April 2006 - SPN/Angel xover - Redemption Is A Four Letter Word
You can best read this story here, but I'm saving it here as well for safekeeping. Notes by ethrosdemon.
Redemption is A Four Letter Word
By Pet and ethrosdemon
Angel: The Series/Supernatural crossover
Sam, Dean/Lindsey, no Wincest, lots of UST, rated R
NOTES: Now, now. Hold up. Before you off willy-nilly zipping through this and ignoring me, I need so make a big ol' speech.
I KNOW a lot of y'all did not know me in Jossverse fandom or know that I was ever in it, or blah blah, oh lamentcakes for this and that and the other thing. We all have OTPs. Even me. This fic exposes my drawers as to what mine was for a LONG time.
Pet is one of my oldest friends. Even though she always had a really disgusting love for Spike, we rolled in the old days. One of the things I have said time and again is that I LOVE SPN fandom because it's like Old Home Days with the old Angel people (because I will straight up say that the wackjobs were mainly all A:tS people who also happened to write BtVS more than the other way around. Come on, all we wrote was vampire rape fic and Angel murdering people. AND WE LOVED IT! The more murdering, the BETTER). At any rate, blood blood, oh shit what was I even saying?
Right.
Dear Lar,
We love you.
The end,
K and K
This is, quite obviously, set post-"Not Fade Away".
Co-written over a very drunken weekend by PETTYWHACK and me. It's been a long while since we worked on anything together. I love you, PETTYWHACK!
***
"REDEMPTION IS A FOUR LETTER WORD"
He'd forgotten what August in Oklahoma feels like, but materializing in front of the Tulsa courthouse and jail in an Armani suit brings out the heavy humidity sweat immediately. Even before he climbs the steps, he has to wipe his face with a handkerchief.
Fucking Oklahoma. Purgatory is better than this, even with the neighbor who won't stop playing techno music at 3 am.
“Lindsey McDonald.” He flashes his ID at the security guard with a smile, and is waved through the metal detector without incident. The familiar-strange smell of a courthouse hits him almost immediately. He squares his shoulders, settles himself, and makes his way to Central Holding.
“I'm here to see Dean Winchester,” he tells the pinch-faced clerk. Her face gets even more pinched at that. She makes him sign in, leave documentation, and points him at the security-glass doors.
This whole mess better take a big chunk out of his redemption time.
He dodges two drunks struggling against their handcuffs in the hall, and gets shown to the interview room by a cop who smells so bad Lindsey has to fight not to gag. Stepping into the small grey room is almost a relief. And then he sees the two faces turned suspiciously towards the door, wary and cold and touched just a little with desperation, and only years of rigid self-control keep him from groaning. These two are everything he hates about this job. Worse than the fat exorcist in Portland, worse than the crazy cat-hating witch in Minnetonka. These two are pains in the ass -- he can see it in their eyes.
Dean and Sam Winchester. He runs the file quickly in his head as they stare at him. Brothers, demon hunters, fighters of the good fight, whatever. They're stupid small-time fuckups who got caught doing something illegal, and now it's Lindsey's job to get Dean out. He sends a mental snarl at the Powers and shuts the door behind him. Sighs, and moves to the table. Sets down his briefcase. Loosens his tie. Wishes he had a beer. Looks at his brand-new clients, hands them each a business card, and sighs again.
“I'm your lawyer.” He looks right at Dean, at the great big bruise across half of his too-pretty face. “And you're an idiot. Come on, B&E? Resisting arrest? Fraud? You didn't even wipe your fingerprints and now they won't even give you bail. That’s some pretty good stuff from someone who’s supposed to be dead.”
“What do you mean, you're his lawyer?” Sam stands up, and, goddamn, he's big, he looms over Lindsey like a fucking tree or something. If Lindsey wasn't already bored by this, he'd have been almost impressed by the hardass face the kid is showing him.
But really. Really.
“Sit down and shut up,” he snaps, and Sam, looking shocked, actually does. “Save the stupid questions, okay? All you need to know is that I've been retained by someone who wants you --” He points at Dean. “-- to keep walking around outside of prison, doing your thing. God knows why.”
“I'm innocent,” Dean informs him, his voice hoarse, and Lindsey looks over the ligature marks on his throat with a professional eye.
“Bullshit,” he answers, and reaches for the Polaroid camera he knows will be in his briefcase as soon as he needs it. “Sit still a second.”
He can see them still floundering with confusion, looking at each other with headshakes and silent questions as he snaps a few pictures, getting the marks, the bruises, the spots where wrist shackles chafed at Dean's skin. It won't be perfect, but he'll probably be able to at least push an unnecessary force appeal if the bail hearing shenanigans don't break his way. By the time he's got the pictures drying on the table in a neat line, the boys have pulled themselves more or less together, and he braces himself for the expected questions.
Instead, Sam reaches for a little bottle and suddenly there's water hitting his face.
“What the fuck?” It's got that distinct tang, though, and, for the first time in a long time, he almost laughs. “Holy water? Oh, please. You can't really just be going around throwing that on anyone who pisses you off. Tell me you're not that stupid.”
“Hey, he's not stupid,” Dean snaps, turning, body screaming 'defense' even though he's handcuffed to the restraint bolts in the table.
“You're both the biggest morons it's been my displeasure to defend,” Lindsey snarls right back. He points at Dean, finally letting this whole ludicrous situation get to him. “You're legally dead, but instead of using that to your benefit, you run around leaving your prints -- your on-file prints! -- at every mysterious crime scene across fifteen states. What, did you think that the cops wouldn't dust for prints? At a murder scene? And you,” he growls at Sam. “You blasting all over hell's half-acre with your brain hanging out your head, all woe-is-me. Bullshit. Son, you can't even start to comprehend what a real bad time is like.”
“Fuck you,” Sam growls back as Dean just gapes. “You don't know shit about me, or about Dean. Who the hell do you think you are --”
“I'm the guy who's getting your brother out of jail.” Lindsey levels at him, cold and smooth as ice, his best Wolfram and Hart voice, and that shuts Sam up but quick. “And come talk to me when you've lived through your third apocalypse, okay?”
“What the --” Dean breathes, and Lindsey can't cut him off fast enough -- “Are you some kind of guardian angel or something?”
“Oh my god,” Lindsey moans, finally dropping his head into his hands, like he's wanted to since he realized he was coming to Oklahoma to get some punk-ass baby Champion out of the shit. “Fucking kill me now, please.”
Little late for that, a voice he hates smirks into his mind, and he presses the heels of his hands against his eyes and wishes, not for the first time, that he'd never been born.
*
A few easy little threats, a little basic legalese, and Dean's got a bail hearing scheduled. Lindsey can only be thankful that the words “police brutality” carry weight and that the prosecuting attorney is apparently taking a long lunch. Dean's a definite flight risk, but once again, the briefcase comes through for Lindsey. Some sleight of hand with his favorite mix of herbs and a mumbled incantation, and the judge is rubbing her eyes and blinking in confusion, then listening rapt to Lindsey's arguments. He loves the courtroom, loves pitching his voice just so, holding his hands out, working the words to make things go his way. His own special brand of mojo, no demons or bad-smelling powders required. Lindsey's had way with words his whole life, way before The Law & Evil, Incorporated.
Dean Winchester's officially notarized death certificate from St. Louis, a nudge towards mistaken identity and wrongful imprisonment and compromised evidence, and he's almost home free.
“Your Honor.” The prosecuting attorney stands up in protest. “The suspect in question put four police officers in the hospital while resisting arrest. Two are in serious condition with multiple fractures. The suspect is violent and has no local ties. I officially request that bail be denied. He's a flight risk and a danger to the community, and is also operating under a clearly fraudulent alias.”
“Your Honor,” Lindsey says, with a pitying glance at his opposite number, and then a gesture at Dean who is, as instructed, sitting as quietly and pathetically as he possibly can, though his eyes promise murder. “My client is obviously not the cause of those fine officers' injuries. Look at him. He's one simple man, with no special skills. Francis Doyle is a car mechanic from Norman -- I've already provided the documentation that has been accepted by the court. He has ties to the community there in-state, and, furthermore, I believe more thorough investigation will show that he is entirely innocent of these unfounded charges. He deserves bail.”
Francis Doyle? the voice snickers at him. Very original, Lindsey.
Lindsey tells it in no uncertain terms to shut the fuck up.
The judge is nodding, still looking a bit glazed, and she bangs her gavel firmly. “Bail is granted at five hundred thousand dollars. Counsel, you will advise your client not to leave the state in the intervening time until trial.”
“Of course, Your Honor.” He nods with no small triumph as the prosecutor glowers, and even Sam looks impressed as they leave the courtroom.
*
Dean Winchester shackled to a table is one thing, but Dean Winchester loose and prowling around a crappy motel room is something else entirely, and Lindsey can't help but eye him appreciatively, even as he realizes that even watching him is making him feel tired. He's decorative, at least, but manic.
“Dude, that was awesome,” Sam informs him. Lindsey just shakes his head. Save him from pre-law fanboys.
