Riley/Lindsey: No Place to Go
This may just be my first time EVER posting something without Spike in it!!! Mark your calendars. Though my mind is already scheming on a part two with everyone's favorite chipped vampire in it.
This is intended as an homage to ash_carpenter's fabulous Ranch Hand, where Iowa and Texas meet pre-series and mmmmm hot farmboy sex ensues.
We pick up the story in Season 5, pre- Into the Woods. Riley's not being the best boyfriend to Buffy and Lindsey is coming to town! The boys haven't seen each other for five years (ish - continuity shmontinuity). What will happen? (hint: sex. Lots and lots of sex.)
Lindsey hadn’t meant to come back to California - shit, he’d avoided it - but he couldn’t walk near a ravine without testing the edge, couldn’t sit next to a fire without passing his fingers through the flame, so of course when another iterant job ran its course, he hit the highway in a random direction that wasn’t random at all.
Sunnydale: sounded like what it was, a bland middle-class town. It was no place and everyplace, somewhere Lindsey had never been and yet knew exactly where to find. He knew what exit to get off at, knew how far away he was from the town center as he pulled in to the first bar off the highway.
He didn’t think he’d spent that much time on Mapquest.
This is stupid, he thought, I’ll just get a beer and go. Maybe head south this time. Cheap living in Baja.
But his hand was already reaching for the photograph in his shirt pocket, smoothing the worn edges with his thumb as he approached the bar.
The bartender didn’t recognize Riley from his Wolfram & Hart mug shot, or at least said he didn’t. His cold gaze clearly said he suspected Lindsey was an undercover cop, and the barkeep was no stoolie.
Lindsey ordered his beer and sat fingering the photo like a sad sap pining for a lost love, which of course he was.
Riley Finn. Last known location: Sunnydale California. Also the last occupant of Lindsey’s heart - at least, the last that wasn’t somehow sick, wrong, twisted. Riley was all good, all wholesome. The scent of rye grass and the pleasant ache of muscles well-used. There was nothing malicious in Riley, nothing hurtful.
Lindsey wasn’t sure if he was romanticizing the boy or that time of his life more. Working on the Finn farm had been a golden summer. He was saving up to make the trip to the east coast and law school. He didn’t have the fear, the scrabbling anxiety of earlier working summers because he’d gotten IN damn it, and his life was going nowhere but up.
Maybe Lindsey was looking for a time machine more than anything.
“Hey,” a voice said over his shoulder, and an elbow nudged him. He turned to see a lanky guy in a dirty flannel. “I know that guy.”
“Yeah?” Lindsey affected a disinterested look. “You know where to find him?”
The guy snickered. “Try Joey’s place,’ he said around the lip of his bottle. He then walked away, still laughing.
Lindsey’s fists clenched and he considered wiping the bar with flannel-guy’s face. Instead he stuffed Riley’s picture back in his pocket and waved the bartender over with his last twenty. “Where can I find Joey’s place?”
***
Lindsey canvassed the bars with purpose the rest of the night, driven by the memory of that snickering face. Someone disrespected Riley. Lindsey had to find him, tell him, and then the two of them would set the asshole right.
Finally he had confirmation that “Joey’s Place” could only be this one address - not a bar, after all. It was actually Joey’s place, an apartment in what passed for a bad side of Sunnydale. Drugs? Was Riley into drugs?
Lindsey couldn’t even hold the thought in his head. It was too ridiculous. Had to be some undercover thing for this “Initiative” Riley was working for.
Joey’s was a shitty-looking townhouse in a row of shitty-looking townhouses built in the 50s, apparently to be near the defunct tin factory on the outskirts of Sunnydale. Sagging gutters, random patches of aluminum siding: it was the perfect picture of depressing, sitting like a buffer between the respectable downtown area and the dilapidated industrial buildings.
Lindsey checked the address once more, wondering if he was about to get rolled, and climbed the short concrete steps to the door.
A wan-faced kid, no more than 20, answered the door. “Yeah?”
“I’m looking for Joey’s place. This it?”
The kid nodded. “What you want? Boy? Girl?”
Holyjesusfuckingchrist. Lindsey felt the world tilt and try to shake him off. Only years of practice in the courtroom kept his face passive. “Boy. I’m looking for this guy,” he held up Riley’s picture.
“What are you, some kinda cop?”
“I’m a friend. He’ll want to see me.”
The kid squinted, unsure, but stepped back. He didn’t beckon Lindsey to follow or say anything, just left the door open and walked into the dark interior.
The place smelled like an opium den, all incense and sweat. A few indolent teens lay stretched out on a collection of ratty sofas and one bench seat ripped out of a car. Lindsey paused and a redhead looked up from the guy he thought she was giving a hickey. Her fangs glinted wet in the low light.
Vampire! Vampires? Lindsey looked at the couples spread around the room, seeing them for what they were now.
His dick hardened. Fuck, he was sick.
A thin man with too much jewelry approached him, hand out. When Lindsey didn’t take it, the guy shrugged. “I’m Joey. This is my place. We don’t want any trouble, okay? No one’s here against their will; no one leaves unhappy.”
“Just looking for my friend,” Lindsey said, slipping his thumbs into his belt. “Not looking to make trouble.”
