Blue-eyed devil
Title: Blue-eyed devil
Fandom: Angel
Characters: Lindsey McDonald, Angel
Word Count: 2,181
Rating: R
This is AU after Reprise.
The devil you know
After Angel went back to LA, I tried to keep tabs on what the hell was going on out there. Every report I got was worse than the last. The firm was slowly working on destroying his friends one by one and still he wouldn’t leave. I’d tried, hadn’t I? I’d warned him, told him to get out while they still had a chance and he’d ignored me. I was almost tempted to go in and drag him out kicking and screaming.
Then all hell broke loose. It actually made the world news, those the destruction they reported on wasn’t even close to what had actually happened. Freak tornado my ass. That had been a rip between dimensions to let loose an army the likes of which hadn’t been seen in over a thousand years. The Senior Partners had been through playing around and when they got serious, people died by the thousands.
When I heard that the majority of the city had been destroyed, I’d jumped into my car and driven to see the damage with my own eyes. The only time I stopped was when the sun came up. I made sure to pick a place with dozens of people because the rage I was feeling had no end and I needed to take it out on someone because I couldn’t take it out on him.
Angelus would have loved the carnage I left in my wake. He would have given me that smile and smacked me on the back hard enough to leave bruises. The papers were calling me the ‘Highwayman from Hell’ and they weren’t far off. I knew there were slayers on my ass, but if any of them came to close, they’d wish they’d never been called. I had a mission and no one would stop me.
Crossing over the border in California, I saw signs warning people to avoid Los Angeles and the surrounding area. This was his fault. Why couldn’t he have just left it alone? Dozens of scenarios played over in my head and none of them ended well. I knew he would have been too stubborn to ask his old friends for their help. Why ask for help if you were horribly outnumbered and the odds were completely against you?
If he’d had an army of slayers on his side, maybe whatever took place could have been prevented. They wouldn’t have trusted him any more though. Once you worked for the firm, people looked at you differently, especially if they knew what the place really was. The Watchers wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with it and the slayers wouldn’t trust a vampire even if he had a soul. As for saving the world more times than people could count, I guess that didn’t matter for shit either.
I stopped in smaller city and walked into a biker bar. If I was human, what I did might have been considered a form of suicide. But whatever they did to me couldn’t kill me. They had no idea what I was or how to stop me. I was a whirlwind of death and destruction, taking them down one by one. By the time I’d finished, the entire place stank of blood, pain, and death. I was bleeding from dozens of wounds, but I didn’t care.
That’s when the first of the slayers showed up. I could feel her before she came in the door. “Honey, you don’t want to play with me, I’m not in the fucking mood.”
She looked confident and I sighed. Her blood would help me heal faster, but I’d actually have to win the damn fight. Getting to my feet, I made my way behind the bar and looked for something. When I found it, I kept one eye on her while I made sure it could do what I wanted. “Walk away, girl. You could have a long life ahead of you. But if you come at me, I’m going to kill your ass.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
Slayers are like vampires. We move with the same speed, have just about the same power, and are just as deadly. What they never seem to remember is they aren’t invincible. She moved, closing the distance between the two of us in a matter of seconds. I saw the stake in her hand as she started to leap over the bar and that’s when I brought the sawed-off shotgun up.
There was no way in hell she could dodge what was coming and I could see pure fear etched on her face as I squeezed the trigger. Sure, it was playing dirty, but when it’s your life or theirs, you do whatever it takes to win. Angelus had taught me that and it was one lesson I hadn’t forgotten.
The bullets caught her in the stomach and the scream reminded me of a dying rabbit. She went flying back, crashing through a couple of tables, and ended up facedown on the floor. I dropped the gun and slowly came around to where her body was. A tiny smile crossed my lips as I heard her heart beat.
She was murmuring something and I carefully rolled her limp body over before cradling it in my arms. Then I bent down, bringing my lips to her ear. “Don’t turn me. Please.”
Up this close, she looked an awful lot like my younger sister. “I wouldn’t do that. Close your eyes, you won’t feel a thing, I promise.” Angelus would have laughed at me for being nice. Too bad he wasn’t here. I sunk my fangs into her neck and drank until her life faded away. There would be others. There were always others, but every slayer died alone.
Her blood burned through me and I could feel wounds healing as I walked towards the door. I’d warned her, she hadn’t listened. No one ever seemed to listen to me when it came down to matters of life or death.
---
As I got closer to LA, I knew something was horribly wrong. The air felt different. Maybe that rip hadn’t been closed and whatever the Partners had let loose was slowly spreading to the surrounding areas. I didn’t know if Angel and his friends had won the fight or not, but somehow I didn’t think there would be any survivors left to tell the tale.
