Heart's Desire, a Lindsey story in the Angel universe by Glacis. Rated NC-17, no copyright infringement intended. Possible spoilers for all episodes concerning Wolfram & Hart, definite spoilers for To Shansu in LA.

Lindsey McDonald was adept at appearing to look at things without ever allowing the details to go further than his corneas. In cases like this, it helped.

His slight, frail, big-eyed defendant looked like a strong puff of wind would blow her away. She certainly didn't look like the type of monster capable of eviscerating four men, tying a fifth one in their small intestines and strangling him with the knotted length of their colons. It was almost artistic, the way the corpses had been arranged, if one discounted the sheer gruesome facts of blood and ripped skin, discarded internal organs and gaping body cavities. The murderer, with a true eye for detail, had arranged the four gutted corpses in a three-dimensional box around the fifth, almost an altar to the picture of terror on the fifth corpse's blue-tinged face. The bulging blue eyes looked almost surprised.

They certainly didn't look peaceful.

So Lindsey did what he did best. He danced around the evidence; cast shadows of doubt on time, place, and memory; shone a spotlight on the obvious absurdity of his client being in any way, shape or form connected to such horrible happenings.

As had become the norm since he'd returned to the fold, with a great deal of apparently effortless damned hard work on his part, the jury bought it. Hook, line and sinker. He sometimes wondered if his soaring success rate in court work was some sort of strange karmic compensation for losing his hand to that bastard Angel on the night of the Raising.

Not that that had done a hell of a lot of good. Two weeks after finally coaxing Angel's sire out of her crate, after nearly four months of talking her into a fine little revenge scenario, the stupid bitch managed to get herself staked. By Wesley. It was disgusting.

Happily, he hadn't had any part in that particular fiasco. Lila was still in deep shit for it. He himself had been called away, luckily, to help bolster the case against one of Wolfram and Hart's most useful tools. He smiled down at that tool. Big dark eyes smiled back at him. While he managed to keep the smile plastered on his face, he couldn't do a damned thing about the shiver that ran down his spine.

God. Not another one. Not another murderess with the hots for him. Vanessa Brewer had been bad enough, but freak that she'd been, she'd at least been human. Using a loose definition of the word. This one, while she looked like a dead ringer for a living Ophelia, was pure one hundred per cent demon.

He extended his hand to assist her from her chair, the picture of the gentleman lawyer assisting his vindicated but still greatly maligned delicate flower of a client. Her fingers curled around his hand and he bit back a gasp. Her skin burned his. She continued to hold his fingers clasped between her palms as they walked from the courtroom. He lowered his shoulder, angling his body in front of hers and successfully blocking everyone from getting a good clear photograph of her.

It was always better to keep as clean a record as possible. All sorts of records. All sorts of clean.

He tried to disengage her grip at the curb, but she pulled him into the back of the Lexus with her. He felt his smile slip. "Fresla? Uhm, it's okay now, you can let go." He put as much reassurance as he could into his voice.

She laughed. Softly. His skin crawled an inch closer to his body. Even his hair tried to pull away from her, curl in on itself. The smile disappeared completely.

"They would have given me the death penalty," she told him, as if he didn't know. Her voice was low and husky, and he was grateful all over again that she hadn't had to say anything in court. No way in hell would anybody believe a mouse could have a voice like that. And if they didn't believe she was a mouse ... yeah, they would have put her down.

"You're free and clear," he tried again. He tugged his hand. Her fingers tightened, and this time he did gasp.

She turned his hand between hers and brought it up to her mouth, placing a kiss in the center of his palm. His toes curled, and sweat started to trickle down his back. It felt like she'd branded him.

"You know what I do."

Kill people, he thought but didn't say.

"I make a gift of your heart's desire," she continued. He nodded. That had been why they'd been in the courtroom for the past week. A client of Wolfram and Hart had made a wish. She'd carried that wish out. Thoroughly.

"I know, Fresla, but-"

"What is your heart's desire, Lindsey?" she asked, breaking into his latest verbal attempt to get her to back off. He froze.

"Huh?" he asked. He knew his expression must have matched the half-witted grunt that fell out of his mouth, but he couldn't think of anything else to say. This wasn't exactly a bonus he'd expected.