Joey smiled nervously. “Right. Can’t be too careful, you know, in the same town as the Slayer. Girl’s a menace.”
Lindsey had no idea what he was talking about, so he just kept staring at the guy expectantly.
Joey coughed. “Your friend’s upstairs with Rachel. Why don’t you wait right here? He’ll come down when he’s done.”
Lindsey nodded.
He found an empty corner of couch and sat down gingerly. The place was dusty, filthy, and now he smelled the blood and saliva under the cheap incense.
There were quiet grunts and slurps, moans and the soft sounds of groping hands.
Lindsey shifted uncomfortably on the couch, not wanting to lean back on the god-knew-what stained fabric, but wanting to relieve the pressure in his jeans.
This didn’t make sense. A vamp whore house? He watched the face of the guy opposite him, the one in the arms of the red-headed vamp. His eyes were half-lidded and his lips parted in a blissful sigh. The vampire licked his neck, making appreciative noises that sounded just a bit exaggerated and tarted-up.
She shifted back in her seat, her heavy breasts nearly slipping free of the flimsy little top she was wearing. “That’s all, sugar,” she said. “Any more and you’ll pass out before you get home.”
“I don’t mind,” the young man said, rolling his head on the back of the couch, but the redhead picked him up with supernatural ease and walked him to the exit. He stumbled just once.
Lindsey stared after them and almost missed Riley coming down the stairs at the back of the room. Coming down the stairs and stopping, staring at him.
Almost. Riley had really filled in. His strong frame filled the narrow staircase. He wore a dark green sweater and his hair was a little longer, but he was the same Riley. Lindsey found himself standing, smiling, relaxing, arms at his sides.
Riley crossed the room in three quick strides and punched Lindsey in the jaw.
Lindsey fell back against a young vamp’s legs and there was a startled squeak from the girl he was biting.
He looked up to see a cold, hard expression on Riley’s face. Riley turned and walked out the door.
“Fuck. Riley!” Lindsey hurried after. He jumped the front steps entirely, sprinting to catch up with the tall, stiff form walking up the street.
Lindsey grabbed a handful of sweater and instinctively ducked a blow that wasn’t thrown.
Riley stared at him, then jerked his sweater out of his grip. “I’m trying to leave without killing you. I advise you to let me.”
“Riley. It’s Lindsey. Don’t you… I mean… I just wanted to talk to you.”
“Don’t see how you and I have anything to say to each other. And if you’re here to blackmail me or something, really, I’d rather not know.”
Lindsey took a step back. “What the fuck did I ever do to you?”
Riley crossed his arms and consulted a random spot on the alley wall. “You want a list?”
“Your father threatened me, you do know that? Smacked me in the face with the stock of his 12-gauge.” Lindsey’s eyes narrowed. “You think I just up and left? Shit, Riley. Did you get to know me at all?”
“Don’t know if I do. Don’t know if I ever did.” Riley turned to keep walking.
“No. Damn it. I did not come all this way to have you walk away from me!” Lindsey almost got hold of Riley’s elbow again and both men raised fists.
“What did you come here for, Lindsey?”
“Told you. Just wanted to talk. Heard where you were.”
“That’s impossible. My unit is classified.”
Lindsey let his fist relax and fall to his side. “Shit, Ri. You wouldn’t believe the kinds of things a lawyer can find out these days.”
Riley squinted, looking like he was trying to decide how mad to be. “You hired a lawyer to find me?”
“No. I AM a lawyer. You think I’ve been ranching all this time? That is NO way to make a living.”
Riley didn’t look quite so pissed, but he shook his head. “Forget it. I don’t know you; you don’t know me.” He took a few steps back, raising his hand to wave.
“Would you wait a fuckin’ second and maybe we could get to know each other?”
The cold look was back on Riley’s face. “I have a girlfriend, now.”
“A girlfriend?” Somehow, this concept had never occurred to Lindsey. He stared at Riley as though trying to figure out what language he’d just spoken in.
“That’s right. And she can kick your ass, so maybe we should just leave this… wherever it is.”
“Where is it?” Lindsey advanced to close the gap between them.
“I’m not that kid you…” Riley ducked his head briefly. Lindsey’s heart swelled. There was still vulnerability in him! But when his face rose again, his eyes were hard. “You seduced.”
Lindsey shrugged. “Yeah, okay, that’s fair. I wanted you almost the moment I saw you.” He took another step forward. “But don’t tell me there wasn’t some wanting on your end.”
“Things are… it’s just different now.”
“Girlfriend?” Lindsey took another step forward.
Riley nodded, and swallowed. But he didn’t back away, and there was something… needy in his face, sad.
That was all Lindsey needed. He ran his hand up Riley’s arm, closing the last few inches between them and wrapping his other arm around the taller man’s slender waist. “Got no one left, Ri. Nowhere to go. So go ahead, tell me you want me to leave. You want your girlfriend. That why you were in that vamp whorehouse?”
Riley pushed him away. “You don’t know anything about that.”
“I know all about it. More than you’d believe.” Lindsey sidled closer. “Immortality. Beauty. Raw power and strength. Hard not to want just a taste.”
Riley moved to strike him, Lindsey moved to block, but instead of just batting his arm away, grabbed on, leaned in.
