Title: Epiphenomenon a Lindsey story
Author: Brenda Antrim
Email: bren@bantrim.net
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended.
Author's Note: Concurrent with the episode 'Epiphany.'

He was practically comatose with exhaustion by the time he made it to his front door. The lock was a pain in the ass, as always, but he eventually fumbled it open and stumbled inside.

It echoed.

He knew before he asked, but he had to try. "Darla?"

That echoed, too.

He tightened his jaw and looked around the room. It had been cleaned out, anything of value, little of it his own, stripped and gone with her. He walked wearily over to the closet and opened the door.

Empty hangers. Like the empty apartment. Empty like he was.

His fingers clenched around the neck of two of the hangers. There'd been silk hanging from them the night before. Red, on one, black on the other. Edged with lace. Smelled like musk, felt like heaven. A lot like Darla, not that he'd gotten a real chance to find out.

Lindsey slouched on the sofa and watched the sun rise through the curtains. Closed out, left behind, barely seen and hardly known. He didn't know who he was anymore. Didn’t know if he had a choice left in the maze his life had become, or if he did, what it might be. Didn't have much of anything left inside him. It had all dried up, waiting for words from Darla that never came, or been shaken out by Angel.

He'd felt dirty for years. Cold for even longer. Now he felt empty, too.

He didn't know when he fell asleep, but it was early evening when he woke up. He was so stiff he could barely move, and his jaw hurt from clenching his teeth even in his sleep. Stripping off nearly killed him. Forty minutes under the shower loosened his muscles up enough to be able to bend over and put his boots back on.

His first stop probably should have been the Firm. God, or Somebody, only knew how much ass-covering he had waiting for him there. But he found himself at the mechanic's garage instead, nodding over repair bills, staring up at cracked axles and pointing out dents and broken glass. He had them write up a second copy of the bill, then climbed into the company Jag he normally used and headed out toward mid-town. He was actually standing on the sidewalk in front of Angel Investigations with the bill in his hand before he knew what he was going to do. He shrugged, winced as the movement jarred bruised bones, and stalked into the office.

Peripherally he was aware of Gunn standing protectively over Wesley, and of the abortive move the injured man made toward his cane. There was a depth of affection between the two that gave him pause before he shrugged them off as unimportant. Detouring around Cordelia, gawking at him from the desk, he made a beeline for Angel, hovering awkwardly off to the side of the group.

As he stretched out the piece of paper toward Angel, Cordelia asked sarcastically, "What truck hit you?" He didn't bother answering. Not surprisingly, Angel answered for him.

"That would be me," he said whimsically. "That the truck hit."

"What can we do for you?" Wesley asked coldly, trying for authority. Lindsey ignored him, too.

"You gonna be epiphanyin' any time now, since we got us a lawyer in the house?" The nonsensical question came from Gunn but appeared to be aimed at Angel. Angel opened his mouth to answer him and Lindsey stuck the bill in front of his nose. He was standing so close to the vampire he could feel the chill rising from his skin.

"You're welcome," he growled, referring to the insulting note of thanks Angel'd left pinned to his shattered windshield. "Here's the bill for the repairs." As always when he was in a pure temper, his drawl was a foot thick.

"Is that Lindsey or his country cousin?" Cordelia asked rhetorically. Angel poked at the bill with one finger, peering around it at her over Lindsey's head.

"I think this is Lindsey with the gloss knocked off." The whimsical note was still there full-force. Lindsey felt a fierce longing for a nice, sharp stake.

"That was your vehicle?" Wesley sounded like he was in shock.

"Made one hell of a battering ram, gotta give ya that," Gunn chimed in.

Angel looked at Lindsey. Lindsey glared back. "Is this payback for Darla?" he asked mildly, taking the paper in hand and glancing down at the total. Lindsey hadn't spared him a dime of the mechanics' greed.

As he'd been doing since he'd pushed Darla from a room full of vengeful colleagues, Lindsey reacted without thinking. One of these days, probably real damn soon, it was going to get him killed. He wrapped his one real hand around the back of Angel's neck, yanked his face down within striking distance and kissed him.

Hard.