"I will give you your heart's desire." It was a command. No room for negotiation.

Half afraid to piss her off, half afraid of the ramifications if he accepted, Lindsey swallowed his reservations and named the one thing he'd wanted since he lost it. He'd almost resigned himself to being without it. Almost. But not quite. "I want my hand back."

She smiled. "Know your heart."

He didn't know what to say to her. There were a lot of things he wanted : to never be afraid, to end up the winner, to hold the reins of power and not get tossed on his ass. There were other things, darker things, with the taste and the smell and the feel of revenge and satiation. None of them were concrete. All of them were too much to ask for. He didn't look any deeper.

"My hand," he said decisively. Her smile deepened, until it looked feral. He swallowed, steeling his nerves for whatever her next move might be.

Her left hand uncurled from his, and cradled the stump of his wrist in her palm. Then she leaned forward and kissed him again, this time on the lips. The heat invaded him, branding his mouth, drying his throat. His head swam, vision blurring as a strange, numbing tingle ran from his right wrist to his chest, to his left hand, then back to his chest before moving from the general area of his heart up his throat and into his mouth. He found himself kissing her back, wild in that heat, panting harshly as the feeling returned to his hands, his chest, his face.

"A-hem."

The sound of a throat clearing finally penetrated his haze, and he opened his eyes to discover that they were back at the Firm. The car door was open, and Holland was standing there, peering down into the back seat, trying not to laugh. Lindsey looked away, and realized that he had a lap full of demon. Who was smiling back up at him.

Her eyes weren't dark any longer. They were green. He blinked. The color swirled, and once again they were dark, as they should be. At the same time, the darkness in his own vision cleared. He shook his head.

Then she was gracefully hoisting herself out of his lap and onto the sidewalk, and he was staggering like a drunk, pulling himself out of the car and hanging on to the door for balance.

With both hands.

He stared at his right hand for a very long time. Then a large, male hand came down and touched him lightly across the knuckles. He looked up to meet Holland's gaze. It was penetrating, with that unsettling hint of laughter still there.

"She likes you," he told Lindsey. Lindsey stared up at him.

"Yeah," he answered. His voice was rusty. "I guess."

"I know," Holland corrected him. "Now come inside and let's wrap this up. There's been enough of a floor show already."

Lindsey nodded, blinked several times, and peeled his hands away from the door frame, following Holland upstairs to the conference room. The rest of the debriefing-cum-celebration passed in a daze for him. He kept getting distracted, staring at his hands. Two healthy, human hands. The only sign he could find that one was a new addition was a thin blurred scar stretching the circumference of his right wrist.

He looked up as she was leaving. She smiled back at him. His mouth burned. So did his fingertips.

Then she was gone. It would be awhile before the Firm used her again. The case had been much too high profile to risk exposing her any time soon. He was relieved. Much as he appreciated getting his hand back, she was a little too creepy to have around.

He flexed his hand. Flexed both hands. Curled them into fists. Visualized his new fist impacting with Angel's jaw, for lopping the fucking thing off to begin with. Then unclenched his fingers, shook hands with the senior partners, and headed back up to his office.

Enough distraction. He had work to do. Clients to defend. Strategies to plan. A vampire to put away. For good.

The first time it happened he was at his desk.

The world went a little dark around the edges, and the scar on his right wrist began to itch. It was nine days after he'd successfully concluded the case of Fresla Brandeis vs. the State of California. The clock had just ticked silently past eleven o'clock in the morning.

The next thing he knew, sunlight was washing over his desk in the waning edges of dusk. His wrist was itching again, not as badly, and fading away even as he reached to scratch it. The marble and onyx clock next to his pen stand read seven fifty three.

In the evening.

None of the papers on his desk had moved. But his tie was loose, hanging around his neck, and there was a slight pain in the small of his back. His right knee hurt, just a little, and his right shoulder felt bruised. His hair was falling in his eyes.

Lindsey stared at the clock and wondered where the hell the day had gone and why he felt like he'd gone ten rounds with a heavyweight. He tore his eyes away from the clock and looked down at his hands, lying against the pristine cream of company stationery.