Without a signal, they kissed. Hard, passionate, angry, fists turning into clutching, dragging each other close they wrestled together, grunting and struggling.
Riley twisted away. “No. No! I can’t. Buffy…”
Lindsey snorted derisively. “If this girl of yours was giving you what you need, you wouldn’t have kissed me.”
“It’s not about what I need.” Riley wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “It’s about who I’m with. Who I love.” He turned and resumed walking, hard, with purpose.
Lindsey followed. “If you really love someone, they ARE what you need.”
Riley didn’t turn around. He kept walking forward.
Lindsey considered that he was being obstinate. That he should go back to his truck, rather than leave it in this questionable neighborhood. That he should get in the truck and get the fuck out of this one-horse town before he got too involved or someone three hours away in LA found out he was here. His life wasn’t worth risking over a man he only knew as a boy. A man he wanted foolishly to make into his salvation but who was obviously - obviously, damn it - damaged goods now, and involved, and not willing even to hear him. His life wasn’t worth this gamble. Staying in California, so close to supremely powerful entities he had pissed off.
He thought all of this. He kept following.
Suddenly, Riley wasn’t in front of him anymore. He stopped dead, sure he hadn’t taken his eyes off for a second, and looked left and right.
A thick forearm wrapped around his throat, another around his right arm, and pulled him back into a hard, wide chest. “While you were in lawyer school,” Riley said, “I was in special forces training. Stop. Following me.”
Lindsey couldn’t help it, his arousal soared at the rough treatment, the hard body, hard words. He was gasping when Finn let him go, and not from fear. He turned, shaking his head. “Can’t do that. I came all this way. I’m not leaving without talking.”
“You think you and I can just ‘talk’?” Riley asked, stepping close.
“Maybe. Yeah. I think we can. I can say I’m sorry, to start. We can apologize for all the shit we done. Laugh about the old times. Remember. Drink a few beers to what could’ve been.”
“Is that why you tracked me down? To reminisce?”
“My life’s shit,” Lindsey said, shaking his head emphatically. He held his arms out. “I lost everything. Lost my way, my ambition, maybe even a piece of my soul. Wanted to find you again, Riley. Touch something decent and honest again.”
Riley took a step back. “You’re about eight months late,” he said.
Lindsey let his hands fall. “Then tell me about it. This - me and you - it doesn’t have to be a fight, Ri. It doesn’t have to be anything at all.”
Slowly, Finn nodded. “Come on,” he said, “There’s a bar near here.”
***
“So, seriously, an evil law firm?” Riley was smiling now, open and pretty as a new sunrise over the lip of his beer.
Lindsey shrugged. “I’d heard the rumors. But they had the best internship program. The money… I had the legal maximum in loans, you know. Fuckin’ financial aid.”
Riley shook his head. He played with the fraying edge of the label on his beer. “I suppose the Initiative was kind of the same. I mean, I went in for all the right reasons,” he raised his eyebrows at Lindsey, “Not like you in that respect. But it wasn’t… it wasn’t what they said it would be. We weren’t helping people. We were torturing monsters to make more monsters.”
Lindsey considered telling Riley what he’d read about the initiative in Wolfram and Hart’s files, but he wasn’t quite THAT drunk. “We’re all monsters,” he said, instead, raising his beer in toast. “If we let ourselves be. Hell, I learned how to process an assassin through human resources and how to resurrect a vampire. They don’t put that on the brochure.” He paused, watching Riley’s face. He was contemplating his bottle still. “So what about you, Riley? Why vampires, man?”
“Don’t think I’m near drunk enough to answer that.”
Lindsey shrugged. “I fell for a vampire. God, I’d have done anything for her. She was… she was something else. Fragile yet strong, you know? All that knowledge, all that history, and a real lady to boot.” Lindsey sighed. “Darla. ‘Course all she wanted was this asshole named - get this - Angel.”
Riley spit beer across the table. Lindsey hit his back as he coughed and sputtered, until Riley pushed his arm away. “Angel? Tall, dark hair, wears it spiked?”
Lindsey grinned like he’d just heard the filthiest joke. “Small fuckin’ California.”
Riley drained the last of his beer in one long swallow. He gasped for air after, and pointed at Lindsey. “I hate that guy.”
Lindsey threw his arm around Riley’s shoulders. “I knew I liked you. Here’s to hating Angel!”
“Possessive freak,” Riley muttered, and tapped his empty bottle to Lindsey’s half-full one.
***
They leaned on each other, staggering back to Riley’s place. “HE left HER, like, a year ago,” Riley explained, gesturing widely.
“He STAKED her,” Lindsey countered with a wave of his own. “YEARS ago.”
“Well, yeah, where does he get off?”
“Exactly!”
“When I love someone… loved… I know when, I know how to let them… let them go.” Riley staggered to a stop, turning in Lindsey’s arms. The smaller man was even lower than usual, hanging on him for support. Riley wrapped his arms around Lindsey’s middle and hauled up him. They looked in each other’s eyes, a little confused, fogged from drink. “This is it,” Riley said, nodding toward the stone-faced building they stood in front of.
“Your place?”
“It’s called a dorm, ace. I’m still a grad student.”
