Fic: Tomorrow We Shall Die (Angel/Lindsey PG13)
Title: Tomorrow We Shall Die (but, alas, we never do)
Pairing: Angel/Lindsey
Rating: PG13
Timeline: Post-Not Fade Away
Note: Written for fandom_charity for novascotiasam, who requested something from the 'verse I created for Medley of Extemporanea.
*
In the end, Lindsey figured it would be Lucy who found out first, mainly because of her penchant for egregiously abusing her "emergency" spare key. He's long been used to randomly being stared awake by her when she's bored and looking for a partner in adventure.
It started when she was fifteen and would sneak out from under Carmen's watchful eye in the middle of the night, hoof it to Lindsey's apartment, and then demand he take her to the O in Oakland for mile high bins of French fries. During college she'd shanghai him into getting her into rather shifty looking bars so that she and her friends could drink themselves sick on whatever liquor they were experimenting with that month.
Now that she's a responsible adult it's more tradition than anything else, and the last time she showed up it was so that they could spend the wee hours of the night driving around, listening to music and talking. Of course, she barged right into the bedroom, per usual, and got more than an eyeful of Angel and Lindsey in bed. And because she gossips worse than an old married lady, all of Pittsburgh seemed to know within two days.
All things considered, the news went over well, in that no one really gave a flying fuck.
Tonight Lindsey snaps awake at a pounding on the bedroom door, his hand reaching automatically over the side of the bed for the shotgun he keeps on hand before he recognizes Lucy's voice.
"Uncle Lindsey! Eat N Park? Pots of coffee? You game?"
Beside him, he feels the mattress dip as Angel sits up. The clock on the bedside table reads three in the morning and Lindsey blinks at the ceiling for a long moment, thinking about Lucy-Lindsey time versus sleep time.
"Give me a few," he calls back and hears the sound of her footsteps moving into the living room.
Angel slides out of bed, and at Lindsey's questioning look he shrugs. "Hungry."
Lindsey pulls on the same torn up pair of jeans he was wearing the previous evening. They're ratty and thin from a lot of washings, and the holes were made by a Kaxel demon that passed through Pittsburgh the week Lindsey arrived. They're threadbare and falling apart, and Angel refuses to be seen in public with Lindsey when he's wearing them, even though he likes the easy access provided by the gaping hole on the left thigh when they're in private.
Lindsey watches Angel cross the room to the dresser and his hands go still on the button of his jeans. There are times, like now, when Angel--when Angel's body--blindsides Lindsey, catches him off guard and knocks him speechless. It's all width and depth and power and grace that glides sensuously under too-pale skin.
Angel catches Lindsey staring and stalks towards him, purposeful manipulation of that unholy body, and Lindsey turns away at the last second, scrambling blindly for the shirt that's nowhere near his fumbling hands. Angel is fast, though, and he spins Lindsey around by way of a hand on Lindsey's shoulder, shoves him against the bedroom door.
Times like now, Lindsey is all too aware of his own state of being. Of the bullet holes that will forever gape on his chest, of his inability to regenerate tissue, of the necessity to every so often call upon the Loa to heal this corpse-like body of his. It's the comparison, of course, between himself and Angel that does it. Before Angel came to Pittsburgh, before they got involved, it was never really an issue for Lindsey.
"Lindsey," Angel murmurs, and steps close, so close that their bare chests are pressed against each other, and Lindsey can feel Angel's cock harden, and it makes his own harden in turn.
Angel and words are a bad combination in any kind of situation that's intimate and important, and when Lindsey's feeling off kilter and insecure he and words are something combustible, as became apparent in the first three months they were together.
They've had to learn different ways to handle each other.
Angel makes enough room between them so that he can drag his palm down Lindsey's chest, over the holes. In another lifetime just a few years ago, Angel's fingers would have dug into the holes, fit into them and urged them deeper, and they both would have gotten off on it simply because of the wrongness and because of the hidden scars it would have scraped bloody in both of them.
