occasion. It was black but it had barely noticeable dark blood red pin stripes throughout its length. Underneath the suit he wore a black silk shirt, partially unbuttoned, and below it, a pair of expensive black leather shoes. “So pretty,” Angel mumbled fingering the soft flap of the collar, hearing Lindsey’s breath hitch at his proximity to his neck. “Dress up for me cowboy?” he asked with a sudden smile.

Lindsey started to answer when the hand near his neck began to slowly move down his chest to the first button of his jacket… then the second…. and then over the silk of the shirt to his belt. Angel opened Lindsey’s belt with just his thumb, while the other four fingers were tucked tantalizingly inside of his pants waist, flirting with the smooth silk of his shirt and then skin. Lindsey had learned Angel could do a lot of things with his thumb, and other body parts.

Lindsey’s pants weren’t too slim, and when his zipper was down they fell to his ankles. He felt awkward, standing there, pants around his ankles, shoes and jacket still on, penis throbbing out towards his partners. Angel’s head moved in towards Lindsey’s and for one frightening moment he thought for sure Angel was going to kiss him. That was an intimacy they had never shared, not even in the vicious throes of their wild animal sex.

Lindsey assumed, that was Angel’s last reserve, something he associated only with true love, something that would make these encounters too real for him to bear. Lindsey felt exactly the same way. The kiss was for truth, for childish love and admiration as seldom as he felt it, even for woman he picked up at bars and held tightly through only one night. It was not for this loathed enemy no matter how soft and inviting those lips appeared.

Angel pulled away suddenly and sat on the bed before him, staring him over. Lindsey was sure he looked more then ridiculous so he was thankful when Angel ordered, “Take those clothes off and let me see that body.”

Lindsey obeyed, curious why Angel wanted to see something he had spent most of his time in the past week ignoring, trying to replace with the vision of another. He let his clothes form a pile at his feet which he kicked hastily away, wanting no hindrance should Angel lustfully attack as he had been prone to doing.

Angel smiled darkly and stood. Lindsey could barely keep from backing up as he drew closer, eventually reaching out and grasping the only part of Lindsey’s anatomy that was striving forward. “That’ll do,” Angel said lightly before circling around behind his companion.

Lindsey heard the rip of fabric, then felt a sleeve of his new shirt slide slowly over his closed eyes. This wasn’t good. He didn’t like games, not at all, not in lovemaking and not in real life, not unless he could win. This game, he wouldn’t win. “Do you trust me Lindsey?” the cool voice asked lightly in his ear, far closer to his neck then he would prefer.

“Not at all,” Lindsey answered.

“Is this fun for you?” Angel whispered questioningly and Lindsey felt a pang of hurt for a reason he didn’t care to investigate. “Do you think that I might love you, and you could love me back, and we could be lovers of a special breed… together forever… with flowers and romance and country songs and all that other nonsense silly cowboys like you indulge in?”

Lindsey shuddered obviously. “No.”

“That’s not what you think?” Angel asked louder this time.

“No,” Lindsey answered louder, rising to the challenge because he didn’t know how to be meek.

“Oh,” Angel said simply putting his hands around Lindsey’s forearms and lifting him easily off of the ground. “Good to know.”

Lindsey felt Angel rushing him forward but had no idea what was going on until his face and chest and cock made hard painful contact with the brick wall across the room. He contained the scream but not the grunt as Angel turned him roughly around and lifted his arms above his head slamming them into the wall. Lindsey could feel blood trickling down his face and legs.

“So what is this all about Lindsey?” Angel whispered, stirring the air around Lindsey’s neck before licking the blood there and then up his face. “Lust? The thrill? Do you get off on danger Lindsey? When you put your cock in the mouth of a vampire do you like to think about how bad that makes you and how no one else would dare? About what it would feel like to be bitten, to be sucked dry? …Do you think dirty thoughts when I’m inside you Lindsey?”

