The Solution, an Angel story
with Highlander elements, by Glacis. Rated NC17.
![]()
Note: Spoilers for the final season of Buffy, the
Angel canon (particularly the episodes ‘The Girl in Question’ and ‘Not Fade
Away), and all the Highlander canon through the movie
Endgame (ignoring the second movie, because it’s better that way; even Mulder
wouldn’t buy the ‘Immortals are aliens’ idea.
Since there are three versions of Endgame and Immortal canon is
contradictory at best, I’m using what I need and ignoring the rest). Pairings include Angel/Lindsey and
Giles/Methos. With thanks to those who
asked for it.
![]()
Lorne didn’t walk as much as
he staggered through the doorway after murdering Lindsey. His fingers were still curled as if permanently
marked by the weight of the gun. His
eyes were wide, unblinking, and his normal healthy green flush faded to a more
sickly yellowish shade.
Unseen, the shade of a man
leaned against the wall, watching Lorne’s unsteady progress. When the front door shut behind the desolate
figure, the man shook his head and whispered, “Feelin’ guilty, then? Aye, and so you should.”
Pushing himself
away from the wall, the ghostly outline filled in, features sharpening until a
green-eyed, dark-haired, sharp-boned face was clear. He stepped through the doorway,
nose wrinkling at the carnage before his eyes fell upon the least-bloody,
most-recently dead body slumped against the near wall.
“Ya heard him sing,
Lorne.” The whisper sounded like wind in
the still room. “You’ve seen his
soul. You were his friend.” The words were harsh.
His feet stopped at the side
of the crumpled figure, and he slowly knelt, one hand reaching out to push back
a lock of hair fallen across the pale face.
The corpse had an expression of surprise and betrayal on his face.
“You understood him,” the
ghost continued more gently, “and ya knew better. Knew it when you said ye’d do it, knew
better’n Angel when it comes down to it, and ya should’n’a done it.” His hand fell away, and the hair fell back in
place, covering the emptiness in Lindsey’s eyes. “But Fate’s a bitch, an’ don’t I know
it. When She
demands, ya do what ya have ta do.”
Beneath the gaping neckline
of the ruined shirt, faint lines appeared on the dead man’s skin. Filling, curling, looping to form archaic
symbols of protection that rose from beneath the skin to gradually darken,
painting a cobalt torque around his neck, scrolling over his torso to pool over
his heart, snaking around his arms, his legs, curving across his groin around
to the small of his back, twining up his spine to meet itself at the nape of
his neck. As the runes wrote themselves
on Lindsey’s cold body, the skin around them took on a silver sheen, seen more
in the shadows than the planes. In a
moment the strange transformation was complete.
Seconds later, the corpse
twitched violently. Lindsey gasped, a
single great swallow of air, and jolted upright.
His eyes were no longer
empty.
![]()
Dragon slaying hadn’t been
quite what Angel expected when he decided to make his final run against the
windmills of the demon gods. But there
was a certain grim hilarity in the fact that he’d signed away his own hope of
humanity, led all his human partners into certain death, had the snot kicked
out of his nonhuman partners, and set himself up as the prime target of the
leaders of hell on earth, only to find himself acting out every little boy’s
Sir Galahad fantasy.
Or maybe it was Saint
George. It had been a very long time
since Angel was a church-going Catholic, and he been too distracted with sex
and whisky to pay much attention to it even then.
Still, it was fun, in a
death-defying sort of way, and wasn’t that a weird thing for a dead man to
think? He swung his sword, ducked a
clawed foot, nearly got impaled on a spiked wing, and struck like a viper,
pushing hard, nearly getting wrenched off his feet as his sword stuck fast in
the dragon’s heart.
Wincing as he was instantly
covered in dragon bodily fluids and practically smothered in dragon corpse,
Angel reflected that nobody in fairy tales ever mentioned how damned messy it
was.
Or how
horribly it smelled.
Although it didn’t taste too
bad… but then, after having
As Angel kicked his way free
of the weight of the dead dragon, a mixed phalanx of homicidal demons swarmed
him, and he gave up thinking in favor of fighting.
Probably better that way.
![]()
The world slowed around Gunn
until it felt as if he were fighting underwater.
Nothing bothered him,
because he was numb, and getting number with every
heartbeat.
He knew he was dead, really,
but he couldn’t stop fighting. Even when
a freaky-looking goblin with teeth bigger than Gunn’s head ripped his throat
open, finishing the work the vamps at the Hellspawn’s campaign headquarters had
begun when they’d half-gutted him, Gunn didn’t stop fighting.
It was only when a hand
wrapped around his wrist that he realized his body lay on its back in the
alley, blank eyes and slack mouth and ripped throat and cut belly all opened up
into the rain; only then that his spirit stopped fighting.
He looked from the long,
pale hand trapping him to the long, strong arm attached to it, further up to
Wesley’s face, showing him a smile he hadn’t seen in way too long, and eyes
that weren’t as sad as they’d always been lately. Gunn grinned back.
“Come to help out?” he
asked, though he already knew the answer.
“Our part in this fight is
over,” Wes told him softly. “It’s time
to go.”
“Go where?” Gunn asked,
turning from the battle to walk beside Wesley, who was still holding his
arm. It didn’t feel bad, felt kinda
right, actually.
Then another hand came up
and took his other arm, and he looked down to see Fred smiling up at him.
Fred.
Not
But Fred.
Gunn looked from Wesley,
smiling at him from one side, to Fred, smiling at him from the other, and felt
the numbness melt away.
Only there wasn’t any pain
behind it. There was only peace.
And Fred.
And Wes.
Gunn wrapped an arm around
each of his best-loved friends, and together they walked away from the
war. He didn’t know where they were
going, and he didn’t care. But they’d
all three lived through hell when they were alive. Now they were dead, they deserved a little
heaven. Didn’t matter
where they were going.
It had to be better than
where they’d been.
![]()
“Go where?” Eve asked, not
caring that Angel didn’t give her a reply, nor even wait to hear her question.
The beams above her head
broke, showering her with rubble. The
floor below her feet ruptured, pitching her to her hands and knees. The air tasted of grit and brimstone. The walls screamed as they cracked.
She’d given up everything
for Lindsey, and Angel had killed him.
She didn’t know how, or why, or when, but she knew he had. With Lindsey gone, she had no one. Nothing. Nowhere to go.
She didn’t bother to scream
when the weight of the building came down upon her, crushing the life she’d
fought to keep from her frail mortal body.
There was no one to hear,
anyway.
![]()
It had been a hell of a day,
and not in a bad way, Spike thought as he punched into and through the gut of
yet another baddie. His slimy hand clamped
around the thing’s spine and ripped it out the front of its gut, and it croaked
before it could yell.
Yeah, a
hell of a day. He mused over events, letting his mind wander
as he waded into yet another fight, fists and fangs first… Helluva
day. Sign up for a suicide
mission… he ducked a mace swung at his head, kicked out to break the demon’s
arm in two places, caught the mace as it was dropped and used it to chop the
attacker’s head off… Drink some of the best beer and whiskey he’d had in years…
he head-butted a blobby grayish thing, then broke off the mace in its
skull. When that didn’t stop it, he
jammed the broken end of the mace handle up the general vicinity of its arse,
then chuckled when that did kill it.
Figured the dozy thing’d keep its brain in its hind end.
Something sharp slammed into
him from the side and he rolled with it, coming out of his impromptu somersault
to snap-kick the demon behind a knee, following that with a two-fisted punch to
the base of the spine that took it out of commission. Humming lightly, an old English lullaby he
hadn’t heard since he was a boy, Spike plowed back into the melee and resumed
his happy rundown of the day’s events.
Ah, yes, a discerning crowd
hanging on his every word as he declaimed, his poetry finding a place a century
after his death it never found in his human life. Maybe that had been his problem, he thought,
wrapping one arm around a demon’s head and wrenching it around to break its
neck. I was just born before my time.
He ducked a stake, grabbed
the arm holding it and folded it back on its owner, who died upon impalement
with a sputter and a squawk. A moment
later, looking around rapidly for the next attack, Spike realized he was alone
on the street.
Well, nearly alone.
Okay, completely alone, as
Angel walked away into the night, bloody damned trench coat flapping like some
kind of poufy supermodel. Spike growled,
realized he wasn’t vamped out any more, and hunched his shoulders as he waited
for his face to shift and his fangs to lengthen.
Then waited some more.
And some
more.
A rhythmic thud sounded in
his ears. It made him twitchy. He shook his head, growled a little deeper,
and scowled, wondering why the hell he wasn’t vamping out.
Eventually, when he was
absolutely alone in the middle of the alley surrounded by a pile of demon
corpses half a mile high, it dawned on Spike that the reason he couldn’t vamp
out was because he wasn’t a vampire anymore.
He was a human.
The flippin’ thud was his own heart pumping.
Been so long since he’d heard it he’d forgotten what it sounded like.
Looked
like he was the Shansuey thingy after all. He felt a dim glow of triumph
over Angel, completely human lips curling into a sneer.
Then, in the distance, he
heard a rumble. More
demons. He tensed, licking blunt
teeth where fangs used to be. His eyes
widened. It was a little disconcerting
to feel the blood drain from his face.
“Well, shit,” he muttered,
“Helluva time for this to happen!”
Then he turned and ran like
hell was on his heels. Because it was.
![]()
“Angel,” was the first word
from Lindsey’s mouth after he returned to life, as it had been when he fell
into death.