“Yeah, okay.” He waves a hand. “Great. Now, please, for the love of everything, get out of town.”
Dean flashes him an incredulous look, and Sam bolts straight upright from his tired sprawl on the chair.
“Jump bail?” He sounds absolutely horrified by the very idea, and Lindsey honestly just cannot believe this kid.
“Yes, jump bail,” he repeats, like to a small, slow child. “Leave town, make tracks, blow this popsicle stand, whatever you want to call it, but get the hell out of Tulsa before you end up doing twenty-five-to-life for that shit in St. Louis. You get anyone to dig even a little deeper and this fake ID is going to fall apart, and you’re back to being Dean Winchester, suspect in capital crimes cases. Does the phrase 'murder one' mean anything at all to you?”
“But you're my lawyer, you're getting me off,” Dean argues, though Lindsey can tell he's already halfway to the state line in his head. “And you posted bail.”
“It's not real money.” Lindsey sighs, already losing his last shred of patience with this whole situation. They can bring him back any time now, he thinks, imagining the boot-thumping of the pacer in the upstairs apartment in his apartment complex of purgatory almost wistfully. “I've left you your documentation, Francis, so please, please, just go. Stop leaving prints everywhere. And I know it's hard for you to imagine this, but a little subtlety might serve you well going forward. You know. Low profile. All that crazy stuff.”
“We're subtle,” Sam starts, eyes narrowed, and Lindsey holds up a hand. The evil one, as it happens.
“Don't even,” he says. He feels the familiar nauseating tug of translocation, and for once, it's welcome. “Seriously. Low profile. You do not want me to have to come back here.”
As he's vanishing, he hears Dean's half-admiring, half-annoyed voice, fading with distance. “What a bitch.“
Mission accomplished, then. Lindsey can't wait to get out of this damn suit, have a warm beer (the refrigeration is always on the fritz in Purgatory, yet another small annoyance), and forget that this ever happened. Just like every other time he’s been called, though this time he’s maybe even more annoyed than usual.
*
Sam flips through his dad's journal and thinks about this newest development in his life of utter chaos.
“Dude, I think that lawyer guy was a trick.” Sam finds the entry his dad had written for “mysterious organ harvesting” and grits his teeth thinking about the otherness that had rolled off of Lindsey McDonald, Ambiguously Evil Attorney at Law. No one who wasn't at least a little evil took that kind of delight in the misfortune of others.
“What kinda trick, Sammy? Meg's boss is now fucking us over by getting us out of jail scot-free? Ewwwwwww, evil!” Dean punctuates this by snapping "Back in Black" into the stereo.
Sam wonders if killing Dean with his brain would really be considered murder.
“Who knows what that guy's agenda is, Dean? That's the whole point. I don't know if we should believe anything he said.”
“Not trust a lawyer? Wow, you're fast, baby brother.” Dean cranks the music up, cutting the conversation off.
Sam glares, but it has its usual effect -- none whatsoever. Sam reads about stolen kidneys and demons that feed off of human organs with the smarmy smirk on Lindsey McDonald's face taunting his inner eye.
*
The organ harvesting turns out to not only be real, but also not in any way demonic. Chinese mafia or something Sam doesn't get a chance to figure out because when they bust up on the operation with their guns in their hands and murder in both their hearts (kids, the bastards are fucking stealing the organs of children), Dean goes down right in front of Sam's face.
Sam keeps the panic out, barely, and manages to drag Dean into the Impala, manages to drive them back to the motel, manages to practically carry Dean to the door of the room. He props him up against the blistered paint of the door as he fishes for the key.
“Dean, come on, man, don't fade on me here,” Sam whispers as Dean's eyes drop closed. His face is turning grey in the crap, yellow light of the parking lot, and it's all Sam can do not scream.
Sam gets the door open and as it swings wide and he grabs Dean to haul him inside, a voice takes a strip of his soul off. “Motherfucking bullshit is what this is!”
The door bangs against the wall as that crazy lawyer guy snatches at Dean's shoulders and cusses under his breath. He looks up at Sam with a sneer. “Well? Grab his fucking feet, you idiot.” He lets Dean sag against him, blood everywhere, all over all three of them, and Sam grabs his feet. They carry Dean to one of the beds and the lawyer starts poking and prodding, ripping clothes away and pressing bloody fingers into Dean's throat -- looking for a pulse, Sam realizes, a moment too slow.
“What part of laying low do you not comprehend, Winchester?” Lindsey looks up and stares Sam in the eyes. Sam notices he's wearing a t-shirt and jeans because he's got Dean's blood all over his forearms. “Because where I come from, getting shot is not considered laying low. Help me get his clothes off.”
Lindsey produces a knife from his back pocket -- an old fashioned pocket knife with a wooden and mother-of-pearl handle -- and just starts cutting. Dean has blood at the corners of his mouth bubbling in a froth that sends Sam right into panic finally.
“What are you doing?” Sam reaches to grab the knife and suddenly feels slow, like he's been paused.
“I am trying to save your brother's life. He's about two minutes from dead. Do you want to watch him die? If not, shut up and go get me the bag at the end of the bed.” He turns back to cutting Dean's clothes off, and Sam does as he was told. He rushes around, grabbing the bag and upending it on the bed next to Dean.
The contents of the bag are pretty much every single protective spell ingredient Sam's ever seen. Sage and willow and at least five kinds of salt and ashes and some kind of dark liquid in a jar that Sam thinks might be henna.
“Put the sage and the coarsest salt in the liquid and pour a circle around us.” Lindsey's got Dean stripped totally naked and is kneeling over him, straddling him, with his shirt off and pressed into the wound on Dean's chest. He looks hard at Sam. “Now!”
And Sam's training clicks in. He does exactly what Lindsey told him as Lindsey starts chanting low, in a murmur, some language Sam doesn't recognize. Which is weird because Sam recognizes most languages, even if he doesn't speak them. He looks up as he completes the salt circle and almost chokes when he sees black runes spilling out of Lindsey's mouth in a whirling stream.
“Hey!” Sam reaches out to grab Lindsey, panicking all over again that Sam had just turned Dean directly over to the demonic forces that they'd been running from all this time -- no, no, no -- and when his hand connects with the invisible protective ring above the salt, he gets thrown across the room. He bounds up and shouts “Dean!” as Lindsey begins painting the symbols falling out of his mouth onto Dean's bare skin.
Lindsey sing-chants and the sigils dance and spin, more and more of them all the time, until Sam can barely see either his brother or the fucking person possibly stealing his soul through the inky swirl.
In a flash, the symbols are gone, and Lindsey collapses back, breaking the salt ring.
“What the hell!” Dean's annoyed voice is the most perfect thing Sam's ever heard. He's across the room smothering Dean, grabbing him and rocking him, without knowing how he got there.
“Get offa me, dude!” Dean shoves at him, and Sam laughs a little too loud, too hard. He feels the cold tremor of true fear dissipating.
“Why am I naked and covered in blood, and the answer better involve lots of whiskey and nubile gymnasts, because if not I'm gonna be pissed.”
Sam stands up, and Dean catches sight of Lindsey, who is also covered in blood, scowling.
“You,” Lindsey says, pointing a bloody finger, “are the biggest goddamned idiot I've had the misfortune to run into since Angel Investigations got blown up.”
Sam knows that name from somewhere, but he can't place it, and that bothers him. Everything about this entire situation bothers him. Starting with the fact Dean appears to be speechless and ending with the fact Dean is making no move whatsoever to cover himself up. Also, Dean almost died. And how about the fact that he has no idea who this witch doctor is or why he's interested in them or how he got into their hotel room.
“Who the hell are you?” Sam puts some bass in his voice and crosses his arms over his chest.
Lindsey moves so he’s pointing the same finger at Sam. “This isn't about you, Princess, so I'd advise you to keep your fool mouth closed before the ass-whuppings commence.”
Dean's face sets in the hard, murderous lines Sam associates with cold rage and Metallica on the stereo at 11. “Don't talk to my brother like that.”
Lindsey turns his gaze on Dean. He blinks, his eyelashes against his cheek all slow and calm, and Sam sees the lie there, the danger it covers. Lindsey smiles, and the hair on Sam's neck stands up. “You say 'brother' like some people say 'lover,' and the fact that I know that should be your warning that I'm not gonna tolerate any fucking lip from either of you from here on out.”
Dean's on Lindsey before Sam's blush even feels hot on his face. They topple off the bed, rolling. Dean's got inches and pounds on the little bitch, but the dude's probably not even human. That's what Sam thinks as he draws his gun and waits for the wrestling match to settle down so he can get a bead on Lindsey's head.
They come to rest with Lindsey's forearm against Dean's windpipe and his thigh wedged hard against Dean's exposed genitals.
“You can shoot me in the head if you want, boy, but it's not gonna do you any good. I've died more times than you've probably been laid.” The back of Lindsey's head is towards Sam, so there's no way he could see Sam and the gun.
“Leave my brother alone,” Sam grits out. “I'm the one you want -- let him go and we can talk this out.” Sam will go willingly with this freak if that gets Dean free and safe.