But there's no longer that pulsing hatred between them and it doesn't happen like that, won't ever happen like that. Instead it goes like this: Angel sets his palm just under the Lindsey's ribcage and his fingers spread far and wide; Angel dips his head down and their cheeks touch.
They stay like that and it's quiet and still, because neither of their hearts beat and neither of them breathes, and this is who they are, what they are, and they are the same even if they're different.
"You're an idiot," Angel whispers and Lindsey shudders at that voice, which is so deep and so fucking close to his ear.
"Only sometimes, though," Lindsey whispers back.
Another moment of standing there, and then Angel steps away, the hand on Lindsey's chest getting in one last caress before it falls away. Lindsey stays against the wall as Angel moves back to the dresser for his pants, stepping into the sleek black material without ever looking away from Lindsey. Angel does up the zipper and hooks the button closed and then he runs a hand down the length of his cock, eyes flaring bright and hot, and Lindsey gasps in response.
"Button your jeans," Angel hisses.
And Lindsey can't help but tease and taunt. He drags his hands up his thighs, slow and hard, arches into them as he gets to his waist, and he rolls his hips as he does what Angel said.
"Uncle Lindsey?" Lucy calls out hesitantly and Lindsey shudders in something akin to horror, because Lucy really might as well be a niece and it's more than a little disturbing to hear her voice while he's in the midst of being a cocktease.
Angel strolls out of the room, apparently unconcerned by the very obvious hard-on he's got, and Lindsey bangs his head against the wall behind him, wills his dick to stand down, and then he finishes dressing.
He passes Angel in the hallway and Angel's mouth when they kiss is reminiscent of skinned knees, and Lucy arches a brow at the smile on Lindsey's face when he strides into the living room.
"Let's go," Lindsey says easily.
*
Lindsey gets home just a short while after the sun rises. Angel is awake and standing at the window in the bedroom, buck naked and damn near purring in sleepy contentment. He hasn't missed experiencing a sunrise in the past six months, no matter how exhausted or beaten up he's been. Lindsey hasn't missed watching him experience a sunset, either.
"Did you have fun?" Angel asks without turning away from the sun.
"Mm. Drank pots of coffee and talked. Around pot number two Lucy got this look in her eye and started grilling me about our sex life." Angel snickers. "But that was better than what happened after pot three, when she started asking about commitment ceremonies and offering to mother our children."
"Christ," Angel chokes. "She wasn't serious, was she?"
Lindsey snorts and starts stripping off his clothing. "No, it was the caffeine talking. She'll be embarrassed and apologetic later."
He steps up beside Angel and the sun is warm and bright against his skin, a shiver-inducing contrast to the air-conditioned apartment.
"I got a phone call about an hour after you left," Angel says eventually.
There's something in his tone that makes Lindsey tense. "Busy night," he says carefully and looks up at Angel's bland visage. "Who was it?"
"Faith."
"Ah."
"Are you tired?" Angel asks into the tense silence.
"I just shared four pots of coffee with Lucy," Lindsey reminds him.
"Good. Faith is going to be in town this morning. I'm meeting her at my place." Angel turns his head and meets Lindsey's eyes. "Thought you could come with me, if you want."
Lindsey swallows and looks out the window again. "Yeah. Sure."
*
When they pull up to Angel's house an hour later, Faith is already there. She's sitting on the railing of the front porch, swinging her legs and chatting with Frank, who met her at the border to abide by the agreements in place when a Slayer steps foot in this neutral territory. It's for everyone's protection, really.
Faith hops off of the railing when Angel and Lindsey exit Lindsey's car.
"Well, shit," she says with a wide smile. "Angel and sunlight. Looks good on you."
"Hello, Faith," Angel says, and there's a simple joy in his voice that makes Lindsey want to be far away.
Faith nods at Lindsey. "Long time, Lindsey. How you been?"
"Same as ever," he replies with a shrug, then jerks his head at Frank. "You can go. I need you to do the Monroeville run today."
"I thought Lucy was supposed to be handling that," Frank says sibilantly.