“Roommate?”
“Not currently.”
“Good. I need a place to sit. The ground’s tilting funny.”
“Lightweight,” said Riley, swaying.
They fell against each other in the narrow elevator, laughing, and then lips just opened against lips like it was all part of catching their breath. They missed the doors opening and had to hit the button again. Laughing.
Riley fumbled with his keys. An Asian kid with a laundry basket stared at them in passing and they both laughed hard.
The door opened to a small, dark room - just a bed and desk and windows. Riley dropped his keys soundlessly on a pile of laundry and turned.
They stopped laughing.
Lindsey ducked his head. “Maybe I should…”
Riley grabbed him by both arms and kissed him hard. “You son of a bitch.”
“Me?”
Riley pushed the door to the hall shut. It was dark now, save a little street lamp that snuck in between the blinds to paint lines on their faces. “You turned my life upside-down. You changed me and threw me and then you LEFT.”
“I told you it wasn’t my fault.”
“I don’t care. I’ve had five years of hating you and I just have to say it. You.” He kissed him again, fast, like a punch. “Son of a bitch.”
Lindsey’s surprised expression turned murderous. He grabbed two handfuls of sweater and landed his own hard kiss on Riley, hard enough to smash teeth and radiate through nose cartilage.
Lindsey heard his shirt rip and retaliated against Riley’s sweater, struggling to lift it over arms that were gripping him. They wrestled together, grunting in anger at clothing while their mouths bit at each other. After a few minutes it was all their inebriated balance could take and they tumbled together onto the bed.
Riley ended up on top. He pushed his knee into Lindsey’s chest, putting distance between them while he wrenched his sweater off over his head. “You bastard,” he said, lowering his leg again and falling chest-to-chest over the tatters of Lindsey’s ruined flannel.
The warmth, the feeling of their skin on each other awoke every memory. Fingers traveled over flesh, finding fastenings and undoing them. Riley humped his way out of his jeans, body undulating like a fish out of water.
Pants were kicked. A pair of boots and sneakers flew across the room, hitting posters - one shoe landed successfully in the trashcan with a rustle of paper.
“Asshole,” Lindsey said, wrapping his newly bared legs around Riley’s, loving the feel of downy hair between them, the bulge of muscles, the skin not so soft as a woman’s. It was like coming home.
He bit Riley’s shoulder, tasted cotton and sweat and a little bit of talc. Felt large hands massaging his back, digging in to the skin to feel what was beneath.
Riley pushed him into the mattress, rested his forehead - hard, flat - at the base of Lindsey’s neck. “You got me drunk. You did this on purpose.”
“Am I holding myself down on purpose, you dick?”
Riley looked up. “Going to do something about it?”
“Just because you’re special forces now doesn’t mean I can’t still spank your ass!”
Lindsey snaked one leg up, twisted to hook Riley’s elbow with his ankle, there was one perilous moment when he had the leverage, when Riley’s grip was failing, and they were both, for a moment, unlocked, either able to take advantage.
And then Riley just hooked his knee again and pressed it all the way back to Lindsey’s shoulder.
“FUCK! I don’t stretch like that no more!”
“Seems to me you do.” Riley’s other hand fisted Lindsey’s dick, fast and sudden - it should have hurt, and a little, it did, but he also felt like he was going to come right then, from every pore on his body.
“Slick,” he managed to gasp, his last firing synapses’ last attempt to save his ass from a painful reaming.
Riley just pumped his cock, insistently, like loading a shotgun, one two one two. His face was grim determination. Lindsey’s whole body was tensed, taught as a bowstring - quite literally with how he was bent - and he screamed as he came. “Piece of shit! Bastard!”
Riley let his leg down, then, and stood over him, breathing as hard as he was, staring at his eyes, as though looking for something.
He ran his hand through the splatter on Lindsey’s belly, gathered it up. “Slick,” he said, and dropped his hand between Lindsey’s legs.
Lindsey stared in shock, his body still thrumming post-orgasm, not wanting to move or think. Was this the blushing boy he knew? Where was the innocence? Was Lindsey just reaping what he’d sewn, here, in these eyes?
Riley stared at him, intently, irises glittering in the low light, his shoulders moving, rippling in time to the wicked things his fingers were doing, prying Lindsey open, getting him ready. And that’s when Lindsey realized what that expression was: a challenge. A dare. A threat.
His cock, amazingly, lifted. Lindsey cast off his exhaustion and lifted his ass from the bed, pushed into those fingers, met Riley’s stern challenge with one of his own.
The fingers withdrew. They were still a moment, eyes locked, waiting.
Lindsey supposed he blinked.
They didn’t fuck so much as try to beat each other to death with their pelvises, slamming hard, bone to bone, on each thrust, Riley’s fingers digging deep for purchase. Lindsey’s back arched nearly off the bed, his own arms overhead, gripping the headboard, levering himself up, grunting against god and gravity and anything else that separated them. Needing friction, needing cock, needing skin, needing all of it now now now now.
They banged and seized together, howling through gritted teeth. The bed groaned and shuddered with their collapses. They lay a while, twitching, like entangled starfish or eels, flung from the net into a strange, dry world and still unsure what just happened.