The laughter's unexpected. So is Lindsey just rolling off of Dean and to his feet, nice and neat and efficient, with a fighter's grace and thick muscles flexing inside his jeans. Dean scrambles to his feet, glaring and snarling, and reaches for his duffle. Dean quickly dresses as Lindsey smiles easily at Sam. His head's tilted to the side, and even in the dim light of the dark motel room, his mouth is still pink.
“For once, this is not about your sorry ass, Samuel. Back off or we're gonna scrap, because I have no patience for your sad-sack moaning and groaning. This here is about Dean and his...” Lindsey pauses and the small grin turns into the wide, dangerous smile. “Destiny.”
He says the last word like it’s a tax audit and Ebola and having your fingernails ripped off all at once.
“What?” Dean says, rounding Lindsey to stand next to Sam.
“Look, I know y'all think you know what's going down here, that Sam's the nexus for some otherworldly mumbo-jumbo. I'm not even saying that isn't true. All I'm sayin' is that Dean is gonna be a Champion, sooner or later. And I'm here because y'all don't have the sense god gave a goat between you. Also, don't take me droppin' the g-word to indicate I believe in such.” He finishes off, and Sam can feel his mouth hanging open. “And one of you get me a new shirt.”
Lindsey runs a hand through his hair, and the light through the window catches on the silvery bracelet he's wearing.
“What?” Sam finally says into the ringing silence.
“Get. Me. A. Shirt.” Lindsey repeats. “And nothing tacky with advertising on it, either.”
“Um, dude.” Dean rubs a hand over his face.
Lindsey turns around and rummages through Dean's duffle muttering to himself. “Goddamned idiots. I'm ready for my beer any time here.”
“You want a beer?” Dean says, and Sam laughs. This really takes the cake. The upside-down crapcake of Sam's life.
Lindsey pulls a plain white shirt over his head. He's smeared everywhere with blood and now the shirt’s got blood on it too, but it looks like he did it on purpose. He's got a huge smudge under one eye. Sam goes hot and cold one on top of the other remembering the truth of Dean's almost-death.
“How did you save Dean? What was all that?”
“Save me, what? No one saved me from anything.” Dean goes back to glaring. “Not someone that short anyway.”
“I'm gonna let that one pass, because you're clearly brain-addled from eating stupid for breakfast.” There's a hard note in Lindsey's voice that Sam is pretty sure he can back up six different ways. “Look, why don't you go on vacation, get addicted to internet porn, do anything other than running into mafia strongholds with guns blazing.” Then Lindsey looks up at the ceiling. “Okay, anytime now,” he says with a great deal of annoyance.
“What?” Sam lifts an eyebrow.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, dude? Aside from the obvious, I mean.” Dean shifts, crossing his arms over his chest mirroring how Sam is standing.
“Oh, hell no,” Lindsey moans.
“Who are you talking to?” Sam's really getting confused.
“Fuck!” Lindsey shouts before pointing a finger back in Dean's face. “You are so stupid that you must be about to get killed all over again. How are you even alive at all?”
He turns and flings the door open and storms outside without even closing it behind him.
“Okay, jackass!” Dean shouts ineffectually behind him.
“Dude, this is screwed up.” Sam whispers.
*
Straight to the bathroom in the bar to wash his hands, stare at himself in the mirror, curse the Powers for sending him back to earth with short lawyer hair. And without his guitar. Or his truck. At least he doesn’t seem to be aging any. He scrubs cursorily at the smear of blood on his face and heads to the bar. For some things, alcohol really is the only cure. He’s got blood on his shirt, of course, but it ain’t that bad -- it looks, really, like maybe he did it on purpose.
The cold beer tastes good and goes down smooth, and, even through the red anger of Lindsey’s thoughts, he can appreciate it. The bar’s a little shithole, but it’s walking distance to the motel and that’s enough for Lindsey. Can’t get too far away from the new babysitting assignment, after all, he thinks, and his mouth twists in a bitter and familiar way.
“Fuck you,” he mutters ineffectually, at Powers who probably aren’t even listening. The bartender gives him a hairy eyeball and stays far down at the other end of the bar with the other customers, all of them giving Lindsey lots of space. That suits him right down to the ground. Lord only knows what would happen if someone were to get up in his face right now, and Lindsey’d rather not add to his body count at this late date in the redemption game.
And that whole redemption game is something that Lindsey's still got his ass burnt about, because where was Lindsey's choice, his real choice freely taken, to get involved with Holland and demons and damnation? All Lindsey was after was a little security, a little bit of that good life he'd seen in movies and t.v., and what did that get him? A mortal enemy, his soul sold to something a whole lot worse than any devil he ever heard about in church, and a "second shot" having to look after people even dumber than Lindsey had been when he was working in the mail room.
His own ingrained patterns of thought are also sort of troubling for him. He grew up on religious language and imagery, curse words related to taking the Lord's name in vain the worst, worse than fuck in a way. He still thinks like that, too, after all this time. And every time he does, there's that little niggle there, that little voice, when Lindsey says "Goddamn it" or "Jesus Christ" that whispers you know there's no such thing, cuss by Angel's name or Holland's at the very least.
“Hey.” He closes his eyes when he hears the voice, senses a body sliding onto the stool beside him. If God had given Dean Winchester the brains he distributed to potted plants, they wouldn’t be in this mess, and Lindsey wouldn’t be here. He breathes carefully and opens his eyes and turns. He's smart enough to know he might have been some place even worse, though, if not here. Always had the curse to see the worst case scenario -- which made him a damned fine lawyer, but not really a very good person.
Dean’s looking a lot healthier than he had a half an hour before, and calmer, and wildly curious, and how a boy with a poker face as bad as this gets up to half the nonsense he does is a total mystery to Lindsey.
“What do you want,” he says flatly. Not even a question. Please go away now, Dean. He lifts his hand for another beer, and Dean’s hand makes it two, and now Lindsey’s really scowling. Can’t even take a hint. Just a dumb thug, a smalltime hick evil-fighter, and Lindsey’s gotta keep him alive. “I better get major points for this,” he says, just in case the Powers are listening. “Massive points.”
“You’ve got blood on your face,” Dean points out mildly, tipping up his own beer in a little salute once the bartender has scurried away. Dean doesn’t like him; Lindsey can see it written clear as newsprint across his face. Dean would beat him to a bloody smear if he could. Lindsey grins. Lindsey has some experience with similar situations.
“Don’t care.” He drinks again, and turns away. Then has a thought, and turns back. “Listen. If I told you to just hide out somewhere for a while, lay low, go to ground, what would you say?”
“Fuck you,” Dean answers promptly, baring teeth in a sort-of grin of his own. “I have work to do, I’m a busy man. Evil to hunt, people to save. I can’t just be sitting around on my ass all day long.”
“Right, thought so.” Lindsey mutters. “What if I told you that if you don’t, Sam will die? A messy, horrible, painful --” He chokes a little as Dean’s forearm lands across his windpipe, shoving him back against the bar, uncomfortable and more than a little annoying. Good sweet Christ this kid is slow, and so hacked off at Lindsey that he totally missed Lindsey’s eye roll.
“You fucking touch him, you hurt a hair on his head, and I’ll...” Lindsey watches him recall that Lindsey doesn’t fear bullets, sees slow comprehension crawl across his expression, followed by a murderous tight resolve that he can almost respect. “I’ll kill you somehow. I’ll hunt you straight back to hell.”
“I wish,” Lindsey chokes out. He doesn’t have to breathe, but a reliable supply of air does help with speech. “Let go of me before these people call the cops, you fucking fool.” Dean’s step back is abrupt and startled, and Lindsey coughs once, straightens his shirt, shakes his head. “Hell would be better than this, I’m pretty sure,” he adds, sliding back onto his barstool with no further fanfare. Maybe not, but bitterness is Lindsey's mother's milk at this point. He watches the bartender relax and put down the phone, and shakes his head again. Yet more amazing evidence that Dean probably should have been arrested or killed years ago. No sense. None.
“You don’t touch Sam,” Dean repeats, just as fierce, if quieter.
Lindsey just cocks an eyebrow at him. “And where is your better half?” he asks silkily, just to watch Dean flush with rage.
“None of your business,” he grits, and Lindsey feels better than he has all day. This part could actually be almost fun. He reins himself in with reluctance, that fucking annoying voice in his head reminding him snottily that driving others to homicide does not remove black marks from his accountability column. And the sooner he gets out of this whole redemption gig, the better.
“Oh, I don’t know. Someone seems to have made it my business to see that you two stay alive. I mean, I was a bad guy, don’t get me wrong, but I just don’t remember doing anything nasty enough to deserve this.” He swallows the rest of his beer, feeling very sorry for himself. Wondering if the bartender’s too scared to bring him another. Wondering how drunk he can get before he starts feeling better about all this.
Dean’s still staring at him, he can tell, but finally some of that screaming tension relaxes in the atmosphere and he sees him settle back down onto his own stool.
