Warning: (canon) character death, angst, adult language, the usual. Oh, and, uh, angst.
Notes: Inspired by the LA Song sung by Christian Kane, which the lovely trepkos mailed to me with her soundtrack CD's. Don't worry hun, I still owe you Spike/Riley, but CK has such a gorgeous voice, I HAD to write a Lindsey story. I swear, I listened to that song once, and suddenly, I'm a die hard Lindsey fan. Like, overnight. xD
Lyrics included at the end.
Summary: Spike plays the Illyria to Lindsey's Wesley. Even an evil lawyer shouldn't have to die alone.
Spike knew. Of course he knew. He'd known Angel far too long not to know what the old bastard planned with Doy--Lindsey. In fact, Spike had known Lindsey was going to die the very minute he'd discovered he'd been betrayed. Murder had been written all over Angel's face. Thing was, a part of Spike didn't care. The part that had been abused and kicked around by Slayers and sires and lord knew what else in Angel's fucking name didn't give a rat's ass in hell if a good man (well, a relatively good man) had to die for Angel's whims... it was, after all, nothing new. But Spike was tired of being the tool for Daddy, he was tired of living in that immense shadow. No one used him like that and lived to tell the tale--not anymore. Not after her, not after last time. Not after the soul, not after everything he'd bloody fought for, and certainly not by some over-confident wannabe Baddie Of The Week. Fucking Doyle. God, he'd must've been desperate as hell to fall for that, and Spike knows that's even worse. It's his own fault for letting his guard down in the first place, for believing he could actually be something special for a change--it wasn't that a precious thought if he'd ever had one. Here he was, end of the sodding world all over again, and Spike was going to die just like last time, denying love that had never happened in the first place. Just once... without attachments, without lies or false prophecies, without women who stared at him coldly and denied his very worth. Just once it'd be nice to be something... special.
In the end, Spike told himself this no longer mattered. Hell, it'd stopped mattering after Cecily, hadn't it? But even while he was ripping apart the Brethren and saving the fucking baby, all Spike thought about was D--Lindsey and his bloody fucking lies. Just once rang in his head like a death knell, resonating between beneath me and soulless thing, and Spike had to admit--Lindsey wanted to be special too. Why else would the man fight forces beyond his control, with no possible hope of surviving the aftermath? Loving women out of his league, playing with powers not to be played, pissing off Angelus just because they were Rivals, like the bloody Immortal? Lindsey was a terrier yapping at wolves--really, it wasn't that the man didn't know he was going to die, Spike was fairly sure that for all that, the poor bastard was a bit suicidal.
It was just the way everything went down. It was the way Angel let him die, and the way Lorne stood there with a very calm gun hand, doing what Angel didn't bother to do. It was the way the Jolly Green Giant stood there in a very Wesley-like pose, struck down as a destroyed man, his joy raped and shattered by one bullet that never touched him.
Spike saw it, in the end. After the baby, he'd had just enough time to run there, second thoughts flooding his mind. He had a soul now, he couldn't just let a man die, no matter how much he deserved it. It wasn't right, lie or no lie. So Spike pelted through the halls, rain soaked into his very bones, a complete contrast to the last time he'd done this, played the sacrificial champion for a city of fools. He crashed into Lorne, shaking from the cold and, admittedly, his desperation. He babbled an apology to the man, but Lorne just stared at him. A breathing corpse.
Spike floundered. “W-Where--?”
Lorne pointed. Then he laughed, but it was hallowed sound that smelt of basements. “He's dead,” the green demon said flatly. It was all he said.
Spike tilted his head at him, bewildered for a moment.
This wasn't the kind of thing someone with a soul did to people that he cared about. If Angel cared about his friends, he'd have never asked this, because Lorne was not, was never supposed to be a killer. Spike knew he wouldn't have, and for a moment he wondered if he was wrong about Angelus coming back after all. Or maybe they'd simply been wrong about Angel from the start--maybe Angel wasn't nearly as perfect, as grand and glorious as everyone liked to believe he was. Hell, even Spike was falling for it now. It took a dead cowboy, a hallowed-out Fred and three shattered men to see it. Even the Champion was tarnished. Even Lorne.
“Farewell, muffin.”
The green demon walked away very slowly, as if he'd aged three centuries in a single moment. Spike paused, looking after him only once before racing down the hall again.
He could hear Doy--Lindsey's breaths rattling like a pair of broken maracas. Time was, he and Dru would dance to that sound...
**
“...like a stuck fucking pig. I'll kill him, I swear I will! Don't you die yet you pathetic--”
He knew that voice. It was spoken in his dreams, in his darkest nightmares. The worst nightmares, Lindsey found, are the ones where you live happily ever after.
“You.”
Spike slapped his face especially hard, and Lindsey almost felt it through the approaching numbness of death. “Yeah, me! You fuck! I should soddin' I kill you, for what you did--if you die before I can torture you properly, I'll traverse the bowels of hell itself--”
“W-What the f-fuck...?”
“--and drag you back to this miserable sodding ball of rock by your cock!”
Lindsey tried opening his eyes, but it was hard to see. Everything was dark, and it was arctic cold, like he'd been stripped nude and doused in freezing water, left to northern winters where even the bears hid in caves away from the frost. He knew it was cliché to think of death so cold, but really he'd been expecting something more toasty. Maybe that was the torture part, the shock of hellfire once you passed over. Or maybe this was more of a Dante thing. In Dante's hell, the devil was frozen in ice.