There was blood under his nails.

He swallowed, then got up slowly and carefully. He walked with military precision to the executive restroom and washed his hands. Brushed at his nails until the skin was shiny pink and the nail beds were completely clean. Dried his hands, walked to a stall, locked it behind himself. Knelt mechanically and vomited. Wiped his mouth with toilet tissue then very carefully stood again. He flushed the toilet, his movements jerky, uncoordinated, then forced himself back under control. He left the stall, fumbling slightly with the lock before slamming it back out of the way. Returning to the sink, he rinsed out his mouth, washed his face, and stared at himself in the mirror, hanging on to the sides of the sink for dear life.

He had no fucking clue what the hell was going on.

With no better idea of what to do, he returned to his office and tried to think. Dawn was breaking before he gave it up as a bad deal and went home to bed.

After staring at the ceiling for three hours, he gave that up as a bad deal as well. He showered, shaved, and went back to the office.

The place was buzzing like a wasp nest after it had been hit with a broom handle.

Lila cornered him before he even got to his office.

"Can you believe it?"

He gave her a half-hearted glare. "Gimme a break, Lila, I haven't even smelled my coffee yet."

She shook her head at him. "Rough night?" Sweeping on before he had the chance to so much as shrug, she filled him in on the news. "Somebody hit the Stronghold last night."

Lindsey felt his stomach drop. "How bad?" Files, plans, relics and artifacts were stored in the Stronghold. If a rogue group of demons got hold of some of them, or even worse, Angel, Wolfram and Hard would be in very deep shit.

"The worst." She shuddered, and he couldn't help but agree. "They didn't break in, they hit it." She stared at him expectantly. He blinked back, confused.

"With what?" he ground out when no further information was forthcoming. God, he hated it when she got smug.

"A tactical nuclear bomb, from the look of it. But probably just gel, from the lack of mushroom cloud or heavy radiation." She was serious.

"Holy shit," he breathed. She nodded, her eyes impossibly wide. He had the feeling he looked as stupefied as she did.

"There's nothing there but a big black pit, full of Guardian demon bones and melted metal and scorched concrete."

"Who?" It was all he could do to force it out. This was a crippling blow to Wolfram and Hart.

She shrugged, a tense little ripple through her shoulders. "Nobody's saying for certain, but they have their suspicions."

"Angel?" he asked. It was a stab in the dark, but the soulled vampire was the best bet for a strike like this. She nodded. "But how the hell'd he find out where it was? Only the senior partners knew, and not even all of them, I don't think."

That tense little shrug again, and she took a deep breath. "Rumors are flying all over the place. That the server's been hacked into, files stolen, even one of the mind-readers bribed off."

He shook his head. "Nope, too scared for their lives." He didn't believe the last one.

"Who knows? All I know is, all hell's breaking loose, and I'm going to keep my head down and my tail covered." She patted his shoulder quickly, then headed off down the hall. "I suggest you do the same."

"No doubt about it," he tossed after her, then walked slowly toward his office, thinking hard.

It didn't make any sense. None of it made any sense.

Two days later the security forces at the Firm were no closer to the truth. Lindsey and the rest of the junior partners were called in to a full division meeting. To no one's surprise, the mind-readers were in attendance as well.

Black eyes like bottomless wells stared into him. Through him. Wandered over to the next poor bastard, then swung back to him like pit vipers striking. Unlike the last time this happened, he didn't know he was gonna die. Didn't know betrayal lived in his heart and lies coated his thoughts. All he had was a big goddamned hole in his memory. From the faintly perplexed look on the senior mind reader's face, she wasn't quite sure what to make of it, either.

At least this time Phil didn't come stand behind him. If Lindsey was going to take a bullet in the brain, he wanted to know why. If he didn't know better, he'd swear he was in an X Files episode. His left hand slipped up unconsciously to feel the back of his neck. He dropped it and blushed when the younger mind reader suddenly grinned. The expression disappeared as quickly as it had shown, but he'd seen it.

Whatever they'd found, it hadn't indicated treachery. Not from him, at least. And not from anyone else, because they all walked back out the door when the unnerving experience was finally over. This time, Holland didn't call him back.

