Fic: Life is a Glorious Cycle of Song (Angel/Lindsey) PG13
Title: Life is a Glorious Cycle of Song
Pairing: Angel/Lindsey
Rating: PG13
A/N: A fic present for novascotiasam. A flash-in-the-pan look at Angel and Lindsey in the Medley of Extemporanea 'verse (which also includes Tomorrow We Shall Die).
Consider it a 'verse outtake.
Life is a Glorious Cycle of Song
A week after Angel first brings up the topic, Lindsey finally stops being tactful. "I hate your house, okay? I don't want to live there."
He turns away from the fridge in his apartment, can of beer in his hand, and faces Angel, who's on the other side of the counter that divides the kitchen from the living room.
Angel's brow furrows. "You hate my house."
"I *fucking* hate it," Lindsey says with emphasis. "It's all--" He waves a hand sharply, can't think of words that won't sound extremely offensive to Angel's decorating taste. "I don't feel comfortable there."
"You don't feel comfortable there," Angel repeats and he crosses his arms over his chest, looks at Lindsey from under a brow that's more furrowed than it was before.
Apparently Lindsey might as well have been just as offensive as he wanted to be, because Angel seems hellbent on *being* offended, no matter what. Lindsey hates when Angel gets in these moods; it reminds him of the Angel he first met, and he never actually liked that Angel, even if he did want to get fucked blind by him.
"All I'm saying," Lindsey tries again, and even to himself he sounds like he's about to lose his patience and is barely managing not to snap, "is that the house doesn't really suit me."
Angel narrows his eyes and doesn't respond. Lindsey groans and cracks open the beer, studies Angel's stance as he takes a sip. He swallows, wipes his mouth and frowns at what he's seeing.
"Are you itching for a fight?" he asks incredulously.
"Maybe," Angel says slowly, head tilted thoughtfully to the side. "If that will get you to actually tell me the truth, I'm all for it. Because I've been hearing a lot of words from you, Lindsey, but you're not really saying anything."
"That's bullshit."
Angel snorts and drops his arms to his side. "Since when are you careful about what you say to me? Never. But ever since I brought up living together you've been tiptoeing around everything to do with it. Just put it on the table. Whatever it is, just say it, because this is getting old."
"This," Lindsey says harshly, gesturing around at the apartment, "is my home. You fucking know that. You know what it means." Angel's face is impassive and Lindsey curls his hands into fists, takes a hissing breath, speaks from behind clenched teeth. "I'm damn well not leaving it. End of story."
"It's funny." Angel moves to the kitchen doorway, leans against the doorjamb and stares at Lindsey with this gaze that makes Lindsey feel like he's getting stripped down to nothing, and he has to look down, away. Angel's voice gets sharper, becomes something that Lindsey can't ignore. "I never said anything about you moving into my house."
The phone rings and Lindsey ignores Angel's glare and fumbles on the counter for the cordless, takes the call with his back to Angel, and even then he can feel Angel staring at him, glowering, trying to peel layers of Lindsey away.
"That was Lucy," he tells Angel when he hangs up. "She ran into some trouble in the South Side."
He slides out of the kitchen, doesn't look up at Angel even when he has to squeeze past him in the doorway, and he's halfway out the door before Angel says, "We'll finish this later, Lindsey."
*
Five hours later Frank is carrying Lindsey into Angel's house. Another time, Lindsey might be amused at the idea of a five-foot three-inch snake *carrying* him, but not right now. It takes a whole fucking lot for Lindsey to actually hurt nowadays and tonight he's in something like excruciating pain.
"What happened?" Angel barks.
Lindsey grabs hold of the doorway with his good arm and Frank looks down at him curiously. "Shoes," Lindsey rasps. "Can't drag stuff in on the carpet. And my clothes. Bloody. Get them off here."
"Oh for--" Angel snaps and suddenly Lindsey is being snatched away from Frank. "Close the damn door and get in here, Frank. Move the coffee table and set up there. I'll get the idiot ready."
"Fuck you," Lindsey says around a busted lip, through cracked teeth.