“Not quite, but I’m workin’
on it,” the apparition in front of him informed him solemnly, his tone belied
by the twinkle in his eye.
Lindsey blinked. One hand came up to rub his chest, fingers
catching in the holes the bullets made when they’d cut into him. Only the shirt was torn. His chest was intact.
“Ouch,” he said
experimentally, then nodded slightly. Yeah.
It had hurt, like a bitch, but that was fading. But it shouldn’t hurt at
all, ‘cause he was dead. Wasn’t he?
“Not quite,” the ghost said
again, with a beaming grin that made Lindsey want to hit him repeatedly with
something very heavy. “Ya tried. It didn’t take.”
When his brain finally
stopping spinning long enough for Lindsey to try to make sense of the
senseless, he realized he knew the man. Or had known of the man who was now the ghost.
Only he didn’t look like a
ghost. He was nearly corporeal, not as
misty as most ghosts Lindsey’d met. His
skin was so silver he looked as if he was made of the stuff, and he had arcane
symbols etched into the surface in a deep royal blue.
“Doyle?” Lindsey asked,
steadying his voice with sheer willpower.
“What happened here?”
“Ta me or
ta you?” Doyle asked.
Lindsey scowled at him. “Both.”
“Me,” Doyle said airily,
waving one hand in a dismissive way, “I’ve been pinch-hittin’ for the Powers
that Be. Since the last batch got
slaughtered they’ve been a bit light o’ help on their side of the battle. But m’ time’s nearly done, and it’s your turn
ta bat.”
Lindsey blinked at him, then scowled harder.
Damned ghost – spirit – Power – whatever wasn’t making any sense.
“How?” he bit out. “I’m dead.”
“Nah, y’re
not dead. Y’re
an immortal.”
“I’m NOT working for Wolfram
and Hart!” Lindsey yelped.
Doyle snickered, then held out his hands in a placating gesture as Lindsey
tensed up, preparatory to leaping up and beating the crap out of him. Not that such a course of action would
necessarily work on a ghost, but Lindsey was quite willing to try.
It had been a hell of a
day. In a ‘really
nasty hell dimension’ sort of way.
Lindsey was tired, and sore, and feeling betrayed by everybody, and
feeling stupid for feeling betrayed, and he wanted to know why he wasn’t dead.
“Balance in the universe,”
Doyle piped up, reading Lindsey’s mind again.
Lindsey subsided with a
growl and waited for Doyle to get on with it.
Doyle, ever the storyteller, sank down beside him, hovering slightly
above the surface of the floor, his hands sketching the air as he explained.
“It’s all about balance,
really. The Powers that Be been takin’
too many hits, losin’ too many helpers, whilst the Senior Partners, sort o’ the
other side of the coin if ye will, ‘ve been racking up
the wins. ‘S not how it’s s’posed to
be.”
“So why don’t they do
something about it?” Lindsey broke in.
His head ached, he was in
desperate need of a shower to slough off the blood dried to his skin, and he
needed to hunt Angel down and kill him.
Doyle slanted him an amused look.
“Oh, lad, but they did,” he
said softly.
“They made me immortal to
balance out the immortals the Senior Partners have made?” Lindsey was appalled. He had more important things to do with his
life than return to an existence as the lap dog of higher powers, regardless of
which side they were on.
Like
hunting down Angel. And killing him. Slowly. With a whole lot of
taunting. And
lots of torture. A muffled snort
of laughter from Doyle brought Lindsey back to the present.
“What?” he huffed.
“You sure it’s killin’ ye’ll
be wantin’ with Angel?” Doyle asked, then hurried on before Lindsey could find
a way of killing a man who was already dead, who wasn’t a vampire. “No matter now. Nah, the Powers didna make you immortal. You were born that way, or hatched, or
somethin’. Now y’re
part of a larger Game. I’m not the one
to be tellin’ you about that. A
teacher’s on his way, whether he knows it or not, and that’ll be his job for
the doin’. But there are a few things ya
need to know.”
A few? Lindsey thought, then
started as Doyle’s cool fingertip touched the base of his throat.
“These, for starters,” Doyle
said.
Lindsey looked down to find
his skin wreathed in runes. Again. Only these
were much more elegant, much more ornate, and stank of much more magic than
those he’d created himself. They also
glowed through his clothing. He blinked.
“Wha’?” he mumbled. He’d meant to ask ‘what the hell?’ but his
tongue was numb from shock.
They were beautiful. Unearthly, and beautiful.
“They render ya invisible to
the Senior Partners’ senses, their own or their spies,” Doyle told him
matter-of-factly, “and they’ll not be takin’ them off ya, as they rose from yer
soul. They’re part of ya, not imposed by
external magic. Y’r work’s not
done. You are part of the team, no
matter what Angel may think, the team of the Light. By your choice.”
He paused, letting his words
sink in, and Lindsey felt his heart sink along with them. Stuck, and not a fucking thing he could do
about it.
“The Powers have a plan,”
Doyle said softly.
When he didn’t add anything
to his cryptic little announcement, Lindsey asked with a slightly frantic edge
to his voice, “Like what? Well? What is it?”
That slight edge widened
considerably when Doyle rose to his feet and began to fade before Lindsey’s
eyes.
“Where the hell are you
going?” Lindsey yelped, pulling himself to his feet.
Then he froze in place as a
second ghostly form, this one shimmering in gold with amber runes on her skin,
took shape next to Doyle. Brown eyes
glowing, smile sparkling in death as it had in life, Cordelia ignored Lindsey
completely and took Doyle’s hand in her own.
“Time to go, sweetie,” she
said, and Doyle beamed at her.
Lindsey wanted to puke. Or hit
somebody. Before he could do either,
Doyle turned back to him.
“It’s your turn now,” Doyle
told him in a disgustingly cheerful voice.
Then he leaned in and,
before Lindsey could gather his wits to escape, kissed him hard on the lips.
The touch burned from
Lindsey’s mouth to his throat, shooting along the outlines of the tattoos
stretching over his body, down the front of him and up the back, blinding him,
overwhelming him, paralyzing him with fire, leaving him shaking. When the haziness cleared from his eyes,
Doyle was gone. So was Cordelia.
Lindsey licked his lips,
then took a deep breath and waited for his trembling limbs to calm. When he could move without his knees giving
out, he brushed the worst of the dried blood off his shirt, shaking his head as
two mangled bullets fell from the mangled material to the floor.
“Too fuckin’ weird for
words,” he muttered.
Giving the carnage around
him one last glare, he picked up the sword he’d used to kill so many demons,
and went looking for Angel.
He deliberately didn’t think
of Lorne.
That particular betrayal
hurt too damned much.
![]()
The end,
when it came, took Giles aback. He’d
not-quite-joked that they were all going to die, but that so few of them
actually had came as a surprise in the aftermath.
Post-apocalyptic
life was appropriately dull.
After
all, when one has faced ultimate evil (a few times), seen an entire town
collapse into hell, survived by the skin of one’s teeth, and lost nearly all
one’s professional acquaintances in the course of less than a year, it tends to
make moving back to England and settling in the country a less-than-exciting
life change.
He’d
take that. He’d had enough excitement to
last several lifetimes.
Then
Buffy got bored.
Of course,
he wasn’t technically her watcher any longer.
Even after the rest of the Potentials became Slayers, Giles found
himself relegating most of the actual watching to Andrew and Faith, with
He also
didn’t trust her on her own for longer than a day before more hell broke
loose. So, technically her watcher or
no, surrogate father or no, half-trusted friend or no, when Buffy went to
There he
proceeded to spend many late nights bored out of his mind in dance clubs
watching as Buffy worked off a lifetime full of frustration with every pretty
man who could keep up.
Few
could. One night, she found one who did.
By the
time Buffy found Mac, or Mac found Buffy, Giles had surpassed his boredom
threshold several times over and was spending his evenings going to blues bars
before wasting the late hours of the night (and early hours of the morning) in
the dance clubs. Watching. He dug out his guitar, warmed up his voice,
and took out his own frustration on the rather encouragingly enthusiastic
denizens of several intimate clubs throughout France, then continued on with
his newly rediscovered hobby in Italy.
It found him a few casual friends outside the flashier arena of Buffy’s
hunting grounds, and gave him a needed way to hold on to his own sanity, or
what was left of it.
Then one
night the two halves of his evening routine collided spectacularly.
Mac was
a nice enough lad, a bit broody and, on the surface of it, too old for
her. He was a Scot with a typical Scot’s
distrust of the English, but he got along well with Giles, mainly because Giles
never had to play protective papa with him over Buffy. Why would he?
Buffy could certainly hold her own, as she’d proven time and again. At least he wasn’t another vampire. After Angel, then Angelus, then Angel again,
followed by much too much of Spike, a nice, normal, human male was perfectly
fine with Giles.
Besides,
he absolutely loved to dance, and he could actually keep up with Buffy on the
floor. Giles was content.
Until
the early hours of a rather dank March morning, after a long night of loud
music, when Buffy went into the ladies’ room and Mac ducked out into the back
alley.
Every
instinct Giles had screamed at him.
There was an odd sort of magic in the air, and it tasted of danger. Moving without conscious decision, Giles
ducked out right behind Mac.
He was
just in time to see Mac pull a katana out of a coat that surely couldn’t have
held such a weapon and strike a defensive pose against a hulking brute wielding
a medieval sword. Giles automatically
categorized the blade as an Oakeshott type X with a classic wheel pommel and a
practical long guard. The stranger
raised his blade, mumbled something incomprehensible at Mac, and attacked.