He glanced over his shoulder as he was leaving. Holland was looking at him, but he wasn't saying anything. And he didn't look upset. But the familiar twinkle was absent from his eyes. Lindsey checked, of his own volition this time, and turned to face his mentor.

"Uhm, Holland," he asked hesitantly, "are you okay?"

A warm, absolutely false smile wreathed the older man's face. "Just what I was going to ask you, Lindsey."

He shrugged, uncomfortable and not quite sure why. "I'm okay," he offered. Holland's smile warmed a degree.

"Are you sure?" His voice invited a confidence Lindsey wasn't able to give. He couldn't explain what he didn't, himself, understand.

"I think so," he answered. Holland gestured him out of the room with a shooing motion. Lindsey went. It was enough, for the moment.

A silent shadow moved across the LA streets. It was too early for the sun to have baked the pavement yet, and the air was surprisingly sweet-scented. With the rising heat would come the smog and the traffic and the bustle of the city. Early in the day, there was only the occasional bird song, the hush-hush of a few early morning commuters, and the promise of the day to come.

The door to Angel Investigations was locked. Strong fingers probed with a slender metal tool, and it was opened. The figure moved through the deserted office, making no noise to alert the vampire who'd fallen asleep less than an hour before. Three files and a computer disk were placed in the center of the desk, for Cordelia Chase to find when she came in to work a few hours later.

The figure walked back to the door, flicked the handle to the locked position, and closed it silently, before disappearing down the sidewalk.

A week after the security meeting and group mind-read, on a Sunday evening, Lindsey settled into his Jacuzzi and tried to relax. It was as close to a ritual as he got, these quiet evenings before the beginning of a difficult work week. He was finishing three separate briefs, cleaning up the details of a nasty settlement on a racketeering charge, and meeting with the senior partners at the end of the week. It was going to be a full slate.

At nine o'clock Monday morning he found himself sitting at his desk, an open file folder in front of him, left hand wrapped around a steaming cup of coffee, with absolutely no memory of the previous fourteen hours.

His hand started to shake, and coffee slopped over the side of the cup. Pulling the files out of the way of the spill, he stared down at the marble desk top. His reflection stared back. His tie was loosened. There was sweat standing out along his forehead and top lip. His face was flushed.

His eyes were black.

As he watched, the color faded until they were his usual light green. Eventually, the shaking stopped, and he was able to breathe freely again. He pulled tissue from his desk drawer and blotted up the spilled coffee. Breathed deeply. Pulled out another tissue and used it to wipe his face. Buttoned his collar and straightened his tie. Breathed again, a little more easily. Tried it once more, to make sure he wasn't going to faint, then licked dry lips and headed out to face the day.

Lawrence met him in the corridor. He had much the same pie-eyed look Lila'd had days before. Right after the Stronghold had been hit. Only his complexion was tinged with a funny green color. Lindsey scratched his wrist, only then becoming aware that it itched.

"What's up, Larry?" Usually, Lawrence hated being called Larry. Today, the man didn't even wince.

"Bad time in the old town tonight, Lindsey," he intoned, looking as if he actually meant it.

"How so?" Lindsey feigned indifference. The itch was fading, but the shaking was back.

"Records was torched last night."

Lindsey gulped.

"So was Stalweig's penthouse."

The room started to gray out.

"And somebody slaughtered the Advance Guard. Shrapnel bombs. An alert was called, and when they gathered at the armory, the bombs went off. Killed the whole damned lot of them."

Lindsey reached out to steady himself against the wall. "No fucking way," he managed to croak.

"The senior partners are scrambling," Lawrence finished up the roll call of disasters. Lindsey blinked at him, willing the world to come back into focus. Eventually, it did. By then Lawrence, disappointed at not getting a more spectacular response to his litany of blows to the Firm, had wandered off in search of a more easily impressed audience.

Little did Larry know, Lindsey grimaced, just how damned impressed he'd been. Without the Guard, the senior partners had no close-in protection. Without records, they had no way of tracing who might be targeting them like this. As for Stalweig ... the Houdler demon had been one of the oldest, most powerful telepathic demons alive, and one of the founding partners of Wolfram and Hart.