“No,” Lindsey stifled out.

“No?” Angel mocked. “Oh I think maybe you do.”

“No.”

“Then what’s this all about? Cause gotta tell ya, I’m curious.”

“It’s my job,” Lindsey answered breathing heavily after a long hesitation.

Angel laughed out loud at this. “Wolfram & Hart not paying you enough for the pent house? You gotta use that skillful mouth elsewhere? Take it to the gritty streets and turn tricks?”

This was brutal. This was different. This was not right. Lindsey wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone but himself but he was scared, scared as hell. “No.”

“Stop with the ‘no’s boy!” Angel yelled with laughter in his voice. “You’re usually so much more of a ‘Yes! Yes! More!’ kinda guy,” he mocked.

Lindsey was all but whimpering in his arms when Angel shackled his wrists above his head. “What was your job Lindsey?” he asked provocatively from somewhere around Lindsey’s waste before his tongue began to savor the blood from his wound and where it dripped to his thigh.

“My job…” Lindsey staggered slowly out, “was to seduce you…”

“Seduce me?” Angel asked with a laugh, continuing his mouth’s previous work with the nimble strong fingers of one cool hand. “Why would you want to do a thing like that?”

“The Senior Partners thought I could give you a moment of true happiness and bring forth Angelus,” Lindsey answered quickly. The hand disappeared and there were a few excruciating moments of silence and blackness.

“Mmm, and what do you think cowboy?” Angelus asked after ripping the sleeve from his face and returning his sight.

Lindsey looked into the yellow eyes and then at the rest of the horrible demonic visage, somehow even scarier on Angelus than his soulful counterpart. Perhaps because Lindsey knew Angelus would use it.

“Angelus?” Lindsey asked timidly, with barely the voice for even that.

“The one and only.”

His lips were still coated with blood from his past venture and Lindsey hoped against hope he wouldn’t crave more. “Did I..? Did it..?” Lindsey stuttered out confusedly, suddenly physically drained from the knowledge that not only had he succeeded in his goal, but he had delivered himself to the monster, perhaps been delivering himself all week.

“Did you … Did it… WORK?!” Angelus mocked brutally gripping his captive by the neck and screaming in his face. “No,” he answered calmly pulling away and inverting on himself.

He turned and paced a few feet away from Lindsey looking at his feet as he paced, going back somewhere in time. “No this was something else… a spell I suppose… heard it in my ears like the curse only a few hours before you showed up. Nancyboy was starting to get ready for your company.”

Lindsey was shocked to hear that Angel anticipated his arrival as much as he did. “He did this?”

“What the flowers and candles?” Angelus asked leaving no time for an unwelcome answer. “No, that’s all me. His way of getting ready is taking a shower and sitting in a dark corner thinking about where he fucked up and how best to take it out on you.”

That was what Lindsey had expected Angel to be up to, but the admittance of it from this monster somehow hurt. He knew that would be just the start of the night’s pain. Angelus would torture him, the shackles told him that, despite the sheer knowledge that that was simply what Angelus did.

“But not you,” Angelus was saying, running a finger down his cheek. “You primp in the mirror like a sissy boy before your arrival… preen like a peacock in your fancy suits, knowing and reveling in the fact that they’ll be rumpled and tossable before the night is through.”

Again, the ugly truth of the words sent shudders down Lindsey’s spine. He wanted nothing more than to object but he knew it was simply useless. Angelus was right, and he knew it.

“You know what he thinks about when he fucks you Lindsey?” he asked suddenly, slowly, casually, as if bringing up the weather, but there was a hint in the back of his voice that he knew he was going to inflict emotional pain and he loved it.

Lindsey didn’t ask ‘What?’ He couldn’t bring himself to speak, or to even wet his dry lips.

