Wash it all away
This is for highwaymiles.
Your name: killerweasel
Fic title: Wash it all away
Fandom: Angel
Prompt: 11. Lindsey (masquerading as Doyle in Ats s5) gives Spike a ride to save someone that Lindsey "saw" in a false vision.
Word Count: 2,388
Rating: R
This is AU after Destiny
Wash it all away
He was giving me that damn look again. It was the one that said he couldn’t tell if I was full of shit or the real deal. I waited until his body started to relax before clutching my forehead and swearing up a storm. A real vision would have knocked me on my ass; I knew that from reading the files on Cordelia. All I had to do was convince him that the pain was coming from the Powers.
“So what is it this time, Doyle? Are we saving puppies from Krebtock demons? Or maybe we’re rescuing some virgins before they’re sacrificed.”
I rubbed my hand on temple, pretending I had one hell of a headache. “This is nothing you can’t handle. Group of vampires is about to crash a rave in some warehouse. If you don’t get there in time, no one is getting out of there alive.”
Finding a bunch of vampires to attack drunken college students had been downright easy. They wanted money and I had just enough to get their attention. I’d promised half before the attack and half after everyone was dead. Too bad none of them would survive what was coming.
“We’ll just take Angel’s viper. It’s down in the...”
“No.”
“What do you mean ‘no’? I thought we were in a hurry here.”
“The firm has a tracking device in that car and unless you want the glory snatched from your fingertips, I suggest we take mine.”
He raised his scarred eyebrow at me. “What’s this ‘we’ crap? You haven’t been too interested in getting your hands dirty before.”
I wanted to tell Spike that the leader of the vampires had said something rather nasty about my mother and that I personally wanted to carve his heart out with a rusty spork before I staked his ass, but I didn’t think that would go over very well. Instead, I cleared my throat.
“You might need my help. It’s a big group and even a Champion could find himself on the wrong end of a stake. Besides, I’m good with a sword.”
Spike let his eyes wander my body for a moment, taking it all in. “Fine, but I get to pick the music while we drive.”
---
I started to reach over to turn the volume on the radio down and he smacked my hand. “That’s the Sex Pistols. You turn it down and I’m going to kick your ass.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
“Is that a challenge?”
I could hear amusement in his voice and it made me smile. He had no idea just who strong I was with the tattoos that were inked into my flesh, but he’d see a taste of it tonight. “If I kill more vampires than you, then you can try to kick my ass. Otherwise I don’t think I’d be worthy of an ass kicking from the infamous William the Bloody.”
Spike snorted. “The day someone like you can take more vampires than I can is the day I stand on my head and cluck like a chicken.”
“You’d better be ready to cluck.”
“Cluck you.”
---
I knew something was wrong as I pulled the car in front of the building. The lights in the warehouse were on, but I saw no movement in the windows at all. The vampires had been told what time to go in and I had the horrible feeling they’d ignored that. “You sure this is the place? It’s dead.”
Wishing he hadn’t phrased it like that, I went around to the trunk and popped it open. Taking a quick glance at the assorted weaponry inside, I grabbed a sword I was comfortable with. Spike raised both eyebrows at me. “You drive around with all this shit in the back of your car?”
“Never know when it might come in handy. After all, this is LA.”
He grabbed a couple of stakes and a hand axe before shutting the trunk. “Stay out of my way in there, Doyle. And if you come anywhere near me with that sword, you’ll be sorry.”
The massacre I’d imagined was nothing like what I witnessed as we walked through the doors. Everywhere I turned, I saw streaks of crimson. Bodies littered the floor, with limbs and necks twisted in horrible angles. “I think you might want a refund from the Powers, they sent you that vision after the fact.”
“This wasn’t supposed to happen.” It came out as a whisper and he stared at me for a moment.
“They’re still here, I can feel them. Come on and don’t freak out on me. If you can’t handle this, go back to the car.”
A scream pierced the silence and I tightened my grip on the sword until it felt like the metal was digging into my palm. “Lead the way, Champ.”
We slowly made our way through the building, following the sounds. At the moment, there was at least one person left alive. This was my fault. I should have known better than to trust a bunch of vampires. Spike held up his hand and I paused. “There are at least five around the corner, more towards the back. Take as many as you can and if you get into trouble... I’ll see if I can get to you in time.”
