Title: Evil a Lindsey story in the Angelverse
Author: Brenda Antrim
Email: bren@bantrim.net
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: no copyright intended.
Spoilers: For Dead End. I love this show.

Gunn, Wesley, Angel and Lindsey threw themselves into the room. Cordelia danced around the door, hitting anything that came within striking distance with a modified baseball bat Gunn had given her. The sounds of battle rose to an unearthly screech.

As the fight raged around them, Lindsey got close enough to reach Lilah. She was shaking, buffeted in all directions by the physical and metaphysical combat surrounding her. Lindsey caught her arm and pulled her to him, screaming up into her face, "You should have left it alone!" He caught her chin and kissed her softly, and her eyes closed. A single tear trembled on her lashes before sliding down her cheek.

A warning tingle went down his back and he swung around, holding Lilah in front of him as a human shield. The spell one of the senior partners had flung at him caught her full force, her body jerking in his hold as it absorbed the destructive power. She didn't even have time to scream before she bled out from the massive wounds in her torso. Lindsey let loose with a full-throated roar as he called on all the Power he could muster and threw it, along with Lilah's corpse, at the senior partner.

When it hit, the partner exploded as if her body had been a hand grenade. Sickly yellow fire flew from him in all directions, destroying three minions who'd had the misfortune of being within range.

Wesley had pinned the second senior partner with a web of sorcery, but was weakening rapidly. Angel and Gunn were bogged down with minions, fighting their way toward him. Lindsey staggered toward Wesley, helped unexpectedly as Cordelia came up beside him and caught him around the waist, carrying him forward. He clutched her shoulder to steady himself as he concentrated the last of his energy on the second senior partner. Its struggles lessened but it was still in danger of escaping when Angel suddenly sliced through the last of the defenders and threw himself at the partner.

It took his battle ax, his fangs, and both hands, but he finally managed to rip the partner's head off. The body folded in on itself and the head turned to ashes in his hands as the partner was returned to hell. Lindsey took a deep breath.

Promptly gagged so hard from the stench he nearly fell over.

Angel caught him as Cordelia lost hold of him. Strong hands, slick with blood and other bodily fluids and smelling of death, held him to a rock-hard chest. Lindsey gave half a second's thought to staying there for a few decades. Then he felt the rumble increase under his feet and knew if they didn't get the hell out of there ASAP, he wouldn't have even the next few minutes, much less decades. Pulling himself upright, he grabbed Angel's hand and yelling "OUT!" he ran for the door.

Gunn and Wesley caught an exhausted Cordelia between them, and the group fled at the highest speed they could manage for the express elevators. They could hear the floors exploding above them as the car sped downward. Hitting the lobby at the same time the tenth floor joined the previous twenty in oblivion, they skidded down the stairs and literally fell into the humvee. Angel shoved Lindsey in the cab, tossed Cordelia in the back as Wesley and Gunn jumped in to catch her, and kicked the block away from the peddle, reversing the humvee out of the ruined lobby as fast as he could. Fortunately, when Gunn was modifying it, he'd given the engine more pull than anything the original manufacturers had envisioned.

It was a damned good thing. They'd barely cleared the perimeter of destruction when what had once been a multi-story steel and marble building disappeared into a hole in the ground, flames and glass exploding in all directions. Lindsey glanced up at the dawn beginning to brighten the horizon and pulled on Angel's sleeve. Tired brown eyes pulled away from the fireworks marking the grave of Wolfram and Hart, looking over at him from a preternaturally pale face painted with blood and grime.

"Huh?" Angel asked. Lindsey pointed at the sun, starting to make its way up.

"Didn't make it through that conflagration just to have you go up in smoke from the sun. Put it in gear and get us the hell away from here."

For once, Angel didn't have a single thing to say about being ordered around. He simply put the humvee on the road and got them the hell away from there.

Back at the hotel, nobody was inclined to speak. Cordelia had a glazed expression on her face that mirrored Lindsey's feelings exactly, and the rest of them weren't far behind. By unspoken consent, they all wandered away to find a shower and a bed. Cordelia went one way, Gunn and Wesley went another. Lindsey followed Angel. Once in his bedroom, Angel stood in the middle of the room and looked around blankly. Lindsey stepped around him and headed directly for the shower.

No way was he going to smell like that a second longer than absolutely necessary.

The water felt like heaven raining down on him, washing away the grime, soot, residual traces of magick, blood, gore, ichor and fatigue. Lindsey closed his eyes and put his face up to the water, losing himself in the glorious sensation of being clean. He didn't even flinch when the door to the shower opened and Angel stepped in behind him.

"You asked me the other night if I wanted to share," Angel purred into his ear as he ran his hands up and down Lindsey's arms. Lindsey tried not to shiver. Angel's hands were cold. "So I'm answering you now. Yes. I want to share."