“I guess there’s nothing I can do to make you go away,” Dean says morosely. “Just forget you ever met us?”
“Nope.” Lindsey always has money supplied magically from somewhere, part of his package deal, and when he thinks hard enough that cigarettes will help him, they appear in his pocket. He can compartmentalize and think three things at once, and he wonders sometimes if he's really tricking the Powers or if they allow him to think he is, as part of their bigger game. Lindsey's always been an over-thinker. The cigarette feels comfortable between his fingers. He lights up, blowing a blue line of smoke up at the ceiling. “Believe me, if there was, I’d be doing it right now. You two aren’t exactly a plum assignment.”
“Okay, hang on.” Dean turns to face him fully, fiercely intent and focused. “Just what the hell are you? And what do you mean, assignment? Assignment from who, dammit? Straight answers, man.”
Lindsey tips a shoulder. “The Powers That Be.” He motions the bartender over, and the man actually comes.
Money’s more powerful than fear, an almost universal law in Lindsey’s experience, but he still drops a twenty on the man for his balls.
“The hell?”
“Not hell, that’s the point.” Lindsey sips his beer. Good stuff, beer. “Look, just accept it, okay? There’s a lot out there you two don’t know about, and you don’t need to know about it -- just take it as a given that I’m here to help you, I’ve got some good resources, and you should do what I fucking tell you to do.”
Dean laughs at that, a real honest-to-god laugh, and Lindsey’s completely startled by how it changes him. He leans back and cocks a hip and keeps on grinning. “Yeah, good luck with that,” he finally says, and Lindsey almost smiles back.
“No, seriously,” he says, putting as much force behind the words as he can. “I’m supposed to keep you alive, and I can’t if you keep on running around like a meth-head with a death wish. You’ve gotta simmer down. Keep your head low and stop getting yourself in trouble.”
“That’s not what I do,” Dean parries back, all balls, no brains, and Lindsey feels his teeth grind. The righteous little son of a bitch. “I, we, this is our life. We help people, people who don’t have any other place to turn, people who are helple --”
“Don’t.” Lindsey’s head snaps up, and he hears himself growl without any volition of his own. “Do not finish that thought. You’re not seeing the big picture.”
“I don’t have to.” Dean’s cocky insouciance hasn’t dimmed down even a notch. “I got the little picture under control.”
Lindsey’s about to pull out exhibits A through K on why that is so clearly and totally untrue, with Dean’s blood on his boots, shirt, and face the first witness for the prosecution, but a sudden babble at the door turns his head, and Dean’s too, and he takes a long, appreciative moment to stare at the group of girls coming through the door.
He doesn’t seem to really possess any libido in Purgatory, but it seems to be making up for lost time now that he’s back on the earthly plane, and the beer is taking enough of an edge off what little good sense he possesses that he doesn’t even care that they look pretty significantly underage.
“Damn,” Dean breathes appreciatively, as the tall brunette tosses her hair and giggles at something her blonde friend says, as they move to the bar and look at Dean and Lindsey with sidelong looks and little smiles.
“Damn,” Lindsey agrees, for once in perfect accord.
“Hey.” The brunette leans over so they both have a lovely view of her cleavage, and smiles big and white at Dean. “I just got off the rag yesterday, and that is, like, so the best timing ever, because, whoa, here you are and you’re really hot, and stuff.”
There’s a moment of paralyzed silence when Lindsey is actually at a loss for words. Then he feels Dean shaking, literally shaking with suppressed hysteria at his side, and he forces a smile to his face.
“Well, that’s real nice, sweetheart,” he drawls, playing for time. “Puberty can be such a terrible time.” Dean snorts at that, which just isn’t helping.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” she snits a little, though her blonde friend is definitely making eyes in Lindsey’s direction. “I was talking to him, he has cute freckles.”
“He’s allergic to maxi pads,” Lindsey informs her smoothly, and Dean makes a suppressed, half-hysterical sound. “Usually he has to wait a week after, you know, the end.”
“Oh.” Her eyes go big and round. “Oh my god, it’s a good thing I use tampons, then.”
Dean actually chokes, and Lindsey laughs before he’s able to suppress it. His head goes back and the laughter spills out. His sides start aching from laughing so hard. He hasn’t laughed in six forevers.
“You’ve got a real pretty laugh,” the blonde girl says, leaning into him. He has to wipe away tears as he tapers off laughing and looks at the girl. She’s probably seventeen, and time was when that wouldn’t have mattered to him a whole lot. It’s been a long time, though, since he was casual in a bar, casual with his sex life. Before Darla, before Angel, not since he worked eighty hour work weeks trying to get to the place that caused him to be right here next to Dean frickin’ Winchester fighting off a couple girls with more sex-drive than sense.
“You have no innate sense of danger, do you, girl?” Lindsey smiles with his head hanging low. He sips his beer and watches Dean out of the corner of his eye.
“Like, you mean, do I ride roller coasters and stuff like that? I totally love that stuff!” The girl brightens and flips her hair again.
“Uh, do you huff nitrous?” Dean asks her, and Lindsey almost spits out his beer. The direct route to “You’re retarded” wouldn’t have been what Lindsey would have expected from Dean.
The girl scrunches her pretty face up and tilts her head a little.
“No, but we smoke. Do you wanna party?” the blonde asks Dean. Lindsey really cannot believe this. Dean’s bark of laughter indicates he feels just about the same. The boy has little to no sense of self-preservation, but he’s an old hand with one night stands and easy play, Lindsey’s sure. There’s a difference between being easy and being scary, though.
“Listen, sweetheart, you’re younger than my boots. And besides...” Lindsey reaches out his evil hand and slides it into the back pocket of Dean’s jeans. “Girls are icky.”
Dean looks at him with a wry quirk of his mouth, a dimple forming on the left side of those soft lips. “Uh huh,” Dean says without making any move to get away. He lifts an eyebrow, and Lindsey sees that Dean’s taking it for a dare. He’s proving he won’t back down. Which is fine for Lindsey, especially if it gets these teenyboppers on to other, greener, stupider pastures.
“Like, can we watch?” the dark-haired girl asks just as the blonde makes an ‘Ewwwwwwwww’ in a long whisper. She hauls her friend away by the elbow, glaring as Dean blows her a kiss.
“So, strictly speaking, I didn’t need to be butt-ass nekkid when you did whatever mojo you had to earlier, right? That was just an added bonus for you?” Dean smirks and takes a long pull on his beer.
Lindsey laughs again, and it feels strange after so long. He doesn’t even really remember being happy anymore. That’s probably part of the point. Not even Angel had been punished that hard. Precluding perfect happiness didn’t mean no fun ever.
Lindsey always gets the short end of the stick.
Except that Dean’s smiling, leaning into Lindsey with his shoulder bumping Lindsey’s chest, and he’s all muscle under the palm of Lindsey’s hand. His freckles are definitely something else, that girl had been right about one thing. Not to mention the eyelashes and that goddamn mouth with the dimple in the corner and --
“This looks cozy.” Lindsey looks up, and up, and there’s Sam, big as life, a bag over his shoulder and a face like he’s been sucking lemons. It’s really one of the most unpleasant expressions Lindsey’s ever seen on a human, and he’d admire it longer except that he’s off balance from Dean moving away like he’s just gotten a taser jolt.
“Sam,” Dean says, false heartiness in every syllable he speaks. “Glad you made it out. Any news?”
“Nothing, really,” Sam says, with a last nasty look at Lindsey, a look that makes him groan and turn back to his beer, remembered warmth making his palm tingle. “No record of a Lindsey McDonald anywhere, though there were actually some families by that name around here.” He glances around the bar, and doesn’t take a seat. “I really think we should get back. Get an early start tomorrow. You did almost die tonight, Dean.”
“Is he always like this?” Lindsey asks Dean, ignoring Sam as best he can, considering size and ability to suck all the air -- and sexy/happy/whatever just pick one -- out of a room.
“Pretty much.” Dean’s grin is wry but affectionate. Fuck. Lindsey is not gonna like this guy. He’s just not. “Look, Sammy, pull up a stool, have a beer, take a load off. You’re way too tense.”
“No thanks.” Sam’s just looming, and Lindsey swallows the rest of his beer with a sigh. He can already tell how this is going to go, what with the way Dean’s restless on his chair. The way Dean seems to pretty much do whatever Sam wants, most of the time. “We really gotta get back, and I’m not leaving you here with him." His tone ascribes to Lindsey every perverted evil thought in the world, and Lindsey grins at him, just reinforcing it.
“He’s not so bad,” Dean says out of the clear blue, clapping Lindsey on the shoulder.
“You? Have the worst taste in people in the world,” Sam informs him, frustration dripping from his voice.
“Whatever. You’re just a suspicious little bitch, Sam.” Dean laughs, slamming his beer and standing up. “He saved my life, dude. Lighten up. Hey, you coming back?”
Lindsey shrugs, cheerfully ignoring Sam’s glare of death. “Don’t have anywhere better to be.” Which is both sad and true. He follows them out of the bar, back to the hotel, and tries not to be amused at the protective curve of Sam’s back as he keeps himself between Lindsey and Dean.