Whoever the hell was trying to take down the Firm was getting a damned good start at it.

He made it through the day, but he couldn't for the life of him say how. Late that night he stripped off and slumped on the edge of the bed. His wrist twitched and he scratched it reflectively.

Something wasn't right. But he didn't know what it was, or if he had anything to do with it, or if the weird periods of missing time were involved. The timing of the black-outs was suspicious, but not suspicious enough for him to turn himself over to the mind-shredders. He'd have to bide his time, wait and watch, try to find out for himself what the hell was going on, and turn it to his advantage. He was very good at that.

The ringing of the telephone breaking the silence in his apartment made him jump. He grabbed the receiver up and barked into it. "McDonald!"

There was silence for a moment, then, as he was about to hang up, a soft voice spoke in his ear.

"Why'd you do it, Lindsey?"

"Angel?" he asked incredulously.

"Why'd you bring them over?"

He pulled the handset away from his head, looked at it for an instant as if he expected it to explain what Angel was talking about, then brought it back to his ear. The vampire was still waiting for an answer.

"I don't have the faintest fucking idea what you're talking about." And I don't want to know, he left unsaid but echoing over the line.

There was another long silence. Then Angel said, very softly, "Right." A click came through directly after the word, then the dial tone.

Lindsey slowly lowered the receiver to the base and stared at it for a long time. "What the hell was that?" he finally asked the air. His empty apartment refused to enlighten him.

Giving up on any sort of logic, giving up, in fact, on the whole damned day, he flopped over on his back and stared at the ceiling. He wasn't conscious of closing his eyes, but sleep snuck up on him and ambushed him.

So did his id.

He was in his bed, but he wasn't alone. He was burning hot, but the other body, the one covering his, holding him down, was welcome ice to his fire. Arms surrounded and pinned him, legs longer than his own trapped him. A mouth followed as he tried to escape, hunted him down and held him and drank from his lips. Hands were in his hair, at his wrists, calming that damned itch he hadn't even realized was still bugging him. Then they were at his waist, sweeping over his legs, cradling between his thighs, running the length of him and egging him on.

His mouth opened in a cry, and another mouth covered it, soothing his fever, quenching his thirst. He hadn't known he was dying of thirst until he was nearly dead from it, and now he was alive again. His own hands followed the hands moving over his skin, and his knees bent, curling over the coolness, fanning the flame. His arms moved and his spine arched, his head dipped then fell back against the pillows.

He woke with semen spilling across his belly and his mouth wide open, eyes squeezed shut, hands bunching the sheets.

Damn Angel. If he hadn't already been.

He straightened his legs, swiped the mess from his stomach with the edge of the sheet, and stared back up at the ceiling. Eventually, he stopped thinking. Eventually, he went back to sleep.

The second time, he didn't dream.

There were no further black-outs, and no more wanton destruction, for five days. Lindsey was in conference with Chuck, one of the senior partners, and two Pleykibmith demons who were looking for better protection for their human traffic racket, when an explosion ripped the parking garage in half.

Fortunately for Lindsey, the parking garage was under the other side of the building. Unfortunately for two of the senior partners, Bill Blanewort and an ancient Jareo demon called Plou, it was centered in their limousine. The bulk of the explosives and the timing device had been wired to the drive shaft.

Usually Wolfram and Hart kept problems in the family. They had a much larger budget than the LAPD, and sources the police could never tap. This attack, however, was simply too big to hide. Everyone in the building was evacuated, as the search for more explosives began. Lindsey stared across the milling people at a certain blonde head making its way determinedly toward him. He held his ground as Detective Kate Lockley stomped up and did her best to get in his face.

She was kind of cute when she was on her high horse. She was also two inches taller than he was. He didn't let it bother him.

"Is there anything you'd like to add to the investigation, Mr. McDonald?" She said it so coolly, like she knew something that was just between the two of them, and she was inviting his confidence on the rest of it. Nice play, but he really didn't have a clue what the hell she was talking about.

"No," he answered politely. He could feel Holland's eyeballs boring holes in his back. Lockley stared at him awhile longer, then gave him a bright smile.