“He thinks about shit,” he said loudly, with laughter and contempt in his voice as if that was the most unobvious answer there ever was. “Here he is melting inside you like butter, and he thinks about crappy meaningless useless horrible shit! He doesn’t think about the good times. He doesn’t compare you to Buffy or Darla or even Penn or Spike. He thinks about all the people he’s let die… He takes out his anger on you, and all you feel is heat and lust.”

Lindsey just stared forward. He had stopped really hearing what the vampire was saying halfway through his speech because he had started stroking his cock in the most wonderfully brutal way to revive it after the fear had started to bring it down.

“You know what I think about Lindsey,” Angelus whispered in his victim’s ear. Lindsey heard this, he didn’t have a choice, and the sound made him even harder. “I think about the person I’m with. I think about how they feel, about how they taste, about how they break and bend… When I’m with a person, I think about them, and the outside world doesn’t make a difference for hours.”

Lindsey couldn’t help but be excited at the thought of having Angelus’ complete attention but that excitement soon turned to fright. “That doesn’t really matter though, because I’m going to kill you.” Lindsey tried to scream as Angelus’ teeth sang into his throat, but no sound came out. He felt the blood moving, he was sure he felt it. It hurt, and it felt like he was being murdered, like the life was being quickly sucked from his body, …but he wasn’t.

“What the fuck?” Angelus asked after pulling hastily away from the wound he’d created. Lindsey just stared at him, sure that he was only a spirit floating up from a body that would soon hang limp in rusty wall shackles, naked, disposed of, garbage.

After a moment it became apparent that wasn’t really going to happen. “What the fuck Lindsey?” Angelus repeated louder.

Lindsey just stared back in shock for a moment, and then he remembered, the spell.

“What spell?” Angelus asked.

Lindsey hadn’t realized he had spoken aloud, and still felt like he couldn’t, like he never had. “You can’t kill me,” he eventually muttered out.

Angelus smiled. “You’re a resourceful little bastard. Tricky spells for tricky cowboys… I like you better already. So I can’t kill you. I guess that means I’ll have to resort back to the ol’ fuck and torture. I mean this spell’s gotta stop at some point. Or I can just keep you alive forever, that could be fun.”

Lindsey was suddenly regretting the spell and the slight happiness he’d felt when he’d remembered it. Perhaps it would’ve been better to die quickly. Although, he was sure when the torture started he would recant his thoughts once again.

Angelus turned rather suddenly and strode naked from the room only to return shortly with an array of instruments that paled Lindsey’s face and limpened him the rest of the way.

“Torture needs tools Lindsey,” he explained spreading them out on the bed, “Although I could use my fingers but it’s much more fun with tools.”

First he held up a small knife. He held it the way twisted sanatorium escapees held knifes in cheesy horror movies, so the candlelight glinted off of the side and made Lindsey squint his eyes. Once shut he found he was too scared to open them so he simply waited for the first cut. He waited and waited… and waited some more, until the inactivity and resulting curiosity were far too much to bear.

As soon as he timidly opened his eyes, smiling, Angelus slashed out at his chest with the blade. Lindsey gasped in reaction and expected pain but there was none, at least not the blindingly excruciating pain he expected. He looked down at the wicked gash on his chest. It was thin and red. The blood didn’t run at all but seemed to be coagulating like a cut did before it began to scab.

“Very clever,” Angel observed lightly before lashing out with the knife again. This time Lindsey didn’t have a chance to react. He looked down at the small hilt of the blade which was only half protruding from his heart, the other half having imbedded with the force. He felt like he had been railed through but what was worse was feeling his heart continue to pump away and contract against the double sided blade. The pain watered his eyes but he wouldn’t scream.

Angelus looked further impressed, for a moment like a kid in a candy store, and then he just looked disappointed. Lindsey looked back to the wound thinking at any minute the spell would give and he would breath blood but it didn’t happen and soon the pain lessened to where it was more than bearable. “Well I can’t kill you, I can’t bleed you, so what are you good for?”