Angel ignores him, brings him to the sofa and sets him down as gently as possible; Lindsey still gasps in pain and winces when Angel turns on a lamp. "God, Lindsey," Angel breathes, hands turning Lindsey's face to the side to look at it, then reaching down to brush against the lumps and jutting bones at Lindsey's torso, arms and legs. "What happened?"
Lindsey's eyes are mostly swollen shut--hell, one of them isn't even working--so it doesn't take much at all to close them, block out the sight of that wretched look on Angel's face. He shakes his head, lolls on the sofa like puppet whose strings have been cut.
"Frank?" Angel hisses.
"Lucy was at a club in Station Square," Lindsey hears Frank explain. "Mixed crowd. Things started getting rowdy and she called Lindsey. By the time he got there all hell was breaking loose."
Angel starts on Lindsey's clothes, rips carefully at seams and does his best not to jar Lindsey, but it still hurts like a bitch and Angel flinches every time Lindsey does. Lindsey tries to squeeze his eyes shut tighter, isn't sure if he succeeds or not.
"And no one called me, why?"
"From what Lucy said," Frank goes on, "there wasn't time. They had to fight their way out of there. A half a dozen Ftolt followed them and they had to stay on the move. Got tracked all the way up to Squirrel Hill, almost into Homestead, before Lindsey managed to get to a phone. She's okay; only a few scrapes and bruises. Lindsey didn't get off so easily, obviously."
"You left your cell home," Angel murmurs, his hands stilling. Lindsey nods and Angel's hands tighten briefly on a handful of Lindsey's jeans before he shreds the material and lifts it off of Lindsey's thighs.
And Lindsey doesn't know what his legs look like, he just knows how they feel, but from the sound Angel makes--this strangled snarl that gets choked off at the back of his throat--it's not pretty at all.
"Stomach's really bad," Lindsey mumbles, forcing his eyes open. He flails one of his arms out, but it's broken in a few places and doesn't do more than flap in a way that makes him nauseous. Angel touches his shoulder, settles him. "Let Frank finish it," Lindsey croaks. "Just go upstairs until it's all over."
Angel's hands on his face are soft but implacable. He leans in close to Lindsey and says, clearly, "Not a chance in hell."
By the time Lindsey's naked, Angel is shaking and growling, and Lindsey wishes Frank had just fucking *listened* to him and brought him to his apartment instead of here. Being like this is bad enough. Being seen like this by someone who actually feels things--unlike Frank, with his coldblooded nature--makes it that much harder for Lindsey to take. And knowing what it's doing to Angel, who came here to leave all of this kind of ugliness behind, makes it unbearable.
"Sorry," Lindsey breathes as Angel picks him up and moves him to the center of the circle Frank's set up in the middle of the living room.
"Be quiet." Angel runs a hand over Lindsey's hair, doesn't seem put out when Lindsey flinches away from the warmth of the touch. "I'll see you in a few minutes."
*
Lindsey wakes up in Angel's bed, Angel wrapped around him like a blanket, arms and legs so tangled up with Lindsey's that Lindsey has to fight not to jerk away in a claustrophobic reaction.
He relaxes and takes stock of himself. Nothing hurts, everything he tentatively flexes actually flexes, his teeth aren't broken any longer, and he can see out of both of his eyes again. The Loa are masochistic bastards but they definitely deliver, even at times when Lindsey worries there's no fixing something that's been done to him.
The curtains are open and it's late morning, and Lindsey has no idea how he got to the bedroom, which is damn strange. He always loses consciousness during the ritual and wakes up as soon as the Loa are done with him. Granted, he's generally only awake long enough to find a flat surface to fall asleep on. Still. There's always a brief bout of consciousness in between. He can only guess that the trauma of the night was bad enough to exhaust him.
Behind him, on top of him, around him, Angel is motionless. But Lindsey knows he's awake, knows he probably hasn't slept at all.
*Everything's just a passing inconvenience,* he'd told Lucy right before she watched him get burned to a crisp in payment for Angel's ability to go out in the daylight.