"Whenever you're ready, we'll talk," she told him.

"When hell freezes over," he said, just as politely. Her smile solidified into solid ice.

She turned on her heel and stomped back over to where the explosives experts were shifting through bits of rubble. He watched her, not needing to turn to know that his mentor was now standing less than six inches behind him.

"Is there anything you want to say to me, Lindsey?" Holland's voice was gently inquisitive. That particular tone always made his spine want to crawl up and hide under his scalp.

"She's just trying to stir up the mud, Holland," he answered as calmly as he could. "Shadow boxing."

"I sincerely hope so, Lindsey." It sounded like he did, too. That was one of Holland's strengths, sounding so caring as he was cutting a man to pieces and feeding the bloody bits to the dogs. Lindsey didn't say anything more. Eventually Holland drifted away.

Lindsey rolled his shoulders to loosen tense muscles and blew a breath out, hard. There was nothing else to be done at the Firm, since they wouldn't be able to get back inside until the demolition team cleared them, which might not be for days. Shrugging off the inconvenience, he headed for home.

Settling down at his laptop, he powered it up and prepared to work on one of the briefs he had pending. To his surprise, a window was already open on it. He stared at the screen, watching the white letters scroll across the dark blue background. When the message finished, he read it.

Coughed.

Read it again.

Staring at the words and numbers as if certain they were an hallucination that would disappear if he took his eyes from them, he reached out and hit the 'enter' key. The words scrolled past, and others took their place.

The numbers stayed.

Forcing himself to remain calm, he reached out for the secure land line next to his desk. He turned off the direct line to the office, and made sure all the security checks were in place. Then he flipped on the scrambler he'd added illicitly and prayed to a God he wasn't sure existed, much less listened, that there was no one left at the Firm to overhear. He punched in one of the numbers on his computer screen and listened to the whistling tones of an overseas connection.

A computerized message greeted him. He punched in a second number, waited for the appropriate message, and punched in a third. The tinny voice gave him a name and an account balance. He sat with the receiver up to his ear until the computer on the other end got tired of repeating itself and disconnected the call.

Eventually he was able to get enough strength in his arm to replace the handset on its cradle. He stared at the computer screen for a very long time.

How had Angel managed to pull this one off? And why had he put Lindsey's name on the account? As a set-up, twelve million dollars in an untraceable Cayman Islands bank account wasn't a bad sting. But why?

His mind was still circling that question like a shark around fresh meat when the world went black again.

At least he wasn't in his bedroom. The thought struck him as perfectly logical in context, he just didn't have any idea what the context was. And didn't give a tinker's damn about his own ignorance.

Obviously, it was a dream.

Curious to see where it would lead him, he smiled as the wind ruffled his hair, enjoying being out so late on a hot LA summer night in a convertible. It was like a Marilyn Manson take on a Beach Boys song.

Which, come to think of it, was a pretty apt description of his life.

The Corvette seemed to drive itself. It stopped at a lovely spot in Brentwood, just to the side of a sprawling estate. He left it there, scooping up a small gym bag from the seat behind him and slipping through the security grid like a ghost, neither questioning nor caring how he knew what codes to type in and what circuits to bypass.

Once on the grounds, he wasted no time employing the equipment in the bag. A Verine demon tried to stop him, and he cut her throat before she had time to call warning. Her mate met him two steps later and he bashed her head into a solid granite gargoyle decorating the side of the steps. It seemed appropriate. They looked enough alike to be sisters.

He brushed the blood and brains off his shoes, cleaned the knife on the grass, and dug back in the bag. It was the matter of moments to drop down into the catacomb below the estate and leave his little presents behind. Lumpy, vaguely roundish drops of gunk that looked like overworked gray play doh, with tiny wires poking out from the centers. Eight of them.

More than enough.

Slipping out was as easy as slipping in had been, once he sliced through the spinal cord of an Arkern guard demon, silencing both slavering mouths with one cut. It folded up, legs going under it, heads flopping down, looking for all the world like a puppet with its strings cut. Lindsey patted it once between the horns on the near head, then stepped over it and exited through the same hole in the sensors from where he'd entered.