I took a couple of deep breaths. The key was to not get into trouble in the first damn place. “Wait for me to act, and then you attack. Got it, Doyle?”
“Yeah, I’ve got it.”
He gave me a little pat on the shoulder before strolling around the corner. I could hear him talking to the vampires, wanting to know why in the hell he hadn’t been invited to the party. Someone snarled something that didn’t sound very nice and another shriek seemed to go right through my skull. The sound of a fight broke out and I moved.
Spike was wrong. There were a lot more than five. The group I’d met with had only been ten vampires, but this... looks like they’d invited a few friends who invited a few friends of their own. And on top of that, I swore I saw a couple of hideous demons at the very back. Fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck.
I charged in and all hell broke loose. Spike yelled my name as the group encircled me. He had his own problems and I knew he would never be able to get over here in time if I fell. The closest vampire to me lost his arm, falling backwards with a shriek. All I had to do was get them out of the fight. If they stayed down, I could keep right on going. I’d never be able to kill them all, not with just the one sword.
Someone hit me from behind and I stumbled, but managed to get on my feet again. Whirling around, I took his head off of his neck and the body was dust before it hit the ground. I didn’t slow in my movements. Anything that came near me was sliced or hacked, simple as that.
Aiming for tendons, I worked on slicing through the backs of knees or ankles while I moved towards Spike. Even vampires wouldn’t be able to recover very quickly from wounds like those. I left a mass of screaming and swearing vampires in my wake. At least until someone tackled me from behind. Then I slammed into the floor. My sword slid from my hand, ending up out of reach.
I punched and kicked, sending a few of them flying. No way in hell was I going to die in a warehouse. “Watch it, he’s stronger than he looks!”
No shit, Sherlock. By the time I managed to get to my feet again, I was bleeding from a dozen wounds and had a gash on shoulder that was probably going to need stitches. I looked for Spike and saw he’d killed most of the vampires he’d been fighting. “You okay, Doyle?”
Swiping at the blood on my forehead, I gave him a very small smile. “It’ll heal. Did you find the survivors?”
“This way.” Picking up my sword, I followed him into the darkest corner. That’s where I’d seen the shadows of the demons. The vampires we left behind weren’t in any shape to follow us, so I wasn’t worried about them.
I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach when we found the people that had been screaming. “Fuck.” They weren’t dead, not yet, but had to be pretty damn close. “I’ll take the demon on the left; you get the one on the right. Do you have any idea where they need to be hit to go down?”
“Weak point is the neck. You sure you can handle something like that?”
“Don’t have a choice, do I?”
Ignoring the pain in my body, I launched myself at the demon. The thing was at least a foot taller than I was and had hands bigger than my head. Even with my added strength, I was outmatched. I managed a couple of good swings before one of those fists caught me in the side of the head. Spike yelled my name before the world faded to black.
---
When I woke up, I was inside of the car. “What happened?” My voice came out as a croak.
“He hit you; you smacked your head into a board, dropped like a stone. I thought he’d killed you.”
Sitting up hurt like hell, but I did it anyway. “You get the girls out of there?”
He was quiet for a moment. “We were the only ones to leave the building in one piece.”
A shudder went through me and I curled my arms around myself. Every single death was on my head. I could feel my body start to shake. “You talked in your sleep. Care to explain to me why you called yourself ‘Lindsey’? Or maybe you’d like to tell me why the last vampire I killed said you’d paid them to attack those people.”
“Not really, no.”
He pulled the car over and grabbed me by the shoulder. His fingers dug into the gash, making me hiss in pain. “I don’t like being played. You tell me what the hell’s going on right now and maybe I won’t kill you.”
I swallowed a couple of times. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. They went in too early.”
“You paid them to kill all those people?”
The flesh under his fingers began to tear open further and the world was getting hazy again. When I didn’t say anything, he hit me with his other hand, rocking my head back. “Answer the fucking question, Doyle.”
“I’m not Doyle.” Reaching out, I curled my hand around his wrist and squeezed, making his grip loosen. “My name’s Lindsey. It was supposed to make you see that you were just as good as he is, that you had just as much potential.”
He grabbed my shirt, yanking my face closer to his. “This whole thing was a set up? It was all planned? Those visions of yours weren’t real at all, were they?”