Since Angel'd been revving up for another smartass remark, Lindsey caught him gaping like a fish. Made it easy for his tongue. It was a sneak-attack kiss, as thorough and devastating as any he'd ever planted. It took Angel as much by surprise as Lindsey, and his response was as raw and honest as any in his very long life.

Dimly, he heard splutters from Wesley, a hoot from Gunn, and a shocked shrill warning from Cordelia. "You better not be thinking of sleeping with Angel because we like him just as he is -- well, for the most part -- and we don't want him turning all evil just because he has sex. I have a chain and a stake right here if you get any funny ideas! Either of you!"

Lindsey broke the kiss and Angel stared down at him, looking a little dazed. "Too late for that," he admitted.

"Thank you for answerin' my question," Lindsey told Angel in return, then bunched up his fist and hit him as hard as he could on the jaw. The impact of vampire skull to plaster wall left a hole. Angel slid down to the floor in an unconscious heap as Lindsey turned on his boot heel and stalked back out the door. Gunn leapt instinctively to defend Wesley, but Lindsey ignored both of them as he had for the entire encounter and stomped out to the Jag.

He could feel them staring after him in shock as he drove away. The feeling followed him all the way down the block. It helped distract him from the burning in his knuckles and the tingling in his mouth. A little. Not enough. Not nearly.

His brain was spinning in dizzying circles all the way back to his apartment. Lindsey MacDonald had gotten to be a junior partner in Wolfram and Hart by lying, cheating, killing and conjuring, but he'd never lied to himself. He knew why he'd kissed Angel. He just didn't want to believe it. Because to believe it, he'd have to admit that he was sorry, too, that Angel hadn't tried a little harder to save Lindsey when he'd come seeking help for those children. Not because of Angel's redemption, or the children's lives, or even the tattered remnants of his own soul.

And if he admitted how he felt about Angel, even to himself, he'd have to admit how far he'd fallen, and how impossible the climb back out would be. And he wasn't quite ready to admit defeat. He'd faced tough odds before. He could do it again. He simply had to figure out how he wanted to play the hand first.

Wouldn't do to win the game only to find out he was playing for the wrong stakes.

Pulling up outside his apartment building, he wasn't as surprised as he should have been to see Kiulam demons in human guise waiting to escort him back to the Firm. Four of them. He was impressed. They must really have thought he'd been going to run. The thought was amusing. Where the hell did he have to run to?

"Mind if I get cleaned up first?" he asked. A rhetorical question as it turned out. The answer was nonverbal, short and to the point. He straightened his jacket and made himself comfortable on the leather back seat of the Benz into which he'd been stuffed. As comfortable as he could get, bookended by six hundred pounds of guard demon.

No one looked at him as he was escorted through the underground parking garage, into the executives' entrance and up the express elevator. Might have been because nobody could see him, with his phalanx of Kiulam. Might've been 'cause they weren't looking. Firm employees learned early what to note and what to turn a blind eye to if they wanted to survive. He used to be good at that. Then he'd discovered that his blind eye had, well, a blind spot. He'd been up to his ears in shit since that happened.

Lindsey had never been to the top floor of the Firm before. He'd been up to the eighteenth, once. His own office was on the twelfth. Only one elevator went all the way up to the twenty sixth. It was a small elevator. Pressed in on all sides by Kiulam he broke into a sweat. It was hot.

That's what he told himself. It wasn't completely a lie. It just wasn't the whole truth.

That whole truth hit him as soon as the lead Kiulam opened the single door opposite the elevator and shoved him through it. The door had looked nondescript. Like any other door to any other conference room in the building. If one didn't look too closely and recognize that the grain in the wood wasn't blood-colored. It was blood.

The sweat on his skin turned to ice as the door shut behind him. He was alone in the room, except for a single figure standing where the window should be, if there'd been a window. Instead, there were curtains, and what looked like the open maw of a furnace. A fire that big should have warmed the whole room, but Lindsey couldn't feel any heat. Just a cold wind that bit at him, made his bruises and cuts ache instantly, sent little bolts of agony up from the scars at the end of his stump.

The figure turned and smiled at him, eyes twinkling as they had in life, usually right before ordering someone's death. Lindsey gaped in spite of himself. Then he winced. His self-control was shot to hell.

