lmx_v3point3

Fic Collection (Theme - Hands)
Part 5, 20 Points: Pain, Temptation, Suffering, Torture

Author: LMX
Fandom: Angel the Series
Rating: PG-13
Pairings: None
Spoilers: All of Angel The Series, up to and including the finale
Warnings: Inaccurate timelines
Edit: Betaed by chokolattejedi, despite other far more important demands on time ;) Thank you hugely.
Continuity Warning: The bits and pieces from Lindsey are going to come out fairly non-linearly. I will probably reassemble them once this is all done.



055. Pain (Lindsey, 309)

The pins and needles started somewhere around the second state line, not in his fingertips like he was used to, but around his wrist, around the scar. He cast his mind back to the bodies they’d left behind them - him and Angel - when they’d burned the Travel Agency to the ground. Thinking rationally perhaps for the first time since he’d been told he was getting a new hand, he wondered if he’d failed to think this though.

The idea that the resources had existed all along to give him a new hand - however heinous the method - but that he hadn’t been worth the outlay until his anticipated promotion had made him realise quite how little he was worth to the company. Given what he had sacrificed for the company’s plans with Darla...

But he’d not really thought about the process, even when Angel had started to explain it to him. Even once he’d seen it for himself. Even after that.

His hand clenched against the pain - sharp now in his wrist - and he pulled over roughly, letting the truck stall and gripping his wrist tight with the other hand.

When he’d stood there, staring at Brad, remembering the time they’d spent together, knowing that at least in some small way his pain was due to something Lindsey had done... Lindsey had assumed that they’d been keeping Brad and all the others alive for whatever other parts could be stolen from them. He’d never considered it might be to sustain the parts harvested - but they had still been connected. How else could Brad control the hand to beg for death?

And now Brad was dead.

Gritting his teeth and forcing himself to focus through the pain, he gingerly shoved the car back into gear and pulled back out onto the road. He needed to find a shaman.



065. Temptation (Lindsey, 256)

He knows there's something dodgy about this contract, even as he lets his pen hover over the signatory line. It's just too generous - and too much for a student like him. To be head-hunted with his background and his grades is unheard of. And by a company as big and powerful as Wolfram and Hart...

There are rumours that they were one of the first companies. Every single case study on the syllabus has their logo on it.

He hesitates and starts to read the contract again - feeling the solicitor's glare intensify. He doesn't let it faze him, spinning the pen in his fingertips as he reads. He was asked to take up this internship by Holland Manners personally, he's going to take as long as it takes. There's an unusual Death Clause, some interesting privacy and security clauses and a fairly aggressive rights waiver, but nothing stands out as particularly worrying. There's no hellfire and brimstone clause, he thinks to himself, privately amused. He scans the Death Clause again and frowns.

"This is basically saying you own my body and all my intellectual property after I die, right?" he checked, and the solicitor chuckled.

"Your very thoughts, sir."

Lindsey smiled back uneasily. "Sure."

Shaking it off and reassuring himself with the clear indication of the first three year's pay grading - he's being ridiculous and he knows it - he signed. There isn't anything he can't get himself out of with the right funding and a heightened sense of self-preservation. He's confident that includes contracts with law firms as old as time itself.



077. Suffering (Lindsey, 243)

When the sword was first thrust at Lindsey, he took it in his left hand and weighted it carefully. He thought about about the handful of free fencing lessons he’d taken in college and how different this sword felt, heavy and unwieldy, and how - like everything else - it felt completely wrong in his left hand.

"In your right hand," the shaman chastised.

Lindsey looked down at his right hand, the slowly opening wound around his wrist wrapped in bandages, pain now constant and sharp through the limb. “You said it would take weeks before it was healed."

"Weeks of hard work," he pointed out, taking the sword out of his hand. "This is the hard work."

"You expect me to learn how to use a sword with the hand I can barely move?"

"Think about your goal." Hefting the sword elegantly, the shaman slid through some breathtaking movements, effortless. Lindsey wanted that. That confidence. "Your suffering now is a payment towards your goal," he continued, no hesitation in his words or breathing as he turned his grip on the blade and flowed through another sequence. "Nothing in the universe is for free. The second law of thermodynamics."

“You’re using thermodynamics to explain how you’re going to fix my magically attached hand?” Lindsey asked disparagingly.

The shaman met his eyes and then rolled his own, settling back into a casual stance. “Take the sword.”



078. Torture (Angel, Cordelia, 172)

"Angel, don't do this," there's a waver to Cordy's voice that Angel doesn't like much, something that suggests her world view is being seriously questioned. "You don't have to do this," she repeated, wrapping two hands around his arm and tugging him back out towards the street.

"There's no other way," he growled back, pulling his arm free roughly and taking a step towards the unmarked door.

"I can't watch this," Cordelia moaned, not following. Her hands are gripped in front of her mouth, white-knuckled.

"You know what, fine," Angel retorted sharply, gesturing quickly. "Go and keep watch out the front. I'll do this on my own."

With a grimace to hide her relief, Cordelia headed out onto the street, tucking her coat more tightly around her shoulders to protect against the cold. She'd rather be out here catching pneumonia than in there with Angel right now.

Moments later, the first tentative strains of "Put Your Hands" made their way out onto to her, followed by half a dozen patrons of Caritas.