Riley let out one soft sob against Lindsey’s neck and they fell asleep there, tangled and wet.
Continued! -->
This is intended as an homage to ash_carpenter's fabulous Ranch Hand, where Iowa and Texas meet pre-series and mmmmm hot farmboy sex ensues.
We pick up the story in Season 5, pre- Into the Woods. Riley's not being the best boyfriend to Buffy and Lindsey is coming to town! The boys haven't seen each other for five years (ish - continuity shmontinuity). What will happen? (hint: sex. Lots and lots of sex.)
Lindsey hadn’t meant to come back to California - shit, he’d avoided it - but he couldn’t walk near a ravine without testing the edge, couldn’t sit next to a fire without passing his fingers through the flame, so of course when another iterant job ran its course, he hit the highway in a random direction that wasn’t random at all.
Sunnydale: sounded like what it was, a bland middle-class town. It was no place and everyplace, somewhere Lindsey had never been and yet knew exactly where to find. He knew what exit to get off at, knew how far away he was from the town center as he pulled in to the first bar off the highway.
He didn’t think he’d spent that much time on Mapquest.
This is stupid, he thought, I’ll just get a beer and go. Maybe head south this time. Cheap living in Baja.
But his hand was already reaching for the photograph in his shirt pocket, smoothing the worn edges with his thumb as he approached the bar.
The bartender didn’t recognize Riley from his Wolfram & Hart mug shot, or at least said he didn’t. His cold gaze clearly said he suspected Lindsey was an undercover cop, and the barkeep was no stoolie.
Lindsey ordered his beer and sat fingering the photo like a sad sap pining for a lost love, which of course he was.
Riley Finn. Last known location: Sunnydale California. Also the last occupant of Lindsey’s heart - at least, the last that wasn’t somehow sick, wrong, twisted. Riley was all good, all wholesome. The scent of rye grass and the pleasant ache of muscles well-used. There was nothing malicious in Riley, nothing hurtful.
Lindsey wasn’t sure if he was romanticizing the boy or that time of his life more. Working on the Finn farm had been a golden summer. He was saving up to make the trip to the east coast and law school. He didn’t have the fear, the scrabbling anxiety of earlier working summers because he’d gotten IN damn it, and his life was going nowhere but up.
Maybe Lindsey was looking for a time machine more than anything.
“Hey,” a voice said over his shoulder, and an elbow nudged him. He turned to see a lanky guy in a dirty flannel. “I know that guy.”
“Yeah?” Lindsey affected a disinterested look. “You know where to find him?”
The guy snickered. “Try Joey’s place,’ he said around the lip of his bottle. He then walked away, still laughing.
Lindsey’s fists clenched and he considered wiping the bar with flannel-guy’s face. Instead he stuffed Riley’s picture back in his pocket and waved the bartender over with his last twenty. “Where can I find Joey’s place?”
***
Lindsey canvassed the bars with purpose the rest of the night, driven by the memory of that snickering face. Someone disrespected Riley. Lindsey had to find him, tell him, and then the two of them would set the asshole right.
Finally he had confirmation that “Joey’s Place” could only be this one address - not a bar, after all. It was actually Joey’s place, an apartment in what passed for a bad side of Sunnydale. Drugs? Was Riley into drugs?
Lindsey couldn’t even hold the thought in his head. It was too ridiculous. Had to be some undercover thing for this “Initiative” Riley was working for.
Joey’s was a shitty-looking townhouse in a row of shitty-looking townhouses built in the 50s, apparently to be near the defunct tin factory on the outskirts of Sunnydale. Sagging gutters, random patches of aluminum siding: it was the perfect picture of depressing, sitting like a buffer between the respectable downtown area and the dilapidated industrial buildings.
Lindsey checked the address once more, wondering if he was about to get rolled, and climbed the short concrete steps to the door.
A wan-faced kid, no more than 20, answered the door. “Yeah?”
“I’m looking for Joey’s place. This it?”
The kid nodded. “What you want? Boy? Girl?”
Holyjesusfuckingchrist. Lindsey felt the world tilt and try to shake him off. Only years of practice in the courtroom kept his face passive. “Boy. I’m looking for this guy,” he held up Riley’s picture.
“What are you, some kinda cop?”
“I’m a friend. He’ll want to see me.”
The kid squinted, unsure, but stepped back. He didn’t beckon Lindsey to follow or say anything, just left the door open and walked into the dark interior.
The place smelled like an opium den, all incense and sweat. A few indolent teens lay stretched out on a collection of ratty sofas and one bench seat ripped out of a car. Lindsey paused and a redhead looked up from the guy he thought she was giving a hickey. Her fangs glinted wet in the low light.
Vampire! Vampires? Lindsey looked at the couples spread around the room, seeing them for what they were now.
His dick hardened. Fuck, he was sick.
A thin man with too much jewelry approached him, hand out. When Lindsey didn’t take it, the guy shrugged. “I’m Joey. This is my place. We don’t want any trouble, okay? No one’s here against their will; no one leaves unhappy.”
“Just looking for my friend,” Lindsey said, slipping his thumbs into his belt. “Not looking to make trouble.”
Joey smiled nervously. “Right. Can’t be too careful, you know, in the same town as the Slayer. Girl’s a menace.”