The Corvette was waiting, and he hopped over the side and slid into the seat. He coasted away from his parking spot before reaching down into his jacket pocket and flipping a lever on the front of a small metal box resting there. He didn't bother turning to look at the cloud of light and dust behind him. He could feel the vibration of the explosions bucking the road beneath the car. It was a little like riding a roller coaster, only flat and without having to wait in line.

Ignoring the weirdness pinging through his brain, he continued into downtown and parked a block away from Angel Investigations' new office, in a rat-trap old apartment building just as crappy as the one the Firm's bully boys had blown to hell not that long before. He stalked up the sidewalk with firm resolve to do whatever the hell his body seemed to be programmed to do. His mind was on vacation, off floating somewhere to the left of reality, watching the goings-on with detached curiosity.

He kinda liked dreams.

The locked door opened to the touch of the pick he hadn't known he had until he used it. He breezed in, rather impressed with himself. Then he plucked the small metal box from his jacket pocket and dropped it on Cordelia's desk. He reached into the top drawer and withdrew the mallet she kept there, either to ward off rats or to knock Angel unconscious should he suddenly morph into Angelus, then lifted his arm and brought the hammer down with all his strength atop the box.

Fragments. Perfect.

Of course, there was now a nice, shallow crater in the middle of the desk, with cracks branching out from it, but that was okay, too. He'd buy her a new one. Or Angel could. They sure as hell had the money. He ignored the thought and scraped the scraps into the wastebasket next to her desk. They looked perfectly at home with the screwed up paper, empty hair gel can, crumpled napkin stained with chocolate and half box of used tissues with lipstick marks on them.

"Why?"

Lindsey raised his head from his bemused peek into the trash can and stared up at Angel, standing in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, staring back at Lindsey. He wasn't wearing anything but a burgundy silk robe.

It looked melodramatic. Overdone. Damned good on him. Lindsey grinned.

"Gettin' rid of the evidence," he drawled.

"Of what?" Angel asked steadily. Lindsey shrugged one shoulder and wandered over to stand directly in front of the vampire.

"God, you're cold," he said softly. There was the slightest tinge of admiration, not to mention lust, in his voice.

"I'm dead. I'm supposed to be cold. What's your excuse?" Angel continued to stare at him.

Lindsey didn't bother to answer. He just reached up, clamped both hands in Angel's hair, and kissed him.

The next thing he knew, he was flying across the room.

Since this caused him to end up splayed across Cordelia's desk, with Angel crouched above him like an avenging, well, angel, Lindsey didn't complain. After all, it was his dream. If he wanted it a bit rough, who was he to balk at his own subconscious?

Pushing aside that thought before he got hopelessly wound up in his own logic and tripped himself as he so often tripped others, he took advantage of Angel's proximity, and the fact that the belt on the robe had come undone. His left hand snaked up behind Angel's neck and his right hand, palm tingling and wrist itching, shot directly to Angel's crotch with the speed and aim of a well-programmed homing missile.

Angel opened his mouth to protest, or yell at him, or bite him, or who knew what. Before any sound came out, or any fangs appeared, the strangest expression crossed his face. He looked down at Lindsey's fingers, busily working between his legs.

"Hot!" he exclaimed. He didn't look uncomfortable, just shocked.

Lindsey enjoyed the reaction. "Goddamn right, I am," he growled, then arched up and latched on to Angel's lips with his own. Angel moaned into his mouth. It tasted good.

Heat met ice everywhere Lindsey's hands touched Angel's skin, and after the first startled moments, Angel shuddered and lowered himself over Lindsey's body. Neither of them seemed to notice the edges of the desk cutting into them, or the fact that the shades were open as Angel literally ripped Lindsey's clothes from his body and Lindsey yanked and tugged until Angel was equally naked.

Orgasm hit Angel first, and his face changed, eyes flashing yellow and fangs gleaming behind drawn-back lips as he pushed his hips into Lindsey's. The force and the slickness, slippery cool against his overheated flesh, was all it took to knock Lindsey over the edge as well, and he humped frantically against Angel's bulk as the vampire nuzzled him, gnawing drowsily on his shoulder.