Spike was almost screaming now and I knew how he felt. I’d been played so many times those last few months at the firm. Used by just about everyone and everything until I didn’t even know who I was any more. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me. And don’t lie or I’m going to start breaking things.”
I didn’t doubt for a second that he meant it. “I was minding my own business, trying to get on with my new life when I had a visit from the fucking Powers That Be. Told me that if I did what they wanted me to, then maybe, just maybe, they could get Wolfram and Hart off my ass for good. I was given an envelope with an amulet inside and mailed it to Angel. Then I came back to the last place in the damn world I wanted to be.”
He backed off a little and I pressed my hand over the wound in my shoulder. “All I had to do was set up fake rescues for you to deal with, pretend I had visions. And then I bumped into Eve. I’ve been playing her too, but not in the same way. Between the two of you, the Senior Partners aren’t going to know what the hell hit them. But what happened tonight, that wasn’t in the fucking plan. They weren’t supposed to die. They weren’t...”
I closed my eyes as my body started shaking again. “If you’re going to kill me, just get it over with.”
When Spike’s hand touched me, I flinched. “Lindsey? He doesn’t know you’re here, does he?”
“If he did, do you think he’d let me anywhere near you or any of the others?” As far as he was concerned, I was still evil. And considering what had just happened, maybe I’d agree with that.
“Get your shirt off, I want to see your shoulder.”
I shrugged it off, wincing in pain a few times. “Wow, I bet that had to hurt.”
Spike wasn’t looking at my shoulder; he was staring at the ink on my chest. Reaching out, he traced a blood-stained finger over the largest mark. “That explains the strength. You fight like a damn vampire.”
Glancing at my shoulder, I sighed. “It keeps me hidden from the Senior Partners. They hate me more than they hate Angel.”
“Look, I’m going to take you back to my place, get you cleaned up, and wash all of this away. But this game of yours, it ends right now. Understand me? I want to know everything and then maybe we’ll talk to Angel.”
I wanted to tell him that it would never wash away. That once the blood touched your skin, it seeped down deep until you were tainted. No matter how hard you scrubbed, you’d never get clean again. I had the deaths of a couple dozen people on my head now. I’d never be clean again. But I just nodded as he pulled away from the curb. This game might be done, but a whole new one had just started.
Your name: killerweasel
Fic title: Wash it all away
Fandom: Angel
Prompt: 11. Lindsey (masquerading as Doyle in Ats s5) gives Spike a ride to save someone that Lindsey "saw" in a false vision.
Word Count: 2,388
Rating: R
This is AU after Destiny
Wash it all away
He was giving me that damn look again. It was the one that said he couldn’t tell if I was full of shit or the real deal. I waited until his body started to relax before clutching my forehead and swearing up a storm. A real vision would have knocked me on my ass; I knew that from reading the files on Cordelia. All I had to do was convince him that the pain was coming from the Powers.
“So what is it this time, Doyle? Are we saving puppies from Krebtock demons? Or maybe we’re rescuing some virgins before they’re sacrificed.”
I rubbed my hand on temple, pretending I had one hell of a headache. “This is nothing you can’t handle. Group of vampires is about to crash a rave in some warehouse. If you don’t get there in time, no one is getting out of there alive.”
Finding a bunch of vampires to attack drunken college students had been downright easy. They wanted money and I had just enough to get their attention. I’d promised half before the attack and half after everyone was dead. Too bad none of them would survive what was coming.
“We’ll just take Angel’s viper. It’s down in the...”
“No.”
“What do you mean ‘no’? I thought we were in a hurry here.”
“The firm has a tracking device in that car and unless you want the glory snatched from your fingertips, I suggest we take mine.”
He raised his scarred eyebrow at me. “What’s this ‘we’ crap? You haven’t been too interested in getting your hands dirty before.”
I wanted to tell Spike that the leader of the vampires had said something rather nasty about my mother and that I personally wanted to carve his heart out with a rusty spork before I staked his ass, but I didn’t think that would go over very well. Instead, I cleared my throat.
“You might need my help. It’s a big group and even a Champion could find himself on the wrong end of a stake. Besides, I’m good with a sword.”
Spike let his eyes wander my body for a moment, taking it all in. “Fine, but I get to pick the music while we drive.”
---
I started to reach over to turn the volume on the radio down and he smacked my hand. “That’s the Sex Pistols. You turn it down and I’m going to kick your ass.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
“Is that a challenge?”
