Title: Watching Over
Author: Brenda Antrim
Email: bren@bantrim.net
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended to either
Author's Note: An Angel story with Love Song elements
Cordelia was staring at the deep sapphire of the antique glass beads on the necklace she was about to add to her collection when the world spun. Happily, Gunn was right behind her and was able to save both her and the necklace.
The snakes were back, but they were confused. They were slithering all over the pit, looking for a target. Lindsey, recognizable now even though she couldn't see his face, had a blazing circle of fire all around him. Above him, in the shadows, she could hear a sound like a wild dog growling. Or maybe a really big cat. A really big, really territorial cat. With jealousy issues.
There were fewer snakes, but also fewer targets. The other man was gone, and there was a glowing wall where he used to be. Some of the snakes flung themselves at it and were wrapped in tubes of light with pretty colors sparkling over them. Then the tubes would collapse and the snakes would be squished.
Cordelia cheered. Silently, of course. But every squished snake was one less snake to worry about. The rest of the snakes didn't notice, just kept squirming around Lindsey, trying to get past the ring of fire.
The cat growled. The snakes hissed. Cordelia sighed.
And opened her eyes to find herself securely in Gunn's arms, staring into the concerned face of the shop owner.
"She's okay," Gunn said over her shoulder. "Gets fits sometimes. No problem."
"Fits?" she asked incredulously as he led her out the door. "Hey! Wait a minute! I want to buy -- "
He dangled the necklace in front of her face. "You see anything we gotta take care of?"
"It's under control," she said happily, taking the necklace from his hand and dropping it over her head. It looked good against her shirt. "Thanks."
He grinned down at her. "My pleasure. You sure we don't have to head off now?" He sounded hopeful. She grinned sunnily up at him.
"Nope! Plenty of time left to shop."
She didn't bother waiting for his defeated groan. She was on a mission. She set off. He followed, grumbling all the way. Funny, she didn't see how this could be worse than fighting the minions of hell. Surely he couldn't mean it. She looked back over her shoulder.
He looked like he did. Okay, maybe it was time to head back to LA. Sighing wistfully, she turned back toward the car. He grinned all the way home. She shook her head. Rather be fighting demons than going shopping.
Men. Who could understand them?
Angel made some calls while Lindsey got dressed and fine-tuned the plan in his head. He knew the Firm had changed all their locks, combinations, and wards since he'd left. It didn't matter. He knew where Lilah lived, and she hadn't moved. Angel made a couple sarcastic comments about his breaking and entering talents, but he ignored them. Since Angel couldn't cross the threshold, Wesley and Lindsey went inside and Angel lurked in the hallway, out of sight around the corner. They were waiting for her when she got home.
She opened the door, locked it behind her and dropped her briefcase on the chair, kicking off her shoes with a relieved groan. She set the outer alarm and walked into the kitchen. In the process of pouring herself a glass of cranberry juice, Lindsey walked out of her bedroom. She almost dropped the jug. Lindsey caught it before it could spill.
"Oops, that could've been nasty," he teased her. "All that bright red fluid on white shag." He shook his head in mock reproach. "Didn't Lee teach you anything? You never get a stain that color out of the carpet."
He waited for her to respond but she just stared at him, wide-eyed, pale. He reached over and touched her hand gently. She jumped.
"I'm not here to kill you, Lilah." She relaxed fractionally but still eyed him like a wild animal about to bite her. "I'm here to stop you from killing me."
At that, she relaxed further, but looked completely confused. "What are you talking about, Lindsey?"
He grinned cheerfully at her. She shivered. "Okay, truth time. Now, I'm not going to kill you." She tried to draw her hand away and he pinned it to the counter. "Somebody at Wolfram and Hart has been targeting me and my family. It's going to stop, or it's going to backfire. Starting with you." His tone made it perfectly clear that he would come back on the Firm with a vengeance, and she would be the first one he took down. She swallowed, then licked her lips.
"It's not me, Lindsey. Hell, I owe you. You saved my life and gave me exactly what I wanted by walking out when you did. Why would I want you to come back? For any reason?"
He stared at her long enough to decide that he believed her. She paled further, but didn't try to fight him. He'd break her arm in an instant, and she knew it.
"Give me a name."
She was shaking her head before he finished getting the words out. He pulled on her arm, dragging her partially across the counter and putting his other hand, the one she still thought was evil, against her throat.
"They'll kill me! Or worse!" Her voice was choked. The whites of her eyes were showing.
"This isn't sanctioned. You know that." The even tenor of his response calmed her somewhat. When he knew she was listening he went on. "The senior partners aren't behind this or I wouldn't have survived long enough to take it back to them." Behind him, he heard Wesley's strangled gasp. Lilah jerked, but Lindsey held her down and ignored Wesley. "This is personal. What's Nathan been up to recently?"
Her chest rose and fell in a deep, steadying breath. "Not much. I think ... when he misjudged you, he fell out of favor."