"Holland! But you're … well, of course you are. Sorry. Didn't mean to be so stupid." At least his accent was firmly stamped out of his voice. Mortal terror was the one deep emotion that didn't send him back to his roots. He tried to avoid staring at the livid bite marks on the side of Holland's neck. Darla'd been a messy eater.

His late mentor strolled up to him and reached out to touch a gentle finger to the livid bruises around his eye. "It would appear that stupidity has become more the norm than the exception for you lately, Lindsey." The twinkle muted and solemnity shadowed Holland's expression. "I'm disappointed in you. I had very high hopes for you, Lindsey." Sincerity drenched the words. "What happened? Can you tell me?" A small, well-calculated pause, then in a lower tone, inviting confidence, "Do you even know, yourself, what happened?"

Death hadn't tarnished the man's mastery. He'd been a persuasive interrogator in life, and was equally as effective in death. Lindsey swallowed, trying to figure out how to answer the unanswerable. Before he could figure out a graceful way to accept his no-doubt truly unpleasant fate, the walls started to whisper.

Inside his head.

All around him.

In his bones.

Voices of judgment, voices of condemnation, voices of damnation. Insidious and insane laughter barely lower than hearing range, grating on his nerves. The blood on the door seeped through the woodwork into the room and began to run down in long strands of sticky fluid, tears wept by the very walls, as the fabric of reality began to tear around him.

He only knew he'd been screaming when he stopped. He was on his knees, Holland's hand resting atop his head, patting his hair gently, crooning softly. It reminded Lindsey irresistibly of his childhood, when he was four or five, and all the kids were still living, and Daddy would pull up the blankets and touch each head, making sure all his little angels were in place, while Momma sang to the baby and made them forget that they were going to bed hungry again. With all the pain he was feeling, he also felt peace, a peace he hadn't known since Momma'd died and Daddy'd lost everything and the children started dying.

His face was buried against Holland's pant-leg and he was crying, but he didn't care about that, either. He'd felt the voices in his head, pulling out every hidden motivation, even the ones he'd hidden from himself. He'd seen what they'd seen, heard what they'd decided, and he knew it was the end. But there were things he had to know, too, answers he had to have before they put him in the oblivion they promised him.

Or the hell. By this point he didn't much care either way.

Pulling back enough to be able to look up into the false compassion in Holland's eyes, Lindsey asked roughly, "Was this all part of the plan? Angel, and Darla? To destroy me along the way? Did it work?" He coughed, feeling mucous running down his throat from clogged sinuses, bringing up his hand to dash at the tears blurring his vision. "Was it worth it?"

"Oh, Lindsey."

Holland sounded affectionate. He always had. For a second Lindsey wondered if any of that affection had been real, then cast that thought aside as worthless, as well. It didn't matter. Not anymore. Maybe not ever.

"You failed with Angel, you failed with Darla, and you failed the Firm. The failures are completely unrelated. You would have failed regardless of your intent, because Darla would never love you, and Angel would never hate you. They are creatures beyond your ken, and ever would be."

"You set me up." Lindsey rocked back on his heels and stared up at Holland. The smile on the old man's face was surprisingly gentle.

"Oh, no, Lindsey." He shook his head. "We didn't have to. You failed all on your own. You tried, and you failed, because it isn't in you to be what we need. And it isn't in you to be what Angel or Darla want. You're not dark enough for her; you're not strong enough for us; you're not good enough for him. You are, in the end, simply inadequate on all fronts."

The voices rose up around him, drowning out any response he might have made. The world narrowed to two ancient blue eyes, devoid of warmth or understanding, an avidity to them that made his own blood cry in sympathy with the voices swirling in the void around him. Words pounded at him through the cacophony. Hopeless. Lost. Useless. Failure. Not enough. Never enough. Desolation swept through him, emptying him of everything, even the bitterness that had been the center of his ambition since his childhood. Without that drive, without the hatred, without even the need for vengeance, he was left with nothing.

There was a metallic taste along his tongue. His hand was shaking. His face was wet, and he could taste the salt along his lower lip where the tears were running into his mouth. The voices were a muted chorus in the back of his mind. His shoulder was cramping.

He opened his eyes to find himself in his own office. Alone. No Holland, no guards, no nightmares. Just himself and a gun. With the barrel in his mouth and his index finger on the trigger. Which was cocked.