I could hear amusement in his voice and it made me smile. He had no idea just who strong I was with the tattoos that were inked into my flesh, but he’d see a taste of it tonight. “If I kill more vampires than you, then you can try to kick my ass. Otherwise I don’t think I’d be worthy of an ass kicking from the infamous William the Bloody.”
Spike snorted. “The day someone like you can take more vampires than I can is the day I stand on my head and cluck like a chicken.”
“You’d better be ready to cluck.”
“Cluck you.”
---
I knew something was wrong as I pulled the car in front of the building. The lights in the warehouse were on, but I saw no movement in the windows at all. The vampires had been told what time to go in and I had the horrible feeling they’d ignored that. “You sure this is the place? It’s dead.”
Wishing he hadn’t phrased it like that, I went around to the trunk and popped it open. Taking a quick glance at the assorted weaponry inside, I grabbed a sword I was comfortable with. Spike raised both eyebrows at me. “You drive around with all this shit in the back of your car?”
“Never know when it might come in handy. After all, this is LA.”
He grabbed a couple of stakes and a hand axe before shutting the trunk. “Stay out of my way in there, Doyle. And if you come anywhere near me with that sword, you’ll be sorry.”
The massacre I’d imagined was nothing like what I witnessed as we walked through the doors. Everywhere I turned, I saw streaks of crimson. Bodies littered the floor, with limbs and necks twisted in horrible angles. “I think you might want a refund from the Powers, they sent you that vision after the fact.”
“This wasn’t supposed to happen.” It came out as a whisper and he stared at me for a moment.
“They’re still here, I can feel them. Come on and don’t freak out on me. If you can’t handle this, go back to the car.”
A scream pierced the silence and I tightened my grip on the sword until it felt like the metal was digging into my palm. “Lead the way, Champ.”
We slowly made our way through the building, following the sounds. At the moment, there was at least one person left alive. This was my fault. I should have known better than to trust a bunch of vampires. Spike held up his hand and I paused. “There are at least five around the corner, more towards the back. Take as many as you can and if you get into trouble... I’ll see if I can get to you in time.”
I took a couple of deep breaths. The key was to not get into trouble in the first damn place. “Wait for me to act, and then you attack. Got it, Doyle?”
“Yeah, I’ve got it.”
He gave me a little pat on the shoulder before strolling around the corner. I could hear him talking to the vampires, wanting to know why in the hell he hadn’t been invited to the party. Someone snarled something that didn’t sound very nice and another shriek seemed to go right through my skull. The sound of a fight broke out and I moved.
Spike was wrong. There were a lot more than five. The group I’d met with had only been ten vampires, but this... looks like they’d invited a few friends who invited a few friends of their own. And on top of that, I swore I saw a couple of hideous demons at the very back. Fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck.
I charged in and all hell broke loose. Spike yelled my name as the group encircled me. He had his own problems and I knew he would never be able to get over here in time if I fell. The closest vampire to me lost his arm, falling backwards with a shriek. All I had to do was get them out of the fight. If they stayed down, I could keep right on going. I’d never be able to kill them all, not with just the one sword.
Someone hit me from behind and I stumbled, but managed to get on my feet again. Whirling around, I took his head off of his neck and the body was dust before it hit the ground. I didn’t slow in my movements. Anything that came near me was sliced or hacked, simple as that.
Aiming for tendons, I worked on slicing through the backs of knees or ankles while I moved towards Spike. Even vampires wouldn’t be able to recover very quickly from wounds like those. I left a mass of screaming and swearing vampires in my wake. At least until someone tackled me from behind. Then I slammed into the floor. My sword slid from my hand, ending up out of reach.
I punched and kicked, sending a few of them flying. No way in hell was I going to die in a warehouse. “Watch it, he’s stronger than he looks!”
No shit, Sherlock. By the time I managed to get to my feet again, I was bleeding from a dozen wounds and had a gash on shoulder that was probably going to need stitches. I looked for Spike and saw he’d killed most of the vampires he’d been fighting. “You okay, Doyle?”
Swiping at the blood on my forehead, I gave him a very small smile. “It’ll heal. Did you find the survivors?”
“This way.” Picking up my sword, I followed him into the darkest corner. That’s where I’d seen the shadows of the demons. The vampires we left behind weren’t in any shape to follow us, so I wasn’t worried about them.
