Title: The Thorny Path (the Righteous shall walk), an Angel story
Author: Brenda Antrim
Email: bren@bantrim.net
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended.
Author's Note: This story refers to my previous stories Forfeit, His Place in the World, and Plan, taking place directly after the Plan A ending, but it's written so that it can stand alone.

Wesley stared up at the ceiling and tried to close his ears. It didn't do much good. Lindsey was loud. Angel was efficient. Both were tireless.

It was becoming tiresome.

It would be less irritating if it wasn't so arousing. It might be less arousing if he ever had any intimate contact of his own, other than with his right hand, and that was difficult to do when he had the lingering suspicion that Cordelia was watching ... and laughing. Even the dead people in this household had more active romantic lives than he did.

He snorted quietly. Of course the dead people got more sex than he did. The dead outnumbered the living three to two. And they were all happily paired off. He was used to being alone, and used to being lonely. It bothered him, of course, but he had become resigned to it.

Until he looked into intelligent, hostile blue eyes in a lovely, determined face, and for the first time in too long, actually wanted to get close to someone. The fact that the someone with whom he wished to become close actively hated him and everyone for whom he cared was ... unfortunate, to say the least.

Giving up on sleep just as Lindsey cried out Angel's name and the bed stopped squeaking, Wesley dressed quietly and let himself out of the flat. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and it wasn't as if he wasn't used to failure when it came to incipient romantic relationships. The worst she could do was tell him no.

Or, perhaps, given the current strained relationship between her and Angel and her obvious contempt for Lindsey, the worst she could do was tell him yes.

Either way, he'd lose, which was after all what he was prepared to accept, so he walked into the police precinct with no hope and a smile on his face. She was at her desk. He walked to the side, stood by the chair, and waited for her to notice him.

When she finally looked up, she scowled, then looked around him. "Where's the shyster?"

Home sleeping the sleep of the utterly satiated, wrapped in Angel's arms, he thought, but kept the details to himself. "He's not here," he offered. "I just ... uhm ... I thought perhaps ... would you like ... erm, that is --" This was just as difficult as he feared it would be.

She stared up at him, her head tilted slightly to one side, studying him as if he was some sort of strange insect pinned to a board. "Did you want something?" she finally asked, when his fumbling attempts at speech strangled themselves in his throat.

"Ice cream?" he squeaked out, then blushed. She cracked a smile, small but real.

"I'm afraid I haven't got any ice cream here," she told him solemnly.

"Would you like to," he choked off and took a deep breath, "go-out-for-some?" He finished in a rush and looked hopefully at her. Her smile widened. "My treat," he added hurriedly.

Her smile turned to a grin. "Sure."

He didn't know whether to whoop with joy or faint, so he did as any proper Englishman would do and simply stood there, slowly turning bright red. She gathered up her purse and stood beside him. He extended his arm, and she looked at him as if trying to decide whether to laugh at him or punch his shoulder. In the end, she did neither, simply hooked her fingers in the crook of his elbow and towed him out the door.

The sun had never been brighter. The chocolate had never been richer. The day had never been more full of color. They didn't exchange more than a half dozen words between them, and he was perfectly content. She didn't appear too unhappy, either.

"May I call you Kate?" he finally asked. She licked around the base of her cone where it was dripping on her fingers, and said, "Sure."

"Thank you for coming out with me," he told her gravely as they crumpled their litter and tossed it in the bin.

"My pleasure," she told him softly, still looking slightly distrustful, if a tad more relaxed. His eyes were fixed on a small smear of pistachio at the corner of her mouth.

"May I?" he asked politely. She looked at him, one eyebrow climbing. He took it as permission and gently dabbed the ice cream away with the clean corner of his serviette. She stood still, staring up at him as he concentrated on his task. Finished, he caught her glance. They stared at one another for a short eternity before he came back to himself.

Blushed.

Cleared his throat.

Offered his arm.

This time, she took his hand.

When he left her office shortly afterward, he gave her his telephone number on a post-it note. She was sitting there, staring at it, as he left.

The next attack from Wolfram and Hart was unexpected, vicious, and definitely desperate, coming as it did during daylight hours. The first Angel knew of it was when the door splintered under a heavy shoulder.

Vases, knick knacks, sofa cushions, dishes and pictures flew through the air at the Tasker demons. Several went down under the initial onslaught as Cordelia and Dennis shrieked in anger and threw everything they had at the attackers. The resulting din and the slamming of the doors between the demons and the bedrooms gave Angel, Lindsey and Wesley time enough to wake up and figure out what was happening. As soon as they could grab hold of weapons, the doors flew back open and they joined the fracas.