Lindsey had no idea what he was talking about, so he just kept staring at the guy expectantly.
Joey coughed. “Your friend’s upstairs with Rachel. Why don’t you wait right here? He’ll come down when he’s done.”
Lindsey nodded.
He found an empty corner of couch and sat down gingerly. The place was dusty, filthy, and now he smelled the blood and saliva under the cheap incense.
There were quiet grunts and slurps, moans and the soft sounds of groping hands.
Lindsey shifted uncomfortably on the couch, not wanting to lean back on the god-knew-what stained fabric, but wanting to relieve the pressure in his jeans.
This didn’t make sense. A vamp whore house? He watched the face of the guy opposite him, the one in the arms of the red-headed vamp. His eyes were half-lidded and his lips parted in a blissful sigh. The vampire licked his neck, making appreciative noises that sounded just a bit exaggerated and tarted-up.
She shifted back in her seat, her heavy breasts nearly slipping free of the flimsy little top she was wearing. “That’s all, sugar,” she said. “Any more and you’ll pass out before you get home.”
“I don’t mind,” the young man said, rolling his head on the back of the couch, but the redhead picked him up with supernatural ease and walked him to the exit. He stumbled just once.
Lindsey stared after them and almost missed Riley coming down the stairs at the back of the room. Coming down the stairs and stopping, staring at him.
Almost. Riley had really filled in. His strong frame filled the narrow staircase. He wore a dark green sweater and his hair was a little longer, but he was the same Riley. Lindsey found himself standing, smiling, relaxing, arms at his sides.
Riley crossed the room in three quick strides and punched Lindsey in the jaw.
Lindsey fell back against a young vamp’s legs and there was a startled squeak from the girl he was biting.
He looked up to see a cold, hard expression on Riley’s face. Riley turned and walked out the door.
“Fuck. Riley!” Lindsey hurried after. He jumped the front steps entirely, sprinting to catch up with the tall, stiff form walking up the street.
Lindsey grabbed a handful of sweater and instinctively ducked a blow that wasn’t thrown.
Riley stared at him, then jerked his sweater out of his grip. “I’m trying to leave without killing you. I advise you to let me.”
“Riley. It’s Lindsey. Don’t you… I mean… I just wanted to talk to you.”
“Don’t see how you and I have anything to say to each other. And if you’re here to blackmail me or something, really, I’d rather not know.”
Lindsey took a step back. “What the fuck did I ever do to you?”
Riley crossed his arms and consulted a random spot on the alley wall. “You want a list?”
“Your father threatened me, you do know that? Smacked me in the face with the stock of his 12-gauge.” Lindsey’s eyes narrowed. “You think I just up and left? Shit, Riley. Did you get to know me at all?”
“Don’t know if I do. Don’t know if I ever did.” Riley turned to keep walking.
“No. Damn it. I did not come all this way to have you walk away from me!” Lindsey almost got hold of Riley’s elbow again and both men raised fists.
“What did you come here for, Lindsey?”
“Told you. Just wanted to talk. Heard where you were.”
“That’s impossible. My unit is classified.”
Lindsey let his fist relax and fall to his side. “Shit, Ri. You wouldn’t believe the kinds of things a lawyer can find out these days.”
Riley squinted, looking like he was trying to decide how mad to be. “You hired a lawyer to find me?”
“No. I AM a lawyer. You think I’ve been ranching all this time? That is NO way to make a living.”
Riley didn’t look quite so pissed, but he shook his head. “Forget it. I don’t know you; you don’t know me.” He took a few steps back, raising his hand to wave.
“Would you wait a fuckin’ second and maybe we could get to know each other?”
The cold look was back on Riley’s face. “I have a girlfriend, now.”
“A girlfriend?” Somehow, this concept had never occurred to Lindsey. He stared at Riley as though trying to figure out what language he’d just spoken in.
“That’s right. And she can kick your ass, so maybe we should just leave this… wherever it is.”
“Where is it?” Lindsey advanced to close the gap between them.
“I’m not that kid you…” Riley ducked his head briefly. Lindsey’s heart swelled. There was still vulnerability in him! But when his face rose again, his eyes were hard. “You seduced.”
Lindsey shrugged. “Yeah, okay, that’s fair. I wanted you almost the moment I saw you.” He took another step forward. “But don’t tell me there wasn’t some wanting on your end.”
“Things are… it’s just different now.”
“Girlfriend?” Lindsey took another step forward.
Riley nodded, and swallowed. But he didn’t back away, and there was something… needy in his face, sad.
That was all Lindsey needed. He ran his hand up Riley’s arm, closing the last few inches between them and wrapping his other arm around the taller man’s slender waist. “Got no one left, Ri. Nowhere to go. So go ahead, tell me you want me to leave. You want your girlfriend. That why you were in that vamp whorehouse?”
Riley pushed him away. “You don’t know anything about that.”
“I know all about it. More than you’d believe.” Lindsey sidled closer. “Immortality. Beauty. Raw power and strength. Hard not to want just a taste.”
Riley moved to strike him, Lindsey moved to block, but instead of just batting his arm away, grabbed on, leaned in.
