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| a.connor a.doyle a.lindsey a.oz a.spike a.wesley a.xander a.other three.somes het.fic character.study |
| Title: Scrying into Fire Author: Tesserae Pairing: A/Lindsey Rating: R Setting: S5 The last of the daylight lingers down by the garden gate and on the house across the road in its grove of pine trees, the lush autumn sunset bringing out more people than was normal for Halloween. But it gets cold early this time of year, and Lindsey has been handing out candy since early afternoon. There were little children at first, princesses and firemen and clowns, their mothers trying to hover inconspicuously as they run up the front walk to ring the witch's doorbell. Smiling polite questions when the door was answered by a young man in jeans, with hair that needed cutting and startlingly blue eyes. To some of them, he offers an explanation: he's a student, she's away, he's housesitting. It's more or less true, in the way that Lindsey McDonald, Esq., junior partner, co-head of Special Projects, had been more or less true. To the other mothers he simply offers the candy he'd bought earlier that week on one of his rare trips into San Francisco, and tries to let his smile reach his eyes.. * Voices rise and fall behind him and he turns away from lighting jack o' lanterns to peer down the walk toward the street. These children are taller, their costumes - superheroes, aliens, serial killers - drawn from the kinds of movies he hasn't watched since his undergraduate days, the last time he needed to step outside his own life to find monsters. No vampires. He hands out more chocolate, compliments a boy and a girl dressed as Siamese twins, and cautions the group not to touch the heavy bell-shaped flowers bordering the walk. Come February, he's going to need to move those plants and cut back the violet aconite below the porch railing. He makes a mental note to look for heavy gloves on his next trip into the city. The children pelt away from the house and disappear into the street. Lindsey listens to them for a moment, watching the last of the day fade to indigo and the quarter moon rise in the sky. Sometime before it sets, he'll need to be done with his Samhain tasks: tonight for scrying in fruit and fire, for lighting candles to guide the dead. Tonight for completing the ritual begun in the black waters of Beltaine. Tonight for atonement, for transformation. * Before he can turn back into the house, wanting a beer and something to eat, he sees a shadow detach itself from the high wall separating the garden from the street and step onto the walk. "You're some hard to find, Lindsey." That voice. Memory like wormwood, //smoke and ash, ozone and oxygen/ fear, acrid and overwhelming/ blood, over and over and over/ gasoline and motor oil// like honey, down the back of his throat. Halloween has brought him vampires after all. "Angel." His throat is tight, his voice carefully neutral. "Almost missed the turn-off." Angel's tone conversational in reply. Two years and more since he's heard that voice anywhere but inside his own head, and it still makes his breath hitch in his chest. Especially when its owner is trying to sound unthreatening. He backs up a step to lean against the doorframe. "Yeah, they keep taking down the sign out on the highway." "Somebody oughta tell them about GPS." "It's some kind of tradition, I think." He watches as Angel crosses his arms and props his long form against the gate in a mirror of Lindsey's own stance. "You gonna invite me in, Lindsey?" Angel sounds - amused, Lindsey realizes with a start; his voice is rougher than usual, with what might be exhaustion, but there's an undercurrent of laughter there he remembers from the night they said good-bye. Of course, that might have been Angel anticipating the speeding ticket Lindsey was thirty minutes away from that night. Angel. Amused. Even after a very long drive. Curiosity starts to coil at the base of his spine. Curiosity and something he's more than a little anxious to explore. Lindsey heads into the house, throws Angel a look over his shoulder. "Come on in," he says, hearing his vowels round and stretch. "How do you feel about Halloween?" "I'm okay with the candy, but I get tired of wearing the same costume every year." * Two hours past the last trick-or-treater and they have covered all the easy questions, how and what and when and you have got to be kidding, are you nuts? Angel sprawls easily in a big leather armchair, one leg slung sideways and long elegant fingers resting a glass of single malt on his knee. The fire makes the heavy crystal sparkle, picks out scarlet apples in a low black bowl by his left hand, plays over the planes of his face. Lindsey suspects that Angel's always known how to find him - more than once he'd gotten phone calls late at night, heard a deeper kind of silence on the other end before breaking the connection. He'd thought about calling back, but hadn't. Pushed