Lindsey grinned, leaning back a little, getting used to the chill as it spread down his back and into his legs where he came into contact with Angel's body. "Wasn't exactly what I had in mind."

"Wasn't it?" Angel dared him.

He thought about it, his head tipping automatically to the side as Angel leaned down to nuzzle at the side of his neck. "Maybe," he conceded. One large hand came around his hip and started playing at his groin. He gasped at the contrast of cold and heat between Angel's fingers and his own cock. "Okay, yeah, it could've been."

There was a quiver of movement behind him, and he groaned, knowing without having to look that Angel had just vamped out. "Maybe?" A fang stung the soft skin over his jugular, and he moaned. "Could've been?" The fingers pulled harder, and Lindsey arched into both the touch and the bite.

"I am so fucking twisted," he sighed, admitting to himself that he'd wanted this from Angel since the first time he'd met him.

"And this is news to you?" The hand dipped, circling the base of his cock and pumping hard. At the same time, the fang broke the surface of his skin and a rough tongue lapped at the tiny spill of blood. Lindsey felt his mind spasm and lost track of the conversation completely.

It was just as well. The best he could do for language wasn't intelligible as such. The hot water pouring over him and the cool touch taking control of him were all he could feel, and he gave himself up to the sensation. There was a fine line between love and hate, and it was such a change to feel anything at all that he let it blur. He'd take either. Both. Anything Angel would give him. Anything he could make Angel give him.

Then he was coming, and Angel was biting him harder, and there was a line of fire running through his chest from his cock to his throat. All Angel. Pleasure and pain mixed together, knocking him off his feet. Angel caught him.

The tile was wet against his cheek as he was leaned against it, fingers working inside him that took the heat from his body and reflected it back to him. Then Angel was working his way inside, and Lindsey rocked to his toes with each thrust. He felt full to burst, and it was another kind of pleasure/pain, as intense if not moreso than the first. Too tired to get hard again, too caught up in the sensations not to respond, he felt the tip of his cock slap gently against the wet tiles, streaking them with leaking semen. The world was nothing but the strong hands on his hips, the cock moving in him, the wet hair brushing against his cheek and the hungry mouth lapping at the blood seeping down the side of his throat.

He passed out before Angel finished. When he came to, he was dry, in bed, with Angel wrapped around him like an octopus. He wriggled. Angel didn't move. A very large, dead octopus with an unbreakable hold. For some reason this didn't bother him as much as it might. Maybe it was because he had no burning desire to escape.

Giving up on anything resembling rational thought until he'd gotten some sleep, Lindsey squirmed until his ass was flush against Angel's groin and closed his eyes. Surely when Angel awoke he'd get the hint. Lindsey'd conked out in the middle of the first time. He wasn't about to miss the second. Until then, he was going to go to sleep and dream of sweet escape and even sweeter showers.

Of course, it didn't quite work out that way. The Powers That Be didn't appreciate being summoned like servants, even when it was for the good of the light. Anyone arrogant, or desperate, enough to do so would soon find themselves answering for their actions. Lindsey was no exception to the rule.

His eyes flew open and he was startled to find himself in a marble hall with light blue satin hangings decorating the Doric columns surrounding him. Lindsey blinked. Shivered. It was cold. Looked down at himself.

Great. Called to defend himself to the Higher Powers, and himself naked as the day he was born. He took a deep breath.

"Explain yourself," a voice echoed inside his head and pressed in from all sides.

"I'm sorry," he began, then thunder shook the marble beneath his feet, and his jaw froze shut.

"You have disdained us, turned from us, fought us for years. Now you turn to us in your time of need. Explain yourself."

He was a lawyer, Lindsey told himself. He could do this. Unfortunately, when he opened his mouth to speak, no words emerged.

As it turned out, he didn't have to talk. Energy invaded his mind, much like the mind-readers at Wolfram and Hart only immeasurably more powerful. The assault upon his thoughts brought him to his knees with a keening cry of pain. Images flashed in front of his eyes. His mother, lying pale and cold, the bedding beneath her wet with fever-sweat, her staring eyes seeing nothing. His little sister, not waking up in the morning after an extremely cold night with no coal in the house to heat it.

His baby brother, in the crib, making no noise, sleeping, then not sleeping, but still not moving. His daddy, punching the side of a tree, blood running from split knuckles and tears running down his face, as they packed up the truck with what the could carry and headed off down the road. Hungry, again. Always. The first time he was beaten on the school yard, and the second, and the twentieth, before he was big enough and mean enough to fight back, and canny enough to find allies.