It's true. Lindsey is eternal. Getting ripped apart by a pack of demons isn't something that will keep him down for long or have any lasting effect. It used to be that Lindsey thought that was enough for the people around him, knowing that he would survive. But then Angel came to Pittsburgh and Lindsey realized that even the temporary nature of his injuries is something that hurts them.
Lindsey's not sure what to do with that, about that. He doesn't have much experience with people really giving a damn about him, caring about him like that. Mostly he ignores it, pretends it's not an issue, and everyone tends to let him get away with it. Angel--damn his stubborn tenacity--being the sole exception, of course.
"I told him not to bring me here," Lindsey says into the silence. "I didn't want you to see that. Even for me that was some bad shit."
"Carmen took that choice out of your hands," Angel says tightly. "You get hurt, you get brought to me. Frank--and everyone else--was informed last month."
"Are you shitting me?" Lindsey tries to pull away from Angel, but Angel's arms and legs tighten, and Lindsey can only manage to free one of his legs from Angel's octopus-hold. He's getting damn uncomfortable, half on his side, half on his stomach, with most of Angel's weight trapping him to the mattress. "Was anyone going to bother to *inform* me?"
"No."
That seems to be all Angel has to say on the subject and Lindsey kicks at him with his one free limb, doesn't even make contact, and gets irritated at the indignity of it. "Nice of you all to make decisions about me like that. Really, it's great."
"It took the Loa three times longer than usual to patch you up last night," Angel says flatly. "Your body temperature spiked through the roof afterwards and I had to bring the twins in to get you cooled down. Not to mention the hour it took your teeth to come back, and the two hours it took for the crushed in part of your brain and skull to regenerate."
Lindsey freezes, swallows thickly. "It's never been like that."
"You're not usually that broken in that many ways." Angel makes a noise, then presses his forehead against the back of Lindsey's skull. "You're still so damn selfish sometimes, Lindsey."
"I'm not being selfish, Angel," Lindsey says lowly. "I just don't…I don't *know*."
"Yeah, I figured that out at about three this morning." Angel sounds tired, drained, and Lindsey's never wished harder that he did, in fact, *know*. "It's horrible, seeing you like that, so you think I shouldn't see it."
"It's perfectly logical," Lindsey mutters uncomfortably.
"It's perfectly stupid," Angel snaps. "My reaction is just as temporary as whatever's happened to you. I'll get over it, just like you will. It's not the *point*."
Well, when it's put like that, it makes sense. It also makes Lindsey feel like a fucking idiot because it's so obvious he should have gotten it months ago.
"Then what is the point, huh?" he hisses. Oddly, that makes Angel smile; Lindsey can feel it against his head. "And what are you smiling about?"
"You," Angel drawls, sounding amused. "The way you get prickly when I finally get something through that thick head of yours."
"Fuck off." He kicks again, misses again, and mutters under his breath.
Angel moves his weight off Lindsey, tugs him onto his back and then leans over him, hands on either side of Lindsey's head, his face just a few inches away.
"There isn't much I can actually do for you," Angel says, quiet and serious. "I'm helpless in a lot of ways and that's not a temporary reaction." He moves his hands, takes hold of the sides of Lindsey's face in a hard grip. "About the only thing I can do is make sure that when you wake up on some floor--naked, shivering and barely able to move--you're not alone."
Lindsey takes that in, lets it settle inside of him, and when it does he has to close his eyes against what Angel's telling him. "I'm sorry," he says, and he sounds awkward and embarrassed and uncomfortable, because apologies aren't something he's gotten better at over the years.
"Don't be sorry, just stop being so damn stubborn and misguidedly noble. The stubborn thing is annoying, and the noble thing is--it gives me the creeps, to be honest."
Lindsey splutters out a laugh and wraps an arm around Angel's back, pulls him down. "You know, if you'd said it like this the first time, I would have gotten it."
Angel rolls his eyes. "It's not how something's said; it's whether you're in a mood to actually hear it."
"Do you really want to get into a discussion of personality flaws?" Lindsey asks ill-temperedly. "Can't we just bask or something?"
"Bask." Angel arches his brows and his face is so deadpan that Lindsey knows he's getting laughed at. "*Bask.*"
"Or something that doesn't involve you putting me in a foul mood," Lindsey snaps and pushes Angel off of him.