Two
incredibly swift moves later, Mac sliced the stranger’s head from his
shoulders.
Giles
found his feet rooted to the ground as a strange mist rose from the
freshly-made corpse’s neck, twining around it before appearing to strike Mac
from all directions. Lightning crackled
around the corpse, now sprawled on the ground, and from the deadened eyes of
the decapitated head, staring blankly in Giles’ direction, before driving deeply
into Mac’s body. Mac, in reaction, threw
his head back and arched his spine until it looked as if it would snap. He dropped the katana as his body shook, his
feet actually leaving the ground as he thrashed under the assault of the
otherworldly lightning.
As Giles
peered through the darkness looking for other potential sword-wielding threats,
his mind cataloged the various forms of demonic possession that might cause
such a result. Several things were
close, but none were quite right. He was
still trying to figure it out, creeping forward cautiously, eyes
and ears alert, when the crackling light show stopped.
Mac
sighed, picked up his katana and wiped it carefully with a handkerchief before returning
it to the invisible space-warping sheath in his coat. Giles melted back into the shadows as Mac
passed him, returning to the club. If he
noticed Giles, he made no sign of it.
Looking
from the noise and light of the club to the dead man in the shadows, Giles’
conscience fought his curiosity for a moment before he followed Mac.
Buffy
was back out on the dance floor, and Mac was moving with her, the heat
generated between the two enough to power a small city. Giles knew this evening wouldn’t end for a
long time, and when it did, it would be with a private party for two. His instinct told him to warn Buffy, but also
urged him to gather whatever information he could before he told her what he’d
seen.
With
that aim in mind, he turned back to the alley, then
stopped dead in his tracks. A black SUV
had pulled up, disgorging five young people, all wearing such uniform dark
clothing he couldn’t tell their individual gender. With an efficiency that bespoke a great deal
of practice, they bundled up the corpse, head, discarded sword, and cleansed
the spilled blood and scorched pavement until no signs remained of the mortal
duel that had so recently occurred.
The
entire operation was completed in less than two minutes.
Giles
blinked at the scoured scene before him for a moment, then
tensed. Someone stood at his right
shoulder. Not feeling any sense of
threat, Giles carefully turned until he faced the newcomer.
He
recognized the man as a fellow musician he’d played with in a particularly
classy bar in
“Hey,
G,” Joe replied as quietly. “Don’t
suppose we could pretend you didn’t see anything?” His whiskey rasp was hopeful.
For half
a second Giles actually considered it, then he smiled ruefully. “Would you feel any better about it if I said
it wasn’t the strangest thing I’d ever seen?”
Joe’s
eyes lit up with curiosity. “Let me buy
you a drink.”
They
talked for the rest of the night. Long
after Mac and Buffy left, long after Buffy bounced back home with a grin on her
face and fell into bed without wondering where her watcher might be, Giles told
tales of demons to Joe, and Joe told tales of Immortals to Giles. By the time they finished a late breakfast,
the casual acquaintances were fast friends.
A month
later he sat with Joe at yet another raucous disco, drinking whisky and telling
war stories, keeping an eye on Buffy as Joe kept an eye on Mac. A slight disturbance at the entrance to the
club caught his attention as two men came in, making their way through the
crowd. Giles bit off the rest of his
sentence to glare at them.
“Buddies
of yours?” Joe asked with interest.
“Sometime
allies, at best,” Giles murmured, eyes narrowing. Angel and Spike. Up to no good, no doubt,
and sniffing after Buffy. He
reminded himself for the millionth time that she was a big girl, the seasoned
Slayer, and she didn’t need him to stake any old enemies… boyfriends… for her,
no matter how much he might enjoy it. “The two men at the bar.”
“Bleach
blond and broody brunet in leather?” Joe
sounded amused, now. Giles shot him a
glance.
“Two vampires, known as Spike and Angel, also known as
Angelus. Buffy has… issues with each.”
The suggestion
of amusement on Joe’s face bloomed into full-out laughter. When he regained control of himself under
Giles unamused stare, he attempted to explain.
“They might be here for Mac, ya know,” he offered.
Giles
looked a question at Joe, and Joe went on.
“Couple hundred years ago. You know Mac loves the ladies and the ladies
love Mac. Plus he’s got a thing for
blondes.” He nodded to the center of the
floor, where Buffy spun and Mac circled her.
“Turns out ol’ broody, yours, not mine,” he clarified at Giles’
instinctive look at Angel, “had a blonde girlfriend. Mac had a fling with her,
and her crazy lady friend-”
“Drusilla! And Darla,” Giles
interjected softly.
“Yeah,
that was them. Anyway, he made both the
ladies pretty happy, pissed off Angelus and Spike, then
spent a decade or so playing cat ‘n’ mouse with those guys. They never caught up with him, then they dropped off the playing field. We logged the action and passed the info over
to your bunch. Looks like the hens have
come home to roost now.”
Fighting
his own rather nasty-spirited grin at the thought of Angelus’ discomfiture,
Giles said, “I remember something about that.
I never did hear all the details.”
“That’s
‘cause we never told you everything,” Joe winked.
Giles
let his grin slip out. “So tell me now.”
As the watchers watched Angel and Spike watching Buffy and Mac, Joe did.
Thankfully,
the vampires were preoccupied with something else, and they left without ever
approaching Buffy. Giles was still
laughing when he dropped Joe off and went home to bed.
He
laughed even harder the next day, when Joe told him the Watchers had sent the
head of the Immortal Mac killed to the vampires. Apparently Angel needed it for a client. Joe’d added Mac’s regards to the ‘gift.’
The next
evening, Andrew told Giles that Spike and Angel had come by the apartment he
shared with Buffy. Andrew hadn’t
mentioned it to her, and wondered if he should.
“No,”
Giles told him firmly. “She’s finally
healing. Let her get on with her life.”
Words to live by for all of them.
If only life would let them.
A week
later, on the twentieth of May, the telephone rang.
“Hello?”
he answered, staring at the unfamiliar number on his caller id display.
“Hello,
Mr. Giles. This is Charles Barringer, of
the law firm Wolfram and Hart. I am
contacting you on behalf of one of our senior management, at his bequest.”
Giles
didn’t like the sound of this. “What
happened?” he asked bluntly. “And to whom?”
The
officious voice on the other end of the line continued. “I regret to inform you, Mr. Giles, that
Wesley Wyndham-Pryce has been killed in the line of duty. You are the designated Council contact on his
file.”
It took
a moment for Giles to blink away his shock.
He pulled his glasses from his face and pinched the bridge of his nose
hard between forefinger and thumb, grief unexpectedly jolting through him. Wesley had begun an idiot, but he’d seasoned
nicely according to reports. He was also
the only other living Watcher left from the Council besides Giles.
Scratch
that. He had been the only other living
Watcher. Now there was only Giles. The extent of the loss was embodied by the
fact that one of the enemy was telling Giles about
Wesley’s death.
Clearing
his throat, he asked softly, “Have arrangements been made?” Surely someone in the
“No,”
was the somber answer. “Mr.
Wyndham-Pryce made his wishes clear. You
and only you are to be responsible for taking care of the details.”
That
made sense, Giles supposed. Wesley
trusted him to make sure his body was properly disposed of; none of the others
were as aware as Giles of what uses a corpse could be turned toward, and Wesley
would want to ensure that didn’t happen.
Giles took a deep breath.
“I’ll
fly out tomorrow morning.”
He hung
up, stared at the phone for a long moment, then turned
on his laptop. Thanks to
“Dear
God,” he whispered. The battle had been
intense.
Fred was
dead, before the battle, to demonic possession.
The demon who’d possessed her had also been
killed. Gunn was lost in the fighting,
as Wesley had been. The headquarters of
Wolfram and Hart had been leveled with an untold number of casualties.
Seams
from alternate hell dimensions and at least one smaller version of the
Hellmouth had opened, releasing tens of hundreds of monsters on the
streets. Angel and Spike were
missing. The Circle of the Black Thorn,
a demonic version of the Mafia, had been decimated.
It was a
bloodbath.
Then, a
day later, all supernatural activity stopped.
It was as if both sides of the war had declared a truce. To lick their wounds, regroup, who knew
what. Giles switched to his online
travel account and made arrangements for his flight, then slowly reached out
and powered down the computer.
This was
worse than he’d feared.
Later
that evening, as he packed a carry-on bag, he looked up to see Buffy standing
in the doorway. Her eyes were shadowed,
her arms crossed defensively across her torso.
“What
happened?” she asked. She was too used
to loss. He wished he could spare her
from this.
“Wesley
has been killed,” he answered her gently.
She winced. “To the best of my
knowledge, Angel and Spike are still…”
Not alive, exactly. He finally
settled on “around.”
She
looked slightly relieved, but the shadows were still there. “Want some company?”
“No,” he
shook his head. “There’s nothing you can
do, at this point.” He straightened from
locking his case and stared at her. “If
I promise to call you if I need you, will you promise not to follow me ‘just in
case’?”
She
grinned, a flash of teeth gone too quickly, then shook
her head, blonde hair swinging wildly.
“You better call me. Even if you don’t need me.”
He
smiled in return, more relieved than he cared to admit. “As soon as I know anything more, I’ll pass
it along.”