I had to leave the car outside of the city and sneak in because there were not only members of the military running around, but I could see dozens of police officers. Just walking on the street made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. This place, it was tainted in ways I couldn’t even begin to understand. They’d be better off just putting a wall around the city and keeping everything inside.
Bodies littered the ground. Some were human, but there were a large number of demons too. I could sense my fell creatures of the night lurking in the shadows as I passed. I had a goal in mind, but I realized that the entire building was gone before I even made it halfway there. The firm was gone. Well, I knew that couldn’t be true since Wolfram and Hart had dozens of branches around the world. But the place where I’d worked was totally wiped off the map.
That narrowed down where any survivors could be. I changed directions, hoping that at least part of the hotel would still be standing because the sun would rise soon and I hadn’t come all this way to turn to dust. I had to know what happened to him first. If he was gone, I wouldn’t find anything. Dust doesn’t stay for long when the wind blows.
The hotel looked like a bomb had hit it. As I got closer, I could see giant scales stuck to the walls with blood. “They called out a fucking dragon?” My voice seemed to echo in the darkness. I few feet later, I found what used to be a giant, flying, lizard. Someone had chopped one hell of a hole in its chest and the head was totally gone. It had to have been Angel. Knowing him, he would have called the damn thing and charged.
I crept inside carefully, trying not to bump any of the walls or debris. The last thing I needed was to have the entire building fall on my head. While it couldn’t kill me, it would hurt like a son of a bitch. I kept my eyes peeled and listened carefully for any kind of sound. Then I thought I heard something. It could be anything, I knew that, but I hoped it was him.
Following the sound, I ended up in what used to be an office. Demon corpses littered the floor. My foot bumped into one of them and the armor rattled. Something skittered behind the desk and I closed my eyes for a moment. The rapid sound of a human heart reached my ears. Maybe they could tell me what happened to him.
I came around the desk and my eyes widened. “Angel?”
He was curled up under the desk, clutching a wound in his arm. The heart beat had come from him, I was sure of it. “Lindsey?” His voice was barely above a whisper.
I crouched down and finally ended up on the floor next to him. “You’re human.” I couldn’t keep the wonder and amazement out of my tone. “How?” Reaching out, I put my fingers on his chest. I could feel his heart pounding beneath his skin.
“Shanshu.”
He’d worked his ass off to get his reward and I guess the Powers had finally lived up to their end of the deal. “No shit?”
“It hurts, Lindsey.”
I took his hand in mine and peered closer at the wound. Looked like a set of demon claws had torn deeply into the flesh. I brought it to my mouth and ran my tongue over the gash. He moaned softly before pressing closer to me. “I knew you’d come.”
Angel’s body was shaking now and when I looked at his face, I could see pain that wasn’t just from the injury. “Wes and Gunn didn’t make it. I don’t know what happened to Illyria. And Spike... I haven’t seen him in a couple of days. Maybe he left.”
I wrapped my body around his. The shaking was growing worse and I wondered if he’d eaten anything since becoming human. “You were right though, this was more than we could handle. We hurt them, Lindsey. We killed the Black Thorn, we destroyed the building, and then...”
He shifted in my arms, turning to face me. “It’s all a blur. I remember a dragon and the way it screamed as my sword went into the thing’s chest. Everything comes with a price and the loss of my friends is what came with being human.”
“Don’t talk like that. You know damn well the two aren’t connected. Your friends, they went down fighting. It isn’t your fault. They all had a choice. They could have walked away.”
Angel buried his face in my neck. “It’s my fault.”
I rubbed my hand on his back. “LA is a dead zone, Angel. Come back with me. You don’t have to stay, but if you think I’m leaving you here, you’re wrong.”
“I don’t want it. Make them take it back.”
Oh yeah, I’d just go march right up to the Powers That Be and demand they turn him into a vampire again. Somehow I didn’t think that would go over very well. “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
He pulled away from me and I had a horrible feeling little bits of his sanity had slipped away with the death of each of his friends. “Make me what I was, Lindsey.”
I blinked a few times. “Are you sure?” We both knew he wouldn’t be Angel when he woke up, that he’d be his darker half.
“Help me.”
My face shifted and I studied his carefully. Once this was done, it couldn’t be undone. He swallowed a few times. “Please.”
“You can’t change your mind later.”
“Don’t you think I know that?”
He moved back over to where I was sitting and exposed his throat. It sent a shiver down my spine. I slowly sank my fangs into Angel’s flesh, making him cry out. Drinking deeply, I didn’t pull away until I felt his heart slow. Then I sliced my wrist open and pressed it to his lips. “Drink, Angel.”
At first he didn’t do anything, and then I felt him lick the wound before sucking on it. After a moment, his heart stopped completely. All that was left was to make sure no one disturbed us.
I paced the floor while I waited. There was a gasp from the floor and I quickly moved to be by his side. I saw a smile on his lips and matched it with one of my own. “Welcome back, Angelus.”