Lindsey and Frank go back and forth about why Frank should just do what the hell he's told before Frank finally slithers off to his car, mumbling irritably. Lindsey's more than a little irritable himself, too.
"You coming, Lindsey?"
Lindsey blinks at the sound of Faith's voice, turns around. She and Angel are on the porch, waiting for him at the door. A part of Lindsey wants to say no and then drive away. But then he looks at Angel and sees that there isn't joy on Angel's face, but shadows and memories and regrets and sunlight that comes with a price, and Lindsey walks up the path and climbs the three steps to join them on the porch.
*
Faith stays until early evening, and once she's gone Angel slumps on the sofa, dejected and deflated.
Lindsey crouches down in front of him, sets his hands on Angel's knees. When Angel came to Pittsburgh, he got the freedom to walk in daylight, but he lost the freedom to leave the territory, and most of the time it's a fair trade, Lindsey knows. But outside of this bubble, this neutrality, there is Buffy and Connor and Faith.
"She came here," Lindsey reminds Angel quietly and squeezes Angel's knees. "They can all come."
"Yeah," Angel whispers.
"And what you do here, it might not be the stuff Champions are made of, but it doesn't turn everything in your life to shit."
Angel leans forward on the sofa, spreads his legs, and drops his head onto Lindsey's shoulder. "I'm happy here," he admits, sounding almost ashamed.
"Is that what the problem is? That curse of yours got set permanent during the ritual--"
"No, I know that. That's not it."
And Lindsey gets it, and it's so typical Angel that he has to laugh. "Oh, for Christ's sake. You don't have to feel guilty about not feeling guilty. No one out there worth a damn is going to be pissed at you for finally not being miserable."
Angel smiles against Lindsey's shoulder, and Lindsey can feel it, and he pushes Angel away from him. Stands up and then straddles Angel's lap, and Angel lifts his face, cups Lindsey's nape and pulls him down. Communication that's better than all the words either of them have.
Old pennies, skinned knees, the taste of old blood on Lindsey's tongue, and he sighs at the same time that Angel breathes into his mouth, "You taste like grave dirt."
They're the same even if they're different and it's the only truth Lindsey holds to anymore.
.End
Pairing: Angel/Lindsey
Rating: PG13
Timeline: Post-Not Fade Away
Note: Written for fandom_charity for novascotiasam, who requested something from the 'verse I created for Medley of Extemporanea.
*
In the end, Lindsey figured it would be Lucy who found out first, mainly because of her penchant for egregiously abusing her "emergency" spare key. He's long been used to randomly being stared awake by her when she's bored and looking for a partner in adventure.
It started when she was fifteen and would sneak out from under Carmen's watchful eye in the middle of the night, hoof it to Lindsey's apartment, and then demand he take her to the O in Oakland for mile high bins of French fries. During college she'd shanghai him into getting her into rather shifty looking bars so that she and her friends could drink themselves sick on whatever liquor they were experimenting with that month.
Now that she's a responsible adult it's more tradition than anything else, and the last time she showed up it was so that they could spend the wee hours of the night driving around, listening to music and talking. Of course, she barged right into the bedroom, per usual, and got more than an eyeful of Angel and Lindsey in bed. And because she gossips worse than an old married lady, all of Pittsburgh seemed to know within two days.
All things considered, the news went over well, in that no one really gave a flying fuck.
Tonight Lindsey snaps awake at a pounding on the bedroom door, his hand reaching automatically over the side of the bed for the shotgun he keeps on hand before he recognizes Lucy's voice.
"Uncle Lindsey! Eat N Park? Pots of coffee? You game?"
Beside him, he feels the mattress dip as Angel sits up. The clock on the bedside table reads three in the morning and Lindsey blinks at the ceiling for a long moment, thinking about Lucy-Lindsey time versus sleep time.
"Give me a few," he calls back and hears the sound of her footsteps moving into the living room.
Angel slides out of bed, and at Lindsey's questioning look he shrugs. "Hungry."