She
nodded, then stepped forward and caught him in a brief, strong hug. He barely had time to pat her shoulder once
before she let him go and stepped back.
“Watch
yourself,” she punned, deadly serious delivery taking any humor from the
phrase.
He
nodded. She flashed another quick grin
at him, then left as silently as she’d entered. He picked up his bag, dropped it by the front
door, and settled down with a nice hot cup of tea to try to think. Then he picked up the phone. On the third ring, a husky voice answered.
“Hello?”
“Hello,
Joe,” Giles greeted him wearily.
“Hey G,”
Joe replied. “You sound like crap. You okay?”
“Yes,”
Giles lied, and in the pool of silence that fell after the single curt syllable,
he was relieved that Joe let it pass.
“I’m sorry, I’ve some family business to take
care of. I wanted to let you know I’ll
be out of town for awhile.”
“That’s
rough, man. I’ll miss ya at the jam
session tomorrow. Anything I can do to
help?”
Giles
smiled slightly. Joe Dawson was a good
man, and had become a good friend. One
of the few Giles had let past his protective shell in the last several years. “Actually yes, that’s why I’m calling. I was wondering,
have you heard anything… unexpected, lately, coming out of
There
was a silence on the other end for a long moment before Joe answered slowly,
“LA? Yeah, some weird stuff’s been going
down out there. A rise in hunting, more
challenges than usual, and a couple Watchers have missed their call-ins. You going to be out
there?”
“Yes, why?” The activity level
sounded about right for another averted apocalypse.
“Well, I
was thinkin’, maybe you could do me a favor?
Just until I can get somebody out there to cover.”
“What is
it?” Giles asked, curiosity piqued.
“There’s
a new Immortal out there, just came into his own. He’s fresh meat, clueless and vulnerable to
the hunters running around. The guy I’d
usually get to watch him is stuck up in
“
“Yeah, I
know. But this new Immortal’s got ties
to the local paranormal community. Used
to be a lawyer, got a rep as quite a wizard.
Name’s Lindsey McDonald.”
“The
name’s familiar.” Giles vaguely
remembered a lawyer who’d given Angel some grief; perhaps it was the same
man. “If I see him I’ll keep an eye on
him.”
”Thanks, G!” Joe sounded enthusiastic.
“Even if you do find him, it shouldn’t be a long time to baby-sit. I’ll scare up a Watcher for him and have him
hook up with you.”
“All
right,” Giles reluctantly agreed. “I
won’t promise anything, though.”
“No
problem, man,” Joe assured him. “Listen,
fly safe, and let me know if there’s anything I can do for you, okay?”
Giles’
smile widened fractionally. “I
will. And thank you, Joe.”
He
didn’t get much sleep that night.
Particularly vivid nightmares ensured that.
The airplane
was as cramped and uncomfortable as expected.
Giles buried his nose in a book and ignored various attempts from the
Indian family sitting on his left to engage him with their toddler and the
elderly lady sitting on his right to flirt.
It was a
very long flight. The situation did not
improve upon his arrival.
Sighing
internally at the grim task ahead of him, Giles squared his jaw, settled his
glasses firmly on his nose, and got about the dreadful business.
The hotel
was offensively cheerful and completely bland.
The traffic was ridiculous, the rude manner of the pedestrians was
atrocious, and the relentlessly bright sunshine gave Giles the headache.
The
drive to the interim quarters of Wolfram and Hart was the standard
nightmare. Muttering under his breath
about idiots and suicide wishes, certain the cabbie wouldn’t understand a word
since it was all in English, Giles straightened his
collar, ran a hand over his hair in a habitual nervous movement, and steeled
himself to face his duty.
The
paperwork took less time than he’d hoped; the firm was nothing if not
well-organized. The mortuary was a short
cab ride away, not nearly long enough.
As Giles
looked down into Wesley’s unnaturally calm face, he couldn’t help but trace the
lines and scars the young man had gained in the less than ten years Giles had
known him. Too young to die the way he
did; Giles could smell the dark magick on him.
A wizard had killed him, and enjoyed doing it.
For a
moment, sheer rage bubbled up, threatening to overwhelm him. This was the kind of terrible anger that when
coupled with youthful folly had made him a slave to Eyghon. He was older now, but the black temper
remained, and on the edges of his vision he saw twisted shadows creep forward.
This
place was a mystical vortex, more subtle by far than the Hellmouth but no less
evil. Giles reined in his rage by sheer
force of will, and watched the shadows reluctantly fade.
There
were temptations here. Traps, as well. He
would have to be on his guard. Staring
down once more into Wesley’s deceptively placid features, Giles gave serious
consideration to calling for reinforcements.
But his options were few.
He
couldn’t call Buffy. She was exceptional
with physical threats but tended to jump in ill-prepared for metaphysical
ones. He would end up spending more time
worrying about her than he’d need to simply watch out for himself.
Had
He would
have to go it alone.
He would
stay in
The
thought didn’t bother him in the least.
Reaching
down to rest his hand against Wesley’s hair, Giles said a silent goodbye and
wished the man’s soul a peaceful rest.
After the life he’d led, he deserved nothing less.
Two days
later, on a bright Sunday morning, Giles scattered Wesley’s ashes off the end
of a quiet pier twenty minutes’ drive from where the man died. He lowered his head, said a prayer for the
dead, and turned away. It was time to
get back to work.
![]()
After staggering from the
apartment where he’d apparently died, been kissed by a dead man who wasn’t a
vampire, and been reborn as an immortal who wasn’t working for Wolfram and
Hart, Lindsey headed for the one place he thought he might find Angel.
He didn’t. A huge pile
of rubble covered blocks where the headquarters of his old law firm used to be.
Surrounding it was a
battlefield. It looked as if half the hell dimensions in existence had
dumped the combined contents of their graveyards onto the streets and alleys
surrounding the building. He stared in some confusion at the mess,
picking his way over piles of corpses, every demon imaginable and several he
wouldn’t have imagined in his worst nightmares.
Angel was nowhere to be
found. Lindsey did, eventually, find what was left of Gunn. The
dead man had a feral grin on his face, fierce pleasure frozen in rictus, a
dozen colors of blood covering him from bald head to the soles of his
shoes. His eyes were open; they were oddly peaceful in contrast to his
expression. Lindsey knelt beside him and, when he found the eyelids
wouldn’t close, took off his jacket to drape it over Gunn’s face.
“He fought like hell,” a
voice came from behind Lindsey.
Lindsey was on his feet with
a stake in his hand before he knew he’d moved, much less where the stake came
from. Spike backed away, both hands up, eyes wide.
“Slow down, there, cowpoke,”
Spike drawled in a poor imitation of John Wayne. It sounded ridiculous in
his mongrel English accent. “Don’t go killing the messenger, mate.
Speaking of which, did you know you’re glowing?”
Lindsey looked down at the
symbols painted across his skin, visible through his shirt, and sighed. “Damnit.” He might be invisible to the Senior
Partners, but he was shining like a neon sign and there were still a lot of
demons around, if the battle was still on. He glared at Spike. “Is
the fighting still going on?” he asked bluntly.
“Hope not,” Spike answered
readily. “Not exactly up for much, now, am I?”
Confused again, Lindsey
upped the glare a bit and waited for an explanation. Spike shrugged,
crinkled his face… and didn’t vamp out.
“Oh.” Lindsey tossed
the stake back onto the body he’d pulled it from. “Shansued,
huh?” Boy, was Angel going to be pissed.
Spike gave him an
insufferably pleased look, which turned to panic an instant later at something
he saw over Lindsey’s shoulder.
“Incoming!” Spike yelled,
and ducked.
Lindsey pivoted, turned, and
thrust up with one fist, catching the Jwagmir demon in the belly with the full
force of his punch. Given that Jwagmiri carried the seat of their central
nervous system in their bellies, this had the fortunate side-effect of sending
the demon into a seizure. Lindsey shook off the pain in his knuckles and
looked down at the quivering body. Ignoring the four paws tipped in
razor-sharp claws, he waited for his chance then stomped the Jwagmir hard,
feeling flesh give all the way to the spine. With a single short gurgle
it expired.
He sighed again and walked
over to wipe his boot on the grass verge next to the curb. As he passed
Spike, he gave the exceptionally pale ex-vampire an assessing glance.
It wasn’t just his natural
washed-out look. Spike was terrified. His eyes were wider than
usual and he looked twitchier than Lindsey had ever seen him. It wasn’t a
good look for Spike.
“How you
holding up?” Lindsey tossed over
his shoulder.
The dam burst. Spike,
it seemed, had turned human near the beginning of the battle. Since then,
he’d been hunted, bitten, lost several fights, not healed at all, felt sick to
his stomach, actually had to pee (which he hadn’t had to do in decades) at the
most inconvenient times, he was starving to death, he was completely exhausted,
and in general found this whole ‘human again’ deal much more up Angel’s alley
than his own, because really “I liked being the Big Bad, really, I did, and
bloody hell if I want to go back to being the wee Willie I was! Besides,
it’s not like I have any chance with Buffy, after all, and she’s the only
reason I wanted the sodding soul to begin with…”
When he finally broke for
breath he was shaking with what looked like anger, disgust and
frustration. Lindsey raised an eyebrow and didn’t bother smothering his
grin. “Then why don’t you find a nice vamp and show her your neck?”