Lindsey looked expectant, but was quickly shot down.

“You think I should let you go?” Angelus asked. His tone was caring and sweet so Lindsey knew it was the last thing that would happen.

He didn’t answer at first. Then Angelus asked again and insisted he answer.

“I don’t think you will.”

“Why not? What good are you to me?”

Lindsey didn’t know the answer or at least wouldn’t say it. He knew if he did answer Angelus would question his conceitedness. How dare he assume he could be entertaining, would be the reply.

“I don’t think I’m good at all, but that’s why you’re the psycho… I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

Angelus grinned at this, a grin different from all his others, a grin of appreciation for Lindsey, and for that fact that a fair verbal opponent may have temporarily outsmarted him.

Once again his grin turned cocky. “You’re confident in my creativity?”

“You could say that.”

“I did say that, but did you?” the vampire shot back.

“I guess I did.”

“Not without reason,” Angelus muttered sensually and for the first time in a long time he looked Lindsey over with a gaze that oozed sexuality. It felt as if his eyes were warming Lindsey’s skin wherever they roamed.

“Do you think I am a great lover Lindsey?” he asked slowly kneeling before his prisoner and sending a shiver up his spine. “Do you think I’m the best you’ve ever had? The best you’ll ever have?”

“I don’t know… don’t think I’ve ever had the pleasure. Perhaps you’ll show me.”

“Perhaps,” Angelus answered with a smile. It was true, he had said it earlier himself, he wasn’t Angel, he was a better lover, and he was sure he could surpass any joy Angel ever brought the man. But that wasn’t what he was after. He wanted the pleasure to have a price.

“If I offered you a challenge, in which winning you could keep your life, would you accept?” he offered lightly, even the stir of air from Angelus’ moving lips made Lindsey harder.

Lindsey thought for a moment, thought of the possibility of survival, the possibility of meeting any challenge Angelus set forth, thought about walking away alive, and ended up thinking fuck it. “I was built for challenges.”

Angelus actually chuckled, but he didn’t disagree.

After a few minutes in silence, and not receiving the challenge in words, Lindsey spoke up. “So what’s the challenge?”

Lindsey strolled out into the courtyard shortly after sunrise, surprisingly with the night’s earlier confidence restored. He had his jacket tossed over his bare shoulder and squinted his eyes against the bright sunlight as he made his way slowly out onto the sidewalk and around the corner to his car.

It was early morning and the streets were already furiously busy with employees rushing off to work. If he went straight there, he would still arrive to Wolfram & Hart on time but he considered lagging off to his apartment and showering away the lingering scent of his conquest.

Angelus had proposed a challenge, and Lindsey had met it. He was bruised and broken but he had won. He had made Angelus scream! And aside from that he had stifled his own screams, which came as a result of his captors cleverness. The vampire had figured out that if he didn’t plan to end up killing Lindsey he could hurt him, somewhere in the middle of their activities Lindsey figured that Angelus decided he really was worth keeping around, and not turning, and that made Lindsey feel surprisingly good.

Thoughts of what his bosses would say also made him feel pretty good. He had met their requirements and now had a valuable connection to an ally they had starved for for years. He whistled a pleasant tune as he started his car and raced off to his apartment to shower and change before work. While driving his thoughts began to drift away. What would he wear when he returned to Angelus for another challenge that night?

The End.

Welcome to your Angelthon assignment!

You're writing for SweptAwayBayou:

Pairing (or none) (the pairing you would like written for you): Aus/Lindsey
Genre You Prefer (no guarantees, but we'll do our best to oblige both reading and writing preferences, ie. shippy, smut, darkfic, slash, etc ):Smutty, Slashy, Dark
Requests (1 or 2) (one or two things you'd like in your story, ie: angst, a phrase, a character): No requests.
Restrictions (1 or 2) (one or two things you would like not to be in your story, ie: no sex, no mention of a character):No Character death, No Fluff