Fandom: Angel
Characters: Lindsey McDonald, Angel
Word Count: 2,181
Rating: R
This is AU after Reprise.
The devil you know
After Angel went back to LA, I tried to keep tabs on what the hell was going on out there. Every report I got was worse than the last. The firm was slowly working on destroying his friends one by one and still he wouldn’t leave. I’d tried, hadn’t I? I’d warned him, told him to get out while they still had a chance and he’d ignored me. I was almost tempted to go in and drag him out kicking and screaming.
Then all hell broke loose. It actually made the world news, those the destruction they reported on wasn’t even close to what had actually happened. Freak tornado my ass. That had been a rip between dimensions to let loose an army the likes of which hadn’t been seen in over a thousand years. The Senior Partners had been through playing around and when they got serious, people died by the thousands.
When I heard that the majority of the city had been destroyed, I’d jumped into my car and driven to see the damage with my own eyes. The only time I stopped was when the sun came up. I made sure to pick a place with dozens of people because the rage I was feeling had no end and I needed to take it out on someone because I couldn’t take it out on him.
Angelus would have loved the carnage I left in my wake. He would have given me that smile and smacked me on the back hard enough to leave bruises. The papers were calling me the ‘Highwayman from Hell’ and they weren’t far off. I knew there were slayers on my ass, but if any of them came to close, they’d wish they’d never been called. I had a mission and no one would stop me.
Crossing over the border in California, I saw signs warning people to avoid Los Angeles and the surrounding area. This was his fault. Why couldn’t he have just left it alone? Dozens of scenarios played over in my head and none of them ended well. I knew he would have been too stubborn to ask his old friends for their help. Why ask for help if you were horribly outnumbered and the odds were completely against you?
If he’d had an army of slayers on his side, maybe whatever took place could have been prevented. They wouldn’t have trusted him any more though. Once you worked for the firm, people looked at you differently, especially if they knew what the place really was. The Watchers wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with it and the slayers wouldn’t trust a vampire even if he had a soul. As for saving the world more times than people could count, I guess that didn’t matter for shit either.
I stopped in smaller city and walked into a biker bar. If I was human, what I did might have been considered a form of suicide. But whatever they did to me couldn’t kill me. They had no idea what I was or how to stop me. I was a whirlwind of death and destruction, taking them down one by one. By the time I’d finished, the entire place stank of blood, pain, and death. I was bleeding from dozens of wounds, but I didn’t care.
That’s when the first of the slayers showed up. I could feel her before she came in the door. “Honey, you don’t want to play with me, I’m not in the fucking mood.”
She looked confident and I sighed. Her blood would help me heal faster, but I’d actually have to win the damn fight. Getting to my feet, I made my way behind the bar and looked for something. When I found it, I kept one eye on her while I made sure it could do what I wanted. “Walk away, girl. You could have a long life ahead of you. But if you come at me, I’m going to kill your ass.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
Slayers are like vampires. We move with the same speed, have just about the same power, and are just as deadly. What they never seem to remember is they aren’t invincible. She moved, closing the distance between the two of us in a matter of seconds. I saw the stake in her hand as she started to leap over the bar and that’s when I brought the sawed-off shotgun up.
There was no way in hell she could dodge what was coming and I could see pure fear etched on her face as I squeezed the trigger. Sure, it was playing dirty, but when it’s your life or theirs, you do whatever it takes to win. Angelus had taught me that and it was one lesson I hadn’t forgotten.
The bullets caught her in the stomach and the scream reminded me of a dying rabbit. She went flying back, crashing through a couple of tables, and ended up facedown on the floor. I dropped the gun and slowly came around to where her body was. A tiny smile crossed my lips as I heard her heart beat.
She was murmuring something and I carefully rolled her limp body over before cradling it in my arms. Then I bent down, bringing my lips to her ear. “Don’t turn me. Please.”
Up this close, she looked an awful lot like my younger sister. “I wouldn’t do that. Close your eyes, you won’t feel a thing, I promise.” Angelus would have laughed at me for being nice. Too bad he wasn’t here. I sunk my fangs into her neck and drank until her life faded away. There would be others. There were always others, but every slayer died alone.
Her blood burned through me and I could feel wounds healing as I walked towards the door. I’d warned her, she hadn’t listened. No one ever seemed to listen to me when it came down to matters of life or death.
---
As I got closer to LA, I knew something was horribly wrong. The air felt different. Maybe that rip hadn’t been closed and whatever the Partners had let loose was slowly spreading to the surrounding areas. I didn’t know if Angel and his friends had won the fight or not, but somehow I didn’t think there would be any survivors left to tell the tale.
I had to leave the car outside of the city and sneak in because there were not only members of the military running around, but I could see dozens of police officers. Just walking on the street made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. This place, it was tainted in ways I couldn’t even begin to understand. They’d be better off just putting a wall around the city and keeping everything inside.