Spike looked at him like
he’d lost his mind, then reconsidered. Lindsey
grinned again as thoughts chased across Spike’s face. Eventually Spike
gave a grin of his own, turning and running off without another word. As
he rounded the corner Lindsey thought he heard Spike sing out, “Harmony, sweet,
here I come!” but he couldn’t be sure.
Lindsey shook his head and
resumed his hunt for Angel. The air was cooling rapidly, as cool as it
ever got in LA at least, and he decided it was time to take a break, make his
way to the apartment he used to share with Eve and hope she hadn’t moved since
he’d been in Wolfram and Hart’s hell dimension holding cell, take a shower,
find some clothes, grab a bite to eat… THEN hunt down Angel and kill him.
Absently, he wondered how, or if, Eve had made it through the destruction of
the firm.
He didn’t wonder for
long. Once he made it home, he spoke a quiet incantation that took down
the wards and unlocked the door, keyed in the security code, and stepped into
dusty, abandoned silence. He knew, then, that she wouldn’t be coming
home.
It was too bad; she’d been a
decent woman, for a drone created by ultimate evil to serve their ends, and
she’d loved him, even if he hadn’t loved her. He shook off the melancholy
that settled around him and headed off to the shower.
Eve had been a tool, as
Lindsey had been a tool to Darla, as Angel was to the Powers that Be, as
everyone was to someone, in Lindsey’s world. Unfortunately for Eve, there
wasn’t room for more than one obsession in Lindsey’s life, and that was
Angel. It had been for years.
Washing soap suds away, he absently
traced a rune with his fingertips and admitted, if only to himself, that for
that obsession, at least, there was no end in sight.
![]()
Fighting instead of thinking
worked well for Angel. As the last of the demons, hell hounds and
dragonets fell, he looked around for more. It was eerily silent after the
chaos of battle. All he could hear was a single heart beat. He
looked around.
Well, shit.
It was coming from
Spike. Spike, standing in the center of a ring of corpses, blood
splattered all over him, mace in one hand, broken sword in the other, face in
an utterly human snarl, with no fangs in sight. Spike, who’d gotten the
reward Angel had fought so long to attain.
Figured.
With a silent snarl of his
own, Angel turned and strode off. Someplace else.
Where there was no Spike.
No anybody else, either.
It gradually dawned on Angel
that his plan had worked all too well. The scary fiery rips in the sky
had mended, leaving behind the gray on black of clouds against the night time
he was used to seeing. The moon was mostly hidden, leaving only a weak
light to see by, plenty for his vampire-enhanced vision.
Damn it.
He was supposed to be the
one who got the prize. He was the freaking Hero, after all. In the
end he’d gotten every other person, every ally, human and non-human, around
him, killed. Except Spike, of course, and normally he’d say Spike didn’t
count, except, of course, this time he not only counted, he won the whole
goddamned jackpot.
Fred had been dead for
awhile, and the bitch goddess who’d taken her place hadn’t ever really been
part of Angel’s extended, now dead, adopted family. The thought shook
him.
Dead.
Yeah, he’d considered it, before he even told them what his crazy plan way, but
he’d thought it was worth it.
Of course, he also thought
he’d be dead, too.
Or human. At least.
Still, dead. And he
was, still dead, that was.
He grumbled under his breath
and kept walking.
Gunn was dead; Angel had
seen something disembowel him. Another hero, one Angel mourned, as he
mourned Cordelia, as he mourned Doyle. All dead.
Wesley,
At least Connor was
alive. Well. Still wanted to know him.
Miracles did happen. Once in awhile.
He wondered how Lorne had
done. He knew he’d probably never see Lorne again, certainly not if Lorne
saw him first, and that was another shame. It probably hadn’t been very
nice to have Lorne kill the pesky little shit… okay, it was not nice at all…
but somebody’d had to do it, and Lindsey at least trusted Lorne so would let
him see his back. Since Lindsey’d come back from
Since he’d come back from
the hell holding cell he was an even tougher bastard than he had been.
Something about getting your heart ripped out only to wake up and have to go
through it again every day … well, Angel supposed that’d make anybody
distrustful, and Lindsey hadn’t been the trusting type to begin with, and why
was he still thinking about Lindsey?
Angel was beginning to think
he might have a bit of an obsession with Lindsey.
A gang of enforcers, a
motley mix of Urshluk, Groleks, and Pelter demons, boiled out of an alley and
surrounded him. Angel gave up his brooding with relief and went back to
fighting. Muscle memory and sheer bloody enjoyment carried him through.
This was the closest his own demon ever came to being free, wallowing in the
unthinking fun of slaughter. True, none of the slaughtered were edible, and that was a drawback, but after the last one
fell, Angel wandered through the darkened streets until he found one of his
favorite suppliers, and bought a couple pints of pig blood. Wandering
back into the night, he poked the top of the bag with a fang and took a
gulp. It tasted stale and a little thick, but he didn’t bother trying to
find a microwave.
Since he
didn’t have an apartment any more.
So, no
microwave.
He finished the last of the blood,
tossed the container in a dumpster, and kept wandering. That set the
pattern for the rest of the night. Wander, brood, fight as needed, wander
some more, brood some more. Honestly, it
was a little boring, but he didn’t know what else to do.
Again.
“Ready to
die, you son of a bitch?”
Good thing he was capable of
simultaneously brooding, reacting to block a threat, and wondering if he’d lost
his mind. Otherwise Lindsey’s stake would have caught him right through
his unbeating heart.
![]()
Oh, he was gonna enjoy this.
Lindsey swung the stake with
deadly accuracy, but Angel managed to twist out of the way. The wood tore through Angel’s biceps, black
cloth and white skin giving way to a line of blood.
Strike one.
The next blow landed exactly
where Lindsey aimed it, catching Angel in the kidneys and sending him to his
knees. He was up unbelievably fast, but
Lindsey reacted just as quickly, feeling something more pulse through him than
the usual adrenaline and underlying magic he’d mastered in his time away from
LA. The magic sang deep inside him, in
his bones, in his blood, and he moved with it, flowing around Angel in a dance
that could only end in death.
Permanent death, if Lindsey had his way.
Angel flipped backward to
avoid a kick heading for his throat, and taunted, “Hey, glow-boy. Looking kind of painted up there. I thought the Senior Partners took all your
pretty body art away from you when they sucked you into hell?”
He swung at Lindsey and
Lindsey grabbed hold of his wrist, using Angel’s arm as a lever to slam Angel
into the ground. Angel bounced back up,
vamping out as he came.
“Seems like the Powers
aren’t quite done with me yet,” Lindsey growled, baiting Angel right back,
hoping Angel might let something slip.
“That was low, sending Lorne to do your dirty work. Low even for you.”
He ducked another kick and jabbed
Angel in the belly with a shoulder, flipping Angel back onto the ground. Angel rolled out of reach of Lindsey’s stomp
to the abdomen then bounced back to his feet.
They circled each other.
“Didn’t do a very good job,
did he?” Angel licked his fangs, then grinned and rushed Lindsey, catching him
around the ribs and sending them both over onto the ground. “When you want something done,” Angel rabbit
punched Lindsey in the side, making Lindsey lose his breath, “you have to do it
yourself.”
“Take your best shot, you
son of a bitch,” Lindsey grunted, butting Angel solidly in the chest with his
head, getting some much-needed breathing room.
“Just like you, such a hero, turn on the ones who think you’re their friend,
think they can trust you.” An uppercut
to Angel’s jaw slipped and Lindsey sliced his knuckles open on Angel’s
fangs. “Fuck!”
“You’re one to talk about
trust,” Angel snarled back, the licked his fangs again.
Lindsey was disturbed to
find it was kind of a turn-on when he did that.
He shook his head hard and missed Angel’s next move, so found himself
flat on his back with two hundred pounds of hungry vampire spread-eagled on top
of him.
That was also disturbingly
erotic, and Lindsey decided then and there that if he survived this, he was definitely
going into therapy.
Or chopping Angel’s head off
with the nearest sharp blade he could find.
Maybe
both.
“Mm,” Angel sighed into his
throat. The hair on the nape of
Lindsey’s neck stood up. “Lunch.” Angel drew
back to glare one last time at Lindsey.
“After all, it’s not like I’ll lose my just reward if I eat you up, is
it.”
Lindsey was still thinking
about the bitterness in Angel’s voice when agonizing pain lanced through his
neck, down his shoulder and into his chest.
The sound of Angel sucking his blood was obscenely loud in his ear. Lindsey’s arms felt like lead, his body
weakened ridiculously fast, and he couldn’t do a damned thing but lay there and
die.
Probably just as well. At least if he was dead, he wouldn’t have to
explain away the erection he had, pressing into Angel’s stomach.
Small
mercy, for damned sure.
![]()
Angel wasn’t really going to
drain him. Really. After all, he wasn’t Angelus, no matter how
pissed off he was that Spike got his reward and that everybody’d died except
him and that no matter how many times he killed Lindsey the little shit just
kept coming back.
Then he got a taste of him.
Of course, he’d had little
tastes of Lindsey before. Licking the blood off his fist after decking Lindsey, a spatter across
his face when he chopped off the man’s hand. Angel’d had a thing for Lindsey’s neck since
the first time he saw him; any excuse to get his hands on it, Angel took. So the taste wasn’t completely new. It was sweet, human blood, but Lindsey’s was
no more sweet than any other mortal. Maybe there was a little kick, from the dark
magic Lindsey’s life was steeped in, from the evil to which he’d sold his
soul. But nothing
really all that special.