Without a signal, they kissed. Hard, passionate, angry, fists turning into clutching, dragging each other close they wrestled together, grunting and struggling.
Riley twisted away. “No. No! I can’t. Buffy…”
Lindsey snorted derisively. “If this girl of yours was giving you what you need, you wouldn’t have kissed me.”
“It’s not about what I need.” Riley wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “It’s about who I’m with. Who I love.” He turned and resumed walking, hard, with purpose.
Lindsey followed. “If you really love someone, they ARE what you need.”
Riley didn’t turn around. He kept walking forward.
Lindsey considered that he was being obstinate. That he should go back to his truck, rather than leave it in this questionable neighborhood. That he should get in the truck and get the fuck out of this one-horse town before he got too involved or someone three hours away in LA found out he was here. His life wasn’t worth risking over a man he only knew as a boy. A man he wanted foolishly to make into his salvation but who was obviously - obviously, damn it - damaged goods now, and involved, and not willing even to hear him. His life wasn’t worth this gamble. Staying in California, so close to supremely powerful entities he had pissed off.
He thought all of this. He kept following.
Suddenly, Riley wasn’t in front of him anymore. He stopped dead, sure he hadn’t taken his eyes off for a second, and looked left and right.
A thick forearm wrapped around his throat, another around his right arm, and pulled him back into a hard, wide chest. “While you were in lawyer school,” Riley said, “I was in special forces training. Stop. Following me.”
Lindsey couldn’t help it, his arousal soared at the rough treatment, the hard body, hard words. He was gasping when Finn let him go, and not from fear. He turned, shaking his head. “Can’t do that. I came all this way. I’m not leaving without talking.”
“You think you and I can just ‘talk’?” Riley asked, stepping close.
“Maybe. Yeah. I think we can. I can say I’m sorry, to start. We can apologize for all the shit we done. Laugh about the old times. Remember. Drink a few beers to what could’ve been.”
“Is that why you tracked me down? To reminisce?”
“My life’s shit,” Lindsey said, shaking his head emphatically. He held his arms out. “I lost everything. Lost my way, my ambition, maybe even a piece of my soul. Wanted to find you again, Riley. Touch something decent and honest again.”
Riley took a step back. “You’re about eight months late,” he said.
Lindsey let his hands fall. “Then tell me about it. This - me and you - it doesn’t have to be a fight, Ri. It doesn’t have to be anything at all.”
Slowly, Finn nodded. “Come on,” he said, “There’s a bar near here.”
***
“So, seriously, an evil law firm?” Riley was smiling now, open and pretty as a new sunrise over the lip of his beer.
Lindsey shrugged. “I’d heard the rumors. But they had the best internship program. The money… I had the legal maximum in loans, you know. Fuckin’ financial aid.”
Riley shook his head. He played with the fraying edge of the label on his beer. “I suppose the Initiative was kind of the same. I mean, I went in for all the right reasons,” he raised his eyebrows at Lindsey, “Not like you in that respect. But it wasn’t… it wasn’t what they said it would be. We weren’t helping people. We were torturing monsters to make more monsters.”
Lindsey considered telling Riley what he’d read about the initiative in Wolfram and Hart’s files, but he wasn’t quite THAT drunk. “We’re all monsters,” he said, instead, raising his beer in toast. “If we let ourselves be. Hell, I learned how to process an assassin through human resources and how to resurrect a vampire. They don’t put that on the brochure.” He paused, watching Riley’s face. He was contemplating his bottle still. “So what about you, Riley? Why vampires, man?”
“Don’t think I’m near drunk enough to answer that.”
Lindsey shrugged. “I fell for a vampire. God, I’d have done anything for her. She was… she was something else. Fragile yet strong, you know? All that knowledge, all that history, and a real lady to boot.” Lindsey sighed. “Darla. ‘Course all she wanted was this asshole named - get this - Angel.”
Riley spit beer across the table. Lindsey hit his back as he coughed and sputtered, until Riley pushed his arm away. “Angel? Tall, dark hair, wears it spiked?”
Lindsey grinned like he’d just heard the filthiest joke. “Small fuckin’ California.”
Riley drained the last of his beer in one long swallow. He gasped for air after, and pointed at Lindsey. “I hate that guy.”
Lindsey threw his arm around Riley’s shoulders. “I knew I liked you. Here’s to hating Angel!”
“Possessive freak,” Riley muttered, and tapped his empty bottle to Lindsey’s half-full one.
***
They leaned on each other, staggering back to Riley’s place. “HE left HER, like, a year ago,” Riley explained, gesturing widely.
“He STAKED her,” Lindsey countered with a wave of his own. “YEARS ago.”
“Well, yeah, where does he get off?”
“Exactly!”
“When I love someone… loved… I know when, I know how to let them… let them go.” Riley staggered to a stop, turning in Lindsey’s arms. The smaller man was even lower than usual, hanging on him for support. Riley wrapped his arms around Lindsey’s middle and hauled up him. They looked in each other’s eyes, a little confused, fogged from drink. “This is it,” Riley said, nodding toward the stone-faced building they stood in front of.
“Your place?”
“It’s called a dorm, ace. I’m still a grad student.”
“Roommate?”
“Not currently.”
“Good. I need a place to sit. The ground’s tilting funny.”