Bodies littered the ground. Some were human, but there were a large number of demons too. I could sense my fell creatures of the night lurking in the shadows as I passed. I had a goal in mind, but I realized that the entire building was gone before I even made it halfway there. The firm was gone. Well, I knew that couldn’t be true since Wolfram and Hart had dozens of branches around the world. But the place where I’d worked was totally wiped off the map.
That narrowed down where any survivors could be. I changed directions, hoping that at least part of the hotel would still be standing because the sun would rise soon and I hadn’t come all this way to turn to dust. I had to know what happened to him first. If he was gone, I wouldn’t find anything. Dust doesn’t stay for long when the wind blows.
The hotel looked like a bomb had hit it. As I got closer, I could see giant scales stuck to the walls with blood. “They called out a fucking dragon?” My voice seemed to echo in the darkness. I few feet later, I found what used to be a giant, flying, lizard. Someone had chopped one hell of a hole in its chest and the head was totally gone. It had to have been Angel. Knowing him, he would have called the damn thing and charged.
I crept inside carefully, trying not to bump any of the walls or debris. The last thing I needed was to have the entire building fall on my head. While it couldn’t kill me, it would hurt like a son of a bitch. I kept my eyes peeled and listened carefully for any kind of sound. Then I thought I heard something. It could be anything, I knew that, but I hoped it was him.
Following the sound, I ended up in what used to be an office. Demon corpses littered the floor. My foot bumped into one of them and the armor rattled. Something skittered behind the desk and I closed my eyes for a moment. The rapid sound of a human heart reached my ears. Maybe they could tell me what happened to him.
I came around the desk and my eyes widened. “Angel?”
He was curled up under the desk, clutching a wound in his arm. The heart beat had come from him, I was sure of it. “Lindsey?” His voice was barely above a whisper.
I crouched down and finally ended up on the floor next to him. “You’re human.” I couldn’t keep the wonder and amazement out of my tone. “How?” Reaching out, I put my fingers on his chest. I could feel his heart pounding beneath his skin.
“Shanshu.”
He’d worked his ass off to get his reward and I guess the Powers had finally lived up to their end of the deal. “No shit?”
“It hurts, Lindsey.”
I took his hand in mine and peered closer at the wound. Looked like a set of demon claws had torn deeply into the flesh. I brought it to my mouth and ran my tongue over the gash. He moaned softly before pressing closer to me. “I knew you’d come.”
Angel’s body was shaking now and when I looked at his face, I could see pain that wasn’t just from the injury. “Wes and Gunn didn’t make it. I don’t know what happened to Illyria. And Spike... I haven’t seen him in a couple of days. Maybe he left.”
I wrapped my body around his. The shaking was growing worse and I wondered if he’d eaten anything since becoming human. “You were right though, this was more than we could handle. We hurt them, Lindsey. We killed the Black Thorn, we destroyed the building, and then...”
He shifted in my arms, turning to face me. “It’s all a blur. I remember a dragon and the way it screamed as my sword went into the thing’s chest. Everything comes with a price and the loss of my friends is what came with being human.”
“Don’t talk like that. You know damn well the two aren’t connected. Your friends, they went down fighting. It isn’t your fault. They all had a choice. They could have walked away.”
Angel buried his face in my neck. “It’s my fault.”
I rubbed my hand on his back. “LA is a dead zone, Angel. Come back with me. You don’t have to stay, but if you think I’m leaving you here, you’re wrong.”
“I don’t want it. Make them take it back.”
Oh yeah, I’d just go march right up to the Powers That Be and demand they turn him into a vampire again. Somehow I didn’t think that would go over very well. “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
He pulled away from me and I had a horrible feeling little bits of his sanity had slipped away with the death of each of his friends. “Make me what I was, Lindsey.”
I blinked a few times. “Are you sure?” We both knew he wouldn’t be Angel when he woke up, that he’d be his darker half.
“Help me.”
My face shifted and I studied his carefully. Once this was done, it couldn’t be undone. He swallowed a few times. “Please.”
“You can’t change your mind later.”
“Don’t you think I know that?”
He moved back over to where I was sitting and exposed his throat. It sent a shiver down my spine. I slowly sank my fangs into Angel’s flesh, making him cry out. Drinking deeply, I didn’t pull away until I felt his heart slow. Then I sliced my wrist open and pressed it to his lips. “Drink, Angel.”
At first he didn’t do anything, and then I felt him lick the wound before sucking on it. After a moment, his heart stopped completely. All that was left was to make sure no one disturbed us.
I paced the floor while I waited. There was a gasp from the floor and I quickly moved to be by his side. I saw a smile on his lips and matched it with one of my own. “Welcome back, Angelus.”