It hurt. Turned him on, too, but the pain was a surprise. Gradually cooling down, blood returning slowly to previously blood-starved parts of his body like his brain, Lindsey realized several things at once.

The desk was fucking hard. And so was the fucking. His shoulders, his ass, his thighs and the back of his head all felt bruised.

It was cold in the office. He could feel the draft of air over his feet and up along his balls where he sprawled beneath Angel. Who was also cold. It was a little like having a two hundred pound cold brick wall on top of him.

His wrist wasn't itching anymore. At all.

He wasn't dreaming.

The last realization made him buck so hard in shock that Angel nearly fell off him. It also had the salutary effect of bringing the vampire out of his post-coital stupor.

Angel got off him with much less grace than he'd landed on him, nearly breaking Lindsey's ribs and puncturing his diaphragm with a stray elbow in the process. When he finally got his breath back, Lindsey rolled somewhat painfully to the side of the desk and sat, feet dangling, stark naked, smeared with his come and Angel's, and wondered what the hell had just happened.

A broad, creamy, muscular body stepped close in front of him, filling his entire field of vision. He swallowed, suddenly dry-mouthed.

"Why are you helping me?" Angel asked.

Lindsey was slightly irritated to note that the vampire didn't seem the least disconcerted by their quick roll in the hay. On the desk. Wherever. Dismissing the thought as irrelevant, he glared up at Angel through the hair falling in his eyes.

"Damned if I know." Angel raised an eyebrow. Lindsey shrugged, feeling very cold all of the sudden. "It's my heart's desire." The words came tumbling out of his mouth, but he didn't say them. Or he didn't think he'd said them. His hand shot up to cover his lips, and he stared up, stricken, at Angel.

The vampire looked like he wanted to laugh, but was too confused to do so.

An itching started in the scar around his right wrist, and spread quickly through his fingertips to his mouth, then down along his throat to his chest, settling in over his heart and making his entire body twitch.

"Fuck," he whispered as the import of that itch finally sank in. "Be careful what you wish for. Even if you don't know it, you just might get it."

This time it was he who jumped Angel. There was a thread of desperation underlying the passion, but the force of his need itself was enough. They stumbled down the stairway, Angel guiding their steps, Lindsey too busy trying to burrow into Angel's hide to worry about anything as inconsequential as falling down the stairs and breaking their necks.

Knowing it was a dream didn't do much to alleviate the unreality of it. Angel had the strength to throw him off, he'd proven it, but he didn't seem to want to let go of Lindsey's heat. Lindsey took shameless advantage of that fact, kissing and stroking and rubbing against every inch of Angel he could reach. By the time they'd ricocheted off the couch and landed on the bed, Lindsey was on top, and Angel was just as crazy with lust as Lindsey was.

A brief moment of sanity broke through, and Lindsey found the strength to grab hold of Angel's hair and pull his head back, breaking their kiss.

"D'you love me?" he snapped. The dark eyes flared, yellow swirling in their depths.

"Hell, no, I hate you, now shut up so I can fuck you," Angel growled back.

Lindsey nodded, satisfied. Angel tipped them both over, and Lindsey tried not to suffocate or lose his mind from sensory overload as Angel did just that. Thoroughly.

Much later, every thought screwed right out of his head, butt too sore to lay on, sprawling over Angel, the itch in his damned wrist finally allayed, Lindsey rested his chin on Angel's chest and let his mind drift.

They'd have to talk, of course. Eventually. Not quite yet. He had to find out if Angel knew about the accounts.

They might even have to work together, to clean up what was left of Wolfram and Hart. It was time he went into practice for himself, anyway. He wondered, vaguely, if Holland had survived the final assault. Couldn't make up his mind if he hoped the answer to that question was yes or no, and gave up trying to decide. He drifted on.

He looked forward to hearing Chase's scream when she realized who her boss was bedding. The Englishman would probably just be jealous.

They'd definitely have to fuck again. That had been much too good to be a one-off.

His eyelids were closing, and he stared at Angel through his lashes as long as he could before he finally fell asleep. On the edge of oblivion, he heard a voice winding through his mind, laughing at him. "Paid in full," it told him.

He believed it.

FIN