He couldn't, to save his soul, think of a single reason not to pull the trigger.

Muscles were moving in reaction to the thought when his stump began to itch. Fiercely. The hum of the voices giving him so many reasons to use the gun, not the least of which being to shut them the hell up, was suddenly overwhelmed by a single cheerful voice. It had a distinctly Irish brogue.

"Ye've got a choice, ya know, ya numskull. Not that it'd be too numb with the most of it blown to smithereens."

Choice? His finger relaxed and he closed his eyes again, caught by the impossibility of this new voice. Beneath it, he heard another echo. "There's always a choice." Angel.

Damned Angel.

His finger quivered, and the Irish voice barked at him. "Yeah, a choice! Yours. Death or life. Continuance or radical departure, man. Hell as ye've never imagined the like, or rebirth, of a sort." The voice paused, and when it continued it was very soft. "Think hard on it, Lindsey. Oblivion in the service of those ye're doomed to fail … or Angel. It's a right pain either way, but one could be a wee bit easier to take than t'other. At least the pain in the arse ain't mortal."

The double meaning in the last sentence made him smile in spite of himself. "Been in pain my whole damn life," he said aloud, not caring who heard. "I'm used to it." He didn't know when he'd laid the gun on his desk and uncocked the trigger.

The laughter he heard this time didn't taunt him. For reasons he couldn't explain, it warmed him. With the realization that he wasn't shivering came a brightening of the room, until he had to squint against the brightness filling his vision.

"Why?" he asked suddenly. "Why'm I given a choice? Why didn't they just kill me?" Like they do with the rest of their failures? Even though he didn't say the words aloud, he had the impression the new voice had heard him.

There was sadness as well as understanding in the response he got. "Only the innocent and the guilty are given no choice in their fate, man. Those who're both must choose their own path. Sort of neutral territory in the war between Good and Evil, as it were. Don't bollix it up like I did. So make up your mind, boyo. We're runnin' out of time."

Lindsey didn't consciously make any decisions. His instincts took over, something deeper and more integral to his being than any conscious thought could ever be. His mind supplied an image of Angel, and he turned toward it. The light responded by exploding all around him, and he threw up his right arm to shade his eyes as the world went agonizingly white. It gathered into a lightning bolt that struck him, knocking him off his feet. His last coherent thoughts were that his arm was on fire, and a single mental cry of 'sonofabitch!', then there was nothing.

He didn't know he'd been asleep until he woke up. His cheek caught against the pillowcase, and he raised a hand to rub the stubble there, covering a yawn automatically. His other hand ran down from where it had been resting on his chest, subconsciously registering the nubbly feel of a sweatshirt, then on to the yielding denim of jeans worn nearly white. His fingertips enjoyed the softness of the cotton against them. His bare toes curled into the sheets beneath them, and he yawned again. He didn't recognize the room he was in. Had never seen it before in his life. For some reason it didn't bother him. He felt oddly safe. A stray thought struck him and he froze.

Mid-yawn, his eyes popped open, mouth gaped wide. The hand he'd used to cover his mouth raised by degrees until it was directly in front of his staring eyes.

His right hand.

That wasn't plastic.

A strange noise escaped his throat, a hybrid of a gargle and a gasp. He closed his jaw slowly, as if it was rusty, and swallowed. Twice. Blinked. Three times.

The hand remained.

He licked his lips and swallowed again, trying to moisten a mouth that had gone dry when he'd seen the impossible dangling right in front of his face. He looked closer and verified that yes, indeed, he did have his hand back. Around the wrist where, before the strange events of the day, he'd had a mass of scars and a strapped-on plastic hand, there was a thin blue tattoo that looked like fine barbed wire, and a real, live, human hand. That worked.

He curled his fingers into a fist. Spread them out. Flexed his hand a couple times. Snapped his fingers.

Yup. Worked.

He was only distracted from staring at his amazing new working hand when the door to the room opened up and Angel walked in. Dropped the book he was carrying and stared at Lindsey with as much astonishment as Lindsey was staring at him.

"What are you doing here?" Angel eventually asked.

Lindsey thought it over for half a second, considering and rejecting every response from 'Where’s here?' to 'Charging by the hour,' and told him the truth. "Starting over."