Until this
first real bite. The first long pull at the
heat pulsing beneath the thin skin, the vital splash of it over his fangs and
across his tongue. It sang to him
now in a way it never had, not even when he was Angelus at his worst. The demon inside him reeled, the blood
packing a punch that went straight to Angel’s head, and before he knew it he
was sucking hard, greedily, tongue lapping at the draining wound, desperate for
more.
It was a lot like whiskey
had been to Liam back when he was mortal.
Pure nectar and never enough. He drank deeply, holding Lindsey tightly
against him, life and breath and warmth and passion until there was nothing
left but clean torn flesh cooling beneath his mouth. His tongue delved into the wound, but there
was nothing left.
Nothing left.
The madness left Angel as
abruptly as it descended, dumping him back into reality with Lindsey’s cold
body lying limply in his arms. The runes
on Lindsey’s skin glowed, mocking him with signs of a life no longer extant;
the demon in Angel howled in angry disbelief, and the soul inside him wept.
No sign of his anguish
showed on his face. There was only
slight befuddlement, the bemused aftermath of drunken euphoria unlike anything
he’d ever experienced, living or dead.
Now that it was over, now
that Lindsey was dead, Angel found himself vaguely
shocked beneath the stupor of satiation.
Lindsey wasn’t supposed to be dead.
Angel wasn’t supposed to be able to kill him. They were supposed to fight and insult each
other and Angel was supposed to kick Lindsey’s ass and it wasn’t supposed to
be… over.
Never
supposed to be over. Not for them.
His arms tightened around
Lindsey’s corpse, and he growled, deep in his chest, denial and pain and a
lingering hunger for that incredible taste he wouldn’t ever get to drink
again. For once, Angelus and Angel were
in complete agreement.
This sucked.
And it was his own damned fault.
A second later, he got the
shock of his undead life, as Lindsey’s body convulsed. With a thump Angel could actually hear, the
heart in Lindsey’s chest thundered back to life. Blood began to flow, sluggishly then more
strongly, through his veins. Angel
watched in astonishment as the runes flared brightly then settled into a soft
glow, matching the slight flush of blood under Lindsey’s skin.
And the
glare in the green eyes looking up at him.
“What the hell?” Angel
asked, a little incoherently.
“Did I mention I’m
immortal?” Lindsey asked him.
The words had barely cleared
his mouth when his eyes rolled up in his head and he had a seizure. Angel clamped down on the twitching limbs,
cradling Lindsey’s head to keep it from cracking against the pavement.
Unlike the last half hour of
weird happenings, this one Angel recognized.
He’d held Cordy through enough of them, and before her, Doyle.
Words tumbled out as Lindsey
thrashed against Angel’s hold.
“The Powers have a sick
fucking sense of humor,” Lindsey informed him sourly.
Angel could only nod, then
help him to his feet. They had a battle
to fight. They’d figure out the rest of
it later.
He’d rather be fighting than
thinking, anyway. Especially when the
only thought running through his head was that the Powers did have a twisted
sense of humor, to turn the sole survivor of his hubris, one he could never
trust, into his Seer.
Who tasted like heaven.
Who might be an obsession.
Yeah. Much better to fight than
to think.
![]()
Giles came upon the scene
too late. The fight between the young
Immortal and Angel was over before Giles got within range to shout, to let fly
with stake or bullet, to stop the inevitable he couldn’t believe he was
witnessing even as he watched it.
He’d never thought Angel
would drain a human, not when he was Angel.
His soul wouldn’t allow it. Kill,
yes; betray into the hands of death, certainly; but drain? No.
The sick feeling in his gut
told Giles that it wasn’t Angel, that Angelus was
back, that it was time to end it. He
drew the sharp stake he’d been carrying since beginning his search from his
jacket pocket and stepped forward.
Then
stopped in his tracks, as the corpse in Angel’s arms stirred.
Squinting at the sight,
Giles melted back into the shadows, content for the moment to watch.
Several long minutes later,
he turned on his heel and went to meet Joe’s Watcher friend. This was something altogether different from
what he’d anticipated. Not what his
research had led him to expect.
Perhaps Mr. Pierson would
have some ideas on what to do next.
![]()
“You are joking, I hope.”
Methos sprawled deep in the
cushions of the oversized armchair, staring idly around the rich dark wood
panels of the library as he listened to Joe telling him all the reasons he
should leave his lap of luxury to babysit a newly hatched Immortal.
In
“It’s
“We have a serious shortage
of Watchers on the ground, man.
Something big and nasty went down, and we have people missing.”
Methos stopped swinging his
foot against the cushion and sat up.
“Tell me you’re not going out there without backup,
Just what
he needed. Joe going commando on him. Methos smirked at the double entendre, then shook his head as more of Joe’s justifications
sputtered over the line. The mortal was
good, but he wasn’t as good a manipulator as Methos himself.
“Teach your grandmother to
suck eggs,” Methos scolded affectionately.
“For you, I’ll go. But I won’t
babysit, not for you, not for anyone.
I’m too old for that crap.”
“I’ve got somebody there, not a Watcher, a friend, but he can’t do what you
can. He doesn’t know what to look
for. C’mon, Methos, you’re the kid’s
only hope.”
“Then he’s pretty hopeless,
isn’t he?”
Perhaps he should have listened
to his own assurance. Or
fought harder. The next afternoon
he stood, alone in the lobby of the typically grandiose Hotel Bel-Air, and
mentally cursed his inability to say no to Joseph Dawson.
Not that he could protest,
much. Joe stayed in
It didn’t rain nearly
enough.
He sighed as the child
carrying his bags accepted his gratuity and departed. Looking out at the private patio attached to
the Garden Suite, he rolled his shoulders to shake out eleven hours of being
crunched into a chair that, even in first class, didn’t have enough room for
his legs. Then he smirked.
At least in his present
incarnation he didn’t have to go on the cheap.
Once every three hundred years or so it was good to be
rich. Any more often, and he’d be
too obviously a target. Any less often,
and he’d get sick enough of penury to start lopping off heads, thus becoming a
target again. Better to have the
occasional fling with luxury than lose all perspective and head off to
No. Wait.
That was Mac.
Shaking off thoughts of his
normally broody friend, currently off making a fool of himself over a blonde
girl a fraction his age even if she was the Slayer, Methos grumpily headed to
the suite’s fully-stocked bar. He
couldn’t decide if he was grumpy because Mac was dancing the night away while
Methos reluctantly undertook hero duty, or if he was grumpy because Joe could
talk him into doing something he had absolutely no desire to do.
He reached into the fridge
only to find it was far from fully stocked.
No beer.
Joe was so going to pay for this.
Babysitting was one thing; going without beer was unthinkable.
He was reaching for the
telephone to remedy the pathetic situation, immediately if not sooner, when a
knock sounded at the door. Pausing in
his quest for sustenance, he glared at the interruption.
“Mr. Pierson?”
The voice was English
overlain with American, a long-term expatriate from the sound of it. Right. Joe’s friend. The one who’d been babysitting until Methos
could take over.
Opening the door, he
replied, “Mr. Giles?” then
stopped talking because his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth.
Joe never mentioned Rupert Giles was gorgeous.
But then, Joe was straight, so maybe he missed it.
Suddenly,
![]()
Pierson opened the door and
Giles fell through the rabbit hole.
At least, he felt a bit like
Joe hadn’t mentioned that
Pierson was gorgeous. Nor had he
mentioned the man was a Warlock.
It wasn’t a kind Giles had
ever seen, but his own experiences with ancient magic through the demon who’d nearly killed him stirred in his memory as he looked
at the other man.
Magic lived deep in the eyes
staring back at him, the color of wet autumn leaves, green and gold and
ageless. It hummed in the aura around
him, so strong even a non-adept like Giles could sense it. In that moment Giles knew Pierson was an
immortal, like MacLeod and yet unlike him, with a patina of youth painted over
a depth of experience no one man should ever have to bear.
Giles wanted to hug
him. Or fuck him. Preferably both. But first he had to remember how to speak.
“H-h-hello,” he finally
stuttered.
Pierson stared at him
wordlessly. Giles felt a blush start
somewhere around his ankles and not stop until it reached his hairline. He hadn’t felt this awkward, or this aroused,
in years. He automatically reached up
and removed his glasses, one hand rubbing his eyes.
Long fingers wrapped around
his hand and drew it away from his face.
A thumb rubbed circles in his palm as he was pulled gently into the
hotel room. He barely had time to register
the opulent fittings surrounding him before he was pressed, less gently, back
into the closed door, then kissed, with very little
gentility at all, until he couldn’t breathe.
Apparently the arousal was
mutual.
He’d’ve given thanks for
that fact but he was too busy trying not to pass out as Pierson kissed every
last thought out of his head. Someone
moaned, Giles couldn’t tell which of them it was, then that ever-so-talented
tongue was out of his mouth and working at the side of his neck, and it was a
definite possibility he was going to come in his pants.
“P-p-p-p…” he couldn’t get
the man’s name out, too distracted by the sensations working their way through
his body, from his neck straight to his cock.
Too startled at the fact that he was being expertly seduced by a man
whose first name he didn’t yet know. Too
busy melting under that seduction to care, as very soon he’d be unable to
articulate a name had he known it.
“Methos.” The word vibrated
against his skin, and Giles whimpered, a shiver tearing through him.
Ah. Methos. Homonym Greek mythos, speech,
thought, story of unknown origin. Lost in the mists of time.