Part Two
Redemption is A Four Letter Word
By Pet and ethrosdemon
Angel: The Series/Supernatural crossover
Sam, Dean/Lindsey, no Wincest, lots of UST, rated R
NOTES: Now, now. Hold up. Before you off willy-nilly zipping through this and ignoring me, I need so make a big ol' speech.
I KNOW a lot of y'all did not know me in Jossverse fandom or know that I was ever in it, or blah blah, oh lamentcakes for this and that and the other thing. We all have OTPs. Even me. This fic exposes my drawers as to what mine was for a LONG time.
Pet is one of my oldest friends. Even though she always had a really disgusting love for Spike, we rolled in the old days. One of the things I have said time and again is that I LOVE SPN fandom because it's like Old Home Days with the old Angel people (because I will straight up say that the wackjobs were mainly all A:tS people who also happened to write BtVS more than the other way around. Come on, all we wrote was vampire rape fic and Angel murdering people. AND WE LOVED IT! The more murdering, the BETTER). At any rate, blood blood, oh shit what was I even saying?
Right.
Dear Lar,
We love you.
The end,
K and K
This is, quite obviously, set post-"Not Fade Away".
Co-written over a very drunken weekend by PETTYWHACK and me. It's been a long while since we worked on anything together. I love you, PETTYWHACK!
***
"REDEMPTION IS A FOUR LETTER WORD"
He'd forgotten what August in Oklahoma feels like, but materializing in front of the Tulsa courthouse and jail in an Armani suit brings out the heavy humidity sweat immediately. Even before he climbs the steps, he has to wipe his face with a handkerchief.
Fucking Oklahoma. Purgatory is better than this, even with the neighbor who won't stop playing techno music at 3 am.
“Lindsey McDonald.” He flashes his ID at the security guard with a smile, and is waved through the metal detector without incident. The familiar-strange smell of a courthouse hits him almost immediately. He squares his shoulders, settles himself, and makes his way to Central Holding.
“I'm here to see Dean Winchester,” he tells the pinch-faced clerk. Her face gets even more pinched at that. She makes him sign in, leave documentation, and points him at the security-glass doors.
This whole mess better take a big chunk out of his redemption time.
He dodges two drunks struggling against their handcuffs in the hall, and gets shown to the interview room by a cop who smells so bad Lindsey has to fight not to gag. Stepping into the small grey room is almost a relief. And then he sees the two faces turned suspiciously towards the door, wary and cold and touched just a little with desperation, and only years of rigid self-control keep him from groaning. These two are everything he hates about this job. Worse than the fat exorcist in Portland, worse than the crazy cat-hating witch in Minnetonka. These two are pains in the ass -- he can see it in their eyes.
Dean and Sam Winchester. He runs the file quickly in his head as they stare at him. Brothers, demon hunters, fighters of the good fight, whatever. They're stupid small-time fuckups who got caught doing something illegal, and now it's Lindsey's job to get Dean out. He sends a mental snarl at the Powers and shuts the door behind him. Sighs, and moves to the table. Sets down his briefcase. Loosens his tie. Wishes he had a beer. Looks at his brand-new clients, hands them each a business card, and sighs again.
“I'm your lawyer.” He looks right at Dean, at the great big bruise across half of his too-pretty face. “And you're an idiot. Come on, B&E? Resisting arrest? Fraud? You didn't even wipe your fingerprints and now they won't even give you bail. That’s some pretty good stuff from someone who’s supposed to be dead.”
“What do you mean, you're his lawyer?” Sam stands up, and, goddamn, he's big, he looms over Lindsey like a fucking tree or something. If Lindsey wasn't already bored by this, he'd have been almost impressed by the hardass face the kid is showing him.
But really. Really.
“Sit down and shut up,” he snaps, and Sam, looking shocked, actually does. “Save the stupid questions, okay? All you need to know is that I've been retained by someone who wants you --” He points at Dean. “-- to keep walking around outside of prison, doing your thing. God knows why.”
“I'm innocent,” Dean informs him, his voice hoarse, and Lindsey looks over the ligature marks on his throat with a professional eye.
“Bullshit,” he answers, and reaches for the Polaroid camera he knows will be in his briefcase as soon as he needs it. “Sit still a second.”
He can see them still floundering with confusion, looking at each other with headshakes and silent questions as he snaps a few pictures, getting the marks, the bruises, the spots where wrist shackles chafed at Dean's skin. It won't be perfect, but he'll probably be able to at least push an unnecessary force appeal if the bail hearing shenanigans don't break his way. By the time he's got the pictures drying on the table in a neat line, the boys have pulled themselves more or less together, and he braces himself for the expected questions.
Instead, Sam reaches for a little bottle and suddenly there's water hitting his face.
“What the fuck?” It's got that distinct tang, though, and, for the first time in a long time, he almost laughs. “Holy water? Oh, please. You can't really just be going around throwing that on anyone who pisses you off. Tell me you're not that stupid.”
“Hey, he's not stupid,” Dean snaps, turning, body screaming 'defense' even though he's handcuffed to the restraint bolts in the table.
“You're both the biggest morons it's been my displeasure to defend,” Lindsey snarls right back. He points at Dean, finally letting this whole ludicrous situation get to him. “You're legally dead, but instead of using that to your benefit, you run around leaving your prints -- your on-file prints! -- at every mysterious crime scene across fifteen states. What, did you think that the cops wouldn't dust for prints? At a murder scene? And you,” he growls at Sam. “You blasting all over hell's half-acre with your brain hanging out your head, all woe-is-me. Bullshit. Son, you can't even start to comprehend what a real bad time is like.”
“Fuck you,” Sam growls back as Dean just gapes. “You don't know shit about me, or about Dean. Who the hell do you think you are --”
“I'm the guy who's getting your brother out of jail.” Lindsey levels at him, cold and smooth as ice, his best Wolfram and Hart voice, and that shuts Sam up but quick. “And come talk to me when you've lived through your third apocalypse, okay?”
“What the --” Dean breathes, and Lindsey can't cut him off fast enough -- “Are you some kind of guardian angel or something?”
“Oh my god,” Lindsey moans, finally dropping his head into his hands, like he's wanted to since he realized he was coming to Oklahoma to get some punk-ass baby Champion out of the shit. “Fucking kill me now, please.”
Little late for that, a voice he hates smirks into his mind, and he presses the heels of his hands against his eyes and wishes, not for the first time, that he'd never been born.
*
A few easy little threats, a little basic legalese, and Dean's got a bail hearing scheduled. Lindsey can only be thankful that the words “police brutality” carry weight and that the prosecuting attorney is apparently taking a long lunch. Dean's a definite flight risk, but once again, the briefcase comes through for Lindsey. Some sleight of hand with his favorite mix of herbs and a mumbled incantation, and the judge is rubbing her eyes and blinking in confusion, then listening rapt to Lindsey's arguments. He loves the courtroom, loves pitching his voice just so, holding his hands out, working the words to make things go his way. His own special brand of mojo, no demons or bad-smelling powders required. Lindsey's had way with words his whole life, way before The Law & Evil, Incorporated.
Dean Winchester's officially notarized death certificate from St. Louis, a nudge towards mistaken identity and wrongful imprisonment and compromised evidence, and he's almost home free.
“Your Honor.” The prosecuting attorney stands up in protest. “The suspect in question put four police officers in the hospital while resisting arrest. Two are in serious condition with multiple fractures. The suspect is violent and has no local ties. I officially request that bail be denied. He's a flight risk and a danger to the community, and is also operating under a clearly fraudulent alias.”
“Your Honor,” Lindsey says, with a pitying glance at his opposite number, and then a gesture at Dean who is, as instructed, sitting as quietly and pathetically as he possibly can, though his eyes promise murder. “My client is obviously not the cause of those fine officers' injuries. Look at him. He's one simple man, with no special skills. Francis Doyle is a car mechanic from Norman -- I've already provided the documentation that has been accepted by the court. He has ties to the community there in-state, and, furthermore, I believe more thorough investigation will show that he is entirely innocent of these unfounded charges. He deserves bail.”
Francis Doyle? the voice snickers at him. Very original, Lindsey.
Lindsey tells it in no uncertain terms to shut the fuck up.
The judge is nodding, still looking a bit glazed, and she bangs her gavel firmly. “Bail is granted at five hundred thousand dollars. Counsel, you will advise your client not to leave the state in the intervening time until trial.”
“Of course, Your Honor.” He nods with no small triumph as the prosecutor glowers, and even Sam looks impressed as they leave the courtroom.
*
Dean Winchester shackled to a table is one thing, but Dean Winchester loose and prowling around a crappy motel room is something else entirely, and Lindsey can't help but eye him appreciatively, even as he realizes that even watching him is making him feel tired. He's decorative, at least, but manic.
“Dude, that was awesome,” Sam informs him. Lindsey just shakes his head. Save him from pre-law fanboys.
“Yeah, okay.” He waves a hand. “Great. Now, please, for the love of everything, get out of town.”