Angel continued to stand in the doorway, apparently unable to decide what to do about this unexpected development. Lindsey rolled out of the bed and walked over to stand in front of him. Angel braced for an attack. Lindsey held up his brand-new hand. "What do you think it means?"

Dark eyes stared at the hand for a long moment before looking back at his face. "Beats me," Angel answered just as honestly.

"Okay." Sounded like a plan to Lindsey. He bunched his new fingers into a fist and took a swing.

Angel caught him. No surprise. Yanked him up close against him. Not much of a surprise. Kissed him.

Hell of a surprise.

Or perhaps not so much of one, after all. The fist unclenched and both hands got to work stripping Angel off as they moved toward the bed. Inhumanly strong hands caught hold of him by the waist, lifting him up as if he weighed nothing and tossing him right back on the bed he'd just left. Then they were stripping his clothes off even faster than his hands had worked on Angel's. In very little time they were both naked as the day they were born, and Lindsey was burrowing into cold that felt like a furnace, hands and a mouth that left a trail of liquid fire everywhere they touched.

Lusting after Darla, living with Darla, treating Darla like precious porcelain for weeks, finally caught up with Lindsey. Angel wasn't fragile. Not in the least. Angel was solid and large and muscular and didn't mind a few bruises. From the moans he got when he bit into creamy skin, Angel really liked a few bruises. Liked to give them as well as get them.

Which was fine with Lindsey. He was in the mood for a little rough and ready. They were rough, and he was damned sure ready.

The first time he came, he heard the voices again. They were howling. They weren't happy. All but one. It sounded a little wistful, but it was laughing. Gradually, as large hands calmed him and roused him again, the laughter won out over the howls. As he came the second time, on his belly with Angel covering him, driving into him, driving him on, the voices faded away under the force of his own scream.

All of the voices but one, and that one whispered in the back of his brain as Angel curled over him, held him in place, howled into the side of his neck. Lindsey couldn't help but grin at the whisper.

"Wasn't quite what I meant about a pain in the arse, man, but if it works, go wit' it."

Lindsey was planning on it.

He wouldn't have pegged Angel for a snuggler, but after Angel'd pulled out, swiped at him with the corner of the sheet and collapsed beside him, those big hands reached out for him again. Dragged him around and arranged him comfortably atop a wall of cool muscle and soft skin. Lindsey had the strange impression that Angel was using him for a blanket. He rubbed his cheek against the shoulder beneath it and sighed. Angel shivered.

"You feelin' evil now?" He had to ask. Angel actually chuckled. Lindsey rode out the rumbles and waited for an answer.

"Nah. Just horny."

"You feel that way with Darla?" He knew he was pushing his luck, but it didn't bother him. He had to know. He'd always been one for details. There was a thoughtful silence before Angel answered him.

"No," he finally said quietly. "I didn't feel anything at all after having Darla."

Lindsey frowned. He didn't buy it, but he let it slide. Neither sledgehammers nor sex would get the direct truth from Angel if Angel didn't want to talk. So he attacked at an angle. "Is this an improvement?"

There was a hint of movement above him, as if Angel had ghosted a kiss across the top of his head. "I think so."

Neither one of them said anything for a long time. Lindsey was almost asleep when he found himself asking the really hard question. "What's next?"

"I don't know. Play it as it comes. Think that'd work?"

Drifting off, Lindsey couldn't stop his grin or his drawl. "Hadn't so far, but I got high hopes." He was unconscious before Angel had the chance to come up with an answer. It was probably just as well.

When he awoke again it was early evening and he was alone in the bed. He wandered into the bathroom for a quick shower, then dressed in the clothes Angel had taken off him, finding his boots under the bed and putting them on. As he came down the stairs, Angel was waiting for him, keys in hand. Lindsey cocked his head and looked at him. Angel shrugged. Lindsey nodded. Might as well get it over with and see what happened next.

They were quiet on the way to Angel Investigations' office. Lindsey found himself enjoying the night air, as well as the little glances Angel kept shooting him. Weirdly enough, he didn't feel at all nervous. Something was going to happen, and it was supposed to happen, and he was going to go along for the ride and let it happen. Wasn't a damned thing he could do about it.