the thought of Angel //broad shoulders under pale skin, a tattoo brushed in moonlight// away. Until the dreams started, more vividly than he was used to even at this time of year, when the veil of worlds was thin. Leaving him gasping, impossibly hard, the saltcoppersex taste of his own fist in his mouth. Starting the threshold meditation back in April, he'd thought that all he wanted was to be ready to summon the dead, to make his peace somehow with the dark eyes that scream into his soul during his dreams. Eyes he knows are not Angel's. So why is Angel here, sitting here on his sofa, drinking his scotch and showing no sign of leaving anytime soon? Lindsey wonders if he hasn't misread something critical. The ritual maybe, uploaded to the Internet in wonky code. Or maybe the planning: he's never been very good at playing to the endgame. Maybe the fruit's wrong: wasn't something supposed to have seeds? On the other hand, he certainly couldn't have misread the dreams. Or the flush he can feel on his chest, or the sweet slow beat of arousal pooling in his belly...One lithe movement and he is on his feet, rolling up the sleeves of his white shirt. He kneels and pokes at the fire for a moment, fighting for composure, feeling Angel's eyes on his back. Remembers the advice he'd given Angel before leaving L.A. //don't fight their battle// Composure. Not. //black leather over cashmere, all afternoon and half the night together, the next morning hell to pay but it was worth it// But he hadn't, of course, been the one who had to pay the bill. Maybe it all started earlier than that one night they'd spent together. Maybe if half the night had turned into all the next day, and the next, and the next, it would have all been different. He pivots, still on his knees. Time to figure out what he's summoned, once and for all. Knowing that the firelight will catch the links of the heavy silver bracelet he still wears, he runs his left hand up his thigh, stops with his thumb resting in the creased and worn fabric next to the fly of his jeans. Angel leans forwards, dark eyes intent. With his right hand, Lindsey pushes back the hair he's worn long since he remembered that wearing it long made people want to push it back for him. // make them fight yours// Too late, Lindsey realizes that it's not his left hand but his right that Angel's watching. //why wouldn't you fight for me// Too late, he remembers that Angel rarely fights a battle that's not his own. //I know what I'd do, but this is your deal// Angel is watching him. Lindsey can see him nodding slightly, features carefully blank, one hand gripping the chair arm tightly. Waiting. //an eternity later Brad was dead/ ozone and oxygen/ chemicals, on their skin and in their hair/ smoke and ash and he will never be clean again// And then he can't see anymore, can't see for the tears pouring out from under his eyelids, can't see for what seems like the last three years in slow motion, and then he laughs a little as Angel unwraps his arms and takes Lindsey by the shoulders and pushes him away just enough far enough to see the fire, and the candles, and the apples in their obsidian bowl. Angel follows his eyes, and gives him a thoughtful look. "Shall I cut one for you, have you done that yet?" "How did you know -" "Lindsey. Think. Irish?" Of course. The old ritual was Gaelic, he would surely have seen - But he has taken Lindsey's hands in his, and when they both lie quiet in his larger ones he turns the right one over and examines it. Lindsey's breath catches, and he shivers slightly at Angel's touch. "This healed well..." Deliberately, he puts Lindsey's hands back. "I think we were having the same dreams...?" When Lindsey nods, flushing, he continues. "Wes said I needed to...drive up here, see if you were okay." Nod. "And are you?" Another nod. "In spite of the fact you bought persimmons instead of pomegranates?" "Shit. I knew something was wrong, I could feel it...." And laughter breaks the spell, a little, and when Angel leans forward and touches his lips to Lindsey's it is cool and coppersweet and wet; but it tastes like good-bye, and it is easier than Lindsey thought it would be to take Angel's hands in his, and put them back down. "I should go." "You should." "It's only half past twelve." "You could be back in L.A. before dawn." "I know. You should see the cars they gave me. Really cool." "Angel." "I'm going...." and somewhat to Lindsey's surprise, he is; the long legs and familiar leather coat are backlit by the streetlights for an instant, and then he walks through the gate and is gone. And then Lindsey notices that the candles have all burned down, and the pumpkins are dark; and he stands in the doorway for a moment, looking at the darkened house across the street before turning the porch light back on and locking the heavy front door. Halloween. Apples. Persimmons, for some reason. He'll start with the front garden. The deadly nightshade has got to go. End Feedback |