Dean flashes him an incredulous look, and Sam bolts straight upright from his tired sprawl on the chair.
“Jump bail?” He sounds absolutely horrified by the very idea, and Lindsey honestly just cannot believe this kid.
“Yes, jump bail,” he repeats, like to a small, slow child. “Leave town, make tracks, blow this popsicle stand, whatever you want to call it, but get the hell out of Tulsa before you end up doing twenty-five-to-life for that shit in St. Louis. You get anyone to dig even a little deeper and this fake ID is going to fall apart, and you’re back to being Dean Winchester, suspect in capital crimes cases. Does the phrase 'murder one' mean anything at all to you?”
“But you're my lawyer, you're getting me off,” Dean argues, though Lindsey can tell he's already halfway to the state line in his head. “And you posted bail.”
“It's not real money.” Lindsey sighs, already losing his last shred of patience with this whole situation. They can bring him back any time now, he thinks, imagining the boot-thumping of the pacer in the upstairs apartment in his apartment complex of purgatory almost wistfully. “I've left you your documentation, Francis, so please, please, just go. Stop leaving prints everywhere. And I know it's hard for you to imagine this, but a little subtlety might serve you well going forward. You know. Low profile. All that crazy stuff.”
“We're subtle,” Sam starts, eyes narrowed, and Lindsey holds up a hand. The evil one, as it happens.
“Don't even,” he says. He feels the familiar nauseating tug of translocation, and for once, it's welcome. “Seriously. Low profile. You do not want me to have to come back here.”
As he's vanishing, he hears Dean's half-admiring, half-annoyed voice, fading with distance. “What a bitch.“
Mission accomplished, then. Lindsey can't wait to get out of this damn suit, have a warm beer (the refrigeration is always on the fritz in Purgatory, yet another small annoyance), and forget that this ever happened. Just like every other time he’s been called, though this time he’s maybe even more annoyed than usual.
*
Sam flips through his dad's journal and thinks about this newest development in his life of utter chaos.
“Dude, I think that lawyer guy was a trick.” Sam finds the entry his dad had written for “mysterious organ harvesting” and grits his teeth thinking about the otherness that had rolled off of Lindsey McDonald, Ambiguously Evil Attorney at Law. No one who wasn't at least a little evil took that kind of delight in the misfortune of others.
“What kinda trick, Sammy? Meg's boss is now fucking us over by getting us out of jail scot-free? Ewwwwwww, evil!” Dean punctuates this by snapping "Back in Black" into the stereo.
Sam wonders if killing Dean with his brain would really be considered murder.
“Who knows what that guy's agenda is, Dean? That's the whole point. I don't know if we should believe anything he said.”
“Not trust a lawyer? Wow, you're fast, baby brother.” Dean cranks the music up, cutting the conversation off.
Sam glares, but it has its usual effect -- none whatsoever. Sam reads about stolen kidneys and demons that feed off of human organs with the smarmy smirk on Lindsey McDonald's face taunting his inner eye.
*
The organ harvesting turns out to not only be real, but also not in any way demonic. Chinese mafia or something Sam doesn't get a chance to figure out because when they bust up on the operation with their guns in their hands and murder in both their hearts (kids, the bastards are fucking stealing the organs of children), Dean goes down right in front of Sam's face.
Sam keeps the panic out, barely, and manages to drag Dean into the Impala, manages to drive them back to the motel, manages to practically carry Dean to the door of the room. He props him up against the blistered paint of the door as he fishes for the key.
“Dean, come on, man, don't fade on me here,” Sam whispers as Dean's eyes drop closed. His face is turning grey in the crap, yellow light of the parking lot, and it's all Sam can do not scream.
Sam gets the door open and as it swings wide and he grabs Dean to haul him inside, a voice takes a strip of his soul off. “Motherfucking bullshit is what this is!”
The door bangs against the wall as that crazy lawyer guy snatches at Dean's shoulders and cusses under his breath. He looks up at Sam with a sneer. “Well? Grab his fucking feet, you idiot.” He lets Dean sag against him, blood everywhere, all over all three of them, and Sam grabs his feet. They carry Dean to one of the beds and the lawyer starts poking and prodding, ripping clothes away and pressing bloody fingers into Dean's throat -- looking for a pulse, Sam realizes, a moment too slow.
“What part of laying low do you not comprehend, Winchester?” Lindsey looks up and stares Sam in the eyes. Sam notices he's wearing a t-shirt and jeans because he's got Dean's blood all over his forearms. “Because where I come from, getting shot is not considered laying low. Help me get his clothes off.”
Lindsey produces a knife from his back pocket -- an old fashioned pocket knife with a wooden and mother-of-pearl handle -- and just starts cutting. Dean has blood at the corners of his mouth bubbling in a froth that sends Sam right into panic finally.
“What are you doing?” Sam reaches to grab the knife and suddenly feels slow, like he's been paused.
“I am trying to save your brother's life. He's about two minutes from dead. Do you want to watch him die? If not, shut up and go get me the bag at the end of the bed.” He turns back to cutting Dean's clothes off, and Sam does as he was told. He rushes around, grabbing the bag and upending it on the bed next to Dean.
The contents of the bag are pretty much every single protective spell ingredient Sam's ever seen. Sage and willow and at least five kinds of salt and ashes and some kind of dark liquid in a jar that Sam thinks might be henna.
“Put the sage and the coarsest salt in the liquid and pour a circle around us.” Lindsey's got Dean stripped totally naked and is kneeling over him, straddling him, with his shirt off and pressed into the wound on Dean's chest. He looks hard at Sam. “Now!”
And Sam's training clicks in. He does exactly what Lindsey told him as Lindsey starts chanting low, in a murmur, some language Sam doesn't recognize. Which is weird because Sam recognizes most languages, even if he doesn't speak them. He looks up as he completes the salt circle and almost chokes when he sees black runes spilling out of Lindsey's mouth in a whirling stream.
“Hey!” Sam reaches out to grab Lindsey, panicking all over again that Sam had just turned Dean directly over to the demonic forces that they'd been running from all this time -- no, no, no -- and when his hand connects with the invisible protective ring above the salt, he gets thrown across the room. He bounds up and shouts “Dean!” as Lindsey begins painting the symbols falling out of his mouth onto Dean's bare skin.
Lindsey sing-chants and the sigils dance and spin, more and more of them all the time, until Sam can barely see either his brother or the fucking person possibly stealing his soul through the inky swirl.
In a flash, the symbols are gone, and Lindsey collapses back, breaking the salt ring.
“What the hell!” Dean's annoyed voice is the most perfect thing Sam's ever heard. He's across the room smothering Dean, grabbing him and rocking him, without knowing how he got there.
“Get offa me, dude!” Dean shoves at him, and Sam laughs a little too loud, too hard. He feels the cold tremor of true fear dissipating.
“Why am I naked and covered in blood, and the answer better involve lots of whiskey and nubile gymnasts, because if not I'm gonna be pissed.”
Sam stands up, and Dean catches sight of Lindsey, who is also covered in blood, scowling.
“You,” Lindsey says, pointing a bloody finger, “are the biggest goddamned idiot I've had the misfortune to run into since Angel Investigations got blown up.”
Sam knows that name from somewhere, but he can't place it, and that bothers him. Everything about this entire situation bothers him. Starting with the fact Dean appears to be speechless and ending with the fact Dean is making no move whatsoever to cover himself up. Also, Dean almost died. And how about the fact that he has no idea who this witch doctor is or why he's interested in them or how he got into their hotel room.
“Who the hell are you?” Sam puts some bass in his voice and crosses his arms over his chest.
Lindsey moves so he’s pointing the same finger at Sam. “This isn't about you, Princess, so I'd advise you to keep your fool mouth closed before the ass-whuppings commence.”
Dean's face sets in the hard, murderous lines Sam associates with cold rage and Metallica on the stereo at 11. “Don't talk to my brother like that.”
Lindsey turns his gaze on Dean. He blinks, his eyelashes against his cheek all slow and calm, and Sam sees the lie there, the danger it covers. Lindsey smiles, and the hair on Sam's neck stands up. “You say 'brother' like some people say 'lover,' and the fact that I know that should be your warning that I'm not gonna tolerate any fucking lip from either of you from here on out.”
Dean's on Lindsey before Sam's blush even feels hot on his face. They topple off the bed, rolling. Dean's got inches and pounds on the little bitch, but the dude's probably not even human. That's what Sam thinks as he draws his gun and waits for the wrestling match to settle down so he can get a bead on Lindsey's head.
They come to rest with Lindsey's forearm against Dean's windpipe and his thigh wedged hard against Dean's exposed genitals.
“You can shoot me in the head if you want, boy, but it's not gonna do you any good. I've died more times than you've probably been laid.” The back of Lindsey's head is towards Sam, so there's no way he could see Sam and the gun.
“Leave my brother alone,” Sam grits out. “I'm the one you want -- let him go and we can talk this out.” Sam will go willingly with this freak if that gets Dean free and safe.