Looking through the window at his oldest sister, standing by the bus stop as he left them all behind. The conscious decision to be something he had never been, and to never be what he had once been. Hearing his mama cry somewhere beyond his sight the first time he cast a spell and killed a man. Closing his heart and doing it anyway.

The pain built in his mind until all he could see was white fire. Then another face floated past his vision, a little blind boy, huddled against his side, trusting him to save his life. A second child, and a third, and his own voice telling them over and over that it would be all right. They were safe. He would keep them safe. The white light receded, and he saw Darla's blue eyes as he told her that she was going to die. As he did whatever he had to do to ensure she would not.

Even damning her against her will.

Brad's dark eyes, pleading with him. Condemning him. Forgiving him. Holland's face stared down at him, shaking his head, disappointment in his eyes. Cordelia's, filled with pain; Wesley's, with suspicion; Gunn's, with disgust. Angel.

Smiling at him.

Holding him.

Killing him.

The last vision struck a chord, and he fought back, rage and desperation saving him from oblivion as they so often had. It wouldn't happen. Not now. They weren't enemies any more, there was no need for any more death, he would go --

The light hit him like a hammer, shutting him down. He whimpered.

He would stay. Words swept through his mind, whispering in a surprising soft brogue, and he listened. He would stay, and he would seek redemption. He would atone for his crimes. He would stay and protect the innocent as he had so often preyed upon them in the past. The light swirled into a concentrated eddy, moving around him, sliding up his body to bite suddenly, deeply, into the side of his neck. He cried out, but he couldn't tell if it was from pain or pleasure.

The light vanished and he woke with a start. Angel's arm still pinned him to the mattress and there was no movement from behind him. Slipping out from under the deadweight, Lindsey pulled on a pair of boxers he found lying on a chair and walked into the sitting room of the suite. Clicking the television on, he slumped in a chair and watched images flicker by. A local news team interrupted his mindless staring and he sat up straighter, narrowing his eyes at the screen.

A pretty Asian woman in no-nonsense black stood beside the crater that had once been Wolfram and Hart. Gesturing at the wreckage, she pulled a strand of hair from the corner of her mouth and launched into her report.

"An earthquake struck in the early morning hours here in Los Angeles, rattling windows and causing minor damage for an area covering several miles. The epicenter is not yet determined at this time, but there was some damage caused by the quake. Most of it was minor, but here on the west side there was some severe damage. We've had no reports of injury or loss of life, but the property damage here was extensive. There used to be an office building behind where I'm standing now, but a gas leak caused by the earthquake sent explosions ripping through what was once a well-respected law firm. The building exploded, leaving only this crater behind." She was still talking when a hand reached over his shoulder and turned it off.

"Well, that's one way to explain the unexplainable," Angel said, dropping his hands onto Lindsey's shoulders, rubbing the tense muscles there. Lindsey looked up at him over the back of the chair.

"One of the unexplainables," he said quietly. He let the words trail up slightly at the end, turning the statement into a question. Angel met and held his gaze.

"Sex with you has an obvious explanation," Angel informed him. "You're not exactly hard on the eyes."

"Same to ya," Lindsey told him, not sure how far to go with it, and not yet comfortable enough to share the dream he'd had of the Hall of the Powers.

Angel finished his rubdown with a little pat on his shoulder, then moved to stand next to the couch. He hovered there for a moment, uncertain in his movements, before perching on the end cushion. "So, what's the plan now?"

Lindsey gave him a questioning look, and Angel shrugged, waving his hands in Lindsey's general direction. "For you. What are you going to do now? Head back to wherever you came from? I mean, Wolfram and Hart shouldn't be much of a threat to you for awhile at least, until they can get their act back together, so you should be safe. For some time, anyway. You won't have to keep looking over your shoulder."

He went on chattering as Lindsey got up, walked over to the couch, and sat beside him. Angel closed his eyes as Lindsey's body heat reached him.

"Well, I'm kinda at loose ends at the moment. You got any suggestions?" He leaned a little closer. Angel opened his eyes and gave Lindsey the shadow of a smile.

"A few."

"Like what?"

"I like the way you look in my shorts." Angel moved faster than the human eye could track, and the next thing Lindsey knew he was flat on his back with Angel lying over him, dangling the shorts in his face. "Think I like the way you look out of 'em even better."

Lindsey looped his arms around Angel's neck and pushed up with his hips, bucking them off the couch and onto the carpet, rolling until he was straddling Angel and peering down into his face. "I can work with that. You know I got an evil hand, right?"

Angel leered at him. "So? I can work with that." They rolled again and Angel pinned Lindsey, grinding against him. Lindsey moaned. "I've got two," Angel whispered in his ear as he put those hands to good use driving Lindsey out of his mind. Lindsey gave up the fight. He had time to tell Angel what the Powers That Be had decreed. Later.

Much later.

end