Lindsey thought about it for a second. It fit with what he'd been thinking. "So, by taking me out, he's trying to get back in their good graces? Makes sense." Too much sense. "Lilah," he crooned softly, "how do you feel about another promotion?"
She looked at him like he'd lost the last ounce of sanity he possessed. He grinned at her. His hand at her throat twitched. She gulped.
"Okay," she forced out.
"You get us in, then you cover your ass." He knew she could do that.
"Us?" she asked. Wesley stepped forward. Angel must have been listening, because he chose that particular moment to kick the door in. It bounced against the jamb and Lilah practically jumped out of her skin, nearly strangling herself on Lindsey's hand.
Lindsey sighed. "Invitations are so much easier on doors." Angel grinned at him.
"So, are we on or what?"
They were. Lilah's identity card got them into the executive car park. She and Wesley, least likely of the three men to be recognized, went up in the elevator while Lindsey and Angel took the back stairs. The alarm shaman wailed about the presence of a vampire on the premises and security rushed to secure the exits. All available guards deployed around the perimeter, beginning a floor by floor search. Starting at the lobby.
Since their prey was already several floors up, this wasn't a problem for the vampire in question.
By the time the guards got to the third floor, Lindsey and Angel were at the fifteenth, and Wesley was slipping the latch to let them in. A few seconds later, the favors Angel had called in hit the lobby.
With an armored truck.
All the guards who'd been searching were recalled to deal with the pandemonium breaking out in the lobby. They were thorough, but they weren't very smart, and the trick Angel had pulled the first time he snuck into the building worked just as well the second. Gunn's soldiers loosed a couple of captured vampires on the grounds then stampeded them to add to the confusion. These vampires were more canny than the first one and led the guards on a merry chase all over the lower floors of the building.
Slipping into the security office on the executive floor, Lindsey grinned at the chaos playing on the screens. It was better than the Cartoon Network. The guard monitoring the screens turned to challenge him and Angel hit him. Just once. That's all it took.
Stepping over the unconscious guard, Lindsey disabled the security grid in the most direct way possible. He put a sledgehammer through the middle of the control grid. Sparks flew every which way and the monitors went dark. Making his way to the hallway outside Reed's office, Angel at his heels, he saw Wesley working the delicate magic necessary to defeat the ward at the threshold of the room. Inside, Lindsey could hear Nathan chanting.
The old man sounded a little panicked.
Lindsey's grin hardened. Closing his eyes, he reached out into the miasma of conflicting spells blocking their way into the office. "Watch out, Wes," he murmured, then concentrated hard.
The blockade exploded. Angel yanked Wesley out of the way of the backlash and gave Lindsey a reproachful look. Wesley looked a little fish-eyed. Lindsey shrugged apologetically.
"Sometimes it takes a lock-pick, sometimes a battle ax," he explained, then gestured for Angel to kick the door in.
Once inside, they were immediately under attack. Reed had his own bodyguard, a mixed batch of second-tier guard demons, not as fierce as the Taskers but still dangerous. Lindsey and Wesley went back to back, fighting off a combination of magic and physical attacks by whatever means necessary. Angel waded in on his own and started ripping body parts off various demons and beating other demons with them. Bloody, but effective.
Lindsey clutched his sledgehammer with both hands, swinging non-stop, while chanting spells through clenched teeth. The words were clear enough for the business at hand, if a little rough. Wesley was doing a better job at the spell-casting but not as good with the hand-to-hand combat. Lindsey grabbed him by the shoulder and yanked him out of the way of an incoming Grolek, crushing its chest it as it threw itself at them. Wesley nodded thanks, never interrupting the flow of archaic Greek he was chanting. Lindsey acknowledged the nod with a grin and kept on fighting.
Angel made it through to Reed before Lindsey and Wesley could fight their way clear of the pack. Once there, he took care of the problem the way he usually did -- directly. He snapped Reed's neck and ripped his head off.
Lindsey froze.
He shouldn't have been able to do that. If he still had his soul, if he was still Angel, if they hadn't done anything stupid and irrevocable with all the fooling around, if Angel wasn't Angelus ... Angel glared over at Lindsey as if he could read his mind.
"Don't be an idiot," he yelled. "It wasn't human." Then he held up Nathan Reed's bony head.
Too bony.
Lindsey ducked an incoming demon, jabbed up with the business end of his sledgehammer and cracked its spine absently. There were too many bones on Reed's head. There was, in fact, a ridge of them showing through the smooth shiny pate. Lindsey blinked, barely feeling the rush of air as Wesley plucked the last demon away and slammed it into the far wall.
"What kind of demon was he?" Lindsey asked. The question seemed to echo. The room was eerily silent after the mayhem of battle.
"Grivayet," Lilah answered. All three men jumped. None of them knew she'd followed them in.
"Never heard of it," Wesley admitted.