The laughter's unexpected. So is Lindsey just rolling off of Dean and to his feet, nice and neat and efficient, with a fighter's grace and thick muscles flexing inside his jeans. Dean scrambles to his feet, glaring and snarling, and reaches for his duffle. Dean quickly dresses as Lindsey smiles easily at Sam. His head's tilted to the side, and even in the dim light of the dark motel room, his mouth is still pink.
“For once, this is not about your sorry ass, Samuel. Back off or we're gonna scrap, because I have no patience for your sad-sack moaning and groaning. This here is about Dean and his...” Lindsey pauses and the small grin turns into the wide, dangerous smile. “Destiny.”
He says the last word like it’s a tax audit and Ebola and having your fingernails ripped off all at once.
“What?” Dean says, rounding Lindsey to stand next to Sam.
“Look, I know y'all think you know what's going down here, that Sam's the nexus for some otherworldly mumbo-jumbo. I'm not even saying that isn't true. All I'm sayin' is that Dean is gonna be a Champion, sooner or later. And I'm here because y'all don't have the sense god gave a goat between you. Also, don't take me droppin' the g-word to indicate I believe in such.” He finishes off, and Sam can feel his mouth hanging open. “And one of you get me a new shirt.”
Lindsey runs a hand through his hair, and the light through the window catches on the silvery bracelet he's wearing.
“What?” Sam finally says into the ringing silence.
“Get. Me. A. Shirt.” Lindsey repeats. “And nothing tacky with advertising on it, either.”
“Um, dude.” Dean rubs a hand over his face.
Lindsey turns around and rummages through Dean's duffle muttering to himself. “Goddamned idiots. I'm ready for my beer any time here.”
“You want a beer?” Dean says, and Sam laughs. This really takes the cake. The upside-down crapcake of Sam's life.
Lindsey pulls a plain white shirt over his head. He's smeared everywhere with blood and now the shirt’s got blood on it too, but it looks like he did it on purpose. He's got a huge smudge under one eye. Sam goes hot and cold one on top of the other remembering the truth of Dean's almost-death.
“How did you save Dean? What was all that?”
“Save me, what? No one saved me from anything.” Dean goes back to glaring. “Not someone that short anyway.”
“I'm gonna let that one pass, because you're clearly brain-addled from eating stupid for breakfast.” There's a hard note in Lindsey's voice that Sam is pretty sure he can back up six different ways. “Look, why don't you go on vacation, get addicted to internet porn, do anything other than running into mafia strongholds with guns blazing.” Then Lindsey looks up at the ceiling. “Okay, anytime now,” he says with a great deal of annoyance.
“What?” Sam lifts an eyebrow.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, dude? Aside from the obvious, I mean.” Dean shifts, crossing his arms over his chest mirroring how Sam is standing.
“Oh, hell no,” Lindsey moans.
“Who are you talking to?” Sam's really getting confused.
“Fuck!” Lindsey shouts before pointing a finger back in Dean's face. “You are so stupid that you must be about to get killed all over again. How are you even alive at all?”
He turns and flings the door open and storms outside without even closing it behind him.
“Okay, jackass!” Dean shouts ineffectually behind him.
“Dude, this is screwed up.” Sam whispers.
*
Straight to the bathroom in the bar to wash his hands, stare at himself in the mirror, curse the Powers for sending him back to earth with short lawyer hair. And without his guitar. Or his truck. At least he doesn’t seem to be aging any. He scrubs cursorily at the smear of blood on his face and heads to the bar. For some things, alcohol really is the only cure. He’s got blood on his shirt, of course, but it ain’t that bad -- it looks, really, like maybe he did it on purpose.
The cold beer tastes good and goes down smooth, and, even through the red anger of Lindsey’s thoughts, he can appreciate it. The bar’s a little shithole, but it’s walking distance to the motel and that’s enough for Lindsey. Can’t get too far away from the new babysitting assignment, after all, he thinks, and his mouth twists in a bitter and familiar way.
“Fuck you,” he mutters ineffectually, at Powers who probably aren’t even listening. The bartender gives him a hairy eyeball and stays far down at the other end of the bar with the other customers, all of them giving Lindsey lots of space. That suits him right down to the ground. Lord only knows what would happen if someone were to get up in his face right now, and Lindsey’d rather not add to his body count at this late date in the redemption game.
And that whole redemption game is something that Lindsey's still got his ass burnt about, because where was Lindsey's choice, his real choice freely taken, to get involved with Holland and demons and damnation? All Lindsey was after was a little security, a little bit of that good life he'd seen in movies and t.v., and what did that get him? A mortal enemy, his soul sold to something a whole lot worse than any devil he ever heard about in church, and a "second shot" having to look after people even dumber than Lindsey had been when he was working in the mail room.
His own ingrained patterns of thought are also sort of troubling for him. He grew up on religious language and imagery, curse words related to taking the Lord's name in vain the worst, worse than fuck in a way. He still thinks like that, too, after all this time. And every time he does, there's that little niggle there, that little voice, when Lindsey says "Goddamn it" or "Jesus Christ" that whispers you know there's no such thing, cuss by Angel's name or Holland's at the very least.
“Hey.” He closes his eyes when he hears the voice, senses a body sliding onto the stool beside him. If God had given Dean Winchester the brains he distributed to potted plants, they wouldn’t be in this mess, and Lindsey wouldn’t be here. He breathes carefully and opens his eyes and turns. He's smart enough to know he might have been some place even worse, though, if not here. Always had the curse to see the worst case scenario -- which made him a damned fine lawyer, but not really a very good person.
Dean’s looking a lot healthier than he had a half an hour before, and calmer, and wildly curious, and how a boy with a poker face as bad as this gets up to half the nonsense he does is a total mystery to Lindsey.
“What do you want,” he says flatly. Not even a question. Please go away now, Dean. He lifts his hand for another beer, and Dean’s hand makes it two, and now Lindsey’s really scowling. Can’t even take a hint. Just a dumb thug, a smalltime hick evil-fighter, and Lindsey’s gotta keep him alive. “I better get major points for this,” he says, just in case the Powers are listening. “Massive points.”
“You’ve got blood on your face,” Dean points out mildly, tipping up his own beer in a little salute once the bartender has scurried away. Dean doesn’t like him; Lindsey can see it written clear as newsprint across his face. Dean would beat him to a bloody smear if he could. Lindsey grins. Lindsey has some experience with similar situations.
“Don’t care.” He drinks again, and turns away. Then has a thought, and turns back. “Listen. If I told you to just hide out somewhere for a while, lay low, go to ground, what would you say?”
“Fuck you,” Dean answers promptly, baring teeth in a sort-of grin of his own. “I have work to do, I’m a busy man. Evil to hunt, people to save. I can’t just be sitting around on my ass all day long.”
“Right, thought so.” Lindsey mutters. “What if I told you that if you don’t, Sam will die? A messy, horrible, painful --” He chokes a little as Dean’s forearm lands across his windpipe, shoving him back against the bar, uncomfortable and more than a little annoying. Good sweet Christ this kid is slow, and so hacked off at Lindsey that he totally missed Lindsey’s eye roll.
“You fucking touch him, you hurt a hair on his head, and I’ll...” Lindsey watches him recall that Lindsey doesn’t fear bullets, sees slow comprehension crawl across his expression, followed by a murderous tight resolve that he can almost respect. “I’ll kill you somehow. I’ll hunt you straight back to hell.”
“I wish,” Lindsey chokes out. He doesn’t have to breathe, but a reliable supply of air does help with speech. “Let go of me before these people call the cops, you fucking fool.” Dean’s step back is abrupt and startled, and Lindsey coughs once, straightens his shirt, shakes his head. “Hell would be better than this, I’m pretty sure,” he adds, sliding back onto his barstool with no further fanfare. Maybe not, but bitterness is Lindsey's mother's milk at this point. He watches the bartender relax and put down the phone, and shakes his head again. Yet more amazing evidence that Dean probably should have been arrested or killed years ago. No sense. None.
“You don’t touch Sam,” Dean repeats, just as fierce, if quieter.
Lindsey just cocks an eyebrow at him. “And where is your better half?” he asks silkily, just to watch Dean flush with rage.
“None of your business,” he grits, and Lindsey feels better than he has all day. This part could actually be almost fun. He reins himself in with reluctance, that fucking annoying voice in his head reminding him snottily that driving others to homicide does not remove black marks from his accountability column. And the sooner he gets out of this whole redemption gig, the better.
“Oh, I don’t know. Someone seems to have made it my business to see that you two stay alive. I mean, I was a bad guy, don’t get me wrong, but I just don’t remember doing anything nasty enough to deserve this.” He swallows the rest of his beer, feeling very sorry for himself. Wondering if the bartender’s too scared to bring him another. Wondering how drunk he can get before he starts feeling better about all this.
Dean’s still staring at him, he can tell, but finally some of that screaming tension relaxes in the atmosphere and he sees him settle back down onto his own stool.
“I guess there’s nothing I can do to make you go away,” Dean says morosely. “Just forget you ever met us?”