Rather like his control, he admitted, arms sliding around Pierson-, no,
Methos’ waist and drawing him close until he could feel an erection matching
his own pressing against him.
Well.
Perhaps the questions about
young Mr. McDonald could wait.
Rupert went on mental
vacation and Ripper took control.
Much later, after very
little intelligible conversation, a great deal of physical exertion, and
satiation at a level he wasn’t sure he’d ever previously attained, Giles turned
his head on the pillow and stared over at Methos.
Sweaty spiky hair flopped
against white linen. Long dark lashes
brushed flushed cheeks. That inspired
(and inspiring) mouth was open slightly, breathing rhythm steadying as Giles
watched. After too few enjoyable moments
of watching, Methos turned to face him and opened his eyes.
The shadows were lighter,
not by much, but by a little, and Giles fought a ridiculous grin at the thought
that he’d done that. His efforts at
control must not have been completely effective, as Methos grinned back at him. The grin immediately disappeared into a
ferocious frown.
“What?” exclaimed Giles,
startled by the abrupt change in expression.
“We have no beer!”
Methos sounded as if it were
the end of the world. He swung out of bed, paying absolutely no mind to his nudity and providing
Giles with a view that would have gotten quite a rise had there been any energy
left in his body. He enjoyed it
nevertheless.
As Methos hung up the phone,
room service properly motivated to deliver beer immediately if not sooner,
Giles smiled at him.
“By the way,” he said
quietly, “I’m Rupert Giles. Joe’s friend.”
Methos gave him a crooked
grin in return. “I’d say pleased to meet
you, but I’m sure you noticed.”
It turned out Giles wasn’t
as depleted of energy as he’d thought, and he pulled Methos back into bed to
explore the phenomenon. Some time during
their distraction several bottles of beer were delivered, a fact Methos greatly
appreciated, eventually.
It was quite some time
before the problem of Lindsey was addressed.
![]()
Lindsey didn’t say much as he
and Angel made short work of the nest of demons threatening the pretty young
brunette. She cowered in the corner
until the bad guys were all dead, then screamed ‘fuck!’ and ran away when he
and Angel turned to her. Angel gave
Lindsey a confused look. Lindsey sighed.
“Ridges. Fangs. Gore,” he
stated simply.
The confused look
disappeared and Angel shook his head, feature returning to human as he
did. “Oops.” He looked sheepish.
Lindsey wanted to smack
him. Or, maybe, kiss him. Clenching his fists, he glared at Angel.
Angel glared back. Then the glare melted into something a lot
hungrier. Lindsey might have been
frightened if he wasn’t so turned on.
Okay, so he was frightened
AND turned on. Standard
operating procedure around Angel.
Lindsey sighed again.
Angel grabbed him, hauled
him close, and kissed him.
Lindsey kneed him in the
groin.
Then he looked down at the
vampire holding his balls with both hands and gave in to temptation. Reversing their usual greeting, he wrapped
his hands around Angel’s throat and hauled him to his feet. Then Lindsey kissed Angel.
Angel, thankfully, kept his
knee to himself.
Time disappeared for awhile
as all Lindsey was capable of appreciating was Angel, weirdly cool hands
pressing against the equally-weirdly hot hieroglyphics running over Lindsey’s
skin, heavy press of his tongue in Lindsey’s mouth, the weight of him pressing
Lindsey back against the rough plaster wall, unheeding of scrapes or splattered
demon blood or the smell of the filthy alley around them.
Unheeding
of anything, until a disgruntled voice demanded, “Get a room, ya perverts!”
Lindsey swam up from his
immersion in Angel to see a homeless man, camped across the way, snarling at
them. Over his shoulder, Angel snarled
back. The homeless guy, used to much
stranger sights than a horny vampire and a glowing tattooed man making out (it
was, after all, Los Angeles), wasn’t impressed.
“Y’know,” Lindsey finally
managed to gasp, “room… might be a good idea.” He arched up against Angel, grinding their
bodies together everywhere he could reach.
Angel’s head whipped around
so fast it was a wonder he didn’t rupture something. His eyes glowed yellow and he pressed back,
hard. He didn’t bother answering, with
words, anyway.
Halfway down the street it
dawned on Lindsey that Angel didn’t have any place to go, and his own apartment
was too damned far away.
“Uh, Angel,” he started to
say, then shut his mouth as Angel pulled them into the lobby of one of the
premier hotels in
The snooty desk clerk, as it
turned out, was much more impressed with Angel’s snarl. Or perhaps it was the wad of cash Angel
pushed into his hand. Whichever it was,
Lindsey found himself flat on his back on a king-sized bed with Egyptian cotton
sheets so fine they felt like satin against his skin, and a couple hundred
pounds of aggressively turned-on vampire pinning him to the mattress.
Not the way he’d expected
the day to turn out, but a hell of a lot better than he’d feared it would.
When he woke up a couple
hours later, surprised at how little his stretched muscles actually hurt and
secretly impressed with his greatly improved stamina, Angel was tracing his
tattoos with one finger, a fascinated expression on his face. Lindsey gave him a quizzical look.
“They glow,” Angel said
softly. “And there’s something else.”
He dipped his head, vamping
out as he leaned down, and delicately sliced across Lindsey’s nipple with one
fang.
After a marathon bout of sex
with a vampire, Lindsey didn’t bother hiding the fact that blood play turned
him on, but to his surprise, when he reached for Angel’s cock, Angel batted his
hand away.
“Look,” he said, licking the
blood away so Lindsey could see the cut.
The healing cut. Being knit together
with miniature lightning the same shade of blue as his
protective tattoos.
“Okay,” Lindsey drawled
slowly, “that’s new.”
“Not to me,” Angel mumbled
against Lindsey’s skin as he licked it clean of blood. “Seen it before. Never tasted anything quite
like it.” He looked up, pinning
Lindsey with an intense brown gaze that carried a hint of yellow. “You’re an Immortal.”
If he’d expected his little
pronouncement to clear anything up, he was wrong. Lindsey was more confused than ever.
“Yeah, I know,” he
nodded. “I told you. Powers that Be, Seer, all
that crap.”
Angel was shaking his head
no before Lindsey finished talking. “Not
that kind of immortal. Not like
Eve. Another kind. Different kind.”
He paused and kissed
Lindsey, gently, shocking Lindsey into forgetting the question he was going to ask, then went on.
“I’ve met them before. They’ve
been around forever, I think. They’re
not evil, or good. They just are. They go around fighting each other, but they
don’t target mortals. The demons tend to
stay away from them. They’ve got their
own thing going on, and they keep a pretty low profile.”
His fingers were tracing
over Lindsey’s skin again, but the distraction and ensuing arousal weren’t
enough to override his survival instinct.
His brain was too busy ticking over possibilities. Great. Yet another kind of mystical creature, and
yet again, it was him.
He pulled Angel’s head up
with a firm grip on his hair and demanded, “Tell me everything you know about
them.”
“Now?” Angel asked.
Lindsey was about to tell
him yes when Angel moved his hand down Lindsey’s cock and between his legs,
following that with a thigh, and even Lindsey’s well-honed survival instinct
gave up the fight to be heard over the blood rushing in his head.
They could always talk about
life and death later.
![]()
Methos was on his fourth
beer, Giles nursing a cup of watery brown pseudo-tea that purported to be
English Breakfast, when Methos froze. Instantly the tea was forgotten as Giles
looked for the imminent threat.
After a moment, Methos gave a
twisted little smirk and shook his head.
Giles stared at him.
“What is it?” His fighter’s instinct was fully engaged.
“It looks like I won’t have
to go looking for my new student after all,” Methos shrugged.
“He’s here? How can you tell?”
Methos downed the last of
the beer and tossed the bottle in the bin by the bed. Settling back against the pillows, he drew
Giles up against him and said, “His Quickening.
I can feel it.” The smirk grew
into a grin. “And he’s getting lucky, if
what I sense has any truth to it.”
“So he’d not appreciate an
interruption?” Giles asked dryly.
“Nope,” Methos answered
smartly, hands beginning to roam. “So,
what say we put this calm before the storm to good use?”
Giles had no objection. If he had, his mouth was soon too full to
voice it.
![]()
The next morning didn’t
start off well.
“Shit!” Lindsey suddenly
doubled over, clutching his head.
Angel was at his side
instantly. “What is it? Vision?”
“Headache,” Lindsey forced
through clenched teeth.
What a massive
understatement. It felt like somebody’d
taken a tire iron to his skull, then followed that up
with hot pokers to the eyes. Worse, the
pain traveled right down his spine, making his arms and legs twitch until he
wanted to curl up in a ball and bawl. Which, of course, there was no way in hell he’d ever do in front of
Angel.
Luckily, before he was
driven to bashing his head against the wall to make it stop, the agony muted to
a dull buzz. It set his teeth on edge,
but at least he didn’t want to cut his own head off anymore.
He looked around the room,
eyes stopping at Angel, standing there with a glass of water in one hand and three extra strength Excedrin in the other. Lindsey couldn’t help it. He laughed.
Angel looked confused.
“Angel of mercy,” Lindsey
cracked, then took the pills and downed them before Angel could get all pissy
and take them back. Angel was halfway
into a snarl at him when there was a knock at the door.
Instantly the buzz became a
migraine again. Lindsey watched blearily
as Angel went over and opened the door.
