Title: Heart's Desire, a Lindsey story in the Angel universe
Author: Brenda Antrim
Email: bren@bantrim.net
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended.
Spoilers: Possible spoilers for all episodes concerning Wolfram & Hart, definite spoilers for To Shansu in LA.

There were no further black-outs, and no more wanton destruction, for five days. Lindsey was in conference with Chuck, one of the senior partners, and two Pleykibmith demons who were looking for better protection for their human traffic racket, when an explosion ripped the parking garage in half.

Fortunately for Lindsey, the parking garage was under the other side of the building. Unfortunately for two of the senior partners, Bill Blanewort and an ancient Jareo demon called Plou, it was centered in their limousine. The bulk of the explosives and the timing device had been wired to the drive shaft.

Usually Wolfram and Hart kept problems in the family. They had a much larger budget than the LAPD, and sources the police could never tap. This attack, however, was simply too big to hide. Everyone in the building was evacuated, as the search for more explosives began. Lindsey stared across the milling people at a certain blonde head making its way determinedly toward him. He held his ground as Detective Kate Lockley stomped up and did her best to get in his face.

She was kind of cute when she was on her high horse. She was also two inches taller than he was. He didn't let it bother him.

"Is there anything you'd like to add to the investigation, Mr. McDonald?" She said it so coolly, like she knew something that was just between the two of them, and she was inviting his confidence on the rest of it. Nice play, but he really didn't have a clue what the hell she was talking about.

"No," he answered politely. He could feel Holland's eyeballs boring holes in his back. Lockley stared at him awhile longer, then gave him a bright smile.

"Whenever you're ready, we'll talk," she told him.

"When hell freezes over," he said, just as politely. Her smile solidified into solid ice.

She turned on her heel and stomped back over to where the explosives experts were shifting through bits of rubble. He watched her, not needing to turn to know that his mentor was now standing less than six inches behind him.

"Is there anything you want to say to me, Lindsey?" Holland's voice was gently inquisitive. That particular tone always made his spine want to crawl up and hide under his scalp.

"She's just trying to stir up the mud, Holland," he answered as calmly as he could. "Shadow boxing."

"I sincerely hope so, Lindsey." It sounded like he did, too. That was one of Holland's strengths, sounding so caring as he was cutting a man to pieces and feeding the bloody bits to the dogs. Lindsey didn't say anything more. Eventually Holland drifted away.

Lindsey rolled his shoulders to loosen tense muscles and blew a breath out, hard. There was nothing else to be done at the Firm, since they wouldn't be able to get back inside until the demolition team cleared them, which might not be for days. Shrugging off the inconvenience, he headed for home.

Settling down at his laptop, he powered it up and prepared to work on one of the briefs he had pending. To his surprise, a window was already open on it. He stared at the screen, watching the white letters scroll across the dark blue background. When the message finished, he read it.

Coughed.

Read it again.

Staring at the words and numbers as if certain they were an hallucination that would disappear if he took his eyes from them, he reached out and hit the 'enter' key. The words scrolled past, and others took their place.

The numbers stayed.

Forcing himself to remain calm, he reached out for the secure land line next to his desk. He turned off the direct line to the office, and made sure all the security checks were in place. Then he flipped on the scrambler he'd added illicitly and prayed to a God he wasn't sure existed, much less listened, that there was no one left at the Firm to overhear. He punched in one of the numbers on his computer screen and listened to the whistling tones of an overseas connection.

A computerized message greeted him. He punched in a second number, waited for the appropriate message, and punched in a third. The tinny voice gave him a name and an account balance. He sat with the receiver up to his ear until the computer on the other end got tired of repeating itself and disconnected the call.

Eventually he was able to get enough strength in his arm to replace the handset on its cradle. He stared at the computer screen for a very long time.

How had Angel managed to pull this one off? And why had he put Lindsey's name on the account? As a set-up, twelve million dollars in an untraceable Cayman Islands bank account wasn't a bad sting. But why?

His mind was still circling that question like a shark around fresh meat when the world went black again.

At least he wasn't in his bedroom. The thought struck him as perfectly logical in context, he just didn't have any idea what the context was. And didn't give a tinker's damn about his own ignorance.

Obviously, it was a dream.

Curious to see where it would lead him, he smiled as the wind ruffled his hair, enjoying being out so late on a hot LA summer night in a convertible. It was like a Marilyn Manson take on a Beach Boys song.

Which, come to think of it, was a pretty apt description of his life.

The Corvette seemed to drive itself. It stopped at a lovely spot in Brentwood, just to the side of a sprawling estate. He left it there, scooping up a small gym bag from the seat behind him and slipping through the security grid like a ghost, neither questioning nor caring how he knew what codes to type in and what circuits to bypass.