"Do you really feel uncomfortable here?"
Lindsey groans and covers his face with a pillow. "Your conversational skills still suck." The pillow gets yanked away and Angel looks at him curiously. Lindsey sighs and nods. "Yes, I really do. All the cool colors and the sparse tidiness don't sit well with me anymore."
Angel blinks twice, then realization dawns; Lindsey used to live in cool colors, sparse tidiness, and he left that all behind in L.A.
"I told Lucy to start buying you knickknacks," Lindsey tells him. "The uglier and bigger the better."
"Thanks," Angel says, grimacing.
Lindsey flashes him a grin. "I suggested a cigar store Indian."
"Native American," Angel corrects and Lindsey stares at him. "What? Isn't that what they're called? Did it change again?"
"No, it didn't change again. But when you're talking about a heinously stereotypical and derogatory piece of kitsch, there really isn't room for politically correct terms. In fact, it's slightly hypocritical."
"So you don't want to live here."
Tenacious bastard. "I don't want to live here."
Angel sprawls next to him, hands folded behind his head. "Carmen told me that she owns your entire building." Lindsey turns his head and looks suspiciously at Angel, who's staring up at the ceiling blandly. "The apartment above yours is empty."
It is, and it has been for a while, which is unusual since there's a wait-list to get into the building; half the twentysomethings in the organization want to live there because of the low rent and the central location. With the way Angel's lips are twitching as he tries not to smile, it's a good bet that no one on the wait-list was even told about the apartment being available.
"More decision making by you and Carmen?" He wants to be irritated, tries to sound like he is, at any rate, because he really doesn't want the two of them to keep doing this, but he's well aware that he sounds amused. Possibly even pleased, but he'll admit to amusement before pleasure if asked.
"Figured it couldn't hurt to have some options," Angel says with a shrug. "I like your place but it's small. We'd drive each other up the wall in no time. And there's hardly any closet space." Angel turns his head, lifts his brows. "What do you think?"
"I think." Lindsey takes a breath, tries to not be a selfish, stubborn and misguidedly noble bastard. "I think we could try it out."
*
.End
Pairing: Angel/Lindsey
Rating: PG13
A/N: A fic present for novascotiasam. A flash-in-the-pan look at Angel and Lindsey in the Medley of Extemporanea 'verse (which also includes Tomorrow We Shall Die).
Consider it a 'verse outtake.
Life is a Glorious Cycle of Song
A week after Angel first brings up the topic, Lindsey finally stops being tactful. "I hate your house, okay? I don't want to live there."
He turns away from the fridge in his apartment, can of beer in his hand, and faces Angel, who's on the other side of the counter that divides the kitchen from the living room.
Angel's brow furrows. "You hate my house."
"I *fucking* hate it," Lindsey says with emphasis. "It's all--" He waves a hand sharply, can't think of words that won't sound extremely offensive to Angel's decorating taste. "I don't feel comfortable there."
"You don't feel comfortable there," Angel repeats and he crosses his arms over his chest, looks at Lindsey from under a brow that's more furrowed than it was before.
Apparently Lindsey might as well have been just as offensive as he wanted to be, because Angel seems hellbent on *being* offended, no matter what. Lindsey hates when Angel gets in these moods; it reminds him of the Angel he first met, and he never actually liked that Angel, even if he did want to get fucked blind by him.
"All I'm saying," Lindsey tries again, and even to himself he sounds like he's about to lose his patience and is barely managing not to snap, "is that the house doesn't really suit me."
Angel narrows his eyes and doesn't respond. Lindsey groans and cracks open the beer, studies Angel's stance as he takes a sip. He swallows, wipes his mouth and frowns at what he's seeing.
"Are you itching for a fight?" he asks incredulously.
"Maybe," Angel says slowly, head tilted thoughtfully to the side. "If that will get you to actually tell me the truth, I'm all for it. Because I've been hearing a lot of words from you, Lindsey, but you're not really saying anything."
"That's bullshit."
Angel snorts and drops his arms to his side. "Since when are you careful about what you say to me? Never. But ever since I brought up living together you've been tiptoeing around everything to do with it. Just put it on the table. Whatever it is, just say it, because this is getting old."