It was a brief, bloody battle. A Tasker scored Lindsey across the shoulder with its horn, and Angel yanked it away, breaking its neck by the simple expedient of bending its horn back until its spine snapped. Lindsey fought back with a two-headed hand axe, swiping through demon bodies and ducking blows. Wesley tossed Angel a steel pike, and Angel speared Taskers like fish. A vase smashed across a Tasker's face, ceramic shards embedding themselves in its eyes and snout, and the poker flew like an arrow across the room, pinning two Taskers together and killing them both.

When it was over, thanks to Cordelia and Dennis' early warning and prompt action, the body count was eighteen dead Taskers to assorted non-lethal cuts, scrapes and bruises on the home team. It took the rest of the night to clean up the mess.

Leaning wearily against the doorjamb, Lindsey said musingly, "This is a good sign."

Wesley looked at him like he'd lost his mind. "In what way?"

"They're getting desperate, and they're failing." Lindsey actually sounded heartened.

"They're wearing us down, however," Wesley said. Angel nodded.

"We're winning the battles, but it's a long war."

"One battle at a time." Lindsey pushed off from the wall. "I vote for bed."

Angel beat him to the door.

Vaguely he was aware of Wesley's door shutting firmly, and for a moment he felt a little guilty at the fact that he and Lindsey were so obviously getting it off while Wes was stuck alone in his room. Then the guilt was swamped by lust, as usual around Lindsey, and Angel tossed him to the bed, landing on him like a giant cat and skimming him out of his clothes.

Lindsey didn't have any objections.

Life settled into a pattern of relative peace for almost a month. Lindsey watched as Wesley made himself scarce more and more often, coming back from afternoon outings with a dreamy look in his eyes and a smile on his face, but as impeccably dressed as when he left. Lockley called twice, asking for Wesley. The second time was illuminating.

"Angel Investigations." Dimly, he heard Cordelia snort, but it was the perkiest he could get. She'd just have to deal with it.

"Wesley, please."

He grinned at the cop's gruff manner. "May I say who's calling?" he asked politely, just to piss her off.

"You know who it is. Just get him," she barked back. He managed not to laugh. Barely.

"Sure, gracious lady," he responded gallantly. Covering the mouthpiece very loosely with one hand, he called out, "Wes! Girlfriend!" The thump as Wes fell off the chair in his haste to get to the living room was gratifying. The growl on the other end of the line was moreso.

"Hey. Lawyer."

He brought his attention back to the caller. "Yes, Detective?" he said sweetly. He could hear her clear her throat.

"Thanks for the information. It's been ... helpful."

"Thanks for acting on it," he answered truthfully. Before she could grumble at him again, he handed the telephone to Wesley, who was bright red and glaring at him. He ducked out of the room before anything more could be said, but he made no attempt to stop eavesdropping.

"Certainly ... that would be lovely ... three o'clock? ... I look forward to it ... goodbye, Kate." There was a decided click. Lindsey leaned against the wall and waited. It didn't take long.

"Did you hear anything interesting?" Wesley asked him, face still hot, voice getting angrier with each word.

"Be careful, Wes," Lindsey told him, sincerity leaking from him on cue. "She could just be using you." Old pain glittered in the narrowed blue eyes staring back at him, and Lindsey relented slightly. "She doesn't trust any of us. Watch yourself." He was serious.

Wesley saw through the teasing to the warning, and nodded shortly. "I'm always careful. I'll be back by sundown."

Lindsey watched him go, thoughtfully. He'd have to ask Angel what he thought. Much as he ragged on the Brit, he liked him, too, and he'd rather the man wasn't hurt. He didn't trust the cop any more than she trusted them.

Rustling in the bedroom distracted him, and he went into the kitchen to nuke some blood for his bedmate. Angel wandered out toward him, yawning and knuckling his eyes. Lindsey grinned. With his hair standing up at right angles, his mouth wide open and his eyes squeezed shut, the two hundred fifty year old vampire looked about ten. It was adorable.

The bell dinged and he pulled the cup out, reaching out and wrapping Angel's hands around it. "Drink up, you'll need your strength."

Angel's eyes popped open, staring at him over the rim even as he gulped half the cupful down. "What's the matter?" he asked when he finished swallowing. "Did you have another vision? Where's Wesley?"

"Off romancing the detective," Lindsey answered the last question first. "No visions. Just in the mood for a little debauchery."

Angel gave him a slow, nasty grin. "When are you not?"