I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach when we found the people that had been screaming. “Fuck.” They weren’t dead, not yet, but had to be pretty damn close. “I’ll take the demon on the left; you get the one on the right. Do you have any idea where they need to be hit to go down?”
“Weak point is the neck. You sure you can handle something like that?”
“Don’t have a choice, do I?”
Ignoring the pain in my body, I launched myself at the demon. The thing was at least a foot taller than I was and had hands bigger than my head. Even with my added strength, I was outmatched. I managed a couple of good swings before one of those fists caught me in the side of the head. Spike yelled my name before the world faded to black.
---
When I woke up, I was inside of the car. “What happened?” My voice came out as a croak.
“He hit you; you smacked your head into a board, dropped like a stone. I thought he’d killed you.”
Sitting up hurt like hell, but I did it anyway. “You get the girls out of there?”
He was quiet for a moment. “We were the only ones to leave the building in one piece.”
A shudder went through me and I curled my arms around myself. Every single death was on my head. I could feel my body start to shake. “You talked in your sleep. Care to explain to me why you called yourself ‘Lindsey’? Or maybe you’d like to tell me why the last vampire I killed said you’d paid them to attack those people.”
“Not really, no.”
He pulled the car over and grabbed me by the shoulder. His fingers dug into the gash, making me hiss in pain. “I don’t like being played. You tell me what the hell’s going on right now and maybe I won’t kill you.”
I swallowed a couple of times. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. They went in too early.”
“You paid them to kill all those people?”
The flesh under his fingers began to tear open further and the world was getting hazy again. When I didn’t say anything, he hit me with his other hand, rocking my head back. “Answer the fucking question, Doyle.”
“I’m not Doyle.” Reaching out, I curled my hand around his wrist and squeezed, making his grip loosen. “My name’s Lindsey. It was supposed to make you see that you were just as good as he is, that you had just as much potential.”
He grabbed my shirt, yanking my face closer to his. “This whole thing was a set up? It was all planned? Those visions of yours weren’t real at all, were they?”
Spike was almost screaming now and I knew how he felt. I’d been played so many times those last few months at the firm. Used by just about everyone and everything until I didn’t even know who I was any more. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me. And don’t lie or I’m going to start breaking things.”
I didn’t doubt for a second that he meant it. “I was minding my own business, trying to get on with my new life when I had a visit from the fucking Powers That Be. Told me that if I did what they wanted me to, then maybe, just maybe, they could get Wolfram and Hart off my ass for good. I was given an envelope with an amulet inside and mailed it to Angel. Then I came back to the last place in the damn world I wanted to be.”
He backed off a little and I pressed my hand over the wound in my shoulder. “All I had to do was set up fake rescues for you to deal with, pretend I had visions. And then I bumped into Eve. I’ve been playing her too, but not in the same way. Between the two of you, the Senior Partners aren’t going to know what the hell hit them. But what happened tonight, that wasn’t in the fucking plan. They weren’t supposed to die. They weren’t...”
I closed my eyes as my body started shaking again. “If you’re going to kill me, just get it over with.”
When Spike’s hand touched me, I flinched. “Lindsey? He doesn’t know you’re here, does he?”
“If he did, do you think he’d let me anywhere near you or any of the others?” As far as he was concerned, I was still evil. And considering what had just happened, maybe I’d agree with that.
“Get your shirt off, I want to see your shoulder.”
I shrugged it off, wincing in pain a few times. “Wow, I bet that had to hurt.”
Spike wasn’t looking at my shoulder; he was staring at the ink on my chest. Reaching out, he traced a blood-stained finger over the largest mark. “That explains the strength. You fight like a damn vampire.”
Glancing at my shoulder, I sighed. “It keeps me hidden from the Senior Partners. They hate me more than they hate Angel.”
“Look, I’m going to take you back to my place, get you cleaned up, and wash all of this away. But this game of yours, it ends right now. Understand me? I want to know everything and then maybe we’ll talk to Angel.”
I wanted to tell him that it would never wash away. That once the blood touched your skin, it seeped down deep until you were tainted. No matter how hard you scrubbed, you’d never get clean again. I had the deaths of a couple dozen people on my head now. I’d never be clean again. But I just nodded as he pulled away from the curb. This game might be done, but a whole new one had just started.