His hands moved, readying a ward to hold off whatever demons might come in, whatever was causing him so much pain, since he didn’t
actually trust Angel to stop it. Whatever it was.
Turned out ‘it’ was a couple
of Englishmen. They were talking to
Angel, but Lindsey didn’t listen to their words. He was too busy staring at the dark-haired
one with the nose.
Ancient.
He didn’t know how he knew,
but he knew.
This was the one causing him
the flaring pain, and this was the dangerous one. He recognized the one with the glasses as the
Slayer’s Watcher, Rupert Giles, so they might be on some errand or other for Summers, trying to get Angel’s help for whatever crusade
they were on.
Lindsey didn’t think so.
Hazel eyes locked with his,
mirrors to the soul that they were, and the whispers in his mind took form.
Ancient. Death. Elemental
magic seated in his soul. Survival. Not
human. Intrinsically
good. Smoke and
fire and destruction. Blood. Woad and fur and blades and runes; pain and denial and acceptance
and love.
Impression after impression
slammed into Lindsey’s mind, and he recognized the work of the Powers that Be,
saw the path he had to take whether he wanted to take it or not, because that’s
what They required of him. He had to play the Game, not of his choosing,
but by his choice, for within it he could guide the Champion.
Woven through the dark
murmurs and blurring images was the unsettling chime of a child’s laughter.
Those eyes blinked, and the
sounds, and the pictures, and the pain, disappeared.
“Teacher,” Lindsey stated
quietly.
“I’m afraid so,” the man
answered. “Adam Pierson.” He extended his hand.
Lindsey took it, and the
glyphs tracing his arm glowed. The
damned voice whispered again, and Lindsey listened, then
corrected him. “Methos.”
For an instant the hazel
eyes blazed green, and Lindsey found it hard to swallow. Dangerous. Damned dangerous. Then they dropped to the tattoos, and the
green subsided to hazel again.
“Haven’t seen those in
awhile,” Methos told him. “Are you an
Oracle or a Seer?”
He said it as if it was
nothing new, as if the Powers co-opted people’s lives regularly and he wasn’t
the least surprised by it. Giving it a
second thought, Lindsey figured he wasn’t far from the truth. He sighed.
“Seer.” He dropped
Methos’ hand and gestured toward Angel. “For the Champion.”
Methos grinned. “You’ve got yours, I’ve got mine.”
Before Lindsey could ask
what he meant, Giles stepped forward.
Angel looked on, confused again.
The natural state of affairs for him, Lindsey thought unkindly. They might be on the same side, and the sex
was great, but Angel was and always would be an idiot, as far as Lindsey was
concerned. Or so he told himself. Giles cut off his disgruntled view of Angel
and Lindsey looked up to meet razor-sharp blue eyes.
Crap. Another wizard. One as dark as he was
light. Lindsey straightened his
spine and took Giles’ hand in a firm handshake.
The Powers whispered, and
Giles looked surprised.
“You hear ‘em too?” Lindsey
asked.
Giles nodded slowly. “Sometimes.”
“What’s going on?” Angel
interjected, with a little more belligerence than strictly necessary.
“Your Seer is a conduit and
an Immortal,” Giles told him crisply.
“If he wants to keep his head, literally, he’ll train with Methos, and
you’ll do whatever you must to keep him protected.” He pinned Angel with a look. “This is your last chance. If you fail in this, you fail the Light. If the Light falls…”
“Oh,” Methos sounded surprised. “I didn’t realize you were an Oracle.”
Giles frowned at him. “The Powers work with what They’re
given.” He glanced over at Lindsey. “Not for the first time, They’ve
given someone a second chance. Don’t
waste it.”
As if he had a choice.
![]()
Swords.
Angel watched in disbelief
as Adam – Methos – The Nose pulled an Ivanhoe out of his trench coat and
attacked Lindsey.
He hadn’t known quite what
to expect when the four of them piled into a tricked-out silver Hummer and
headed out to a dojo on the outskirts of
And doing
a damned good job of holding Methos off with it. Wasn’t just
fancy footwork he’d learned from those Tibetan monks. And all that time getting his heart ripped
out on a daily basis in Wolfram & Hart’s holding cell hell had sharpened
his self-defensive instincts until they were nearly impossible to get
through. Methos and Lindsey were both
stripped down to the bare minimum, sweat streaming off them, Lindsey’s glyphs
giving his skin a soft glow, as they swirled around one another like dervishes,
each trying and failing to break through the other’s defenses.
Beside him, Giles smelled
the way Angel felt. So turned on he
could barely stand it. His eyes followed
Methos’ every move, a lot like Angel couldn’t keep his eyes off Lindsey.
Oh, yeah. Life just got more interesting all the time.
His cell phone went off,
startling him into a jump, though Giles didn’t notice, too intent on the
fight. Neither did the two
combatants. Angel stepped away from the
clatter of swords and fumbled with buttons until he heard his son’s voice.
“Hey, dad. Is this a bad
time?” Connor sounded like he wasn’t
sure whether to laugh or come roaring to the rescue. Angel grinned.
“Nah, not
me this time.”
“Who’s getting his ass
kicked?”
Angel stared hungrily at
Lindsey’s sinuous moves as he avoided having his arm sliced off by Methos. “Looks like a draw so far.”
“Anybody I know?”
“The tiny
Texan and a really old guy.” A clatter, and Lindsey’s sword was halfway
across the floor, Methos’ blade at his throat.
Angel didn’t do a very good job of suppressing his growl.
“You sound like you want to
be in the middle of that.” Laughter was
definitely winning the battle; Connor sounded like he was about to crack up.
“Oh, yeah,” Angel purred, then remembered who he was talking to and made a strangled
noise.
Connor barely stopped
laughing long enough to tell him to ‘have fun’ before he disconnected. Angel blinked at the phone, spent half a
second wondering what his son had called about, then got distracted all over
again by the long stretch of Lindsey’s sweaty bare throat. An instant later the phone was on the floor
and Angel was moving.
Methos barely made it out of
the way before Angel landed on Lindsey.
His sword slipped, cutting into Lindsey’s neck a little.
Things got a little fuzzy
after that. Angel was vaguely aware that
Giles and Methos locked the door after them, but he was busy sucking at
Lindsey’s neck and shredding Lindsey’s clothes, so he didn’t really pay much
attention.
Much later, it dawned on him
that he might just be addicted.
Staring down at the sweaty, satiated, glowing-blue-tattooed little bastard
securely wedged under him, he found he really didn’t mind.
![]()
Connor stared at the phone
for a moment before he slipped it into his pocket, grinning the whole
time. He was sure his dad would explain
eventually. From the sound of it, he was
a little distracted.
Shrugging off the weirdness
that was his life, he turned back to his physics book and got back to
work. Time and tests waited for no
man. Or vampire.
![]()
Once more back at Methos’
hotel suite, as it was much nicer than his own room, Giles watched as Methos
stripped down and headed to the shower.
He had to take off his glasses and clean them, again, as they kept
fogging up. There was simply something
about Methos…
His thoughts were derailed,
again, as Methos’ voice rode the steam out the bathroom door.
“Care to join me?”
Perhaps he wasn’t quite as
ready to give up excitement as he’d thought he was. If nothing else, being around Methos would
never be boring. And once
a watcher, always a watcher.
Humming under his breath,
Giles disrobed and tossed his clothes over the chair then leaned against the
doorjamb, staring at the blurry image of Methos through the frosted glass. “Need a hand with anything?”
Methos didn’t answer with
words. He had no need; actions were
quite enough.
![]()
Lindsey woke to sunshine and
suffocation, or at least that’s what it felt like. Sometime during the previous evening’s
activity they’d moved from the hard wooden floor of the dojo workout room to a
futon in the corner. Now bands of
sunlight shone through the high windows, inching ever closer to the vampire
draped on top of him, impeding his breathing.
For a long moment, he seriously considered slipping out from under Angel’s bulk
and leaving him there to combust when the light hit him. The rune for protection,
inscribed over his heart, itched, warning him that the Powers might not take
too kindly to him offing their Champion, so he took the high road.
He dumped Angel on the floor
on the far side of the futon and threw a tarp over him. Angel didn’t so much
as stir.
Lindsey poked around the
rooms leading off the main area until he found a shower, then stood under it
for quite a while, letting the hot water ease away the tight muscles from the
workouts he’d gotten from both Methos and Angel, different as they’d been. He was very nearly a prune when the shower
curtain moved, and a naked Angel stepped in with him.
Okay, so there were some
benefits to the broody bastard. Lindsey
grudgingly decided it would be enough.
Not like he had a say in the matter.
Then Angel’s fangs sank into
the side of his neck, sucking gently, as Angel’s cock sank into his body, and
if it weren’t for the strong arms wrapped around his waist, Lindsey would have
melted right into the tiles.
Yeah. Worth it.
Definitely.
Smothering a groan as he
came hard enough to give himself a nose bleed, if he’d had enough blood left
for one by the time Angel got done slurping, he decided they’d just have to
find a way to not kill each other.
Nearly asleep, he let Angel dry him off and curl around him, back on the
futon, now dragged out of the way of the encroaching sun. It wasn’t what he’d been after when he’d come
back, wasn’t really the solution he’d have picked to his problems, but he’d
take it.
The next time he woke up it
was to a vision.
Tucking his sword in his
coat and heading out into the night with Angel, meeting Methos and Giles on the
way, he found himself smiling. Just another day at the office in his weird and twisted little
corner of the world.
![]()
END
![]()