Once on the grounds, he wasted no time employing the equipment in the bag. A Verine demon tried to stop him, and he cut her throat before she had time to call warning. Her mate met him two steps later and he bashed her head into a solid granite gargoyle decorating the side of the steps. It seemed appropriate. They looked enough alike to be sisters.

He brushed the blood and brains off his shoes, cleaned the knife on the grass, and dug back in the bag. It was the matter of moments to drop down into the catacomb below the estate and leave his little presents behind. Lumpy, vaguely roundish drops of gunk that looked like overworked gray play doh, with tiny wires poking out from the centers. Eight of them.

More than enough.

Slipping out was as easy as slipping in had been, once he sliced through the spinal cord of an Arkern guard demon, silencing both slavering mouths with one cut. It folded up, legs going under it, heads flopping down, looking for all the world like a puppet with its strings cut. Lindsey patted it once between the horns on the near head, then stepped over it and exited through the same hole in the sensors from where he'd entered.

The Corvette was waiting, and he hopped over the side and slid into the seat. He coasted away from his parking spot before reaching down into his jacket pocket and flipping a lever on the front of a small metal box resting there. He didn't bother turning to look at the cloud of light and dust behind him. He could feel the vibration of the explosions bucking the road beneath the car. It was a little like riding a roller coaster, only flat and without having to wait in line.

Ignoring the weirdness pinging through his brain, he continued into downtown and parked a block away from Angel Investigations' new office, in a rat-trap old apartment building just as crappy as the one the Firm's bully boys had blown to hell not that long before. He stalked up the sidewalk with firm resolve to do whatever the hell his body seemed to be programmed to do. His mind was on vacation, off floating somewhere to the left of reality, watching the goings-on with detached curiosity.

He kinda liked dreams.

The locked door opened to the touch of the pick he hadn't known he had until he used it. He breezed in, rather impressed with himself. Then he plucked the small metal box from his jacket pocket and dropped it on Cordelia's desk. He reached into the top drawer and withdrew the mallet she kept there, either to ward off rats or to knock Angel unconscious should he suddenly morph into Angelus, then lifted his arm and brought the hammer down with all his strength atop the box.

Fragments. Perfect.

Of course, there was now a nice, shallow crater in the middle of the desk, with cracks branching out from it, but that was okay, too. He'd buy her a new one. Or Angel could. They sure as hell had the money. He ignored the thought and scraped the scraps into the wastebasket next to her desk. They looked perfectly at home with the screwed up paper, empty hair gel can, crumpled napkin stained with chocolate and half box of used tissues with lipstick marks on them.

"Why?"

Lindsey raised his head from his bemused peek into the trash can and stared up at Angel, standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, staring back at Lindsey. He wasn't wearing anything but a burgundy silk robe.

It looked melodramatic. Overdone. Damned good on him. Lindsey grinned.

"Gettin' rid of the evidence," he drawled.

"Of what?" Angel asked steadily. Lindsey shrugged one shoulder and wandered over to stand directly in front of the vampire.

"God, you're cold," he said softly. There was the slightest tinge of admiration, not to mention lust, in his voice.

"I'm dead. I'm supposed to be cold. What's your excuse?" Angel continued to stare at him.

Lindsey didn't bother to answer. He just reached up, clamped both hands in Angel's hair, and kissed him.

The next thing he knew, he was flying across the room.

Since this caused him to end up splayed across Cordelia's desk, with Angel crouched above him like an avenging, well, angel, Lindsey didn't complain. After all, it was his dream. If he wanted it a bit rough, who was he to balk at his own subconscious?

Pushing aside that thought before he got hopelessly wound up in his own logic and tripped himself as he so often tripped others, he took advantage of Angel's proximity, and the fact that the belt on the robe had come undone. His left hand snaked up behind Angel's neck and his right hand, palm tingling and wrist itching, shot directly to Angel's crotch with the speed and aim of a well-programmed homing missile.

Angel opened his mouth to protest, or yell at him, or bite him, or who knew what. Before any sound came out, or any fangs appeared, the strangest expression crossed his face. He looked down at Lindsey's fingers, busily working between his legs.

"Hot!" he exclaimed. He didn't look uncomfortable, just shocked.

Lindsey enjoyed the reaction. "Goddamn right, I am," he growled, then arched up and latched on to Angel's lips with his own. Angel moaned into his mouth. It tasted good.

Heat met ice everywhere Lindsey's hands touched Angel's skin, and after the first startled moments, Angel shuddered and lowered himself over Lindsey's body. Neither of them seemed to notice the edges of the desk cutting into them, or the fact that the shades were open as Angel literally ripped Lindsey's clothes from his body and Lindsey yanked and tugged until Angel was equally naked.