"This," Lindsey says harshly, gesturing around at the apartment, "is my home. You fucking know that. You know what it means." Angel's face is impassive and Lindsey curls his hands into fists, takes a hissing breath, speaks from behind clenched teeth. "I'm damn well not leaving it. End of story."
"It's funny." Angel moves to the kitchen doorway, leans against the doorjamb and stares at Lindsey with this gaze that makes Lindsey feel like he's getting stripped down to nothing, and he has to look down, away. Angel's voice gets sharper, becomes something that Lindsey can't ignore. "I never said anything about you moving into my house."
The phone rings and Lindsey ignores Angel's glare and fumbles on the counter for the cordless, takes the call with his back to Angel, and even then he can feel Angel staring at him, glowering, trying to peel layers of Lindsey away.
"That was Lucy," he tells Angel when he hangs up. "She ran into some trouble in the South Side."
He slides out of the kitchen, doesn't look up at Angel even when he has to squeeze past him in the doorway, and he's halfway out the door before Angel says, "We'll finish this later, Lindsey."
*
Five hours later Frank is carrying Lindsey into Angel's house. Another time, Lindsey might be amused at the idea of a five-foot three-inch snake *carrying* him, but not right now. It takes a whole fucking lot for Lindsey to actually hurt nowadays and tonight he's in something like excruciating pain.
"What happened?" Angel barks.
Lindsey grabs hold of the doorway with his good arm and Frank looks down at him curiously. "Shoes," Lindsey rasps. "Can't drag stuff in on the carpet. And my clothes. Bloody. Get them off here."
"Oh for--" Angel snaps and suddenly Lindsey is being snatched away from Frank. "Close the damn door and get in here, Frank. Move the coffee table and set up there. I'll get the idiot ready."
"Fuck you," Lindsey says around a busted lip, through cracked teeth.
Angel ignores him, brings him to the sofa and sets him down as gently as possible; Lindsey still gasps in pain and winces when Angel turns on a lamp. "God, Lindsey," Angel breathes, hands turning Lindsey's face to the side to look at it, then reaching down to brush against the lumps and jutting bones at Lindsey's torso, arms and legs. "What happened?"
Lindsey's eyes are mostly swollen shut--hell, one of them isn't even working--so it doesn't take much at all to close them, block out the sight of that wretched look on Angel's face. He shakes his head, lolls on the sofa like puppet whose strings have been cut.
"Frank?" Angel hisses.
"Lucy was at a club in Station Square," Lindsey hears Frank explain. "Mixed crowd. Things started getting rowdy and she called Lindsey. By the time he got there all hell was breaking loose."
Angel starts on Lindsey's clothes, rips carefully at seams and does his best not to jar Lindsey, but it still hurts like a bitch and Angel flinches every time Lindsey does. Lindsey tries to squeeze his eyes shut tighter, isn't sure if he succeeds or not.
"And no one called me, why?"
"From what Lucy said," Frank goes on, "there wasn't time. They had to fight their way out of there. A half a dozen Ftolt followed them and they had to stay on the move. Got tracked all the way up to Squirrel Hill, almost into Homestead, before Lindsey managed to get to a phone. She's okay; only a few scrapes and bruises. Lindsey didn't get off so easily, obviously."
"You left your cell home," Angel murmurs, his hands stilling. Lindsey nods and Angel's hands tighten briefly on a handful of Lindsey's jeans before he shreds the material and lifts it off of Lindsey's thighs.
And Lindsey doesn't know what his legs look like, he just knows how they feel, but from the sound Angel makes--this strangled snarl that gets choked off at the back of his throat--it's not pretty at all.
"Stomach's really bad," Lindsey mumbles, forcing his eyes open. He flails one of his arms out, but it's broken in a few places and doesn't do more than flap in a way that makes him nauseous. Angel touches his shoulder, settles him. "Let Frank finish it," Lindsey croaks. "Just go upstairs until it's all over."
Angel's hands on his face are soft but implacable. He leans in close to Lindsey and says, clearly, "Not a chance in hell."