Given that he'd been a control freak for the past quarter century, his new laissez-faire attitude should probably scare the shit out of him. He curled his right hand against the edge of the window, and smiled into the wind. Then again, things had been far out of control for as long as he'd had the illusion he had them under control, so maybe now that he'd given up control, he'd start to actually get himself some? The thought intrigued him, and he turned it over, examining it from all angles until they rolled to a stop outside the office. Angel took a deep breath and climbed out of the car. Lindsey hid his smile and followed. Unfortunately, Angel's momentum stalled out just inside the door.

"Hi," Angel said tentatively from the doorway. Lindsey ducked around him and leaned against the wall. Gunn stared narrow-eyed at both of them. Wesley cleared his throat.

"Are you out of your mind?" he asked, apparently involuntarily, then looked appalled with himself.

Lindsey barely managed to stop from grinning again, especially when Angel answered, "Probably."

"What do you want?" Cordelia challenged Lindsey directly. The corner of his mouth tipped up, and his wrist began to itch very lightly.

"A job." He made it sound as non-threatening as possible.

No one spoke for a moment, then Gunn, not taking his eyes off Lindsey, said in a cold voice, "Your call, English."

Wesley was shaking his head in the negative and Cordelia had her mouth open to back him up when her hands flew to her head and she yelped in pain. Angel moved so fast he was a blur, coming to a stop behind her and catching her as she lost control of her body, her muscles spasming under the force of the vision. Lindsey also moved without conscious thought, reaching out instinctively and catching her flailing hand in his.

His right hand.

The barbed-wire line around his wrist began to glow brightly, and he heard Wesley's choked off exclamation along with Gunn's muted "Holy shit!" Lindsey didn't pay much attention. He was too busy fighting to stay on his feet, swamped as he was by the torrent of pain that was flowing from Cordelia into him, cramping his muscles and overwhelming his mind. Calling on reserves of strength built in his hardscrabble childhood and reinforced as an adult, he gritted his teeth and rode the crest of the agony.

Cordelia sighed in relief and began to speak. Wesley moved and Lindsey was vaguely aware of scribbling sounds as he took notes. All he could see was Angel's face, staring back at him, anchoring him. All he could feel was the pain he was siphoning off the Seer.

Then fingers were unwrapping his clenched fist from around Cordelia's hand, and she was staring appraisingly at him with something that looked like approval in her dark eyes. She reached out and patted his cheek, and he rocked on his feet.

"He stays," Cordelia pronounced. "Better than Excedrin any day."

Angel reached around her, touching Lindsey's hand, and an arc of blue fire leapt from Lindsey to Angel. Cordelia inhaled sharply.

"When the Powers give a gift, it behooves one to accept," Wesley muttered, staring at Lindsey. "Regardless the form it may take."

"What the fuck?" Gunn asked him, still staring at Lindsey and Cordelia. Lindsey swallowed.

"About that Excedrin," he managed to ask, fighting down the last of the monster headache Cordelia's vision had given him, "got any handy?" Her smile as she handed him the pills and the water glass was a little too happy. He ignored it.

The crew went for their weapons, all but Angel, who stared around at the group and beamed. It was such a bizarre expression on his face they all stopped and stared back at him. Except Lindsey, who swallowed the pills, gulped the water, and glared at him.

For all of five seconds, before he caved in and returned the touch of his hand. That broke the spell on the rest of the gang, who hurried to grab their weapons and go out demon hunting. As they were piling into Angel's car, Lindsey leaned over and asked, "So is this the way it's gonna be?"

Angel shrugged one shoulder and darted a quick look his way. It wasn't quick enough. Lindsey saw the hope in it. In the back of his mind, a lilting brogue whispered back, "your choice, man. Last chance."

Lindsey shifted in the passenger seat, looked at the three people stuffed into the back seat, then glanced over at Angel staring at the road with more concentration than the traffic demanded. He rubbed his itching wrist against his chest. He'd been heading down this path all along, but he'd been too distracted to know it. He'd thought Darla would be it, but she'd just been a bend in the road.

A man only got so many choices. It would appear that he'd made his. He'd try not to blow it this time.

end




Epiphenomenon. n. 1. a phenomenon that occurs with and seems to result from another but has no reciprocal effect or subsequent influence.