Orgasm hit Angel first, and his face changed, eyes flashing yellow and fangs gleaming behind drawn-back lips as he pushed his hips into Lindsey's. The force and the slickness, slippery cool against his overheated flesh, was all it took to knock Lindsey over the edge as well, and he humped frantically against Angel's bulk as the vampire nuzzled him, gnawing drowsily on his shoulder.

It hurt. Turned him on, too, but the pain was a surprise. Gradually cooling down, blood returning slowly to previously blood-starved parts of his body like his brain, Lindsey realized several things at once.

The desk was fucking hard. And so was the fucking. His shoulders, his ass, his thighs and the back of his head all felt bruised.

It was cold in the office. He could feel the draft of air over his feet and up along his balls where he sprawled beneath Angel. Who was also cold. It was a little like having a two hundred pound cold brick wall on top of him.

His wrist wasn't itching anymore. At all.

He wasn't dreaming.

The last realization made him buck so hard in shock that Angel nearly fell off him. It also had the salutary effect of bringing the vampire out of his post-coital stupor.

Angel got off him with much less grace than he'd landed on him, nearly breaking Lindsey's ribs and puncturing his diaphragm with a stray elbow in the process. When he finally got his breath back, Lindsey rolled somewhat painfully to the side of the desk and sat, feet dangling, stark naked, smeared with his come and Angel's, and wondered what the hell had just happened.

A broad, creamy, muscular body stepped close in front of him, filling his entire field of vision. He swallowed, suddenly dry-mouthed.

"Why are you helping me?" Angel asked.

Lindsey was slightly irritated to note that the vampire didn't seem the least disconcerted by their quick roll in the hay. On the desk. Wherever. Dismissing the thought as irrelevant, he glared up at Angel through the hair falling in his eyes.

"Damned if I know." Angel raised an eyebrow. Lindsey shrugged, feeling very cold all of the sudden. "It's my heart's desire." The words came tumbling out of his mouth, but he didn't say them. Or he didn't think he'd said them. His hand shot up to cover his lips, and he stared up, stricken, at Angel.

The vampire looked like he wanted to laugh, but was too confused to do so.

An itching started in the scar around his right wrist, and spread quickly through his fingertips to his mouth, then down along his throat to his chest, settling in over his heart and making his entire body twitch.

"Fuck," he whispered as the import of that itch finally sank in. "Be careful what you wish for. Even if you don't know it, you just might get it."

This time it was he who jumped Angel. There was a thread of desperation underlying the passion, but the force of his need itself was enough. They stumbled down the stairway, Angel guiding their steps, Lindsey too busy trying to burrow into Angel's hide to worry about anything as inconsequential as falling down the stairs and breaking their necks.

Knowing it was a dream didn't do much to alleviate the unreality of it. Angel had the strength to throw him off, he'd proven it, but he didn't seem to want to let go of Lindsey's heat. Lindsey took shameless advantage of that fact, kissing and stroking and rubbing against every inch of Angel he could reach. By the time they'd ricocheted off the couch and landed on the bed, Lindsey was on top, and Angel was just as crazy with lust as Lindsey was.

A brief moment of sanity broke through, and Lindsey found the strength to grab hold of Angel's hair and pull his head back, breaking their kiss.

"D'you love me?" he snapped. The dark eyes flared, yellow swirling in their depths.

"Hell, no, I hate you, now shut up so I can fuck you," Angel growled back.

Lindsey nodded, satisfied. Angel tipped them both over, and Lindsey tried not to suffocate or lose his mind from sensory overload as Angel did just that. Thoroughly.

Much later, every thought screwed right out of his head, butt too sore to lay on, sprawling over Angel, the itch in his damned wrist finally allayed, Lindsey rested his chin on Angel's chest and let his mind drift.

They'd have to talk, of course. Eventually. Not quite yet. He had to find out if Angel knew about the accounts.

They might even have to work together, to clean up what was left of Wolfram and Hart. It was time he went into practice for himself, anyway. He wondered, vaguely, if Holland had survived the final assault. Couldn't make up his mind if he hoped the answer to that question was yes or no, and gave up trying to decide. He drifted on.

He looked forward to hearing Chase's scream when she realized who her boss was bedding. The Englishman would probably just be jealous.

They'd definitely have to fuck again. That had been much too good to be a one-off.

His eyelids were closing, and he stared at Angel through his lashes as long as he could before he finally fell asleep. On the edge of oblivion, he heard a voice winding through his mind, laughing at him. "Paid in full," it told him.

He believed it.

FIN