“Lightweight,” said Riley, swaying.
They fell against each other in the narrow elevator, laughing, and then lips just opened against lips like it was all part of catching their breath. They missed the doors opening and had to hit the button again. Laughing.
Riley fumbled with his keys. An Asian kid with a laundry basket stared at them in passing and they both laughed hard.
The door opened to a small, dark room - just a bed and desk and windows. Riley dropped his keys soundlessly on a pile of laundry and turned.
They stopped laughing.
Lindsey ducked his head. “Maybe I should…”
Riley grabbed him by both arms and kissed him hard. “You son of a bitch.”
“Me?”
Riley pushed the door to the hall shut. It was dark now, save a little street lamp that snuck in between the blinds to paint lines on their faces. “You turned my life upside-down. You changed me and threw me and then you LEFT.”
“I told you it wasn’t my fault.”
“I don’t care. I’ve had five years of hating you and I just have to say it. You.” He kissed him again, fast, like a punch. “Son of a bitch.”
Lindsey’s surprised expression turned murderous. He grabbed two handfuls of sweater and landed his own hard kiss on Riley, hard enough to smash teeth and radiate through nose cartilage.
Lindsey heard his shirt rip and retaliated against Riley’s sweater, struggling to lift it over arms that were gripping him. They wrestled together, grunting in anger at clothing while their mouths bit at each other. After a few minutes it was all their inebriated balance could take and they tumbled together onto the bed.
Riley ended up on top. He pushed his knee into Lindsey’s chest, putting distance between them while he wrenched his sweater off over his head. “You bastard,” he said, lowering his leg again and falling chest-to-chest over the tatters of Lindsey’s ruined flannel.
The warmth, the feeling of their skin on each other awoke every memory. Fingers traveled over flesh, finding fastenings and undoing them. Riley humped his way out of his jeans, body undulating like a fish out of water.
Pants were kicked. A pair of boots and sneakers flew across the room, hitting posters - one shoe landed successfully in the trashcan with a rustle of paper.
“Asshole,” Lindsey said, wrapping his newly bared legs around Riley’s, loving the feel of downy hair between them, the bulge of muscles, the skin not so soft as a woman’s. It was like coming home.
He bit Riley’s shoulder, tasted cotton and sweat and a little bit of talc. Felt large hands massaging his back, digging in to the skin to feel what was beneath.
Riley pushed him into the mattress, rested his forehead - hard, flat - at the base of Lindsey’s neck. “You got me drunk. You did this on purpose.”
“Am I holding myself down on purpose, you dick?”
Riley looked up. “Going to do something about it?”
“Just because you’re special forces now doesn’t mean I can’t still spank your ass!”
Lindsey snaked one leg up, twisted to hook Riley’s elbow with his ankle, there was one perilous moment when he had the leverage, when Riley’s grip was failing, and they were both, for a moment, unlocked, either able to take advantage.
And then Riley just hooked his knee again and pressed it all the way back to Lindsey’s shoulder.
“FUCK! I don’t stretch like that no more!”
“Seems to me you do.” Riley’s other hand fisted Lindsey’s dick, fast and sudden - it should have hurt, and a little, it did, but he also felt like he was going to come right then, from every pore on his body.
“Slick,” he managed to gasp, his last firing synapses’ last attempt to save his ass from a painful reaming.
Riley just pumped his cock, insistently, like loading a shotgun, one two one two. His face was grim determination. Lindsey’s whole body was tensed, taught as a bowstring - quite literally with how he was bent - and he screamed as he came. “Piece of shit! Bastard!”
Riley let his leg down, then, and stood over him, breathing as hard as he was, staring at his eyes, as though looking for something.
He ran his hand through the splatter on Lindsey’s belly, gathered it up. “Slick,” he said, and dropped his hand between Lindsey’s legs.
Lindsey stared in shock, his body still thrumming post-orgasm, not wanting to move or think. Was this the blushing boy he knew? Where was the innocence? Was Lindsey just reaping what he’d sewn, here, in these eyes?
Riley stared at him, intently, irises glittering in the low light, his shoulders moving, rippling in time to the wicked things his fingers were doing, prying Lindsey open, getting him ready. And that’s when Lindsey realized what that expression was: a challenge. A dare. A threat.
His cock, amazingly, lifted. Lindsey cast off his exhaustion and lifted his ass from the bed, pushed into those fingers, met Riley’s stern challenge with one of his own.
The fingers withdrew. They were still a moment, eyes locked, waiting.
Lindsey supposed he blinked.
They didn’t fuck so much as try to beat each other to death with their pelvises, slamming hard, bone to bone, on each thrust, Riley’s fingers digging deep for purchase. Lindsey’s back arched nearly off the bed, his own arms overhead, gripping the headboard, levering himself up, grunting against god and gravity and anything else that separated them. Needing friction, needing cock, needing skin, needing all of it now now now now.
They banged and seized together, howling through gritted teeth. The bed groaned and shuddered with their collapses. They lay a while, twitching, like entangled starfish or eels, flung from the net into a strange, dry world and still unsure what just happened.
Riley let out one soft sob against Lindsey’s neck and they fell asleep there, tangled and wet.
Continued! -->