Lindsey pulls on the same torn up pair of jeans he was wearing the previous evening. They're ratty and thin from a lot of washings, and the holes were made by a Kaxel demon that passed through Pittsburgh the week Lindsey arrived. They're threadbare and falling apart, and Angel refuses to be seen in public with Lindsey when he's wearing them, even though he likes the easy access provided by the gaping hole on the left thigh when they're in private.
Lindsey watches Angel cross the room to the dresser and his hands go still on the button of his jeans. There are times, like now, when Angel--when Angel's body--blindsides Lindsey, catches him off guard and knocks him speechless. It's all width and depth and power and grace that glides sensuously under too-pale skin.
Angel catches Lindsey staring and stalks towards him, purposeful manipulation of that unholy body, and Lindsey turns away at the last second, scrambling blindly for the shirt that's nowhere near his fumbling hands. Angel is fast, though, and he spins Lindsey around by way of a hand on Lindsey's shoulder, shoves him against the bedroom door.
Times like now, Lindsey is all too aware of his own state of being. Of the bullet holes that will forever gape on his chest, of his inability to regenerate tissue, of the necessity to every so often call upon the Loa to heal this corpse-like body of his. It's the comparison, of course, between himself and Angel that does it. Before Angel came to Pittsburgh, before they got involved, it was never really an issue for Lindsey.
"Lindsey," Angel murmurs, and steps close, so close that their bare chests are pressed against each other, and Lindsey can feel Angel's cock harden, and it makes his own harden in turn.
Angel and words are a bad combination in any kind of situation that's intimate and important, and when Lindsey's feeling off kilter and insecure he and words are something combustible, as became apparent in the first three months they were together.
They've had to learn different ways to handle each other.
Angel makes enough room between them so that he can drag his palm down Lindsey's chest, over the holes. In another lifetime just a few years ago, Angel's fingers would have dug into the holes, fit into them and urged them deeper, and they both would have gotten off on it simply because of the wrongness and because of the hidden scars it would have scraped bloody in both of them.
But there's no longer that pulsing hatred between them and it doesn't happen like that, won't ever happen like that. Instead it goes like this: Angel sets his palm just under the Lindsey's ribcage and his fingers spread far and wide; Angel dips his head down and their cheeks touch.
They stay like that and it's quiet and still, because neither of their hearts beat and neither of them breathes, and this is who they are, what they are, and they are the same even if they're different.
"You're an idiot," Angel whispers and Lindsey shudders at that voice, which is so deep and so fucking close to his ear.
"Only sometimes, though," Lindsey whispers back.
Another moment of standing there, and then Angel steps away, the hand on Lindsey's chest getting in one last caress before it falls away. Lindsey stays against the wall as Angel moves back to the dresser for his pants, stepping into the sleek black material without ever looking away from Lindsey. Angel does up the zipper and hooks the button closed and then he runs a hand down the length of his cock, eyes flaring bright and hot, and Lindsey gasps in response.
"Button your jeans," Angel hisses.
And Lindsey can't help but tease and taunt. He drags his hands up his thighs, slow and hard, arches into them as he gets to his waist, and he rolls his hips as he does what Angel said.
"Uncle Lindsey?" Lucy calls out hesitantly and Lindsey shudders in something akin to horror, because Lucy really might as well be a niece and it's more than a little disturbing to hear her voice while he's in the midst of being a cocktease.
Angel strolls out of the room, apparently unconcerned by the very obvious hard-on he's got, and Lindsey bangs his head against the wall behind him, wills his dick to stand down, and then he finishes dressing.
He passes Angel in the hallway and Angel's mouth when they kiss is reminiscent of skinned knees, and Lucy arches a brow at the smile on Lindsey's face when he strides into the living room.
"Let's go," Lindsey says easily.
*
Lindsey gets home just a short while after the sun rises. Angel is awake and standing at the window in the bedroom, buck naked and damn near purring in sleepy contentment. He hasn't missed experiencing a sunrise in the past six months, no matter how exhausted or beaten up he's been. Lindsey hasn't missed watching him experience a sunset, either.
"Did you have fun?" Angel asks without turning away from the sun.