By the time Lindsey's naked, Angel is shaking and growling, and Lindsey wishes Frank had just fucking *listened* to him and brought him to his apartment instead of here. Being like this is bad enough. Being seen like this by someone who actually feels things--unlike Frank, with his coldblooded nature--makes it that much harder for Lindsey to take. And knowing what it's doing to Angel, who came here to leave all of this kind of ugliness behind, makes it unbearable.
"Sorry," Lindsey breathes as Angel picks him up and moves him to the center of the circle Frank's set up in the middle of the living room.
"Be quiet." Angel runs a hand over Lindsey's hair, doesn't seem put out when Lindsey flinches away from the warmth of the touch. "I'll see you in a few minutes."
*
Lindsey wakes up in Angel's bed, Angel wrapped around him like a blanket, arms and legs so tangled up with Lindsey's that Lindsey has to fight not to jerk away in a claustrophobic reaction.
He relaxes and takes stock of himself. Nothing hurts, everything he tentatively flexes actually flexes, his teeth aren't broken any longer, and he can see out of both of his eyes again. The Loa are masochistic bastards but they definitely deliver, even at times when Lindsey worries there's no fixing something that's been done to him.
The curtains are open and it's late morning, and Lindsey has no idea how he got to the bedroom, which is damn strange. He always loses consciousness during the ritual and wakes up as soon as the Loa are done with him. Granted, he's generally only awake long enough to find a flat surface to fall asleep on. Still. There's always a brief bout of consciousness in between. He can only guess that the trauma of the night was bad enough to exhaust him.
Behind him, on top of him, around him, Angel is motionless. But Lindsey knows he's awake, knows he probably hasn't slept at all.
*Everything's just a passing inconvenience,* he'd told Lucy right before she watched him get burned to a crisp in payment for Angel's ability to go out in the daylight.
It's true. Lindsey is eternal. Getting ripped apart by a pack of demons isn't something that will keep him down for long or have any lasting effect. It used to be that Lindsey thought that was enough for the people around him, knowing that he would survive. But then Angel came to Pittsburgh and Lindsey realized that even the temporary nature of his injuries is something that hurts them.
Lindsey's not sure what to do with that, about that. He doesn't have much experience with people really giving a damn about him, caring about him like that. Mostly he ignores it, pretends it's not an issue, and everyone tends to let him get away with it. Angel--damn his stubborn tenacity--being the sole exception, of course.
"I told him not to bring me here," Lindsey says into the silence. "I didn't want you to see that. Even for me that was some bad shit."
"Carmen took that choice out of your hands," Angel says tightly. "You get hurt, you get brought to me. Frank--and everyone else--was informed last month."
"Are you shitting me?" Lindsey tries to pull away from Angel, but Angel's arms and legs tighten, and Lindsey can only manage to free one of his legs from Angel's octopus-hold. He's getting damn uncomfortable, half on his side, half on his stomach, with most of Angel's weight trapping him to the mattress. "Was anyone going to bother to *inform* me?"
"No."
That seems to be all Angel has to say on the subject and Lindsey kicks at him with his one free limb, doesn't even make contact, and gets irritated at the indignity of it. "Nice of you all to make decisions about me like that. Really, it's great."
"It took the Loa three times longer than usual to patch you up last night," Angel says flatly. "Your body temperature spiked through the roof afterwards and I had to bring the twins in to get you cooled down. Not to mention the hour it took your teeth to come back, and the two hours it took for the crushed in part of your brain and skull to regenerate."
Lindsey freezes, swallows thickly. "It's never been like that."
"You're not usually that broken in that many ways." Angel makes a noise, then presses his forehead against the back of Lindsey's skull. "You're still so damn selfish sometimes, Lindsey."
"I'm not being selfish, Angel," Lindsey says lowly. "I just don't…I don't *know*."
"Yeah, I figured that out at about three this morning." Angel sounds tired, drained, and Lindsey's never wished harder that he did, in fact, *know*. "It's horrible, seeing you like that, so you think I shouldn't see it."
"It's perfectly logical," Lindsey mutters uncomfortably.