All traitors drop to the thirteenth level immediately. Lindsey was falling, but he was fairly sure that somewhere in an alley on the other side of town, Angel was too, and this made him somewhat happier. He hoped they landed in the thirteenth level together, preferably with Lindsey on top, because he would so love to be the guy gnawing Angel's skullcap off. Only fair. Even sinners deserve a certain amount of fairness, right?
Another slap, harder to feel. Lindsey opened his eyes and tried to concentrate on that wonderful, pissed-off voice.
“Stay alive!”
Through the haze, he caught the glimpse of crystal blue eyes, wobbling with a fine sheen of tears. Lindsey smiled and tried to lift a hand, but he was too weak. Spike blinked at the motion and salt water splashed on his lips.
Lindsey licked the tear away with a groan.
“You're... c-crying, S-Spike.”
“M'not.” Spike, of course, rubbed furiously with his coat sleeve, trying to hide such tainted evidence. No doubt he found this utterly pathetic, but Lindsey didn't mind. The idea of Spike--of anyone, really--crying over his corpse was a nice image. It was comforting. It made him feel like he mattered.
“You are,” Lindsey said, his voice growing stronger for a moment. Then he coughed, and it hurt so bad he shed a few tears of his own. Still, he remained fairly calm. He'd known, somewhere along the way, that it would end just like this.
“M'not cryin' over you, bastard.”
Okay, maybe not quite like this, but fairly similar in the long run. Really, after all these years, you'd think Lindsey would know enough not to trust his enemies. There were some things even an evil lawyer couldn't slip through.
Maybe what he should've done was learned to recognize his friends.
“W-Why're you...?”
It was dark again. Wouldn't be long now. Lindsey felt Spike take his hand, and he wasn't sure if the vampire was even aware he was holding on to it. Spike would never do such a thing willingly, would he? Because what they had, however brief, was a lie. He'd taken advantage to get to Angel. Angel didn't even bother to shoot him.
He made the green guy do it. (Really, when he thought about it, he should've listened to Eve. Even Lilah, maybe. Fucking perceptive women.)
Spike never answered the question, and in this, Lindsey found a certain comfort. For a moment, he could live the lie too.
“Sh-shi-tty--”
“Shut up, Lindsey, you're dying.”
“Sh-shitty way to... to die.”
“I wasn't crying,” Spike's voice insisted, but even then it was wet with misery.
Lindsey laughed, then groaned in pain. The hand held tighter. “Boys d-don't c-cry.” Spike grunted in agreement, and Lindsey added, “M-Men d-do.”
“Uh? Men don't cry, you ponce.”
“'C-ourse they... th-they d-do. T-too much not to... n-not t-to...”
Oh God, the pain. It was cold, and dark, and he could feel death's gnarly hands around his throat, squeezing that final gasp of air.
Too much in this world to cry about.
Even Angel, Lindsey admits, knew that very well.
But in some impossible way that continued to stun the senses, Spike was still a boy. He gripped Lindsey's wrist so tight, Lindsey could feel the bones grind together. “Could turn you,” Spike said.
“Don't.”
“You can't die like this. You can't just--”
“G-Go. You've got s-somew-where you--”
“Doesn't matter. Can't just let you--”
“Go, S-Spi--”
“I can't!”
Lindsey felt a final fury overtake him. He's going to die arguing with the bastard! “Go you f-fuck-ing--!”
Silence. The punishing grip was slowly released, and he could hear joints cracking. Arms lifted him carefully from the floor and Lindsey rested in a hard lap, molding perfectly along all his aches and agonies.
Hands caressed his jaw.
“Could make it quick,” Spike said. “Won't feel a thing.”
Lindsey opened his mouth to tell the annoying bastard this was just the way it had to be, but nothing came from his lips and Spike's hands kept their caressing.
“Won't suffer. Promise you that.”
“Sp... Spi...”
“Shut up. Not gonna turn you against your sodding will, asshole. Just gonna make it quicker. You can't just bleed out like this, alone like. Lorne's a lousy shot. He missed the organs. S'bad way to go. Takes longer. Hurts more. Use to do it, back n'the day... me an' Dru, we'd watch for hours...”
Lindsey groaned.
“I'll make it quick,” Spike said.
Some bitter part of him wanted to say, Your fucking babble is torture enough, but Lindsey knew this wasn't true. Of all his possible deaths, he'd never wanted to die alone.
“Q-Quick. You g-got s-s-ssomewhere you... you gotta be, Champion. Need to... to save the world.” He'd laugh, if it didn't hurt so much.
“Not a Champion.”
Lindsey blindly seized a hand. Gripping death-tight, he grated, “You are.”
“M'not a bloody--”
“You are.”
Spike was right.
He didn't feel a thing.
--Fini
Lyrics to Christian Kane's “LA Song”:
Pretty girl on every corner Sunshine turns the sky to gold Warm warm, it's always warm here I can't take the cold
Streets littered with diamonds Every one's glistening This whole world shines so brightly I can't see a thing
She's pretty as a picture She is like a golden ring Circles me with love and laughter I can't feel a thing
The sky's gonna open People gonna pray and crawl It's gonna rain down fire It's gonna burn us all
The sky's gonna open People gonna pray and sing I can't feel a thing
She's pretty as a picture She is like a golden ring Circles me with love and laughter And I can't feel a thing
The sky's gonna open People gonna pray and crawl It's gonna rain down fire It's gonna burn us all
The sky's gonna open People gonna pray and sing I can't feel a thing