"Good question. But there's somethin' satisfying about fucking your brains out when you're lookin' like little boy lost." Lindsey voice fell and his accent thickened as he moved closer, watching avidly as Angel finished off the last of the blood then taking the cup from his hand. "C'mon, little boy," he whispered enticingly, slipping the cup into the sink behind him. "Come out and play."

The growl Angel gave him was just the right answer to get his spine to tingling. Lindsey wrapped himself around the larger man, burying his hands in that unruly hair and doing his best to dive down Angel's throat. Angel reacted predictably, looping one arm around Lindsey's back and the other behind his knees, lifting him up and carrying him to the couch.

A light wind whistled through the apartment. It sounded like Cordelia, giggling. Another wind joined it, and the giggles muted to murmurs of happy satisfaction. Thank you, Dennis, Lindsey thought while he could still think. Then Angel was parting his thighs and nibbling kisses in the wake of every button he unfastened, and Lindsey quickly lost any ability to form a coherent thought.

By the time Angel had him stripped, Lindsey was writhing like a snake on hot sand. Angel clamped his hands around Lindsey's knees, parting and lifting them, then settled between them, licking, kissing and biting all along his upper thighs, between them down to the swell of his buttocks, then all along the perineum to Lindsey's sac.

He stayed there long enough that Lindsey was crying out and humping against him, his own hands wrapped around his erection. Angel apparently wasn't happy with that, because he caught hold of Lindsey's hands and pulled them away, replacing them with warm lips and a talented tongue.

There were times when the lack of need to draw breath was a real advantage, and giving head was one of them. Lindsey was on the edge of a knife, teetering but not allowed to fall, as Angel took his time with him. His hands were held fast, his hips pinned under Angel's arms as he was teased and teased. Angel licked and sucked, around his balls, up his shaft, playing and poking at his glans with his tongue. It didn't take much to drive Lindsey completely out of what was left of his mind.

He was whimpering uncontrollably by the time Angel let go of his wrists. All he could do was clutch hold of the sofa cushions and hang on for dear life. Angel wrapped one hand around his sac, pushed one hand back to play at his opening, and swallowed him whole, humming the whole time. The whimpers escalated into low moans.

When Angel finally did allow him to come, Lindsey couldn't seem to stop. Angel would suck, Lindsey would shoot some more, Angel would swallow around him, Lindsey would convulse again. By the time he finally collapsed against Angel's hand, he felt like there wasn't a drop of fluid left anywhere in his body.

Angel slithered up against him, shifting his thighs further apart and replacing his fingers with his cock. Lindsey relaxed into the fucking, unable to do a thing to help, since every bone in his body had melted.

Angel had been close when he entered Lindsey, and he wasted no time, thrusting strongly against him, rocking Lindsey against the cushions. Nuzzling into Angel's shoulder, Lindsey rode the motions, floating above everything, content with the world and his place in it. Then Hell hit him between the eyes with no warning whatsoever.

He knew he was lying on his back, with Angel covering him, holding and fucking him, but somehow he was on his stomach at the same time, and Angel wasn't Angel. Angel was Angelus. Angelus was biting him, hurting him, plowing into him, and it hurt, it was wonderful, it was horrible, it couldn't be happening. Lindsey tried to buck him off, not sure who he was or where he was or what was happening, only that it was wrong, and it hurt, and it couldn't be true.

The hands at his hips tightened, and the face in front of his shifted, Angel to Angelus, yellow eyes gleaming, a cruel grin stretching the fanged mouth. The monster face dipped and those fangs dug into him, tearing the flesh at the side of his neck. Blood gushed across his throat, and he screamed. His legs cramped and his hands clenched uselessly on empty air.

Vaguely he was aware of Angel, clutching him, emptying into him, nuzzling his hair and whispering his name. Superimposed over that welcome, normal impression was an uglier one, hard hands bruising him, sharp teeth tearing at him. The room looked wrong, full of books and plants and ancient manuscripts. The light was wrong, muted and humid. His hands looked wrong against the cushions, larger, streaked with blood.

"Lin? Lindsey? What's wrong?"

"God damn you," he choked out, but it wasn't his voice. They weren't his words. Other words followed, Latin, he was pretty sure, but he didn't know what they were. Angel's face washed over Angelus', and Lindsey landed back in his own body with a jarring thump. He stared up into Angel's confused face.

"Christ on a crutch," he wheezed, then wrapped both arms around Angel's neck and hugged him as tightly as he could.

Angel petted him, somewhat hesitantly then more firmly, before asking again, "What's wrong?"