"I thought you were going to stay out of this?" Angel asked her. She shrugged. Lindsey walked over to her, then reached out and gently stroked her cheekbone with his finger.
"I hope it wasn't a relative."
Wesley choked. Angel started to laugh, but he choked too when she admitted calmly, "My father."
"Shit." Lindsey made an abortive reach for his weapon. Lilah smiled at him. There were more teeth in that smile than there should have been.
"Don't worry," Lilah assured Lindsey, patting his shoulder before picking her way through the scattered assorted demon corpses to stand looking down at the dead, decapitated one who had been her sire. "You saved me the trouble."
Angel hastily dropped the head he was still holding, then looked abashed when Lilah glanced over at him. "Sorry," he muttered.
"Quite all right," she told him equably. She looked more tranquil than Lindsey could ever remember seeing her.
"Your own father was going to have you killed?" He couldn't keep the incredulity out of his voice. Lilah grinned over at him.
"Until you stopped him. I've been waiting for the ax to fall ever since. Literally." She looked back down at the corpse. "I didn't expect him to bring it on himself, though. Poor planning on his part." She walked around the desk, then settled into the leather chair and looked around at them before settling on Lindsey. She gave him a warm smile. He swallowed hard. Still too many teeth in it. "Thank you for the promotion. As far as Wolfram and Hart is concerned, our business is over, Lindsey. We won't bother you if you don't bother us."
"Does that include him?" Lindsey gestured at Angel. Even more teeth showed, something he hadn't believed possible. She didn't bother saying anything, thus giving him his answer. He looked over at Angel.
Angel heard what she didn't say, too. Lindsey took a deep breath and moved to stand beside Angel, careful not to trip on Reed's corpse. Or his head. "Taking on Angel means taking on me," he warned her softly.
She nodded. "I had an idea that might be the case. If and when it comes to that, we'll deal with it."
On that uneasy note of truce, Lindsey headed for the door. Wesley beat him to it, and Angel followed him out. Lilah was reaching for the phone when he stuck his head back around and caught her. She held it up and said, "Clean-up crew" before he could ask. He grinned.
"Watch your ass," he told her. One corner of her mouth tipped up.
"Always," she told him.
He believed her.
No one talked on the drive home. Angel dropped Wesley off in front of his apartment building. Wes looked at Angel, then at Lindsey, then bit his lip and climbed out without saying a word. They watched him until the door closed behind him and the light came on in his window. As they pulled away, Lindsey leaned back against the seat and looked over at Angel.
"You're gonna have to deal with it sometime."
Angel nodded once, then glanced over at Lindsey and back away. "Later."
Lindsey let it rest. They'd pulled up in front of the hotel before either of them said anything else. Angel parked the car and turned off the ignition.
"Did you mean it?" he asked abruptly. Lindsey stared over at him.
"It?"
"What you told her."
"To which part of what I told her are you referring?" Very best lawyer-talk. Never give an inch unless it could be turned to one's own advantage. Angel leaned across the seat, cornered Lindsey against the door and kissed him soundly.
Lindsey was panting by the time Angel broke it off. Angel just stared at him.
"Yeah," he finally admitted. Angel looked skeptical. "Jesus, what do you want, Angel? Blood?" It hit him that that was a stupid question to ask a vampire. Angel actually looked like he was considering it.
"You offering?"
A shudder ripped through Lindsey, and it shook him to the core to realize that he was. He had to swallow twice before he could answer. From the wide dark eyes staring at him in shock, he had the feeling Angel already knew. So he answered the first question, not the last. "I'm here as long as you want me."
The wide eyes darkened further, and Lindsey swallowed again. Angel tracked the movement of his throat for a moment then slowly lowered his head until his mouth was resting directly over Lindsey's carotid artery. Not believing he was doing it even as he did, Lindsey tipped his head back, giving Angel access and permission.
There was a soft growl from directly below his chin, then the pin-prick of a single fang through his skin. Lindsey moaned involuntarily as a rough tongue lapped at the drop of blood that welled from the tiny wound.
"Could be a long time," Angel warned him. Lindsey raised his hand and pressed Angel's face back to his throat.
"I know."
Angel drew back and looked at him. Lindsey leaned forward, licking a trace of blood from Angel's upper lip. This time when Angel growled, Lindsey growled back. Angel's game face melted into his familiar human features as he stared, bemused, at Lindsey.
"Well, I guess somebody's got to watch over you," Angel told him, sounding resigned to the task. "Might as well be me."
He caught Lindsey's fist before it could land. Then he used it to pull Lindsey into his lap and kiss him again. By the time Lindsey got his breath back and started to argue, Angel had him up to their room and half naked. Then Lindsey got distracted and never did make his defense.
Angel had been doing that to one degree or another since Lindsey'd met him. With everything else that had changed, that was one thing that never would.
At least, Lindsey hoped not.
END