"It's perfectly stupid," Angel snaps. "My reaction is just as temporary as whatever's happened to you. I'll get over it, just like you will. It's not the *point*."
Well, when it's put like that, it makes sense. It also makes Lindsey feel like a fucking idiot because it's so obvious he should have gotten it months ago.
"Then what is the point, huh?" he hisses. Oddly, that makes Angel smile; Lindsey can feel it against his head. "And what are you smiling about?"
"You," Angel drawls, sounding amused. "The way you get prickly when I finally get something through that thick head of yours."
"Fuck off." He kicks again, misses again, and mutters under his breath.
Angel moves his weight off Lindsey, tugs him onto his back and then leans over him, hands on either side of Lindsey's head, his face just a few inches away.
"There isn't much I can actually do for you," Angel says, quiet and serious. "I'm helpless in a lot of ways and that's not a temporary reaction." He moves his hands, takes hold of the sides of Lindsey's face in a hard grip. "About the only thing I can do is make sure that when you wake up on some floor--naked, shivering and barely able to move--you're not alone."
Lindsey takes that in, lets it settle inside of him, and when it does he has to close his eyes against what Angel's telling him. "I'm sorry," he says, and he sounds awkward and embarrassed and uncomfortable, because apologies aren't something he's gotten better at over the years.
"Don't be sorry, just stop being so damn stubborn and misguidedly noble. The stubborn thing is annoying, and the noble thing is--it gives me the creeps, to be honest."
Lindsey splutters out a laugh and wraps an arm around Angel's back, pulls him down. "You know, if you'd said it like this the first time, I would have gotten it."
Angel rolls his eyes. "It's not how something's said; it's whether you're in a mood to actually hear it."
"Do you really want to get into a discussion of personality flaws?" Lindsey asks ill-temperedly. "Can't we just bask or something?"
"Bask." Angel arches his brows and his face is so deadpan that Lindsey knows he's getting laughed at. "*Bask.*"
"Or something that doesn't involve you putting me in a foul mood," Lindsey snaps and pushes Angel off of him.
"Do you really feel uncomfortable here?"
Lindsey groans and covers his face with a pillow. "Your conversational skills still suck." The pillow gets yanked away and Angel looks at him curiously. Lindsey sighs and nods. "Yes, I really do. All the cool colors and the sparse tidiness don't sit well with me anymore."
Angel blinks twice, then realization dawns; Lindsey used to live in cool colors, sparse tidiness, and he left that all behind in L.A.
"I told Lucy to start buying you knickknacks," Lindsey tells him. "The uglier and bigger the better."
"Thanks," Angel says, grimacing.
Lindsey flashes him a grin. "I suggested a cigar store Indian."
"Native American," Angel corrects and Lindsey stares at him. "What? Isn't that what they're called? Did it change again?"
"No, it didn't change again. But when you're talking about a heinously stereotypical and derogatory piece of kitsch, there really isn't room for politically correct terms. In fact, it's slightly hypocritical."
"So you don't want to live here."
Tenacious bastard. "I don't want to live here."
Angel sprawls next to him, hands folded behind his head. "Carmen told me that she owns your entire building." Lindsey turns his head and looks suspiciously at Angel, who's staring up at the ceiling blandly. "The apartment above yours is empty."
It is, and it has been for a while, which is unusual since there's a wait-list to get into the building; half the twentysomethings in the organization want to live there because of the low rent and the central location. With the way Angel's lips are twitching as he tries not to smile, it's a good bet that no one on the wait-list was even told about the apartment being available.
"More decision making by you and Carmen?" He wants to be irritated, tries to sound like he is, at any rate, because he really doesn't want the two of them to keep doing this, but he's well aware that he sounds amused. Possibly even pleased, but he'll admit to amusement before pleasure if asked.
"Figured it couldn't hurt to have some options," Angel says with a shrug. "I like your place but it's small. We'd drive each other up the wall in no time. And there's hardly any closet space." Angel turns his head, lifts his brows. "What do you think?"
"I think." Lindsey takes a breath, tries to not be a selfish, stubborn and misguidedly noble bastard. "I think we could try it out."
*
.End