"Mm. Drank pots of coffee and talked. Around pot number two Lucy got this look in her eye and started grilling me about our sex life." Angel snickers. "But that was better than what happened after pot three, when she started asking about commitment ceremonies and offering to mother our children."
"Christ," Angel chokes. "She wasn't serious, was she?"
Lindsey snorts and starts stripping off his clothing. "No, it was the caffeine talking. She'll be embarrassed and apologetic later."
He steps up beside Angel and the sun is warm and bright against his skin, a shiver-inducing contrast to the air-conditioned apartment.
"I got a phone call about an hour after you left," Angel says eventually.
There's something in his tone that makes Lindsey tense. "Busy night," he says carefully and looks up at Angel's bland visage. "Who was it?"
"Faith."
"Ah."
"Are you tired?" Angel asks into the tense silence.
"I just shared four pots of coffee with Lucy," Lindsey reminds him.
"Good. Faith is going to be in town this morning. I'm meeting her at my place." Angel turns his head and meets Lindsey's eyes. "Thought you could come with me, if you want."
Lindsey swallows and looks out the window again. "Yeah. Sure."
*
When they pull up to Angel's house an hour later, Faith is already there. She's sitting on the railing of the front porch, swinging her legs and chatting with Frank, who met her at the border to abide by the agreements in place when a Slayer steps foot in this neutral territory. It's for everyone's protection, really.
Faith hops off of the railing when Angel and Lindsey exit Lindsey's car.
"Well, shit," she says with a wide smile. "Angel and sunlight. Looks good on you."
"Hello, Faith," Angel says, and there's a simple joy in his voice that makes Lindsey want to be far away.
Faith nods at Lindsey. "Long time, Lindsey. How you been?"
"Same as ever," he replies with a shrug, then jerks his head at Frank. "You can go. I need you to do the Monroeville run today."
"I thought Lucy was supposed to be handling that," Frank says sibilantly.
Lindsey and Frank go back and forth about why Frank should just do what the hell he's told before Frank finally slithers off to his car, mumbling irritably. Lindsey's more than a little irritable himself, too.
"You coming, Lindsey?"
Lindsey blinks at the sound of Faith's voice, turns around. She and Angel are on the porch, waiting for him at the door. A part of Lindsey wants to say no and then drive away. But then he looks at Angel and sees that there isn't joy on Angel's face, but shadows and memories and regrets and sunlight that comes with a price, and Lindsey walks up the path and climbs the three steps to join them on the porch.
*
Faith stays until early evening, and once she's gone Angel slumps on the sofa, dejected and deflated.
Lindsey crouches down in front of him, sets his hands on Angel's knees. When Angel came to Pittsburgh, he got the freedom to walk in daylight, but he lost the freedom to leave the territory, and most of the time it's a fair trade, Lindsey knows. But outside of this bubble, this neutrality, there is Buffy and Connor and Faith.
"She came here," Lindsey reminds Angel quietly and squeezes Angel's knees. "They can all come."
"Yeah," Angel whispers.
"And what you do here, it might not be the stuff Champions are made of, but it doesn't turn everything in your life to shit."
Angel leans forward on the sofa, spreads his legs, and drops his head onto Lindsey's shoulder. "I'm happy here," he admits, sounding almost ashamed.
"Is that what the problem is? That curse of yours got set permanent during the ritual--"
"No, I know that. That's not it."
And Lindsey gets it, and it's so typical Angel that he has to laugh. "Oh, for Christ's sake. You don't have to feel guilty about not feeling guilty. No one out there worth a damn is going to be pissed at you for finally not being miserable."
Angel smiles against Lindsey's shoulder, and Lindsey can feel it, and he pushes Angel away from him. Stands up and then straddles Angel's lap, and Angel lifts his face, cups Lindsey's nape and pulls him down. Communication that's better than all the words either of them have.
Old pennies, skinned knees, the taste of old blood on Lindsey's tongue, and he sighs at the same time that Angel breathes into his mouth, "You taste like grave dirt."
They're the same even if they're different and it's the only truth Lindsey holds to anymore.
.End