"Vision, I think," he managed to rasp. Angel jolted against him.

"While we were having sex?" He sounded incredulous.

"Yeah. Sucks, huh?" Lindsey gulped in air, and tried to calm himself. "Weirdest damned one so far. It was like some sort of flashback or something, more than precognition. Involved my whole body, not just my head."

Angel drew back very slowly, staring hard down at Lindsey. "What do you mean, flashback?"

"Well, it was you, but it wasn't, and it sure as hell wasn't me," Lindsey tried to explain. That had been clear as mud, he knew, and he tried again. "It was you at first, then it turned into Angelus. And it was somebody, but not me, and you -- Angelus was fucking him, raping him really. Biting him and raping him. I saw the room, it had books and plants and stuff all over the place. Looked like an old-fashioned library."

By the time he finished, Angel was completely still. He was looking at Lindsey, but from the expression in his eyes, he wasn't seeing anything of the here and now. Lindsey swallowed, then carefully cupped Angel's cheek with the palm of his hand. "Angel? What's goin' on?"

The dark brown eyes gradually focused on him, and Lindsey saw as well as felt the withdrawal. Angel didn't say anything as he pulled away and efficiently dressed. Lindsey sat up as well, reaching for his jeans. To his surprise, his head didn't ache as it usually did after a vision, and he didn't have the normal vertigo, but his body felt like he'd been beaten with big sticks by enthusiastic sadists. He watched silently as Angel walked over to the telephone and picked it up. He dialed, and Lindsey listened in.

"Hi, Willow. Is Buffy in? ... she is? When? ... When was the last time you saw him? ... No, that's all right. I'm sure she has her hands full ... you too. Thanks, Willow." He hung up slowly. Lindsey shrugged into his shirt and sat back carefully against the cushions.

"You goin' to tell me what's goin' on now?" As usual when he was stressed, his Southern roots showed through. He scowled at Angel. He didn't like the feel of this one, whatever the hell it was.

Angel paced back and forth across the living room like a cornered bobcat for awhile, until Lindsey got dizzy watching him and put his head back, closing his eyes. The footsteps continued for another few more minutes before they headed toward him. He felt Angel looming over him and cracked one eye.

"Well?"

"How complete is your file on me?" Angel asked. Lindsey looked at him for a long moment, then huffed out a sigh and answered. Angel would tell him in his own way, eventually.

"Relatively complete. Family history, too many servants but those records always are scanty, early kills, known Children, Gypsy curse, century of atonement munchin' on rats in alleys, alliance with the Slayer and her little band of merry helpers." Two and a half centuries condensed into two complex sentences. Lindsey was good with words. It was one of the reasons he'd become a lawyer.

"You know about the curse then." Angel was staring holes in him. Lindsey nodded.

"Which leads me to another question," Lindsey allowed himself to sidetrack into a related area of interest. His interest, anyway. "How come you're not morphing into Angelus now?" He gestured between the two of them. "You know, with ... us."

Angel looked away. "I'm not in love with you," he said coldly. "My soul's not in jeopardy here."

Lindsey swallowed. He'd known it, hell, he didn't believe in love himself, so it shouldn't have made any impact on him to hear Angel confirm it. It shouldn't have hurt. He had no idea why it did.

"What else?" Angel prodded him, dragging him back to the business at hand. Lindsey felt a brief spurt of anger, but it died away. He'd known what he was getting into when he went for it. It was still better than the alternative.

"Okay. Past history. You fell in love, lost your soul, wreaked havoc, got your soul spell-cast back to you, went to hell anyway, came back, played superhero, took off for L.A. to save the world. Did I miss anything?"

Angel sat beside him, suddenly, as if his knees had collapsed. "It's the wreaking havoc part that concerns me at the moment. How much do you know about that?"

Lindsey took a deep breath. Enough pussy-footing around. "You want a play by play? We had a rap sheet a foot long. Death, mental torture, artistic renderings, more mental torture, rape--" Lindsey's tongue froze in his mouth. "The Watcher." It wasn't a question.

"Is in trouble," Angel answered it anyway. "Rupert Giles went missing last night. He'd gone to the Huntington Library to look at some rare manuscripts, then he was supposed to go over to Brentwood to consult with a historian there. He never made it."

The same thought hit both of them at the same time. "The Firm," Lindsey breathed.

"Bait," Angel confirmed.

"Son of a bitch." He could think about the ramifications of his feelings later. Maybe. First things first, and the first thing was to out-think the bastards at Wolfram and Hart. Or there wouldn't be a later.




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