“Nope.” Lindsey always has money supplied magically from somewhere, part of his package deal, and when he thinks hard enough that cigarettes will help him, they appear in his pocket. He can compartmentalize and think three things at once, and he wonders sometimes if he's really tricking the Powers or if they allow him to think he is, as part of their bigger game. Lindsey's always been an over-thinker. The cigarette feels comfortable between his fingers. He lights up, blowing a blue line of smoke up at the ceiling. “Believe me, if there was, I’d be doing it right now. You two aren’t exactly a plum assignment.”
“Okay, hang on.” Dean turns to face him fully, fiercely intent and focused. “Just what the hell are you? And what do you mean, assignment? Assignment from who, dammit? Straight answers, man.”
Lindsey tips a shoulder. “The Powers That Be.” He motions the bartender over, and the man actually comes.
Money’s more powerful than fear, an almost universal law in Lindsey’s experience, but he still drops a twenty on the man for his balls.
“The hell?”
“Not hell, that’s the point.” Lindsey sips his beer. Good stuff, beer. “Look, just accept it, okay? There’s a lot out there you two don’t know about, and you don’t need to know about it -- just take it as a given that I’m here to help you, I’ve got some good resources, and you should do what I fucking tell you to do.”
Dean laughs at that, a real honest-to-god laugh, and Lindsey’s completely startled by how it changes him. He leans back and cocks a hip and keeps on grinning. “Yeah, good luck with that,” he finally says, and Lindsey almost smiles back.
“No, seriously,” he says, putting as much force behind the words as he can. “I’m supposed to keep you alive, and I can’t if you keep on running around like a meth-head with a death wish. You’ve gotta simmer down. Keep your head low and stop getting yourself in trouble.”
“That’s not what I do,” Dean parries back, all balls, no brains, and Lindsey feels his teeth grind. The righteous little son of a bitch. “I, we, this is our life. We help people, people who don’t have any other place to turn, people who are helple --”
“Don’t.” Lindsey’s head snaps up, and he hears himself growl without any volition of his own. “Do not finish that thought. You’re not seeing the big picture.”
“I don’t have to.” Dean’s cocky insouciance hasn’t dimmed down even a notch. “I got the little picture under control.”
Lindsey’s about to pull out exhibits A through K on why that is so clearly and totally untrue, with Dean’s blood on his boots, shirt, and face the first witness for the prosecution, but a sudden babble at the door turns his head, and Dean’s too, and he takes a long, appreciative moment to stare at the group of girls coming through the door.
He doesn’t seem to really possess any libido in Purgatory, but it seems to be making up for lost time now that he’s back on the earthly plane, and the beer is taking enough of an edge off what little good sense he possesses that he doesn’t even care that they look pretty significantly underage.
“Damn,” Dean breathes appreciatively, as the tall brunette tosses her hair and giggles at something her blonde friend says, as they move to the bar and look at Dean and Lindsey with sidelong looks and little smiles.
“Damn,” Lindsey agrees, for once in perfect accord.
“Hey.” The brunette leans over so they both have a lovely view of her cleavage, and smiles big and white at Dean. “I just got off the rag yesterday, and that is, like, so the best timing ever, because, whoa, here you are and you’re really hot, and stuff.”
There’s a moment of paralyzed silence when Lindsey is actually at a loss for words. Then he feels Dean shaking, literally shaking with suppressed hysteria at his side, and he forces a smile to his face.
“Well, that’s real nice, sweetheart,” he drawls, playing for time. “Puberty can be such a terrible time.” Dean snorts at that, which just isn’t helping.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” she snits a little, though her blonde friend is definitely making eyes in Lindsey’s direction. “I was talking to him, he has cute freckles.”
“He’s allergic to maxi pads,” Lindsey informs her smoothly, and Dean makes a suppressed, half-hysterical sound. “Usually he has to wait a week after, you know, the end.”
“Oh.” Her eyes go big and round. “Oh my god, it’s a good thing I use tampons, then.”
Dean actually chokes, and Lindsey laughs before he’s able to suppress it. His head goes back and the laughter spills out. His sides start aching from laughing so hard. He hasn’t laughed in six forevers.
“You’ve got a real pretty laugh,” the blonde girl says, leaning into him. He has to wipe away tears as he tapers off laughing and looks at the girl. She’s probably seventeen, and time was when that wouldn’t have mattered to him a whole lot. It’s been a long time, though, since he was casual in a bar, casual with his sex life. Before Darla, before Angel, not since he worked eighty hour work weeks trying to get to the place that caused him to be right here next to Dean frickin’ Winchester fighting off a couple girls with more sex-drive than sense.
“You have no innate sense of danger, do you, girl?” Lindsey smiles with his head hanging low. He sips his beer and watches Dean out of the corner of his eye.
“Like, you mean, do I ride roller coasters and stuff like that? I totally love that stuff!” The girl brightens and flips her hair again.
“Uh, do you huff nitrous?” Dean asks her, and Lindsey almost spits out his beer. The direct route to “You’re retarded” wouldn’t have been what Lindsey would have expected from Dean.
The girl scrunches her pretty face up and tilts her head a little.
“No, but we smoke. Do you wanna party?” the blonde asks Dean. Lindsey really cannot believe this. Dean’s bark of laughter indicates he feels just about the same. The boy has little to no sense of self-preservation, but he’s an old hand with one night stands and easy play, Lindsey’s sure. There’s a difference between being easy and being scary, though.
“Listen, sweetheart, you’re younger than my boots. And besides...” Lindsey reaches out his evil hand and slides it into the back pocket of Dean’s jeans. “Girls are icky.”
Dean looks at him with a wry quirk of his mouth, a dimple forming on the left side of those soft lips. “Uh huh,” Dean says without making any move to get away. He lifts an eyebrow, and Lindsey sees that Dean’s taking it for a dare. He’s proving he won’t back down. Which is fine for Lindsey, especially if it gets these teenyboppers on to other, greener, stupider pastures.
“Like, can we watch?” the dark-haired girl asks just as the blonde makes an ‘Ewwwwwwwww’ in a long whisper. She hauls her friend away by the elbow, glaring as Dean blows her a kiss.
“So, strictly speaking, I didn’t need to be butt-ass nekkid when you did whatever mojo you had to earlier, right? That was just an added bonus for you?” Dean smirks and takes a long pull on his beer.
Lindsey laughs again, and it feels strange after so long. He doesn’t even really remember being happy anymore. That’s probably part of the point. Not even Angel had been punished that hard. Precluding perfect happiness didn’t mean no fun ever.
Lindsey always gets the short end of the stick.
Except that Dean’s smiling, leaning into Lindsey with his shoulder bumping Lindsey’s chest, and he’s all muscle under the palm of Lindsey’s hand. His freckles are definitely something else, that girl had been right about one thing. Not to mention the eyelashes and that goddamn mouth with the dimple in the corner and --
“This looks cozy.” Lindsey looks up, and up, and there’s Sam, big as life, a bag over his shoulder and a face like he’s been sucking lemons. It’s really one of the most unpleasant expressions Lindsey’s ever seen on a human, and he’d admire it longer except that he’s off balance from Dean moving away like he’s just gotten a taser jolt.
“Sam,” Dean says, false heartiness in every syllable he speaks. “Glad you made it out. Any news?”
“Nothing, really,” Sam says, with a last nasty look at Lindsey, a look that makes him groan and turn back to his beer, remembered warmth making his palm tingle. “No record of a Lindsey McDonald anywhere, though there were actually some families by that name around here.” He glances around the bar, and doesn’t take a seat. “I really think we should get back. Get an early start tomorrow. You did almost die tonight, Dean.”
“Is he always like this?” Lindsey asks Dean, ignoring Sam as best he can, considering size and ability to suck all the air -- and sexy/happy/whatever just pick one -- out of a room.
“Pretty much.” Dean’s grin is wry but affectionate. Fuck. Lindsey is not gonna like this guy. He’s just not. “Look, Sammy, pull up a stool, have a beer, take a load off. You’re way too tense.”
“No thanks.” Sam’s just looming, and Lindsey swallows the rest of his beer with a sigh. He can already tell how this is going to go, what with the way Dean’s restless on his chair. The way Dean seems to pretty much do whatever Sam wants, most of the time. “We really gotta get back, and I’m not leaving you here with him." His tone ascribes to Lindsey every perverted evil thought in the world, and Lindsey grins at him, just reinforcing it.
“He’s not so bad,” Dean says out of the clear blue, clapping Lindsey on the shoulder.
“You? Have the worst taste in people in the world,” Sam informs him, frustration dripping from his voice.
“Whatever. You’re just a suspicious little bitch, Sam.” Dean laughs, slamming his beer and standing up. “He saved my life, dude. Lighten up. Hey, you coming back?”
Lindsey shrugs, cheerfully ignoring Sam’s glare of death. “Don’t have anywhere better to be.” Which is both sad and true. He follows them out of the bar, back to the hotel, and tries not to be amused at the protective curve of Sam’s back as he keeps himself between Lindsey and Dean.
Part Two